The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the country.

A commuter walks past the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Eduction, which were ordered closed for the day for what officials described as security reasons amid large-scale layoffs, Wednesday, March 12,

A coalition of Democratic-led states is challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping layoffs across the Department, saying it amounts to an illegal dismantling of an agency created by Congress. In a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Massachusetts,

Around 3,000 people work in the department's Washington headquarters, and about 1,000 are in 10 regional offices across the country.

The Education Department plans to lay off more than 1,300 of its employees as part of an effort to halve the organization’s staff -- a prelude to President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency.