At Chain of Lakes Elementary in Winter Haven, Florida, Josette Smith’s son Ethan — diagnosed with autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder — has experienced repeated removals from class, suspensions, and police involvement instead of receiving a trained paraprofessional the school team had agreed he needed. Smith filed complaints with her district and state and then a federal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The OCR said in May it would investigate several of her allegations and dismissed others the state had already reviewed.
Smith’s account exemplifies the kinds of cases families have historically taken to OCR when they believe their child’s rights were violated because of disability, race, or gender. The family is also navigating battery charges filed after a school called police on Ethan in third grade; Smith noted the timing of police contact came hours after she informed the district of her federal complaint.
The Trump administration has implemented reorganization measures affecting the Department of Education and the Office for Civil Rights. In March 2025, an executive order began a process described as dismantling the Department of Education, and the administration subsequently closed seven of OCR’s 12 regional offices. Oversight of special education was largely shifted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and OCR functions were moved toward the Department of Justice.
Legal and policy experts interviewed in the article say that while these moves are framed as a reorganization, in practice they risk leaving complaints that involve overlapping harms — for example, both race and disability discrimination — without a clear agency responsible. A former OCR supervising attorney warned that the hardest-to-prove issues may become the ones with no obvious home.
A Senate committee report documented that OCR had reached a 12-year low in resolutions to discrimination complaints and had a backlog of nearly 12,000 civil-rights cases. Investigations and reporting into these backlogs and freezes have raised further concern about enforcement capacity.
The administration reduced funding for the Department of Education’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, cancelling roughly $900 million in research funding and interrupting long-standing school data collection. Proposed changes would end certain data collections on racial disparities in school discipline. The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have also curtailed or canceled projects that referenced terms such as race or gender.
Researchers and advocates argue that cutting data collection and research limits the ability to understand disparities in autism identification and services. Paul Morgan, director of the Institute for Social and Health Equity at SUNY-Albany, said that without these data, the ability to fix inequities is diminished.
A SUNY-Albany study cited in the reporting found persistent gaps in school identification of autism among fourth graders from 2003 to 2022. Students of color, girls, low-income students, and multilingual learners were less likely than peers to be identified with autism in school even as diagnoses increased among historically marginalized groups. A larger forthcoming study by the same researchers highlighted the largest gaps among overlapping identities; Black and Hispanic girls were especially unlikely to be identified.
These findings intersect with policy changes that curtail equity-focused investigations and data collection, raising concerns that disparities will be harder to detect and address.
The federal autism advisory panel also experienced personnel and membership shifts. The panel reportedly lacks prominent scientists and Black members and has fewer autistic self-advocates than before. Critics also pointed to the inclusion of vaccine opponents on the roster.
Administration officials framed some activity as emphasizing research into environmental factors contributing to autism and aligning federal policy with what the administration called gold-standard science. HHS stated that changes are intended to make federal support systems work better for children and families. Disability advocates and researchers counter that the membership changes and policy focus risk stigmatizing individuals and shifting priorities away from services and equity.
Advocates say the reorganization and funding cuts create confusion for families seeking to enforce students’ rights and obtain services. Autism Speaks’ vice president of advocacy emphasized that access is a common thread: marginalized families already often lack supports for timely diagnosis and services, and the new landscape may obscure clear paths to help.
Without timely assessments and interventions, studies show children of color with disabilities are disproportionately at risk of being funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Disability-rights organizations warn that reduced enforcement and data collection will worsen outcomes for those students.
Smith’s complaints document incidents where her son was removed from instruction, suspended, and charged with battery after the school called police. She requested an expedited hearing for a due process complaint filed with the state. The OCR told her the federal civil-rights decision could take more than a year amid the backlog.
Civil-rights advocates highlight how disciplinary actions, arrests, and criminal charges tied to school incidents disproportionately affect students with disabilities and students of color, compounding educational harms.
Disability and autism advocates quoted in the article characterize the administration’s actions as taking the country backwards and creating unnecessary chaos. Camille Proctor of The Color of Autism Foundation and former policy analysts at self-advocacy organizations expressed alarm about priorities and membership changes on federal panels.
HHS spokespersons and administration statements presented a different framing, emphasizing the need for increased research into environmental contributors to autism and asserting that changes are meant to improve federal supports. Education Department press offices did not respond to requests for comment in the reporting.
The combination of reorganized enforcement, reduced regional OCR capacity, large research funding cuts, curtailed data collection on disparities, and altered advisory bodies has created concern among researchers, advocates, and families that federal protections for students with autism and other disabilities could be weakened. Experts cited in the reporting warn that cutting data and enforcement capacity will make inequities harder to identify and address, potentially increasing the likelihood that marginalized students will be excluded from school and funneled into disciplinary and legal systems.
Smith’s case remains pending at the federal and state level while her son starts fourth grade. Her experience underscores the intersecting challenges families face when school supports fail and federal enforcement and research infrastructures are reduced.