Bluesky

In June, the Trump administration announced plans to effectively transfer two core functions of the Department of Education to other agencies, putting Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of special-education services and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in charge of the DOE’s civil-rights arm. Advocates had anticipated the moves after Trump signed a 2025 executive order calling for the elimination of the DOE, a goal of Project 2025, but that didn’t make the news any less disturbing, particularly in light of Kennedy’s previous comments about autistic people. At a news conference in April 2025, the health secretary declared autism an “epidemic,” stating that autistic people will “never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date.” Doubling down on his fearmongering rhetoric, he promised to find an environmental cause for the rise in autism diagnoses—although years of research have already concluded that there are multiple causes for the increase. Kennedy’s HHS counts among its contractors David Geier, an anti-vaccine activist who was brought on to investigate a link between vaccines and autism—a theory that has been disproven. Geier is known for having created, with his father, a hormone-blocking regimen that would allegedly cure autism, a treatment that has been debunked as junk science.

Yet Education Secretary Linda McMahon has asked Kennedy to administer the DOE’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), which supports programs for people with disabilities of all ages. “This is someone who has an idea that disabilities are so disastrous, life-ending, that someone with a disability like autism may as well be written off completely. That’s not really someone we want in charge of special education,” Zoe Gross, of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, told The Nation.

McMahon has also handed over civil-rights investigations within the DOE agency responsible for protecting students from discrimination based on their disability, race, national origin, sex, or age to Blanche’s Justice Department, which two days later issued a memo that has advocates concerned about a return to the mass institutionalization of people who rely on home- and community-based care, particularly in light of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years. Gross also noted that the Department of Justice’s civil-rights division under the helm of Harmeet K. Dhillon has cut back on the number of cases it is pursuing related to enforcement of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

McMahon claims that the DOE needs these changes “to break down the bureaucratic barriers and strengthen the coordination of resources to improve programs.” But according to Stephanie Smith Lee, a codirector of policy and advocacy at the National Down Syndrome Congress, moving not just these two offices, but all of the offices that are being transferred to other agencies, “is going to make it so much more difficult for states when they try to get guidance, when they try to figure out how to get their money” to fund different services.

Lee, who served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs (a unit within OSERS) under President George W. Bush, added that the DOE layoffs that occurred in the first three months of Trump’s second term also aggravate this situation. “Keeping these offices in the Department of Education with the remaining staff—who understand special education, rehabilitative services, the discrimination cases, and can more easily talk to each other—makes a lot more sense.”

A broad coalition of some 700 local, state, and national organizations is urging Congress to stop Trump’s cronies and preserve the DOE, as are a number of former DOE officials who together oversaw nearly 40 years of special education under Republican and Democratic administrations. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is leading an effort that would block RFK Jr. from overseeing special-education programs. The senator recently spoke out against Trump’s attempts to liquidate the DOE, saying, “He’s treated the Department of Education as if it’s a going-out-of-business sale of a discount furniture outlet.” Some House Democrats, led by Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), have also called for McMahon’s impeachment.

Advocates say that whether or not these efforts succeed, it’s crucial to remember that the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act is still the law of the land. “Students with disabilities still have the right to a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment,” Lee said. “If [the change announced by McMahon] goes forward, it could be reversed after the November election if the Democrats take control of the House and the Senate.” But either way, she added, “I don’t think we can ever give up on doing the best we can for these students.”