McMahon seeks more civil rights lawyers as Education Department cuts office

Linda McMahon has called for more civil rights lawyers at the Education Department even as the White House moved to cut the office that hires them by 35 percent, a $49 million reduction that would leave students alleging discrimination waiting longer for federal help. The split inside the administration has sharpened concerns that the Office for Civil Rights will have fewer investigators, slower case handling and less leverage for complaints involving disability services, race, religion and sexual violence at schools and colleges.

McMahon told Senate appropriators on April 28, 2026, that the department was bringing back many lawyers and needed more attorneys to work through a growing backlog of civil rights complaints. That argument came as lawmakers pressed her over the administration’s broader effort to dismantle the Education Department and shift some of its duties to other agencies. The department has already signed 10 agreements with five other federal agencies to take on some of those responsibilities, even as families continue to wait for resolutions.

The office is operating far below its previous capacity. Trump administration layoffs in 2025 cut roughly 240 staffers, about half the workforce at the time, and seven of the office’s 12 regional branches were shut down entirely, including in New York, Chicago and Dallas. The office was left with fewer than 300 workers, and remaining staff warned that unresolved cases could drag on for years.

The White House’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal would trim Education Department discretionary funding by 2.9 percent to $76.5 billion and cut OCR funding to $91 million, down from $140 million in 2024 and 2025. A government watchdog found that OCR dismissed roughly 90 percent of more than 9,000 new discrimination complaints it received from March through September 2025, after 299 of 575 staffers were placed on administrative leave and taxpayers absorbed as much as $38 million in leave costs. The department also resolved 30 percent fewer discrimination complaints in 2025 than the year before, a record that has fed criticism from senators including Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders that the cuts weaken civil rights enforcement while wasting public money.