EXCLUSIVE: Education Civil Rights Office in "Impossible" Position

An insider on the real impact of dismantling the Dept of Ed. Plus plenty of News That Doesn't Suck, from an unlikely deep-sea mascot to why you might want to hit the dance floor this weekend.

Go dancing — it’s good for you! (Photo: Flashpop via Getty Images)

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This week President Trump took steps to dismantle the Department of Education. Today, details from my conversations with someone inside the administration about the impact these cuts will have on one of the Department of Education's core functions: protecting student’s civil rights. 

Because it’s been a long hard few weeks and it’s Friday, we are returning to our roots. Today we bring you lots of News That Doesn’t Suck. This includes research that suggests getting your groove on is good medicine. And a love story for the ages.

Finally, I will be holding a zoom for paid subscribers on Wednesday March 26 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET. Register at the link at the bottom of this email under the paywall. Please send in your questions! Look forward to seeing you next week.

Exclusive: Education Civil Rights Office Left in an “Impossible” Position

• Bad Education: This week President Trump signed an executive order to begin dismantling the Department of Education. Shuttering the Department would require an act of Congress. But the administration’s changes could effectively undermine some of the key functions of the department of education, including its ability to pursue civil rights violations. The administration announced that 50% of the department's staff would be eliminated. But that broad description fails to capture the impact of the changes. This means roughly 150 offices of civil rights investigators remain to handle close to 40,000 complaints. (See below for details.) One source in a position to know tells News Not Noise that the Office of Civil Rights has been left in an “impossible” situation. 

  • Quick Lesson: The Education Department was founded in 1979. It’s responsible for distributing financial aid, collecting education data, identifying and solving problems in the education system, and more. (It doesn’t have anything to do with hiring teachers or setting curricula.) But its founding and most important mission, according to hundreds of experts, is enforcing civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. The Education Department, not the Justice Department, is responsible for preventing discrimination in schools based on “race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age.” It does so through its Office of Civil Rights, or OCR. 

  • Who You Gonna Call? The OCR is where you turn when your school district doesn’t step up to protect civil rights on campus. They investigate cases including the Norwin School District in rural Pennsylvania which was found to have failed to address a “racially hostile environment.” ProPublica reports that the OCR is currently investigating 6,000 claims that students with disabilities are being treated unfairly or denied help; 3,200 cases of alleged racial discrimination including alleged unfair discipline; and 1,000 cases of alleged sexual harassment or violence on campuses. Past OCR investigations have prompted schools to add necessary services for children with disabilities.

  • Seriously Uncivil: The demand on the Office of Civil Rights is already enormous. In 2024 the office employed about 500 people, of whom approximately 315 were investigators. After the administration's cuts, roughly 150 civil rights investigators will be left. (We base that number on publicly available data and guidance from a source in a position to know.) Each investigator is seeing their caseload skyrocket. Our source tells us that after the staff reductions last week, one investigator saw the number of complaints they’re managing increase 350%. “Every complaint represents a student, educator, or person in a school’s community who believes somebody has been discriminated against on a basis that has been protected for 50+ years,” this source explains. “It’s heartbreaking to think of the harm that will come to students and schools because of this reduction.”

  • Do the Math: For those of you who want the numbers… In 2024, the Office of Civil Rights fielded a record-breaking 22,600 complaints of rights violations. That’s over eleven times the number received in 1983, when the office had about 400 more staff members. In other words: Cases of potential discrimination have skyrocketed while staffing has shrunk. When Trump took office he temporarily froze most civil rights investigations. The few hundred OCR investigators left faced a backlog of more than 20,000 cases, according to ABC News. Some of those complaints were filed before Trump took office — in his first term! This year the OCR estimated it will receive almost 24,000 additional cases. That means about 40,000 complaints to be investigated by the roughly 150 investigative staff members left after the cuts. (There could be even fewer left.) This would dramatically blunt the office’s ability to pursue complaints and fulfill the department’s key mission of ensuring equal access to public education.

  • Fighting Back: Multiple lawsuits, including one filed by 21 states and another by a union representing 1.8 million workers, have been filed challenging Trump’s assault on the department.

Reactions to the administration’s move to downsize the Department of Education are deeply divided. Would you be curious to know which source describes it as a way to “invest in education”? To find out the answer and learn how this story is covered across the political spectrum, check out Ground News. Their app and website gather top news from sources around the country and the world. I rely on Ground News to quickly and consistently stay up to date on the way stories I care about are framed by outlets across the political spectrum. Ground News is offering the News Not Noise community 40% off their all-access vantage subscription plan. To subscribe, go to GroundNews.com/NNN

News That Doesn’t Suck

• Lose Yourself to Dance: If any of you needed an excuse to go dancing this weekend — or are trying to convince a friend to join you — listen up. A new study found that dancing is even better than exercise at reducing stress. How? Well, dancing is exercise. But it has unique additional components, too. Listening to music, of course. Also self-expression, synchronisation, and social touch, all of which help us regulate stress, improve resilience, and strengthen health. One researcher even called dance a “stress vaccine!” (Nobody tell RFK.) And while dancing alone can bring all these wonderful benefits, it really does take two to tango; the research shows dancing with a partner is even more beneficial. So get out there and start grooving!

• Ugly Duckling, Eat Your Heart Out: Ever winced at a particularly unflattering photo of yourself? Well, take a moment to sympathize with the poor blobfish. You may have seen the infamous viral photos of this remarkably gloopy animal, which had it crowned as the world’s ugliest fish. It was even a mascot for the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. No wonder it looks so miserable! But our judgement is actually a reflection of our own terrestrial limitations. The blobfish belongs in the deep sea, where high water pressure makes it look wildly different; down there it can keep its shape together. Look at it in its natural, er, glory here. Much better. It’s even got spikes! Now a New Zealand environmental group has crowned this fine fellow Fish of the Year. Talk about an underblob story. 

• Under the Ice: This deep ice discovery is like turning over a log to find previously unknown bugs underneath, but on a massive scale. A 19-mile iceberg separated from the Antarctic ice sheet in January. Though the ocean under this ice hadn’t gotten sunlight in decades, life flourished nonetheless. Scientists who studied it found spiders, octopuses, corals, and sponges, some potentially centuries old. They say this deep ice discovery could include dozens of new species never before identified by humans. It might also help us figure out how, exactly, all these living things survive — no, thrive — deep under the ice. See videos and pictures of our newly discovered earthlings here, and dozens more from an earlier expedition here.

• To Infinity and Beyond: You’ve likely seen the good news that our two stranded astronauts have finally made it back to Earth. They were even welcomed back by a pod of dolphins! As the pair prepared to head back to Earth, though, another individual was cleared to go in the opposite direction — and in doing so, made history. After years of work, British Paralympian John McFall is set to become the first astronaut with a disability. He lost his right leg at the age of 19. “This isn’t about me,” he said. “This is way bigger than that. This is a cultural shift.” McFall explained he hopes his research will benefit people, including fellow amputees, down here on Earth. 

• Til Death Do Us Part: What were you doing in 1940? There’s a good chance you weren’t even conceived of yet, let alone conceived. But Manoel and Maria Dino were celebrating their wedding day. Almost 85 years later, this Brazilian couple recently broke the world record for the longest marriage of a living couple. Their secret? Love. Will that be enough to see them break the all-time record? We’ll see. They have a few years to go yet; a US couple in the nineteenth century were married almost 89 years. In case you’re wondering, the wedding anniversary gifts only go up to 80, which is appropriately sturdy: Oak.

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