Nearly half a century after the first federal civil rights laws in education were enacted,
the national aspiration for equity in education remains unfulfilled. This is not just a
moral issue, but an economic one as well, offering a clear mandate to move forward
aggressively to enforce civil rights laws and pursue the ideals of equity at the heart
of the American dream. This report documents the breadth of the work performed
by the roughly 600 attorneys, investigators and support staff of the U.S. Department
of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) during fiscal years 2009 through 2012.