March 2025: 

The MLO Minute: “Special Education or Title IX Issue? Look To Us, Not OCR” 

By Dennis McAndrews, Esq., Founder and Managing Partner Emeritus, and Caitlin McAndrews, Esq., Senior Partner Delaware/D.C. Metro — 

When the United States Department of Education was created in the late 1970s, it was accompanied by an internal Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to address concerns of private citizens with respect to both individual and systemic special education and sexual misconduct violations. Although OCR has historically received more complaints than it could successfully investigate and promptly resolve, a dramatic Reduction In Force (RIF) in 2025 has rendered that agency incapable of timely solving virtually any individual civil rights violations regarding special education or sexual misconduct. By March, 2025, over half of the OCR staff were placed on administrative leave and told not to report to work.

Here’s the background. As part of the current administration’s resolve to eliminate the United States Department of Education (an action that requires congressional approval which has never been obtained) over half of the staff of OCR was placed on administrative leave last March. Moreover, 7 of the 12 OCR Regional Offices were shuttered, including the critical and very busy office in Philadelphia. The laid off staff were reinstated by federal court order in June but were told not to report to work by DOE, which from March through December 2025 (when many were recalled due to mountains of unfinished work) spent 38 million taxpayer dollars for these staff to remain at home and complete no work. This downsizing resulted in a backlog of over 25,000 unresolved complaints, including cases of sexual assault involving Title IX. Between March and September, 2025 while the majority of OCR staff were on leave due to the agency’s reductions in force, OCR received more than 9,000 complaints; while it “resolved” a total of 7,072 complaints, it did so by simply dismissing 90% of them, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.

Across the nation and here in Pennsylvania and Delaware where our special education practice is centered, there is little reason to request an OCR investigation for an individual student’s time sensitive special education or Title IX abuse matter. Our team of highly experienced, talented, and successful special education lawyers have resolved thousands of special education and Title IX cases in our respective careers, and we have obtained tens of millions of dollars in compensatory education funds for special education violations and millions more in monetary awards for abuse and sexual misconduct against vulnerable persons. Our initial consultation is always free, and the great majority of our cases are handled without families paying hourly fees to our firm. We look forward to working with you if we can assist you in these matters. Click here to contact us today!