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.

  • johsny@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    16 hours ago

    And I’m sitting here in a third world “shithole” country, looking at all this and shaking my head.

    • PlaidBaron@lemmy.world
      12·
      11 hours ago

      Which country? I live in Canada and have had angry Americans explain that we live in a socialist hellhole with no rights and a poor quality of life.

      Which was an interesting take since Ive lived in both countries and my life here is way the fuck better than it was down there.

      They live in a delusion down there.

      • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
        7·
        10 hours ago

        Which was an interesting take since Ive lived in both countries and my life here is way the fuck better than it was down there

        Can also confirm. I lived in the US for ~25 years before moving, Canada is so much better. Though I do think we could be even more of a “socialist hellhole” up here

        • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
          2·
          6 hours ago

          The short days in winter. Get up in the dark, watch the beautiful six hours of sunlight through a grimy office window, go home in the dark, damp, cold soggy rainy windy weather that passes for winter these days.

        • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.caEnglish
          5·
          9 hours ago

          It’s a big country friend! We’re all over the place for weather!

          While true we do have a reputation as a frozen wasteland, we have all sorts of weather! For instance in the Maritimes you can get a frozen wet wasteland with the occasional hurricane! The prairie provinces are frozen windy wastelands! And the perennial favorite of BC is a dreary wet wasteland!

          Still wouldn’t want to live anywhere else though.

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
            2·
            5 hours ago

            I grew up in Cleveland, on Lake Erie, directly across from Toronto, so I am very familiar with that brand of weather. Years ago I moved to Florida, which was amazing until the MAGAs fucked it up. It’s still beautiful, but a lot of the people, and the entire state government, suck.