On March 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education (DOE) after moving to cut half of its workforce the prior week. The DOE manages a wide range of funding for universities, such as research grants and grants and loans for college students, as well as funding for low-income students and students with disabilities in K-12 public schools. The DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) enforces the nation’s civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to protect students from discrimination based on race, gender, and disability in universities and K-12 public schools.
A complete abolition of the DOE would require congressional approval. But members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252, representing 2,800 DOE employees, are speaking out and not waiting for that to happen. The Texas Observer spoke to Local 252 President Sheria Smith, an OCR attorney, and the union’s Chief Steward Brittany Coleman, also an OCR attorney. Both worked from DOE’s Dallas regional office, until the office was recently closed down and its employees let go.
Coleman (left), Congresswoman Alma Adams, Smith (Courtesy)
TO: Can you take us through the tumultuous two months at the DOE since Trump became president?
Smith: At the Office for Civil Rights, we were informed, not in writing, mind you, that we could no longer perform any work. … The pause lasted for so long that a day or two before we received our layoffs, they lifted the pause in writing, so as to start doing work only to lay off more than half of the workforce in the next step. I think we have in this administration a desire for us not to enforce civil rights laws because we have been hamstrung on those efforts.
Tell me about the work you used to do.
Smith: I came to the U.S. Department of Education to what I thought was a dream role at the Office for Civil Rights and a role that would allow me to marry my legal background with my education background and help enforce protections of Title VI, Title II, and Title IX [of the Civil Rights Act], things that I saw from my time in teaching that needed more support and enforcement. When I came on board, our office was handling a huge Title IX sexual assault complaint coming out of Baylor University.
We made sure that we protected all students, regardless of race, sex, or disability.
Coleman: A lot of the cases that I handled were disability cases, making sure that students who have reasonable accommodations, are able to get those accommodations from their schools, and that the schools are, if they receive funding from the Department of Education, complying with federal non-discrimination laws.
We had such a busy caseload, and now that our office is eliminated, what does this mean for cases where there are more immediate needs, like, if a student is taking a test and they need more time, and they’re not receiving that additional time?
Smith: Sometimes the complaints weren’t just from families and parents. Sometimes the complaints were also from staff members, particularly special education staff. We make sure districts are not just secluding the child, restraining the child, or putting the child out of the classroom and out of the learning environment, and sometimes, unfortunately, shackling the kid because of the effects of their disability. I certainly think that these are expectations that Texans have when they send their children to school.
Trump has said that the agency would still continue to distribute funding to K-12 public schools, such as Title I funding for low-income students and IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] funding. Even so, what concerns do you have for public school students that rely on federal funding?
Coleman: Under Project 2025, funding, like for IDEA, could just be block-granted and sent to the states. There won’t be any oversight of what’s happening to the funding. There won’t be anyone to make sure that that funding is getting to the students who have disabilities, to make sure that they are receiving the services that they’re supposed to receive as special education students. So my overall concern is that with any of this funding—where will the federal oversight be to make sure that it’s getting to the populations where it’s supposed to go?
The DOE also manages financial assistance for college students, including Pell grants and federal student loans. What concerns do you have for college students who rely on this funding?
Coleman: This is a crucial time right now because students have applied for colleges or trade schools, and now they’re having to deal with, for example, being on the phone with FAFSA for five hours. So that is definitely inefficient and frustrating for people who are taxpayers, who are paying to receive these services from us, and they’re not receiving it.
For me, without receiving federal financial aid, I would not have been able to attend Washington University in St. Louis or Cornell Law School. In the media, [the job cuts] are being painted as a punishment for us. But they’re not punishing us. They’re punishing children because they’re robbing them of opportunities for higher education, and they’re robbing them of being able to receive the assistance they need to even stand a chance to get there in the first place.
The DOE has launched an “End DEI” portal calling on the public to file complaints. The agency opened an investigation into Rice University and the University of North Texas-Denton and others for “race-exclusionary practices.” What impact will this have on schools?
Coleman: It’s disconcerting to see the full force of the federal government coming down on universities and infringing upon their abilities to be able to have programs that are tailored to helping different communities that may have been previously disenfranchised because of race or because of the lack of economic opportunities, or because students are from a family that immigrated here.
Schools are concerned that they are going to be found out of compliance and lose money, like how we’ve seen our agency recently strip $400 million from Columbia University.
How have the job losses impacted you and your fellow coworkers and union members?
Coleman: AFGE Local 252 has 2,800 people that are all across the country. We only represent Department of Education employees. It’s been really fascinating to see how passionate people are that work with us. A lot of them are former educators. A lot of them are former veterans. And we’re proud to not only serve our country in the armed forces, but we’re also proud to serve the country in this capacity.
What I feel is anger because it just feels like we’ve been villainized in the American public. We’ve been conditioned to not talk to the media as good civil servants because we’re supposed to be apolitical. But this narrative that we are just bad people trying to tell people what to teach their kids in school, to teach “woke ideology” which we’re not, and we’ve never been in charge of curriculum, it’s infuriating. People don’t understand how we have touched so many people’s lives in so many different ways, and yet our work has gone unnoticed by the people who should understand its value.
I just hope that people realize that it’s not because we don’t want to serve you. It’s because we have people in power right now who want to break this system and who want to get rid of the fact that education is an equalizer.
How are members of AFGE Local 252 fighting back?
Coleman: We have to be realistic with the fact that we may not be able to engage in this work. But it does not mean that we do not want to do it, and we still have a ton of support from our membership to continue to fight. We don’t believe that this is right. We don’t believe this is legal. And we don’t believe that this will actually benefit the American public. So we are definitely fighting because we want these services restored. We want to make sure that our kids can have the best.
We are calling on our leaders to stop this reduction in force, to re-open our offices, and to put everyone back on duty. Many are still employees until June, but they are on administrative leave, so we want to make sure that we’re able to actually do the case work that we’re supposed to do, or to work on the grants, or to work on FAFSA.
We are working in conjunction with AFGE national to look at all of our current options. We expect the government to comply with our collective bargaining agreement, which means for changes like this, we should have been notified properly and engaged. We have just filed two grievances concerning what’s happening. So those are internal complaints that are based on our contract, because we expect our contract to be enforced. As far as other legal actions, we are still exploring our options, and we are hearing from other external stakeholders across the country who are concerned. We saw that with the lawsuit that was filed by 21 Attorney General Offices from other states [not Texas].
We’re engaging Congressmembers. We are engaging the media. What we’re doing is just trying to dispel the misinformation about what we do, so that people realize that we’re not just some bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. We’re trying to let people know that we, too, are Texans, and we understand what’s going on because we live in your communities.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The post ‘We’re Not Just Some Bureaucrats’: DOE Employees on How Their Work Helps Texas Students appeared first on The Texas Observer.
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