Many of the office’s cases over the decades have served as a catalyst for broader policy change and social reforms.

With a mass email sharing what it called “difficult news,” the U.S. Department of Education has eroded one of its own key duties, abolishing more than half of the offices that investigate civil rights complaints from students and their families.

Since President Trump took office, staffing at the Education Department has been cut in half, and he has been mulling an executive order to close the agency.