A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration may not carry out mass firings at the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), finding that such an action likely violates both the Constitution and administrative law.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction on June 18, blocking the Education Department’s March 11 large-scale reduction in force (RIF), which shuttered seven of OCR’s 12 regional offices and cut over half of its workforce.
The judge found that the plaintiffs in the case—two students with active OCR civil rights complaints and the nonprofit Victim Rights Law Center (VRLC)—would suffer irreparable harm if the layoffs were allowed to stand. He concluded that the firings had severely undermined OCR’s ability to enforce federal civil rights laws protecting students from discrimination based on sex, race, and disability….