A new 112-page report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) concludes that the federal agencies responsible for combating discrimination in the United States have been drastically weakened during President Donald Trump's second term. Key bodies including the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have shed the majority of their staff through layoffs and resignations, while top-down directives have sharply redirected priorities away from traditional civil rights enforcement toward issues such as religious liberty and challenges to diversity programmes. The practical consequences are already visible: the Education Department's civil rights office dismissed roughly 90 percent of the nearly 10,000 complaints it received between May and September 2025, and the Office of Fair Housing saw its staff fall from 31 to just 11, with 115 referrals to the Justice Department shelved — leaving many victims of discrimination without federal recourse.