Huffington Post: The Trump Administration Is Trying To Roll Back Civil Rights With This Unusual Agency
June 16. 2025
Senior Attorney Kel O’Hara is featured in a Huffington Post article about the Trump Administration’s attempts to make harmful changes to Title IX through an inappropriate backdoor process with the Department of Energy:
“The really concerning part from my perspective is that this could essentially provide a blueprint for dismantling civil rights protections across the board,” Kel O’Hara, senior attorney for policy and education equity at Equal Rights Advocates, told HuffPost.
“This is not a minor or non-controversial change,” O’Hara said about the proposed changes to Title IX, noting that a new rule could affect transgender athletes in addition to opportunities for cisgender women and girls.
“This is continuing to reinforce the same stereotypes and narratives that are behind the trans sports ban,” they added
A rule like this would go through the Education Department, O’Hara said. But Trump has sought to shutter that department entirely and laid off significant numbers of its staff. The department’s Office for Civil Rights has already halted thousands of investigations into complaints and closed half of its civil rights enforcement offices.
“Part of what I see happening is this sense of overwhelm — there’s so much happening that it’s hard to follow. [The Trump administration] is trying to put these things through back doors which makes it hard for the people who normally keep an eye on these things to catch it,” O’Hara said.
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