WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday accelerated its dismantling of the Education Department, delegating much of its work to protect the nation's at-risk students.
The Department of Justice will take on enforcement of civil rights in education, while the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education, administration officials announced. With those moves, the Education Department has now carved away the vast majority of its functions for other agencies to handle.
The two Education Department offices involved — the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and the Office for Civil Rights — defend the rights of children with disabilities and those who experience discrimination based on race, sex or religion. Advocates worry the change could mean lapses in communication for families and school officials who need help.
Trump, a Republican, campaigned on shutting down the Education Department, saying he would “move education back to the states where it belongs.” While only Congress can close the department, Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, a billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has formed agreements with other federal agencies to handle much of her department’s work.
McMahon said the agreements align federal responsibilities with the agencies best positioned to support them.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: as we scale back federal micromanagement when it hinders success, we are equally committed to bolstering the efficacy of federal oversight where it is essential,” McMahon said in a written statement.
Advocates said the changes would create uncertainty around services relied upon by millions of students and families.
“As is too often the case, traditionally underserved students — including students with disabilities, Black and Latino students, multilingual learners, students from low-income backgrounds, and students in rural communities — will bear the greatest burden created by this reckless decision, to which the disability and civil rights communities have already been vehemently opposed,” said a written statement from EdTrust, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for educational equity.
The Education Department already has offloaded some of its programs through 10 earlier internal agreements, but the offices affected by Tuesday’s announcement were among the most closely watched.
The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services manages billions of dollars in grants and oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The Office for Civil Rights, which has been thinned by mass layoffs, investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.
The Department of Justice also will take over work protecting student privacy and will provide some training and advisory help to schools.
While Justice and Health and Human Services will handle over most day-to-day duties of the assigned offices, the Education Department will continue to perform some tasks, such as responding to audits and issuing final determinations in civil rights cases, which it is explicitly required to do by law.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the announcement Tuesday was a political one intended to fulfill the president's campaign promise. The changes, he said, will likely widen inequities for students of color and students with disabilities.
The agreements are scattering education programs to agencies that do not have the expertise to manage them, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
“Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education,” Murray said in a written statement.
Rachel Gittleman, president of the union that represents department employees, said the moves will create chaos for families, students and schools.
“This will leave our most vulnerable students and families who have been shut out of our education system without the services they need and without protection when they face discrimination,” Gittleman said in a written statement.
The transfer of special education to Health and Human Services most alarmed disability advocates, who say oversight of whether schools are adequately serving children with disabilities is best handled by education experts — not medical experts.
“The IDEA is intended to equip students as they learn alongside their peers, not cure them — the HHS is not prepared to oversee and administer the IDEA program effectively. Health and education systems speak in entirely different languages, including variations in terminology, training and disciplines," said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity.
The Education Department said McMahon spent over six months in listening sessions with families, advocates and educators to better understand concerns around how the department's dismantling could affect special education. Many families raised concerns about obstacles to obtaining proper services for their children, but Coco said participants in those sessions were united in their opposition to moving special education oversight out of the Education Department.
“I think we agree on the problem,” Coco said. “We have stark disagreement on the solution and these transfers today don’t feel like a solution to that problem.”
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE - The U.S. Department of Education building is seen in Washington, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) — Their red jerseys stood out against the green pitch. Most were teenage girls. Some had fled war. Others had never played in an organized soccer league or set foot in a major stadium before.
Yet when they took the field at Larbi Zaouli Stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, they marked Sudan’s first appearance in international women’s soccer since a civil war erupted in a country where women’s participation in sports has long been controversial.
“My goal is to lift up soccer in my country,” Nura Mohamed, the 17-year-old team captain, told The Associated Press.
“It’s a beautiful, unique feeling because, at the end of the day, I just love playing.”
Sudan’s under-17 women’s national team traveled to Morocco last week for qualifying matches on the road to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The inexperienced squad suffered heavy defeats against Comoros, conceding 30 goals in two matches. Many of the players broke down in tears after the final whistle in front of a dozen cheering fans.
They faced an older, fitter, and more experienced opponent. Unable to assemble a senior women’s squad in time, Sudan’s soccer federation entered a younger team to avoid forfeiting its place in the qualifiers. They only started training weeks ago.
“The difference between us and the others is huge. We cannot yet compete at the highest level," Burhan Tia, a veteran Sudanese soccer coach who oversees all of Sudan’s women’s national teams, said after the first match, a 17–0 defeat.
“Comoros has many players competing in Europe, our team is mainly made up of schoolgirls."
Sudan’s women’s soccer collapsed when civil war erupted in 2023. For federation officials, debuting this young squad in Casablanca after years of conflict marks an important step in keeping women's soccer alive in Sudan.
“Some traveled long distances just to attend training. Many are separated from their families, yet they continue to work hard and pursue their dream," Manal Ali Bushra, a businesswoman who heads the women’s soccer committee, told the AP.
To support that vision, Ali Bushra said the federation is working on infrastructure projects, including a planned sports city and the renovation of key stadiums in safer parts of the country. She declined to answer questions about the women’s program budget and funds.
Tia knew the magnitude of the challenge when he accepted the job of rebuilding a shattered team.
“First, I had to find girls who played soccer. Then, once I found girls who played, I had to make sure they were the right age,” he said. “Then I needed to convince their parents to let them miss classes for training.”
With the league suspended, his scouting trips took him to schools across Sudan and to neighboring Egypt, where many families had fled the war. He recruited 10 players from teams and academies in Cairo, with the rest drawn from Sudanese cities.
Tia would have liked to recruit from conflict-hit areas like Darfur or Kordofan, a region known for producing Sudan’s top athletes. But many girls had lost their identification documents, making it impossible to verify their ages under international regulations. The war has also shattered transportation, turning journeys between cities that once took hours into perilous trips lasting days.
On the field, the players’ lack of experience was evident. Several struggled with basic positioning, failing to hold the offside line or maintain tactical discipline. Throughout the matches, they repeatedly looked to the sidelines for instructions from the coach and his assistant.
The United Nations has described the war in Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It began in 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into fighting marked by mass killings, rape and ethnic violence. More than 40,000 people have been killed, according to U.N. figures, and over 14 million have been displaced, with famine and disease spreading across parts of the country.
The war halted every sports activity, including the women’s soccer league, which was officially established after the 2019 progressive revolution that ousted President Omar al-Bashir. His three-decade Islamist rule was marked by Public Order Laws that rights groups said restricted women’s freedoms. Even after the revolution, prominent Sudanese preacher Abdulhay Yousif said the establishment of a women’s football league was aimed at undermining religion.
“The idea of women running, jumping, sweating, and even something as simple as their bodies being visible in motion, was seen by Bashir’s Islamist regime as producing fitna, which in a Sudanese context was understood as sexual or moral chaos,” Liv Tønnessen, a political scientist researching gender politics in Sudan, told the AP.
“So when women step onto a soccer pitch, they are directly confronting that entire logic. They are not just present in a male-dominated sports arena, they are moving freely in it, on their own terms,” Tønnessen, a former guest researcher in a women-only university in Sudan, added.
Beyond institutional hurdles, players also faced a wave of sexist abuse online. On the national team’s social media accounts, many commenters mocked them for big defeats. Others posted the phrase “go back to the kitchen,” in multiple languages.
While Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s military government has allowed international soccer trips for teenage girls, the U.N. has documented sexual and gender-based violence by the Sudanese Armed Forces, which he commands.
Tønnessen sees the state backing as a calculated effort by the military to project legitimacy. By sponsoring the team, she said, the army attempts to signal that the state is functioning normally and to align itself with the spirit of the 2019 revolution.
Hala Al-Karib, a prominent Sudanese women’s rights activist, dismissed critics who say the team is being used to portray a more progressive image on women’s rights.
“The main challenge for me is a reform of the federation,” she told the AP, citing a lack of investment in and support for women’s soccer in Sudan.
Back on the field in Casablanca, the politics, war and debate faded away, leaving only a group of teenagers chasing a ball.
Sudan's U-17 women's national team, left, shakes hand with Comorros women's national team, ahead of their soccer match during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team players sing the national anthem before a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team, in red, plays a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team players, in red, defend the ball during a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team warms up before a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
