WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is abandoning a set of guidance documents and civil-rights enforcement approaches meant to make education more accessible for English learners, Black students and other marginalised students, according to an update scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on October 23. The US departments of Education and Justice said seven documents issued by the two agencies between 2015 and 2023 are “not enforceable” under federal civil-rights laws relating to race, disability and other protections, and some had already been quietly rescinded earlier.
“The Departments will not rely upon these guidance documents in their enforcement of federal civil rights laws, including Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” the notice said. Bloomberg Government reported the same clarification on Thursday, October 22, and said the departments will also reassess guidance from the Obama and Biden administrations that might not align with the Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision on agency interpretations of federal law.
Source: Bloomberg Government — Agencies Review Obama, Biden Education Civil Rights Guidance, Oct. 22, 2026
One overturned document, from 2015 and also rescinded in 2025, set out how school districts should meet their responsibilities to English-learner students: helping families overcome language barriers, staffing English-learner programmes sufficiently, and identifying and assessing such students in a timely manner. It also required districts to enrol all students regardless of their parents' perceived or actual immigration status, to protect students from harassment based on their identity, and to allow students to speak their primary language during the school day.
The other documents include guidance issued after the Supreme Court's 2023 Students for Fair Admissions decision, which overturned race-conscious college admissions and was followed by federal advice encouraging colleges to continue targeted outreach for a diverse applicant pool, and COVID-era documents on race-based discrimination in school discipline and on preventing harassment of Asian American and Pacific Islander students in schools.
The departments said the documents came under scrutiny after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the 2024 Supreme Court decision that overturned the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine giving agencies wide power to interpret statutes. “Each of the guidance documents was issued prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright, which held that agency interpretations must be consistent with the 'single, best meaning' of the statute authorising them,” the departments said in the October notice. The move follows other steps this year reported by the Associated Press, including the Education Department rescinding disparate-impact regulations in July and shutting its Office of English Language Acquisition, its only arm dedicated to English learners and immigrant students.
The notice addresses guidance documents and how the two departments will enforce civil-rights laws. It does not itself rewrite the text of Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the notice names as the laws at issue.