The U.S. Department of Education told previously sidelined Office for Civil Rights employees to return to duty to address a growing backlog of discrimination complaints. The department said staff would refocus on OCR’s caseload after litigation over earlier planned layoffs left many employees on administrative leave; the office had a backlog of roughly 20,000 cases when the Trump administration took office and that figure has climbed above 25,000. Department officials said the move does not foreclose future workforce reductions and that they will continue to contest related litigation; unions criticized the pause and said sidelining staff wasted taxpayer dollars while enforcement suffered.