Three federal laws protect students—the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504). Students who have special education claims under the IDEA may also have civil rights claims for intentional discrimination. For example, my office has handled cases for school-age students under Section 504 claim for denial of use of a service dog in school (Berardelli v. Allied Servs. Inst. of Rehab. Med., 900 F.3d 104, (3d Cir. 2018)) and another for failure to provide effective communication in violation of Section 504 and the ADA (Le Pape v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 103 F.4th 966, (3d Cir. 2024)).
Before June 16, 2026, in addition to private enforcement, the Department of Education exercised enforcement powers under these three laws through the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Now, as part of its ongoing efforts to dismantle and defund the Department of Education, the Trump Administration is using interagency agreements to move OSERS to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and OCR to the U.S. Department of Justice. The Administration touts this major change as efficient.
Organizations that champion special education and civil rights disagree. The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) called the moves “illegal and harmful” and “a slap in the face to the progress made in the last 50 years to move away from a medical deficit model and to combat discrimination on the basis of disability.” COPAA “believes the Department’s claims that such moves will reduce red tape and better serve families and students are false.” Instead, it “places 10.25 million children with disabilities at great risk.”
The Arc of the United States, a community-based organization advocating for people with intellectual disabilities and their families, echoes these concerns: “Students with disabilities need access to school, special education services, accommodations, accessibility, and civil rights enforcement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Moving that work across separate departments risks more confusion, longer delays, and less accountability for families and schools.” Arc also objects to moving IDEA oversight to HHS because it “pushes students with disabilities toward a medical model, where disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life. When that mindset drives education decisions, students are more likely to be segregated, underestimated, or treated as separate from the school community.”
According to the New York Times, A.F.G.E Local 252, the union that represents workers at the Department of Education, described the Administration’s move as “chaos” that “will leave our most vulnerable students and families who have been shut out of our education system without the services they need and without protection when they face discrimination.”