Washington, D.C.–On Thursday, President Trump directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to initiate steps to begin dismantling the Department of Education. However, the president does not wield the legislative authority to do so. The Trump Administration has consistently demonstrated a willingness to exceed its executive authority to harm school communities.The order deceptively claims it will improve educational outcomes but instead provides a vague and confusing blueprint for devastating school communities and eliminating civil rights protections.
The following is a statement from Michael Pillera, Director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law:
“The Department of Education is a Civil Rights Agency, designed to ensure equity in education. It provides assistance to schools, and resources and guidance for teachers, parents, students, and others in school communities. And it provides civil rights guardrails that ensure educational opportunity for all students.
Last week, the Department of Education terminated 50% of its workforce, shuttering 7 of its 12 regional civil rights enforcement offices, and leaving school communities served by the Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Cleveland offices without anyone to ensure civil rights protections are upheld. The children, teachers, parents, and others in those school communities deserve better.
This week, in pushing to abolish the entire Department of Education, the Trump Administration makes clear its intention to leave all school communities without anyone to ensure civil rights protections are upheld. All children, teachers, parents, and others in school communities throughout the country deserve better.
If the Trump Administration accomplishes its feckless aim to abolish the Department of Education, it will destroy civil rights guardrails that ensure educational opportunity for all students— and shatter educational opportunity for Black students and other students of color in particular.”
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About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promises of our democracy real. The Lawyers’ Committee implements its mission and objectives by marshaling the pro bono resources of the bar for litigation, public policy, advocacy and other forms of service by lawyers to the cause of civil rights.
