Ed Dept. Nominee Vows Aggressive Civil Rights Enforcement Despite Mass Layoffs

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Kimberly Richey, President Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, told a Senate committee Thursday that she would fight to make sure the office had the resources it needed — even as the administration has moved to gut the agency. 

The mass layoffs, part of Trump’s plan to eliminate the Education Department, fell particularly hard on the civil rights office, which lost more than half its staff and currently has a backlog of more than 25,000 discrimination cases. Despite that, Ritchey said she is “always going to advocate” for the office to have “the resources and tools it needs to do its job,” while at the same time calling out only those types of cases prioritized by the administration.  

“If I am confirmed, the department will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against,” Richey said. “We will stop forcing schools to let boys and men into female sports and spaces,” she continued, referring to inclusive school policies that allow transgender students to participate in school athletics and use restroom facilities that align with their gender identities.  

Richey led the civil rights office on an interim basis during Trump’s first term amid COVID’s widespread disruptions and she also worked for the office under President George. W. Bush.  She is a prominent force in Republican-led state efforts to deny civil rights protections to transgender youth, promote school choice and parental rights, crack down on curriculum that focuses on racism, and weed out diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. 

During Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers put particular emphasis on Richey’s record involving LGBTQ+ youth, with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin pointing to a recent climate survey where more than half of these students reported experiencing discrimination at school.

“These kids are in dire need of protection against discrimination,” Baldwin said. “If confirmed, I hope you will act in the best interest of all children.”

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a retired college football coach from Alabama, described permitting transgender students to compete in school sports as “a huge problem” and dangerous. 

Richey, a former basketball player, said she would have had to sit out had transgender students been allowed to participate in school sports when she was a student.  

“I could not have competed against biological men, it’s just not something that I would have been able to do,” she said. 

The Trump administration maintains that policies allowing transgender students to participate in school sports “actually violated Title IX because they deprive women and girls of the opportunity to participate in athletics.” 

“I’m very proud of the way the secretary and the president have prioritized this issue, and I’m certainly committed to vigorously enforcing it and continuing to pursue these cases,” Richey said. 

Richey’s interim stint leading the civil rights office included the Trump administration’s response to a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision extending anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ employees in the workplace. The administration said the ruling did not apply to schools under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting gender discrimination. 

The Biden administration then based much of its rewrite of Title IX regulations around that same Supreme Court decision, instructing schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms and pronouns that match their gender identity. The rule, no longer in effect, sparked lawsuits from red states and hard-right parent groups like Moms for Liberty.  

Special education cases personal

In 2021, near the end of her interim leadership, Richey launched investigations into allegations that the state of Indiana and three districts — Fairfax County, Virginia, Los Angeles and Seattle — failed  to provide special education services during the COVID school shutdowns. Both the Los Angeles and Fairfax probes resulted in agreements to make up for missed services. 

Richey said her commitment to protecting the civil rights of children with disabilities reflects her own learning experiences. She was diagnosed with a brian tumor nearly 20 years ago, she explained, and relied on federal protections to access educational programs. 

“I know firsthand the importance and the significance of our civil rights laws and there’s no greater work than leading an agency responsible for ensuring that students get the services they need,” Richey said. 

Whether the Education Department will be capable of fulfilling that mission is now being fought over in court. On Tuesday, an appeals court rejected the administration’s request to lift an injunction stopping it from further dismantling the department and ordering it to reinstate the thousands of Education Department employees who lost their jobs. The administration has said it will appeal to the Supreme Court. 

Earlier this year, the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law filed a separate lawsuit against the Education Department, alleging specific staff reductions at the civil rights office rendered it incapable of carrying out civil rights enforcement efforts mandated by Congress, with particular harm to students of color, female students and LGBTQ+ youth.

Johnathan Smith, the center’s chief of staff and general counsel, dismissed any assertion that the administration was interested in protecting students’ civil rights. 

“Nothing about this confirmation changes the fact that this administration has consistently gutted OCR by laying off staff, by closing regional offices and by sending the message that discrimination just simply isn’t a priority for them and their work,” he told The 74 this week.

Combating antisemitism to remain a top focus

Richey’s appointment has largely been embraced by conservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute. In a blog post, the think tank lauded the nominee for her role in “ambitious reform efforts” in Virginia and Florida, and urged her to end the “Biden-Harris team’s unconscionable ‘catch and release’ approach to antisemitism, where some of the worst offenses in decades were treated with indifference.” 

On Wednesday, the Office for Civil Rights notified the accreditor for Columbia University that the institution violated federal anti-discrimination laws and had “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students.” Also on Wednesday, the Trump administration sought to restrict international students from entering the country to attend Harvard University as the administration cracks down on the institution over its response to protests during the 2023-24 school year over the Israel-Gaza war. 

Richey said Thursday that antisemitism has intensified at U.S. institutions in recent years and the civil rights office will continue to prioritize efforts to combat it. 

Meanwhile, Democrats accused the Trump administration during Thursday’s hearing of opening a slew of civil rights cases — including allegations of antisemitism on university campuses — primarily motivated by politics. 

The administration has also sought to revoke the visas and deport international students for their participation in protests, their social media postings and expressing opinions in their college newspapers. 

Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, asked Richey if she would object to actions that “do not afford due process” to students and charged the Trump administration with “treating American freedom and dissent as the enemy.” 

“Do you endorse ripping funding from researchers and students, stealing educational opportunity from international students, abducting students from campuses for asserting their First Amendment rights and continuing to threaten colleges and universities that refuse to comply with lawless demands?” Markey asked. 

In response, Richey stated simply she would “commit to following OCR’s regulations and OCR’s case processing manual.”  

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is expected to vote in the coming weeks on Richey’s nomination before it moves to the full Senate for confirmation. 

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