Education Dept. asks hundreds of fired employees to temporarily return

Education Dept. asks hundreds of fired employees to temporarily return The agency is asking laid-off staffers in the Office for Civil Rights to come back and pitch in to help handle school discrimination cases.

Show Caption Hide Caption Department of Education dismantled further with latest changes USA TODAY's Zachary Schermele explains what changes are being made at the Department of Education to further dismantle the agency.

WASHINGTON – Facing a backlog of school discrimination cases, the U.S. Department of Education has asked hundreds of employees it fired months ago to temporarily return to work.

A Dec. 5 email obtained by USA TODAY shows the agency ordered a significant portion of staffers in the Office for Civil Rights to come back later this month. In the "return to duty" directive, officials acknowledged they're facing a sizable caseload of civil rights complaints, and they underscored a need to utilize every resource at the government’s disposal to work through them.

The agency said the request applies to roughly 250 workers who've been on administrative leave for months amid legal challenges to their March firings. Julie Hartman, the Education Department's press secretary for legal affairs, stressed there still aren't any plans to fully rehire those workers permanently.

Read more: Fired Education Department workers say the 'fight isn't over'

"The Department will continue to appeal the persistent and unceasing litigation disputes concerning the Reductions in Force, but in the meantime, it will utilize all employees currently being compensated by American taxpayers," she said in a statement to USA TODAY.

The shift is the latest chapter in a monthslong saga that has upended one of the most important offices in the federal Education Department, which President Donald Trump has vowed to close.

Read more: Trump just made it harder to close the Education Department

Students, parents and educators across the country have long relied on the agency's Office for Civil Rights, also known as OCR, to enforce antidiscrimination laws, especially for students with disabilities. In particular, OCR has helped provide equal access to educational opportunities to families who don't have the financial means to bring costly lawsuits against their school districts or universities.

Yet as the Trump administration has proceeded to dismantle the Education Department – despite lacking the necessary congressional support to do so – the agency's civil rights office has been reduced to a fraction of what it once was. Hundreds of staffers have been laid off. Its key regional divisions in places like Philadelphia and Boston have been largely shuttered.

Of the roughly 450 people OCR still lists as employees, only about 60 haven't received layoff notices in the past year, according to court documents. Nearly 250 were originally terminated in March, and another 137 were fired in October during the government shutdown (their firings were later reversed as part of a deal to end the funding crisis).

Read more: Education Department lays off roughly 20% of its workforce amid shutdown

Education Secretary Linda McMahon's decision to tap into her own laid-off workforce provides further evidence her agency is struggling more than she has publicly indicated to meet its legally mandated responsibilities.

Since cutting the department in half earlier this year, many families waiting on resolutions to their civil rights complaints have been stuck in limbo. Colleges have also reported significant issues with the federal financial aid system.

In November, McMahon announced new plans to offload many of the department's key responsibilities to other agencies, setting off fears of further disruptions in important programs. She has argued the change will ultimately help streamline the federal government's limited role in the education system.

Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.