The U.S. Department of Education is quietly moving to hand off its special education and civil rights offices to other federal agencies, a sweeping reorganization that advocates warn could leave millions of students with disabilities stranded without essential services.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon confirmed on June 16 that the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services will enter a deal to outsource its programs to the Health and Human Services Department, now led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In a parallel move, the agency has signed an agreement to transfer its antidiscrimination work within 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 a statement.
Department officials insist the changes, immediately praised by congressional Republicans and condemned by Democrats, will have zero impact on students and families who report discrimination. But critics, including special education advocates and the Education Department’s own union, see it differently.
“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,” said Rachel Gittleman, the union’s president.
These moves mark some of the most aggressive steps yet by the Trump administration to gut the Education Department, even as laws require certain programs to stay put. The Washington Post first broke the news.
Students with disabilities have already felt the pinch from the department’s downsizing, which included attempts to fire hundreds of workers tasked with preventing discrimination in schools. During a recent record-breaking government shutdown, the Trump administration fired nearly every employee in the special education division, USA TODAY reported, only to reverse those layoffs weeks later.
The announcement is the latest in a series of so-called “interagency agreements” designed to effectively kill the Education Department without Congress. Over the past year, the department has struck more than half a dozen partnerships with other agencies, including the Labor and Interior Departments, to offload its workload.
The Education Department slashed its workforce in half in March 2025, part of a broader effort to shrink the federal government’s role in schools. Since then, senior officials have pleaded with hundreds of former Office for Civil Rights employees to temporarily return and tackle a growing backlog of cases.
Department leaders say they spent six months listening to families in the special education community. Their conclusion: parents wanted fewer bureaucratic hurdles to help their children. But opponents argue the opposite will happen.
Chad Rummel, who runs the Council for Exceptional Children, a special education advocacy group, said he was “deeply concerned” that the 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. “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.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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.
