On March 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education (DOE) after moving to cut half of its workforce the prior week. The DOE manages a wide range of funding for universities, such as research grants and grants and loans for college students, as well as funding for low-income students and students with disabilities in K-12 public schools. The DOE’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces the nation’s civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to protect students from discrimination based on race, gender, and disability in universities and K-12 public schools.
A complete abolition of the DOE would require congressional approval. But members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252, representing 2,800 DOE employees, are speaking out and not waiting for that to happen. The Texas Observer spoke to Local 252 President Sheria Smith, an OCR attorney, and the union’s Chief Steward Brittany Coleman, also an OCR attorney. Both worked from DOE’s Dallas regional office, until the office was recently closed down and its employees let go.
