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The Trump administration came into office with a mission: undo what it saw as stifling overreach of the previous administration.

In the U.S. Department of Education, that work started quickly and continued steadily for four years. Under the leadership of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the agency rescinded several consequential pieces of civil-rights guidance鈥攄ocuments that are meant to nudge educational institutions into certain actions, but do not carry the force of law. Civil rights activists say these actions had a disparate impact on historically disenfranchised students.

The department also scaled back on sweeping civil rights investigations, boasting that it was able to clear a backlog of cases and bring resolution to families 鈥渋nstead of seeing every case as an opportunity to advance a political agenda,鈥� in the words of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who was appointed by President Trump.

The administration also proposed trimming funding to the office for civil rights, a request that Congress would ignore, and struck a strong stance for religious freedom; DeVos lauded a U.S. Supreme Court decision this year that said it鈥檚 unconstitutional to keep families from using state tax-credit scholarships to pay for tuition at religious schools.

Under a new administration, civil rights activists want to see a dramatic U-turn from the past four years. But it鈥檚 more than just bringing back some of the guidance from the Obama administration, they say: The coronavirus pandemic has deepened inequities between student groups and the Black Lives Matter protest has brought historical attention to these disparities. Civil rights advocates say the department has a role to play in addressing those issues.

Though the incoming administration still has not announced its picks for Education Secretary or for the assistant secretary who would oversee civil rights enforcement鈥攂oth positions are subject to Senate approval鈥擝iden鈥檚 nominations for other positions is heartening, said Catherine E. Lhamon, who served as assistant secretary for civil rights from 2013 to 2016.

鈥淭hat gives me hope that someone that he picks will center students and families in the heart of any decision making,鈥� Lhamon said. 鈥淯nfortunately, in the past four years, all we saw was blatant efforts to dodge civil rights under the law.鈥�

Those who supported the Trump administration鈥檚 actions seem resigned that some of the policies will be revised under new leadership. For example, the Trump administration rolled back guidance that said school discipline policies could violate civil rights if they have a 鈥渄isparate impact鈥� on students of color, even if the policies were written without discriminatory intent.

That guidance came in for fierce criticism after a 2018 school shooting in Broward County, Fla., that left 17 dead. Critics said that the guidance had made schools wary of suspending or expelling students like the troubled student behind the crime. A state commission found that the district鈥檚 discipline policy was not to blame for the shooting, but that it needed to be improved.

The Trump administration took an 鈥渁ppropriate and mindful step鈥� in rolling back that guidance after touring the country and listening to educators, said Jonathan Butcher, a senior education policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.

鈥淣o one wants any child to be sanctioned or disciplined for the color of their skin, but they looked at what the Obama administration had been advocating for and said it did create a quota system, and it took the emphasis off of looking at the behavior of students.鈥�

Nevertheless, Butcher said, 鈥渋t does sound like this is something that will be revisited.鈥�

Here are other issues where civil rights activists are looking to see change in the next four years:

The Civil Rights Data Collection

The Civil Rights data collection, conducted every two years and encapsulating data from all of the nation鈥檚 public schools, offers one of the deepest looks at the state of public education. The Education Department said it will delay the data collection that would cover the 2019-20 school year because of the coronavirus pandemic. But even before this announcement, some were concerned that the data has been messy and thus hard to use for guiding policy or underpinning litigation by advocates.

鈥淭here鈥檚 very little accountability for failing to report these data,鈥� particularly around school policing and arrests, said Daniel Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, part of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. One of his analyses found 60 percent of districts were reporting no school-based arrests at all to the CRDC.

The Trump administration also wants to collect new information about documented incidents of sexual violence committed by and against school staff, as well as new data on religiously related harassment and bullying in schools. At the same time, it wants-to stop collecting information on preschool enrollment and discipline by race.

鈥淭he CRDC is our main collection of data on early-childhood and preschool discipline. In fact, in one of the more recent reports prior to the Trump administration, one of the big pieces of news was that there was disproportionality in suspensions in preschool,鈥� said Russell Skiba, a professor in counseling and educational psychology at Indiana University-Bloomington. 鈥淚t was certainly one of the most striking things to take out any data about suspension and expulsion at this point, but especially to take out disaggregated data.鈥�

Transgender Students

The same month that DeVos was confirmed, the Education Department rescinded guidance from the Obama administration that said schools must allow students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity.

That policy is another one likely to be taken up early in a Biden administration, said Francisco Negr贸n, the chief legal officer for the National School Boards Association. Since that guidance was rolled back, there has been a Supreme Court case that speaks to that issue: Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., where the court held that firing someone for being gay or transgender is a civil rights violation. Further, the court said that discriminating against someone for being gay or transgender is a form of sex discrimination鈥攖he very issue the Obama administration addressed in its transgender guidance.

The Trump administration has said that the Bostock case doesn鈥檛 apply to Title IX, the federal law that forbids students from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities. A new administration will likely take on that issue, particularly in the area of allowing transgender students to participate in sports activities matching their gender identity, Negr贸n said.

Desegregation

The Trump administration rolled back Obama-era guidance that aimed to help schools determine how they could legally use race in efforts to promote school integration. The guidance, like all guidance, does not have the force of law. But following the suggestions in the guidance offers a roadmap for school districts that may want to take on that work, and pulling it back had a chilling impact, say advocates who want to see that guidance come back.

Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the progressive think tank Century Foundation, recently co-authored a report taking a look at the state of voluntary and mandated desegregation programs nationwide. The report found that 185 districts had active voluntary desegregation policies, and a quarter of those were implemented in the past four years, even without federal guidance or support.

But that should not be seen as a reason for the federal government to withdraw any guidance or support on the topic, she said.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 great to see it鈥檚 possible to make local progress on this,鈥� Potter said. 鈥淏ut there鈥檚 part of this data that shows how much more impact we could have on integration if you had some federal focus on it.鈥�

Case Processing

Behind the scenes, the Education Department tried to make some changes to how it processed civil rights complaints. The goal was to make it easier to dismiss complaints from those who filed multiple, similar charges. Such cases represented a drain on the department鈥檚 resources, said the office for civil rights.

The department reversed itself on that action, after facing lawsuits from advocates who argued that the department had an obligation to investigate all complaints with merit. But it鈥檚 still not investigating cases with vigor, said Eve Hill, a former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department. Instead, investigators are trying to get quick fixes to complaints, rather than enter into agreements that require monitoring.

This is particularly important for complaints related to website accessibility. Once schools shifted to online learning, the fact that some web tools are inaccessible for students with disabilities became an acute problem, she said.

鈥淭hose schools were not prepared to make their online learning accessible. That鈥檚 a big enforcement issue,鈥� Hill said. 鈥淚t would have been a great thing for guidance to have been written on this.鈥�

Other Issues for Enforcement

While the department鈥檚 focus on rolling back Obama administration policies often made headlines in education circles, what drew less attention were policies that remained on the books but were not actively enforced, Hill said.

For example, in 2014, in a rare show of bipartisanship, Congress passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. That act includes regulations meant to steer youths and adults with disabilities to jobs where they work alongside people who do not have disabilities, making typical wages. This contrasts with 鈥渨orkshop鈥� situations where adults earn less than minimum wage.

That law is overseen by the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which is a part of the Education Department, but very little work has taken place on helping schools develop stronger transition programs for students so that they鈥檙e prepared for employment, Hill said.

Negr贸n said that the NSBA would like to see the Biden administration appoint a 鈥渟pecial presidential task force on public school transformation and equity鈥� that could address these issues and many others. Jill Biden, a community college professor and the incoming first lady, could be well positioned to lead such a panel, which could also address issues such as digital learning and teacher training.

鈥淚t鈥檚 time we have that level of focus,鈥� Negr贸n said.