WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Education is preparing to move core functions of its special education and civil rights offices outside the agency – a seismic change that some advocates have warned could disrupt services for millions of students with disabilities.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on June 16 that the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services would enter into an agreement to outsource its programs to the Health and Human Services Department, run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Her agency also inked a similar deal to begin transferring its antidiscrimination work in the Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department.
“These agreements align federal responsibilities with the agencies best positioned to support them, strengthening the effectiveness and impact of critical services,” McMahon said. In the same statement, Kennedy also promised to “uphold the rights of individuals with disabilities,” while Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, vowed to “build a stronger, more coordinated civil rights enforcement system.”
Agency officials stressed that the moves, which were immediately castigated by Democratic lawmakers and hailed by congressional Republicans, would have no impact on students and families who say they’ve experienced discrimination.
Critics, including special education advocates and the Education Department’s union, strongly disagreed.
“This will leave our most vulnerable students and families who have been shut out of our education system without the services they need and without protection when they face discrimination,” Rachel Gittleman, the president of the union, said in a statement.
The new moves are among the most significant steps the Trump administration has taken to dismantle the Education Department, despite laws mandating that certain programs remain within the longstanding agency.
The Washington Post first reported news of the announcement.
Students with disabilities have been one of the groups most affected by the Education Department’s downsizing, which has included attempting to fire hundreds of workers tasked with preventing discrimination in schools. During one recent record-breaking government shutdown, the Trump administration fired nearly every worker in the Education Department’s special education division, USA TODAY first reported – only to reverse its layoffs weeks later.
The announcement is also the latest attempt by the Trump administration to use so-called “interagency agreements” to, effectively, kill the Education Department without congressional action. Over the past year, the Education Department has initiated more than a half dozen partnerships with other federal agencies, including the Labor and Interior Departments, to outsource much of its work.
The Education Department cut its workforce in half in March 2025, purportedly as part of its efforts to reduce the federal government’s role in schools. Since then, agency leaders pleaded with hundreds of employees in the Office for Civil Rights to temporarily return to help with a backlog of cases.
Senior department officials said this week they spent six months listening to families in the special education community. Ultimately, they said, parents wanted fewer bureaucratic hurdles to help their children.
Kenneth Marcus, who served as the head of the Office for Civil Rights during the first Trump administration, cautioned that whether that hope comes to fruition “will depend on implementation.”
“If done right, this could mark a critical step forward for students whose rights have gone unprotected on campuses across the country,” he said in a statement.
Opponents, on the other hand, believe students will only face more barriers.
Chad Rummel, who runs the Council for Exceptional Children, a special education advocacy group, said he was “deeply concerned” that the Trump administration was “eroding federal support for special education.”
“This announcement focuses on a campaign promise rather than on outcomes for children with disabilities,” Rummel said in a statement. “What it will do, however, is cause chaos and confusion for educators and families and add to the bureaucracy for states, which must continue to comply with federal law but now liaise with more federal agencies.”
Zachary Schermele is the congressional correspondent at USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
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