Education Department layoffs gut its civil rights office, leaving discrimination cases in limbo

 The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.

Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off, including busy hubs in New York, Chicago and Dallas. Despite assurances that the department’s work will continue unaffected, huge numbers of cases appear to be in limbo.