The Trump administration laid off 1,300 United States Education Department employees this month, including civil rights attorneys who investigate discrimination complaints against schools and colleges in New Jersey.
Attorney General Matt Platkin has filed a lawsuit with the attorneys general of other states to stop the layoffs.
According to Platkin’s lawsuit, seven of the department’s Office for Civil Rights’ 12 regional offices were closed last week. This includes the New York office, which serves New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, according to news reports and other sources.
The Trump administration did not respond to an email seeking comment. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced layoffs in a separate email.
Neither Trump nor McMahon have issued public statements regarding the layoffs and voluntary resignations at the United States Education Department.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, is orchestrating staff cuts across the federal government and has promised transparency in its operations.
However, the DOGE website contains no information about cuts to the U.S. Education Department’s New York regional office or the latest workforce reductions in the department overall.
According to data charts published by Education Reform Now, a Washington think tank, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and its statistical arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, were among the hardest hit offices in terms of total full-time employees.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights enforces laws intended to protect students from forms of discrimination and harassment that violate US law.
Civil rights complaints gained traction over the last two years during campus protests that spread across colleges following Hamas’ attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza.
What’s the impact on New Jersey?
As of September last year, the US Education Department employed 48 people based in New Jersey. An analysis of federal employment data revealed that 15 of them were solicitors, with at least 18 working in the office that handles federal student aid.
To obtain that information, the USA TODAY Network downloaded raw data from the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency, which included federal employment numbers from September 2024.
Employees of the New Jersey Department of Education will not lose their jobs as part of federal “reductions in force,” according to spokesperson Laura Fredrick.
“While NJDOE does rely on federal funding to support some staffing capacity,” the country’s government “does not have the authority to terminate New Jersey state employees,” according to Shelton.
In addition to administering federal grants for low-income and disabled K-12 students across the country, the US Education Department collects long-term data on how American students perform, administers federal student loan funds, and addresses violations of US anti-discrimination laws without resorting to trial court litigation.
“The Education Department primarily sets regulations, allocates federal funds, and supports best practices across various programs,” Mr. Fredrick explained. “NJDOE staff members interact regularly with their counterparts … to implement federal funds and federal programs.”
New Jersey education officials are unaware of the Trump administration’s plans for federal education employees.
So far, New Jersey education officials have received little information other than press releases, “making it difficult to evaluate specific impacts these changes will have on our agency and New Jersey’s students,” Fredrick stated.
The Governor’s Office “will continue to monitor and evaluate any additional information” provided while we “continue to carry out our mission of ensuring that all New Jersey students have access to high-quality education,” her statement reads.
Losing talented civil rights lawyers
“I’m devastated and angry,” said Robert Kim, executive director of the Newark-based Education Law Centre, who testified in Congress on February 26 against Trump’s plan to dismantle or significantly reduce the United States Education Department.
“These are some of the most talented civil rights attorneys out there, and there are hundreds of them,” he said, alluding to layoffs and office closures. Kim is a former attorney for the United States Department of Education and political appointee under President Obama.
“They came to work for the government because they believed in civil rights, they believed in prohibiting racial discrimination, protecting students from sexual harassment and violence, and to ensure that students with disabilities get the services that they’re entitled to under the law,” Kim told the website NorthJersey.
“These are some of the most talented and selfless people you can imagine. They could have had far more lucrative careers in the private sector, but they chose the government,” he explained.
Polls show that most Americans, regardless of party, oppose abolishing the United States Education Department.
Layoffs align with Project 2025 goals
The layoffs signal the Trump administration’s long-term alignment with the Heritage Foundation’s contentious Project 2025, which seeks to “radically” reshape schools, according to Kim.
Cutting federal funding for the poorest students, known as Title 1 grants, and for disabled students, known as IDEA funding, by converting these formula-based calculations into “block grants” over a 10-year period, as Project 2025 advocated, would be risky, Kim said.
On average, federal funds account for less than 10% of state education budgets.
Lindsay Burke, the Heritage Foundation’s education policy director, expressed support for closing the federal Education Department in comments to Congress. Burke testified alongside Kim on February 26.
“Congress should pass a Department of Education Reorganisation Act to remove Cabinet-level agency status from the department, eliminate ineffective and duplicative programs, and send remaining programs to other agencies,” she said. She added that parents are the ones who will restore “academic excellence in America.”
Kim responded: “I worked in the Education Department, so I know there’s not a lot of excess staff there.”
“Nobody can dispute” the value of “creating more efficiency and leanness in government,” he said. “This notion of getting rid of bureaucracy, it’s very convenient, but not in reality, when you understand what people are doing and how they help the public.”
According to him, there were nearly “double the number of staff members in the civil rights office” during the Reagan administration, despite the fact that there were “15 times less complaints” than now.
“Over the life of the agency,” the civil rights office’s “overall staffing level has declined significantly, falling from nearly 1,100 full-time staff in 1981 to 556 in 2023,” the department said in its annual fiscal year 2024 report.
“This reduction comes even as the volume of complaints received has grown significantly, increasing from under 3,000 in 1981 to 19,201 in 2023,” according to the study.
