ProPublica filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Education Department for refusing to release records about civil rights investigations, after the department failed to respond to four FOIA requests filed over the past year. Under Secretary Linda McMahon, the Office for Civil Rights has cut staff from 568 to 403 people and closed seven of 12 regional offices, while the backlog of open discrimination complaints has doubled to nearly 24,000 cases, with new complaints often dismissed without investigation. The lawsuit argues that the office has shifted its enforcement focus away from racial harassment and toward antisemitism and transgender athlete cases, marking a significant deprioritization of traditional civil rights enforcement. The public interest is substantial given that these changes affect approximately 49.6 million U.S. students and their families.