SSA Acting Commissioner Dudek dissolved the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, placing 140 employees on administrative leave

On February 25, 2025, the Social Security Administration dissolved its Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (OCREO) and placed all 140 of its employees on administrative leave. Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek announced the closure on the same day SSA also shuttered its Office of Transformation, the unit responsible for the agency's digital modernization efforts. Dudek framed the decisions as consistent with President Trump's federal workforce reduction directive, saying the move "advances the President's goal to make all of government more efficient."

The OCREO performed functions Congress required the agency to maintain under federal employment law. The office processed Equal Employment Opportunity complaints from SSA's workforce — allegations of workplace discrimination and harassment — and handled reasonable-accommodation requests from employees with disabilities, both statutory obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Dudek claimed these functions would be transferred elsewhere within SSA, but provided no specifics on where or how the transition would be managed.

The closure accompanied SSA's announcement that it intended to eliminate roughly 7,000 positions agency-wide — a reduction of more than one-third of the workforce. The civil rights office was not an optional or redundant function; it existed because federal law required it. Dissolving it by administrative directive, without legislation, rulemaking, or public notice, eliminated a congressionally mandated accountability mechanism from one of the federal government's largest public-facing agencies, which serves tens of millions of Americans through retirement, disability, and survivor benefits programs.