The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department has withdrawn from, closed or sought to end more than 36 cases of discrimination involving Black, Latino and Native American victims, Democracy Forward reported.
The Washington, D.C.-based legal organization recently released two reports that follow the trend: “Walking Away: DOJ’s Abandonment of Civil Rights Cases for People of Color,” and “Filling in The Gaps: Tracking The 50+ School Desegregation Cases DOJ Says it Is Ending.”
The reports were produced as part of Red Line for Civil Rights, an accountability and oversight committee within Democracy Forward. The project so far has found that since Jan. 20, 2025, the DOJ Civil Rights Division has shut down or tried to squash voting rights lawsuits, longstanding school desegregation cases, challenges to discriminatory firefighter and police hiring tests and race-motivated investigations into Black and Native American residents.
The agency also has eliminated cases primarily involving people of color even when the focus was not specifically on racial discrimination, according to the “Walking Away” report.
One case involved a lawsuit the federal government filed against South Bend, Ind., in 2024 alleging that police hiring exams illegally screened out female and Black candidates. “On February 26, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed DOJ to dismiss the case.”
A number of cases involved some form of economic redlining, including a 2023 settlement between DOJ and the Alabama Department of Public Health and Lowndes County Health Department requiring basic sanitation services to be extended to a predominantly Black community. DOJ dropped the agreement in April 2025.
DOJ also withdrew its involvement in a lawsuit by a Hispanic civil rights group against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claiming Black and Latino voting strength has been diluted by redrawn congressional maps.
“At the same time,” the report notes, “DOJ has shifted its focus to alleged discrimination against white people and to dismantling efforts to expand equal opportunity for people of color.”
“We have identified 56 school districts in 12 states where DOJ has sought to withdraw from or end a desegregation case or did not oppose ending one.”
The project’s “Filling in The Gaps” found DOJ has dismissed more than 50 school desegregation cases and has done so secretively and without identifying most of the districts involved. Nor has the department explained “whether the school districts had fully complied with the court orders to end unlawful segregation or say whether a judge approved each dismissal.”
In response, Red Line for Civil Rights began its own investigation using court documents. “So far, we have identified 56 school districts in 12 states where DOJ has sought to withdraw from or end a desegregation case or did not oppose ending one, including five school districts where DOJ jointly moved to close the case after its September 2026 announcement.”
In addition, the study found the DOJ under President Donald Trump joined with no fewer than 18 school districts attempting to dismiss cases without consent of the courts. In some districts released from settlement agreements, racial discrimination increased once oversight ended.
The federal government’s actions undermine Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated schools are unconstitutional.
“These school desegregation cases are how the promise of Brown reaches individual classrooms. Behind each of these cases are children, families and a community that fought, sometimes at great personal risk, for the right to an equal education,” the report says.
“The shameful withdrawal of DOJ resources from these cases and investigations highlights how this administration is abandoning communities across the country,” said Megan Marks, deputy director of Red Line for Civil Rights. “Walking away from them doesn’t mean the discrimination has been addressed. It just means DOJ is no longer watching.”