Big Changes Ahead: Who Will Protect Students' Rights Now?

The government just moved two big jobs from the Education Department to other agencies. Special education and civil rights in schools now have new bosses. The Justice Department will watch over civil rights, while Health and Human Services takes charge of special education. The Education Department used to handle these jobs all by itself. Now, it’s giving them away piece by piece. This isn’t the first time the department has lost power. Last year, it cut its own staff in half. Many programs—like money for poor schools, teacher training, and college help for first-generation students—have already been moved to other agencies. Even student loans and Native American education aren’t under the Education Department anymore. What’s left? A much smaller group handling research, legal work, and some policy decisions.For families, these changes could make things harder. Before, if a school treated a student unfairly because of race, disability, or gender, parents could go to one place—the Education Department’s civil rights office—to fix it. Now, they might have to deal with multiple agencies, each with different rules. Advocates worry that shifting special education to a medical agency could change how schools see disability—not as a need for support, but as a problem to fix. Some groups are already pushing back. They say this could slow down justice for students. The civil rights office had over 2, 700 open cases this spring, with no new resolutions in months. Courts or lawsuits might try to stop these changes, but no one knows yet how it will all play out.