Students still face discrimination that disrupts their education decades after the battles over legal school desegregation. Yet the Trump administration has frozen active student civil rights investigations, leaving families without answers as their complaints sit unresolved.

The Washington Post highlighted a Michigan case involving a Black fifth grader who endured racial slurs, including “monkey,” the N-word, and comments that her skin was “burnt like a piece of chicken.” Her parents filed a complaint with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights as the Biden administration was ending.

After Trump returned to the White House, that investigation was frozen alongside more than 30 others, according to the Post. The Michigan case was among almost three dozen matters that had been completed or reached their final stages at the end of the Biden administration.

OCR continues pursuing some cases, but its priorities have been turned upside down. The office has become a political weapon targeting perceived threats to modern conservatism, with attention directed toward trans athletes and alleged racism against white students while many previous functions have ceased.

Since Trump retook the White House, OCR has reached only three settlements. That collapse cannot simply be dismissed as an enforcement capacity problem because the office possessed practical tools for resolving many disputes without conducting a complete federal investigation.

Its technical assistance program allowed regional offices to provide consultations and training to schools, advocates, administrators, districts, and states concerning their civil rights obligations. This work could prevent disputes or settle them early, sparing students and schools from drawn out court proceedings or administrative hearings.

Seven of OCR’s 12 regional offices were shuttered last year. Michael Pillera of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights explained that a single telephone call could sometimes quickly resolve a problem that might otherwise become a formal complaint.

“Students, parents, teachers, school leaders, and others could call, email, or otherwise contact OCR to ask questions about their rights and the legal requirements under civil rights laws,” Pillera told the Revolving Door Project. He said the assistance moved civil rights “from rights guaranteed on paper to rights realized.”

In 2024, OCR answered 11,000 inquiries and delivered 211 technical assistance presentations. The service helped administrators understand federal antidiscrimination requirements while recognizing that not every civil rights dispute needs a federal investigation and that the government cannot investigate every problem nationwide.

When Title IX changes were being implemented in 2020, technical assistance provided schools with detailed guidance. At year’s end, the department responsible for assistance requests issued a 111 page collection of questions about implementing the rule, covering confidentiality, retaliation, and K-12 proceedings.

The Trump administration has also targeted OCR’s Equity Assistance Centers, successors to the 1960s Desegregation Assistance Centers. More than 120 districts remain subject to active federal desegregation, but the Education Department terminated grants supporting all four centers in February 2025 amid the right wing assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Court challenges restored some infrastructure, but the cancellations interrupted ongoing work and forced layoffs of important staff. The administration then requested no funding for the training program in its FY2026 budget after the program received $6.6 million in fiscal year 2024.

The administration argued that the program had moved beyond the statutory purpose of Title IV and said states and localities could finance similar services. In June 2026, the Education Department proposed eliminating the federal regulations governing the Equity Assistance Center program altogether.

The administration’s own data showed that the centers were meeting their goals. Four out of five school districts reported greater awareness after receiving assistance, while more than 85% reported major changes in policies or practices affecting students’ participation in educational programs.

Former OCR officials told the Revolving Door Project that transferring civil rights enforcement responsibilities to the Department of Justice would create serious problems. The DOJ is more selective about cases, while OCR historically processed large numbers of individual complaints and offered regional guidance before disputes became formal complaints.

Research reviewed by Aprile Benner of the University of Texas at Austin connected racial and ethnic discrimination during adolescence with mental and physical health harms and poor academic performance. Benner also found that academic achievement was lower in schools where prejudice was worse.

Rebuilding OCR would require more than restoring conditions before January 2025 because the office already struggled with backlogs and capacity limits. The article calls for restored regional staffing, fully funded technical assistance and Equity Assistance Centers, improved public reporting, timely enforcement, and stronger state capacity that supplements rather than replaces federal action.

A Black fifth grader should not need to understand the federal civil rights bureaucracy, and her parents should not have to become experts to make a school respond. Preventive infrastructure matters because sometimes protecting a student does not require years of litigation or investigation, but simply someone answering the phone.