Education Secretary Linda McMahon had an embarrassing showing Tuesday during a Senate hearing, repeatedly giving incorrect information about her agency.
Democrats grilled McMahon during an appropriations subcommittee hearing about her agency’s budget request. The Education Department has taken a major hit in President Donald Trump’s second term, as both he and McMahon have vowed to shut down the department and “return education to the states.” The agency’s overall budget reduces funding for the department by $4 billion, to nearly $76 billion.
In particular, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pushed McMahon about funding for the department’s Office of Civil Rights, which handles allegations of discrimination in public schools.
OCR has long been understaffed and struggled to manage its caseload. The office inherited 12,000 pending cases when Trump was sworn in last year. Trump’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce hit the Education Department especially hard — as conservatives have amped up efforts to dismantle the department — and more than half of the OCR staff lost their jobs. Between March and September 2025, OCR received 9,000 complaints, 7,000 of which were dismissed without a resolution.
