According to a report released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch found that the Trump administration has substantially reduced the federal government’s capacity to enforce civil rights laws across multiple agencies. The rights organization conducted interviews with former government officials, reviewed court documents, and consulted with community leaders and civil rights attorneys to assess the impact of policy shifts away from advocating for minorities, transgender individuals, and other protected groups.
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division experienced the most dramatic staffing reduction, losing three-quarters of its lawyers by early 2026. The division has also withdrawn from reform agreements previously secured with police departments in cities including Louisville and Minneapolis. In approximately 70 cases nationwide, the federal agency has discontinued work, dismissed cases, or reversed its support for plaintiffs alleging discrimination.
Other federal agencies have implemented comparable reductions. The Department of Education, responsible for handling discrimination complaints in schools, eliminated nearly half its workforce in a single day and shuttered seven of its twelve regional field offices. Despite receiving a record volume of discrimination complaints from Black and Latino students in the year before the current administration took office, the department has resolved zero such cases since January 2025. The Housing and Urban Development Department’s fair housing investigation unit experienced severe staffing declines and dropped at least 115 fair housing complaints without issuing formal findings. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which addresses workplace discrimination complaints, reached its lowest staffing levels in four decades.
Human Rights Watch emphasized that federal law provides protections and enforcement mechanisms that sometimes exceed state-level provisions and grant federal agencies exclusive jurisdiction over certain civil rights matters. A researcher with the organization stated that while the administration claims to protect all Americans, it is dismantling systems that communities have historically relied upon for redress against discrimination.
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