On June 16, 2026, the Department of Education (ED) announced four new interagency agreements with the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS). As with previous interagency agreements, ED states that they are “designed to reduce federal bureaucracy and improve the efficient delivery of federally funded programs and activities to better support students and families.”
Background
On March 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the secretary of education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
Because the administration cannot officially close ED without congressional action, it has turned to interagency agreements to transfer some of ED’s functions to other federal agencies. This announcement follows ten previously announced interagency agreements.
Interagency Agreements
The four newest agreements include:
- A Special Education and Rehabilitative Services Partnership with ED and HHS (fact sheet)
- A Civil Rights Partnership with ED and DOJ (fact sheet)
- A Student Privacy Protection Partnership with ED and DOJ (fact sheet)
- A Training and Advisory Services Partnership with ED and DOJ (fact sheet)
Notably, the Civil Rights Partnership fact sheet states that ED and DOJ are “exercising all available statutory authorities to establish a more effective and efficient civil rights enforcement protocol” to “(1) reinforce and strengthen respective enforcement processes and procedures to ensure vigorous enforcement of laws; (2) increase cross agency administrative alignment of civil rights enforcement policies and programmatic requirements; and (3) provide process improvements by leveraging the expertise and capacity of both agencies to provide aggressive and focused civil rights expert oversight of America’s education institutions.”
The fact sheet also notes that discrimination complaints will continue to be filed with ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and that OCR retains the authority to “investigate complaints of discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age.”
CUPA-HR will continue to monitor for developments and keep members apprised of any future actions stemming from this announcement.