OCR

“Even as OCR generally stopped investigating complaints from the public based on race or sex discrimination, it cherry-picked and, on its own initiative, began targeted investigations into purported discrimination against white and cisgender students,” the complaint alleges.

On Thursday, several additional parents and students with pending discrimination claims joined the case, which asks the court to “restore the investigation and processing capacity of OCR and to process OCR complaints promptly and equitably.”

OCR was actually among the hardest hit at the Department, seeing over half of its regional offices closed.

Though Rebecca had a private lawyer and an education advocate, an OCR lawyer in the Cleveland office was facilitating mediation with the school district as soon as April.

This month, as Rebecca and her husband tried to figure out what the changes at the department meant for their son's case, the entire staff at OCR's Cleveland office received an email that their unit was "being abolished" – along with their positions.