During the spring 2026 quarter, the Youth and Education Law Project (YELP) released a report titled “Strengthening Civil Rights Enforcement in California Schools: A Call for Sacramento to Fill the Gap Created by Washington D.C.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was formerly the place most families went with complaints of discrimination or harassment in public schools. After the OCR was effectively dismantled in early 2025, YELP began working with a statewide coalition of educational advocates to identify solutions for civil rights enforcement in California schools. Together with the coalition, YELP students created this report. See related post by partner organization, Disability Rights California.

This report points to California’s primary educational complaint mechanism, the Uniform Complaint Procedures (UCP), managed by the California Department of Education (CDE), as a solution to California’s civil rights enforcement gap. The report argues that an increase in funding, staffing, and legal training to the UCP is necessary to fill this gap. Furthermore, the report describes how the CDE could improve data analysis efforts and promote interagency collaboration on civil rights enforcement. 

In May, YELP’s Associate Director, Abigail Trillin took students to Sacramento to advocate for California to improve state-level enforcement of civil rights in educational spaces along with a coalition member from Disability Rights California, Conrad Crump.

The report is published here. 

Student Team: Aasim Yahya (JD ‘27), Meghan Gilmore (JD ‘27)