For more than five decades, the United States Department of Education has maintained a comprehensive record of how students are treated in every public school across the nation. The agency's Civil Rights Data Collection tracks which children face bullying, harassment, and discrimination, as well as which students have access to essential resources such as internet connectivity. This accountability tool, however, is now six months past its scheduled release date.
The latest dataset, covering the 2023-24 school year, was scheduled for publication in December 2025 according to the Education Department's own deadline. As of Thursday, July 2, 2026, the data remains unreleased, and the agency has not responded to multiple requests from NPR seeking explanation for the delay.
While federal bureaucratic processes can naturally experience delays, education advocates are expressing heightened concern given recent developments within the Trump administration. The administration has announced plans to relocate the Office for Civil Rights — which houses the Civil Rights Data Collection team — from the Education Department to the Department of Justice. This proposed transfer comes amid broader federal actions that have fundamentally altered the landscape of student civil rights protections.
The Trump administration has implemented significant policy shifts in recent months, including restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The administration has also prioritized investigations into schools that permit transgender athletes to participate in women's sports programs.
"This administration has repeatedly applied civil rights law in ways that ignore or dismiss the very real inequities that persist in our education system," Denise Forte, president and CEO of EdTrust, told NPR. EdTrust is a think tank focused on addressing education inequity. The delay in releasing the Civil Rights Data Collection data, Forte stated, "raises serious concerns, particularly as this administration seeks to downplay the impacts of racism and economic inequality in public education."
A former Education Department employee who worked on the Civil Rights Data Collection confirmed to NPR that the team remains intact, though its future remains uncertain. The former employee, who requested anonymity due to concerns about professional repercussions, indicated that the 2025 government shutdown may have contributed to the delay. That shutdown affected Education Department operations for more than six weeks, including work on the Civil Rights Data Collection.
The department has been scaling down its operations since the Trump administration assumed office, eliminating approximately half of the department's overall staff last year. While the administration has announced the planned transfer of the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice, the process could require months to complete, similar to other initiatives to outsource portions of the Education Department's responsibilities.
Lindsay Kubatzky, director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, echoed concerns that the data delay may reflect the administration's systematic dismantling of accountability mechanisms designed to protect students' civil rights. "This administration unfortunately has proposed a lot of policies that would make it less transparent on how students with disabilities in particular are being served in public schools," Kubatzky told NPR.
Kubatzky cited the Trump administration's proposal to eliminate requirements for states to track disability identifications by race and ethnicity. Historical data demonstrates that Black and brown students are disproportionately and incorrectly identified as requiring special education services compared to their peers. While this disability tracking data operates independently from the Civil Rights Data Collection, Kubatzky characterized it as emblematic of the administration's broader effort to dismantle federal civil rights accountability instruments.
The Civil Rights Data Collection plays a critical role in enabling advocates to demonstrate where schools fail to adequately serve students, Kubatzky explained. The data also provides leverage to advocate for policies that are more inclusive and less detrimental to students.
Federal lawmakers have previously utilized Civil Rights Data Collection findings to craft legislation addressing educational inequities. Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and United States Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas employed data from the collection to develop legislation proposing expanded access to Advanced Placement courses for underrepresented students. The data revealed that minority and disabled students faced unequal access to these classes. A spokesperson for Booker's team confirmed the bill would be reintroduced in the coming days.
The delayed dataset was designed to address critical questions about student internet access as artificial intelligence assumes an increasingly prominent role in education, according to the former Civil Rights Data Collection staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity. The individual questioned how policymakers and educators can determine whether schools are prepared to integrate artificial intelligence effectively, and whether all students will have equal access to necessary devices and internet capabilities, without the data the collection provides.
The former staffer characterized the Civil Rights Data Collection team as a deeply committed group focused on ensuring access and opportunity for the nation's most marginalized students. "We can't make the right decisions for students if we don't have insight into their current realities," the person told NPR.
