The Trump administration is moving forward with sweeping plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, a move advocates say will disproportionately affect students with disabilities.

A Supreme Court order earlier this week cleared the way for the Education Department to lay off nearly 1,400 employees, which would leave the agency with about half the number of workers it had at the start of the year.

The plan, originally announced in March, had been on hold while it was challenged in court. The litigation is ongoing, but the high court is allowing the Trump administration to go ahead with the firings in the meantime.

“The Supreme Court’s green light for the Trump administration’s mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education will have devastating consequences for students with disabilities,” said Lindsay Kubatzky, director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “This unprecedented move will severely hamper the department’s ability to do its essential functions like safeguarding the civil rights of students with disabilities.”

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states.” McMahon said the mass layoffs are a “first step” toward that goal.

Already, advocates say that students with disabilities have been affected by changes at the Education Department under Trump.

“We know these deep cuts have impacted the civil rights investigations and it appears they are dismissing many complaints,” said Denise S. Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, or COPAA, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of students with disabilities and their families. In addition, she said that cuts will “negatively affect data collection and training.”

Many of the layoffs targeted the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which handles complaints of disability discrimination in schools. In addition, the agency closed seven of 12 regional branches of the civil rights office earlier this year.

Marcie Lipsitt, a special education advocate in Michigan who routinely helps families file complaints with the Education Department, said the civil rights office has essentially been closed since March.

“The OCR is not staffed to schedule mediations,” Lipsitt said. “I have emails from OCR staff confirming that they have no idea when mediations can be scheduled. I have parents that filed complaints in the fall of 2024 that have not even heard from the OCR to schedule an intake call. I was involved in several scheduled OCR mediations in January that were cancelled and parents have heard nothing.”

Lipsitt said she expects that the situation could get tougher for students with disabilities and their families.

“I have told parents to buckle up because the 2025-2026 school year will be the worst since the 1950s,” she said. “School districts will be further emboldened to violate the rights of students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged and minorities knowing the (U.S. Department of Education) has no staff to hold them accountable.”

More changes could be on the way at the federal level. As part of the plan to shutter the Education Department, Trump indicated that he would move special education oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services.

As of late June, Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, said there had been “no efforts” to move special education programs to the health agency. But, when asked this week she deflected.

“We are thrilled to once again have the flexibility and freedom to return education to the states — where it rightfully belongs. Currently, the department is focused on implementing the workforce partnership with the Department of Labor,” Biedermann said, referring to a new partnership with the Labor Department whereby that agency will help administer adult education, family literacy and career and technical education programs for the Education Department. “We look forward to identifying additional strategies to make education programs more efficient and effective for students, families, and taxpayers.”

The push to shift oversight of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to HHS has sparked legal questions and an array of concerns from disability and special education advocates worried about potential impacts on the nation’s 7.5 million special education students.

Just this week, a dozen former Education Department officials who were responsible for overseeing IDEA implementation under Republican and Democratic administrations wrote to Congress urging lawmakers to “maintain the existing statutory authority for ED to oversee all education programs and not eliminate the department or move offices within ED to other departments.” Doing so, is “essential to students with disabilities and all students,” they said.

“It is hard to know what is going on within the department,” said Stephanie Smith Lee who served as director of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs under President George W. Bush and is now co-director of policy and advocacy at the National Down Syndrome Congress. “I am deeply concerned about the administration plan to move the Office of Special Education Programs to HHS. The current law does not allow this move, but other actions have taken place that are not in accordance with current laws, so it is a very real concern.”