The Dallas location of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights closed in March, one of seven shut down nationwide after the Trump administration began dismantling the department. Cases were consolidated across the remaining five offices; Dallas OCR cases have moved to Kansas City.
Brittany Coleman worked in the Dallas Office for Civil Rights for four years until the March 2025 closure, which she called “chaotic” and “frenzied.”
“There was just no information coming out on where that was supposed to go,” she said, “and the complainants didn't even know where their cases were going."
Coleman, who also serves as a shop steward with the American Federation of Government Employees, chose the OCR to “give back” to the system that helped her become a lawyer after she received a good public education at Newman Smith High School in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district. .
She joined KERA’s Bill Zeeble to discuss the OCR’s work, what’s happened since March, and what’s next for the case to restore the Department of Education.
This interview has been edited slightly for time and clarity.
Zeeble: Have you been back to your Dallas Office for Civil Rights [since it closed in March]?
Brittany Coleman: Unfortunately, no, Bill, we had not returned. A lot of us had to turn in our equipment back in April and we lost systems access on March 21st. So we have not been back in the building since then and unable to work.
How many of you were there?
I would say roughly 60 people within OCR’s Dallas office. And then there were additional people who worked there for federal student aid. So we had a good number of people there.
This whole case was briefly on hold because a judge stopped the closure of the Department of Education. But now that continues. Is the case actually over?
No, the case is not over. What happened with the Supreme Court is that they decided to remove the preliminary injunction that was in place that was stopping the reduction in force, or layoff. So now that layoff can continue while the case still is playing out at, I believe, the First Circuit Court of Appeals. So they'll go through that whole process of appealing it, litigating it there, and just deciding the actual merits of the case.
Do you know their reasoning for saying we should be able to close this department and the counter argument from you or the attorney saying the department should stay open?
It's funny that you mention that, Bill, because, you know, from what we've seen from the cases is that the agency really isn't offering up any other arguments besides ‘we want to close the Department of Education. This is in line with what the president wanted and in line his executive order and his campaign promises.'
So our counter-argument is that, despite what's being claimed — that a lot of that work can be handled by the states — it is not the state's responsibility to handle enforcement of federal civil rights laws or to handle dispersing...federal funds. Once the money, for instance, gets there for like federal student aid, whether that's through a college or a university or, funding to school districts, then yeah, they have full reign to put it where they need to. But they still have to comply with the law and the rules about using that money.
And overall, that's just one thing that shows our purpose. Our purpose is to be there to make sure that federal laws are being followed, because unfortunately, what we've seen at the state and local levels is that that does not always happen. If that were the case, then we wouldn't have complaints coming to the Office for Civil Rights, and we wouldn't have had the largest docket in the Dallas office for those cases.
Have you any idea how many complaints have been filed with the OCR [since January]?
I do not know that number off the top of my head. I can tell you that we do get thousands upon thousands of cases each year. I can say that we've had upticks in cases because of things going on such as the pandemic. That caused an uptick because there were students who were learning virtually and they were not receiving services that they needed for their disabilities.
We've had upticks in cases due to harassment issues, which could be linked to the current political climate. We've had upticks in harassment cases for people of Asian descent. We've upticks in cases for anti-Semitic issues as well. I would say that our caseloads continued to increase by the thousands.
And unfortunately, we went from 12 regional offices in OCR to handle those thousands of cases, now we're down to five. ... So now those remaining five offices are having to handle this deluge of cases that keeps coming through. And they don't have the manpower to handle everything timely, which unfortunately means that students may not get the relief they need in a timely manner.
Our cases are now being routed to Kansas City. We did not know that at the time. We actually had to find that out through the grapevine because the dismantling of those regional offices was so frenzied and chaotic. There was just no information coming out on where that was supposed to go and the complainants didn't even know where their cases were going.
Where does that leave the people who brought cases, who contacted your office? It seems awfully frustrating.
That's very frustrating. I mean, keep in mind, because of the way the office closures were handled and that cases were moved, a lot of the complainants didn't know that their cases had moved. You know, when we lost systems access back in March, we were unable to send emails to anybody that did not work at the U.S. Department of Education. We could receive emails from complainants, but we couldn't respond to them and tell them that, ‘Hey, you know, we're no longer working on your matter.’ Like we just can't do it.
And now when people find out where their cases are, it's going to be up to those remaining offices and that remaining staff to try to work those cases into their already heavy dockets.
What have you been doing since [March]?
As a union officer, we've been fighting back against what this is. First of all, we're fighting back with just dispelling the misinformation about what our office does. There's just been a lot of information out there making it sound like we are in control of school curriculums and that we're forcing schools to do X, Y, and Z. None of that has ever been within our purview.
So we are fighting the misinformation and letting people know we are here to support schools and universities and trade schools with funding and making sure that those students get the supports that they need and if there's a problem to work out any issues with the Office for Civil Rights.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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