Senator Murray: “If you want to fight antisemitism, you should support OCR. It is as straight forward as it gets. It’s like saying if you want to fight fires—you should support the fire department. Well, I hate to tell you all: Trump is axing the fire department. He has fired nearly half of OCR staff, and shuttered more than half of OCR offices. So, I don’t know how anyone can actually say they are serious about stopping antisemitism on campus without also saying that they are concerned by this movement to gut the agency on the frontline of stopping antisemitism.”
ICYMI: Senator Murray Statement on Trump Executive Order Seeking to Abolish the Department of Education
*** VIDEO of Senator Murray’s Remarks and Questioning HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today—at a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, underscored how President Trump and Elon Musk are gutting the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education (ED) and seriously impeding ongoing investigations into antisemitism—and other critical investigations to ensure students’ rights are protected on campuses nationwide. OCR is the federal agency tasked with enforcing federal civil rights laws in schools and other recipients of ED funding—but he has fired nearly half its staff.
Senator Murray began by underscoring that every student should feel safe at school, and not live in fear of harassment—or government retaliation for exercising their first amendment rights: “Everyone in this country should be able to use their voice and exercise their first amendment rights—peacefully—without fear of government retaliation. And at the very same time, no one should ever fear for their safety on campus. No one should ever be forced to tolerate bigotry. That’s a simple principle, and I think it’s one that the vast majority of Americans agree with. In fact, here in Congress, we agree with it so much we have an Office at the Department of Education dedicated to upholding that principle—the Office for Civil Rights, that the Senator from Maine just referenced. And that is why I have fought for years to secure more resources and funding for OCR. It does important work to make sure every student is safe on campus, and it makes sure schools are living up to their obligations under our civil rights laws. When hatred and bigotry are on the march—from recent spikes in antisemitism, and islamophobia, or to the wave of anti-Asian hate during COVID. When student safety is at stake—whether that means addressing hate crimes and hostile environments or actually addressing sexual assault on college campuses. OCR is really our frontline.”
“So, if you want to fight antisemitism, you should support OCR. It is as straight forward as it gets! It’s like saying if you want to fight fires—you should support the fire department,” Senator Murray continued, noting that Trump and Musk are actually decimating the agency. “Well, I hate to tell you all: Trump is axing the fire department. He has fired nearly half of OCR staff, and shuttered more than half of OCR offices. So, I don’t know how anyone can actually say they are serious about stopping antisemitism on campus–without also saying that they are concerned by this movement to gut the agency on the frontline of stopping antisemitism. Because you can’t upend that entire office–as Trump wants to do–without upending the work. You can’t pause investigations—which Trump already did—without creating a huge backlog that means students will not get the justice that they deserve.”
“You can’t just cut an agency in half and pretend everything is fine. Closing these offices means throwing 6,000 cases into limbo, leaving students in 28 states without the critical tools to fight back. Firing those workers means doubling the case load for the remaining investigators—who are already stretched thin. I think it’s clear that if we are serious about fighting antisemitism, we need to get serious about fighting this administration’s decimation not only of OCR, but the entire Department.”
Senator Murray then asked Rabbi David Saperstein, Director Emeritus at Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, “Does drastically eliminating OCR’s capacity help protect students, including Jewish students?”
Rabbi Saperstein responded, “It harms it in so many ways, Senator. You already talked about how overloaded they were before any of these cuts. Each one of the investigators averaged from 46 cases that they had to deal with, now it’s 86 cases that they’re going to have to deal with, with the staff after the cuts were made. They shut 7 of the 12 regional offices. They’re talking about moving this kind of work, integrating it into the Justice Department. The Justice Department is not an administrative enforcement agency; it doesn’t look at it in a holistic kind of manner. This is really something extraordinary. ProPublica did a deep dive before the cuts happened and in the first few weeks, 20 new cases were opened in the beginning of this administration. In the beginning of the Biden administration in the same period of time, 110 cases. In the last year of the Biden administration 240 cases. Now it was down to 20, they’re grinding it to a halt, and it is the students of America, of all kinds, who are facing discriminations that are going to suffer.”
Murray concluded by asking the same question of Kenneth Stern, Director of The Bard Center for Study of Hate. Mr. Stern replied, “I had the experience of working with OCR. There were Jewish students outside of Binghamton, NY. There was a ‘kick a Jew day.’ The school district did nothing. I can tell you OCR worked magic—it helped the students. It helped the district do something that was educationally important. Also, there were other students that didn’t want to be part of the complaint because they were worried about the retribution to them. This gave an opportunity to go work with them behind the scenes to make sure their voices were heard too. I agree with Rabbi Saperstein, if this becomes a Department of Justice issue, I think back to that case, I don’t know that there would have been a complainant, I don’t know that the students would have come forward.”
A senior member and former chair of the HELP Committee, Senator Murray has championed students and families at every stage of her career—fighting to help ensure every child in America can get a high-quality public education. Among other things, Senator Murray negotiated the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), landmark legislation that she got signed into law, replacing the broken No Child Left Behind Act. As a longtime appropriator, she has successfully fought to boost funding to support students and invest in our nation’s K-12 schools, and she has secured significant increases to the Pell Grant so that it goes further for students pursuing a higher education. Senator Murray also successfully negotiated the FAFSA Simplification Act, bipartisan legislation to reform the financial aid application process, simplify the FAFSA form for students and parents, and significantly expand eligibility for federal aid.
Senator Murray spoke out on the Senate floor against Secretary Linda McMahon’s nomination and sounded the alarm over President Trump and Elon Musk’s plans to dismantle the Department of Education.
Earlier this month, Senator Murray led a letter demanding detailed answers from the Department of Education about the Trump administration’s mass firings and other detrimental actions, which risk major reductions in support for and oversight of federal investments in our nation’s K-12 schools and institutions of higher education and which threaten vital support for students with disabilities, access to Pell Grants and other financial aid, oversight of student loan servicers, scrutiny of for-profit colleges, and more. The letter follows an earlier letter Senator Murray sent alongside colleagues demanding answers about the chaotic, harmful actions taken by ED since January—which the Department has yet to respond to.
A fact sheet outlining how the Department of Education supports students in Washington state is HERE.
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