The Trump administration’s staffing cuts at the Department of Education are predominantly hitting federal workers who oversee student financial aid and handle discrimination cases.
At least half of the 1,315 Education Department employees who were laid off Tuesday as part of a large-scale reduction in force worked in the Office for Civil Rights, the Office of Postsecondary Education or the Institute of Education Sciences, according to an internal document shared with NOTUS, which lists the positions of about 75% of the employees who were let go.
The largest number of employees were terminated within the Office of Postsecondary Education, where at least 326 Federal Student Aid employees were let go. FSA is the largest provider of financial student aid in the nation; it oversees the disbursement of about $120 billion in aid every year and manages oversight of the use of those funds. The office previously employed about 1,400 workers.
At least 243 attorneys and equal opportunity specialists within the Office for Civil Rights were also let go. The office is tasked with investigating civil rights-related complaints ranging from disability rights cases to other civil rights issues like sex- and race-based discrimination and allegations of sexual abuse in public institutions.
“With eliminating our entire office, we were already bare bones anyway, and now we have even less staff to process those complaints and to work with those families in those school districts and universities and trade schools in order to get matters resolved so students can focus on learning,” Brittany Coleman, an attorney in the Office of Civil Rights who was terminated and also AFGE Local 252’s national shop steward, said of the Dallas office at a press conference.
Union leadership said Wednesday that they had reason to believe the terminations of union leaders and stewards were retaliatory. Of all such employees remaining, AFGE Local 252’s president, Sheria Smith, estimated that fewer than five leaders were not terminated.
“So our rules under our collective bargaining agreement was that we informed the agency of the union leaders and the union stewards, so we gave the agency the names of those employees, and they were from all over the agency,” Smith said. “Pretty much all of the people who we’ve named have now been placed on, have now been part of the reduction in force.”
The Trump administration is also expected to terminate leases for local Civil Rights offices in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, according to Education Department officials and reporting from ProPublica.
Senior Education Department officials were adamant to reporters yesterday that the cuts wouldn’t disrupt the agency’s ability to fulfill congressionally mandated requirements or the disbursement of student aid.
“This is not going to impact the rollout of FAFSA by Oct. 1. It is not going to impact how we deliver formula funding to states, including Title I and IDEA for special needs students. It’s not going to impact our civil rights investigations and it’s in general not going to impact our ability to carry out all of the statutorily mandated functions that congress has given us,” the official said.
But those familiar with the agency’s work remain skeptical that this will actually be the case. The Institute of Education Sciences, which is the umbrella over the National Center for Education Statistics, terminated 105 employees — a move that follows dozens of DOGE contract cuts.
“Ninety-eight percent of NCES was RIF’d yesterday. It was barely possible for us to have completed our statutory functions before the RIF notices because we were so understaffed and primarily relied on contractors, since we never received enough funding,” a person familiar with NCES, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said.
Agency officials also said the employees would be given until March 21 to “roll over” their responsibilities. But according to the person familiar with NCES, access to shared drives, internal systems and Microsoft Teams have been revoked, leaving them with no way to communicate with one another or transfer work materials.
Republicans thus far are operating under the assumption that the department will continue to fulfill its obligations.
“They’ll get the job done,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville told NOTUS. “I’m not worried about the job being done. We just gotta cut back on money being spent.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a former educator, said she’s banking on the department being able to fulfill its statutory obligations, and that the flow of grant money to states will continue.
“It’s early, so let’s see what happens here,” she said. “If things start to fall through the cracks, we may have a different response.”
Sen. Susan Collins, who has previously raised concerns about DOGE’s cuts at the agency, said she was sure the administration would have to answer eventually for the staffing reductions.
“I’m sure that when we finally get the 2026 budget from the administration and start our hearings that there will be a lot of questions about whether the programs can be adequately administered given the staff cuts,” Collins said.
Meanwhile, Democrats are already saying the staffing cuts, which are set to take effect in nine days, are having chilling effects.
“It is a betrayal of the idea of liberty and justice for all,” Rep. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat, told NOTUS — particularly with respect to cuts to the Office of Civil Rights and the federal funding freeze. “It’s the little things. They have cut the grant programs that help fill the teacher pipeline and staff schools that have teacher shortages. So now they can’t put quality teachers in school. And the one thing that every child needs to succeed is a good teacher,” McClellan said.
The legality of the terminations is still up for debate. Sen. Cory Booker said on Tuesday that in addition to being cruel, the cuts were illegal. Thirty-eight employees in the Office of the General Counsel, which provides legal advice to the department, were also laid off.
The agency also made significant cuts to its communications staff, terminating 25 employees in the Office of the Chief Information Officer and 19 employees in the Office of Communications and Outreach. Twelve employees were terminated in the Office of English Language Acquisition, which union officials expect to be shuttered.
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.