The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) will continue to target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in schools under Title VI despite a court block on its controversial February 14, 2025 anti-DEI Dear Colleague letter. That letter announced the USDE’s policy interpreting Title VI, which protects students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity and national origin, to prohibit DEI programs. It said some schools’ race-based equity programs discriminate against White and Asian students and could result in federal funding loss for school districts.

The USDE had appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October 2025 in an attempt to continue implementing the policy after it was blocked in the lower courts. However, the USDE withdrew its appeal last month and is now exploring other means to implement its anti-DEI efforts. Thus, many suspect that the USDE will take a case-by-case approach to target DEI efforts rather than using the court-blocked policy letter to enact an across-the-board restriction on the programs.

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On February 9, 2026. leading U.S. health official Dr. Mehmet Oz urged people to get inoculated against the measles as outbreaks across several states mount and the U.S. is at risk of losing its measles elimination status. Despite misinformation creating suspicion about the safety and importance of vaccines from his own agency, Oz cited vaccines as “a solution for our problem.”

He also said Medicare and Medicaid will continue to cover the measles vaccine as part of the insurance programs.

An outbreak in South Carolina in the hundreds has surpassed the recorded case count in Texas’ 2025 outbreak, and there is also one on the Utah-Arizona border. Multiple other states have had confirmed cases this year. The outbreaks have mostly impacted children and have come as infectious disease experts warn that rising public distrust of vaccines generally may be contributing to the spread of a disease once declared eradicated by public health officials.

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New federal accessibility rules for web content and mobile apps will start being enforced as early as this April, but recent survey results from the National School Public Relations Association and Sogolytics show many school districts will not be ready to comply. In fact, only 14% of respondents say their school districts have completed or nearly completed updates to ensure digital platforms and their content are accessible as mandated under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Although nearly half of respondents (46%) called digital accessibility a high priority in their school district, almost all cited a lack of staff awareness (97%) and staff expertise and training (95%) as barriers to better digital accessibility.

ADA Title II Regulations Part 35 require nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in state and local government services.

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According to a February 2, 2026 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) spent nearly $1 million per week on salaries for Office of Civil Rights (OCR) enforcement staff it had put on administrative leave beginning in March 2025, paying up to $38 million in total through December 2025. In fact, between March and September 2025, while the majority of OCR staff were on leave due to the agency’s reductions in force, the office received more than 9,000 complaints and resolved a total of 7,072 complaints. It did so by dismissing 90% of them.

OCR was among the offices hit hardest by the USDE’s March reduction in force (RIFs), with more than half of its staff put on administrative leave and seven of of its 12 regional offices closed. Other offices heavily impacted by the agency’s RIFs include the English Language Acquisition office, which was entirely shuttered, as well as the Federal Student Aid office and the Institute of Education Sciences.

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