Why We Are Suing the Department of Education

Every Tuesday, almost like clockwork, the U.S. Department of Education would update a public list of schools and colleges it was investigating for possible violations of students’ civil rights. Every Tuesday, that is, until Jan. 14, 2025, six days before President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term. Today, that online list remains as it was that week before inauguration: frozen in time. My colleagues Jodi Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards, both longtime education reporters, used that list regularly in their work. “You would get a call or a tip about a school district, and you would go and look up the school district to see if it was under investigation,” Cohen told me recently. The data also allowed the public to spot patterns in what types of investigations were being opened and where, Smith Richards said. For decades, the Office for Civil Rights has worked to uphold students’ constitutional rights against discrimination based on disability, race, national origin and gender. Now, without a publicly accessible way to track the office’s investigations, journalists, education watchdogs and parents could be left in the dark. Early last year, Cohen and Smith Richards reached out to sources inside the Department of Education.