Reduction in force guts OCR while anti-trans directed investigations expand

ED announced a reduction in force of roughly 1,300 employees and closed seven of OCR's twelve regional offices, cutting the office's capacity to process the ~22,700 ordinary discrimination complaints it receives annually - even as it added self-initiated gender-identity investigations. Former OCR head Catherine Lhamon described the remainder as "a shell that can't function." The asymmetry (mass complaint attrition alongside resource-intensive directed investigations of trans-inclusive districts) is itself probative of enforcement priorities (see section 8).