The federal Education Department is asking hundreds of staffers in the Office for Civil Rights to temporarily return to help clear a backlog of cases.

Facing a backlog of school discrimination cases, the U.S. Department of Education has asked hundreds of employees it fired months ago to temporarily return to work.

A Dec. 5 email obtained by USA TODAY shows the agency ordered a significant portion of staffers in the Office for Civil Rights to come back later this month. In the “return to duty” directive, officials acknowledged they’re facing a sizable caseload of civil rights complaints, and they underscored a need to utilize every resource at the government’s disposal to work through them.

The agency said the request applies to roughly 250 workers who’ve been on administrative leave for months amid legal challenges to their March firings. Julie Hartman, the Education Department’s press secretary for legal affairs, stressed there still aren’t any plans to fully rehire those workers permanently.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
    22·
    15 hours ago

    It says they are on administrative leave. So they do technically still work there is some quasi state. I assume the order would force them to come back or quit. Which is probably the point.