PHOTOS & VIDEO: Hirono Holds Spotlight Forum on Interagency Agreements that will Harm Students with Disabilities

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) held a spotlight forum titled: Breaking the Promise: How Relocating the IDEA will be Detrimental to Students and Families,” highlighting the dangerous consequences of the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (ED) for our nation’s students with disabilities and their families. During the forum, a panel of witnesses comprised of former ED leaders, civil rights advocates, and parent advocates spoke about how outsourcing ED’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which oversee critical federal programs for students with disabilities, to other agencies will harm millions of students with disabilities nationwide. “These agreements are not just harmless administrative shifts,” said Senator Hirono. “What we are witnessing is nothing short of a deliberate effort to dismantle the programs that support students with disabilities and their families, particularly for those with nowhere else to turn.” In June, the Trump Administration announced that OSERS would be moving away from ED to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and OCR would be moving to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). OSERS has been responsible for enforcing compliance of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ( IDEA )— which helps guarantee that every child with a disability can receive a free and appropriate public education that responds to their needs— since the law was passed five decades ago. Senator Hirono raised alarms about how moving OSERS to HHS, an agency that lacks the personnel and infrastructure to enforce the IDEA could threaten the over 8 million students who rely this civil rights law to provide them with adequate services. Senator Hirono also highlighted how shifting OCR—the agency responsible for investigating potential violations of students’ rights— to DOJ would exacerbate an already severe backlog of over 23,000 cases. At the forum, Senator Hirono was also joined by U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). “I have heard from hundreds of my constituents in New Hampshire about this Administration’s moves to dismantle the Department of Education, and they’re concerned about what would happen—particularly for our young children with disabilities,” said Senator Shaheen. “Thank you to the witnesses for sharing your knowledge and experience with us today and helping to sound the alarm around the harms that would come to instruction and services for children with disabilities if special education were removed from the Department of Education.” "Students come to the classroom with varying backgrounds and abilities, but they each deserve to pursue an education with peace of mind. OCR has supported this goal since the late 1960s, but the Trump administration's decision to move this office to the Department of Justice will hinder these efforts," said Senator Blunt Rochester. "I'm proud to stand with Senator Hirono and my colleagues to push back against President Trump's attempts to dismantle the Department of Education, and I'll continue fighting to put our students' well-being and success first." “A quality education is the cornerstone of our children’s success, and the Department of Education has been responsible for ensuring students with disabilities have equal access to a public education since the passage of the IDEA’s predecessor half a century ago. The Trump Administration’s illegal decision to move that responsibility to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice – agencies with none of the expertise or experience necessary to best serve our students – will worsen educational outcomes and delay civil rights protections. We will fight to keep IDEA and the Department of Education alive to provide every student in America equal access to a high-quality education,” said Senator Van Hollen. “All children deserve a strong education that meets their emotional and academic needs. The Trump Administration’s removal of crucial programs from the Department of Education will harm students with disabilities. Shuttling the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and Office for Civil Rights to agencies that lack experience serving students with disabilities hinders students’ access to a safe and high-quality learning environment and the recourses they are entitled to if they face discrimination,” Senator Durbin said. The forum featured testimony from: Laurie VanderPloeg, Associate Executive Director for Professional Affairs, Council for Exceptional Children Katy Neas, Chief Executive Officer, The Arc of the United States Valerie C. Williams, Former Director, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education Seth Galanter, Senior Fellow, Edley Center on Law & Democracy Elizabeth Tang, Senior Counsel for Education and Workplace Justice, National Women’s Law Center "I ran the office that administers IDEA, and I am the mother of a son who happens to have Down syndrome," said Valerie C. Williams, CEO of Apokrisis Consultants and former Director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). "From both chairs the answer is the same: children with disabilities are students first, not patients, and the work that protects their right to learn belongs in the Department of Education, not scattered across agencies that have never done it." "OCR's tradition valuing every complaint by students and families is nothing like DOJ's impact-litigation culture -- you can't swap one for the other," said Seth Galanter, Senior Fellow at the Edley Center on Law and Democracy and former OCR official in the Biden and Obama Administrations. "The Department shouldn't be paying DOJ to be a poor substitute for the office it's dismantling." "These changes will leave a lasting gap in the leadership and support that helps states improve special education. The result will be pockets of excellence, while vast parts of the country struggle to meet their responsibilities to children with disabilities," said Laurie VanverPloeg, Associate Executive Director for Professional Affairs, Council for Exceptional Children. “Behind every complaint of discrimination that OCR receives is a student who has experienced real harm,” said Elizabeth Tang, senior counsel for education and workplace justice at National Women’s Law Center. “Those tens of thousands of students are in danger of being ignored if the Department of Education and its civil rights office continue to be systematically neutered and dismantled. Every child deserves to feel safe and included at school—we owe it to them to fight for a world where they will be.” Videos from the forum can be found here and photos can be found here . A full transcript of Senator Hirono’s opening remarks is available below. Aloha, thank you all for being here today as we discuss the threats the Trump Administration’s Interagency Agreements pose to students with disabilities. As you may know, President Trump has been working to undermine the U.S. Department of Education (ED) at every turn, with the stated goal of dismantling the entire Department. Following Donald Trump’s illegal Executive Order to dismantle ED, the Trump Regime has issued a total of 14 “Interagency Agreements,” or IAAs, to move programs from ED to other agencies. These agreements are not just harmless administrative shifts. The result will be weakening and removing federal government support for these programs. Today we are here to discuss two of these agreements and their impacts on students with disabilities. First, transferring the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and second, moving the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Fifty years ago, Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to help guarantee that every child—regardless of disability, zip code, or family income—has access to a free and appropriate public education that responds to their needs. Currently, there are more than 8 million students with disabilities who receive services under the IDEA. Since the IDEA was created, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) has been responsible for ensuring that schools comply with the IDEA so students get the services they need. Handing that responsibility to The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proves this regime doesn't give a rip about students with disabilities. HHS has zero experience dealing with the IDEA. And with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly calling autism an “individual tragedy that destroys families,” I have serious concerns about his department’s ability to adequately serve students with special needs. To make matters worse, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR)—the agency responsible for investigating violations of student rights, including special education access—is being moved to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division. That division has already significant staffing cuts and was never designed to advocate for individual students. Consider the difference: while the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is required to review every complaint it receives—amounting to thousands of cases each year—the DOJ Civil Rights Division, by contrast, selectively picks a few dozen high-impact cases annually. We are already experiencing a severe backlog of OCR cases: over 23,000 cases—about half of which concern students with disabilities. In moving this mountain of cases to the DOJ Civil Rights Division, we can expect this backlog to get even worse. Thousands of legitimate complaints could end up buried, ignored, or summarily dismissed. What we are witnessing is nothing short of a deliberate effort to dismantle the programs that support students with disabilities and their families, particularly for those with nowhere else to turn. Families deserve a government that will defend students’ rights, support disability programs, and strengthen public education for all. Instead, this regime continues to attack our nation’s public education system and the tens of millions of families across our country that rely on it. Today, we are going to hear directly from education leaders, civil rights advocates, and parent advocates, about the implications related to these moves. I look forward to hearing more from my colleagues and today’s panelists as we work to defend special education across our public schools. ###