The Federal Watchdog for Disabled Students Was Dismantled. NY-23 Schools Kept Restraining Them. Langworthy Pledged to 'Protect Critical Support Systems.'

Disability & Education Source: Facebook Post (AAPD meeting) + Press Appearance (Elmira) CONTRADICTION

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On May 18, 2026, Rep. Langworthy told disability advocates he would “keep working to protect critical support systems… for disabled Americans.” In the same window, the federal office that investigates the abuse of disabled students collapsed — and NY-23 schools were restraining and secluding disabled children at rising rates. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) dismissed roughly 90% of complaints, closed its New York regional office, and reached zero resolution agreements on 172 pending restraint-and-seclusion cases nationally. Langworthy — who sits on the Oversight Committee, endorsed devolving the Department, and declined to cosponsor the bipartisan bills to fund special education and curb restraint — has said nothing about any of it.

Why This Matters for NY-23

NY-23’s rural districts educate disabled students largely through regional BOCES programs, and families here have the fewest private legal resources to enforce their children’s rights when a school restrains or secludes them. The federal backstop for those families is OCR. When OCR stops answering — and the member who pledged to protect them stays silent — there is no one left to call.

The Statements

Source: Facebook post following an AAPD (American Association of People with Disabilities) meeting, May 18, 2026

“I’ll keep working to protect critical support systems and improve opportunities for disabled Americans.”

Source: Press appearance in Elmira (Chemung County) with Education Secretary Linda McMahon, January 9, 2026

“In New York State… we have a State Department of Education that governs our education here in New York plenty. So as long as we can continue to provide the important federal funds to our local districts, streamlining this and bringing it closer to home is really, really important.”

What Happened: The Federal Watchdog Collapsed

In 2025–26, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — the agency that enforces the rights of students with disabilities — was gutted:

  • ~90% of complaints dismissed. Of 7,072 complaints resolved between March 11 and September 23, 2025, 6,353 were dismissed; only 635 of 9,269 complaints (6.9%) were opened for investigation (GAO-26-108320, Jan. 29, 2026).
  • Half the offices closed — including New York’s. OCR closed 7 of its 12 regional offices, among them the New York (Region II) office, whose ~350 open investigations were absorbed by an already-overloaded Metro DC office.
  • $28–38 million was paid to OCR staff placed on administrative leave and barred from working (GAO).
  • Restraint and seclusion: 172 pending cases, zero resolutions. The Senate HELP Committee’s April 2026 “Justice Denied” report found OCR reached 0 resolution agreements on the 172 pending restraint-and-seclusion cases in 2025, and just 1 agreement on 595 pending disability-harassment cases. Total enforceable agreements fell to 112 in 2025, down from 507 in 2024 (–78%) — a 12-year low. New York is one of the five states with the most pending OCR cases: per the report’s Figure 2, New York had 627 pending cases and just 1 resolution agreement in 2025 (its total across all discrimination types).

In plain language: The federal office that is supposed to investigate when a disabled child is restrained or secluded stopped doing so — dismissing the overwhelming majority of complaints, closing the office that served New York, and resolving none of the restraint cases on its desk.

What It Looks Like in NY-23

This is not abstract. The Department of Education’s own Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC, 2021–22 — the most recent released) shows restraint and seclusion of disabled (IDEA) students concentrated in NY-23’s regional programs:

  • Cattaraugus-Allegany-Erie-Wyoming BOCES restrained or secluded 55 disabled students 474 times in a single year — an average of 8.6 times per child — up from 54 instances the year before.
  • Schuyler-Steuben-Chemung-Tioga-Allegany BOCES — a program covering five NY-23 counties — reported 73 instances.
  • Erie 1 BOCES: 271 instances on 15 students (18× per child). Gowanda, Eden, Bath, Randolph, and Jamestown districts all reported incidents; Jamestown City schools also carry an open OCR complaint.
  • Across Western New York, restraint-and-seclusion instances rose +267% in one year (348 → 1,278).

In plain language: In the same years OCR was being dismantled, NY-23’s schools were restraining disabled children more often, not less — and the office that would investigate it was being shut down.

The district-level analysis of this data is documented by The Public Ledgers; the underlying counts are from the Department of Education’s public CRDC.

Langworthy’s Record

Against that backdrop, the record of what Langworthy did — and did not — do:

  1. He endorsed devolving the Department of Education. Standing with Secretary McMahon in Elmira (Jan. 9, 2026), he called “streamlining this and bringing it closer to home… really, really important” — even as the Department’s civil-rights enforcement for disabled students was collapsing.
  2. He declined to cosponsor the bipartisan IDEA Full Funding Act (H.R. 2598), which would ramp special-education funding to the 40% federal commitment Congress has never met. It has 167 cosponsors, including 13 Republicans — among them three fellow New York Republicans: Lawler (NY-17), Garbarino (NY-2), and LaLota (NY-1). Langworthy is not among them.
  3. He declined to cosponsor the Keeping All Students Safe Act (H.R. 6617), which would restrict the restraint and seclusion of students.
  4. He voted for OBBBA (Roll Call 190, July 3, 2025), which cut the Medicaid that reimburses school-based special-education services — a “critical support system” for disabled students.
  5. He has said nothing about the OCR collapse, the closure of New York’s OCR office, the GAO report, or the Senate HELP Committee’s restraint-and-seclusion finding — despite sitting on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whose explicit job is overseeing the operations of executive-branch agencies like OCR.

Context

In fairness to the record:

  • Langworthy is not an abolitionist on the Department of Education. He did not cosponsor the bill to terminate it (H.R. 899), which his NY colleague Rep. Tenney did. His stated position is the softer “devolve and streamline.”
  • He did not cast a floor vote to gut OCR. The OCR layoffs and office closures were executive-branch actions (reductions in force), not a Langworthy vote — and those reductions were paused and partly rescinded in January 2026, after a year in which the dismissals, the office closures, and the unresolved restraint cases had already accrued. The FY2026 funding he did vote for (Roll Call 45, Jan. 22, and Roll Call 53, Feb. 3, 2026) was a bipartisan omnibus that funded OCR and IDEA at roughly flat levels.

The accountability question is therefore not “did he vote to dismantle OCR.” It is: with the federal protection for disabled students visibly collapsing, NY-23 children being restrained, a seat on the very committee charged with oversight, and a public pledge to “protect critical support systems” for disabled Americans — why the silence, and why decline the bipartisan bills that would actually fund and protect them?

Overall Verdict: CONTRADICTION

Rep. Langworthy’s stated commitment to “protect critical support systems… for disabled Americans” conflicts with his documented choices: endorsing the devolution of the Department of Education as its civil-rights enforcement collapsed, voting to cut the Medicaid that funds school-based special education, declining the bipartisan IDEA Full Funding Act and restraint-and-seclusion bills his own party’s New York members cosponsored, and remaining silent — from an oversight seat — while disabled NY-23 students were restrained and the office meant to protect them was shut down. This extends the documented disability-rights contradiction first recorded in the May 18 AAPD entry.

Questions This Raises

  1. Langworthy sits on the Oversight Committee. Will he ask why OCR dismissed ~90% of complaints, closed New York’s office, and resolved none of its 172 restraint-and-seclusion cases?
  2. Three fellow New York Republicans cosponsored the IDEA Full Funding Act. Why won’t he?
  3. He pledged to protect disabled Americans’ “critical support systems.” Does that include the federal office that investigates the restraint and seclusion of disabled children — and if so, what has he done about its collapse?

Sources

The enforcement collapse (primary):

NY-23 incidence (primary):

  • U.S. Department of Education: Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), 2021–22 — restraint/seclusion of IDEA students by district/school (Cattaraugus-Allegany-Erie-Wyoming BOCES 474/55; Schuyler-Steuben-Chemung-Tioga-Allegany BOCES 73; Erie 1 BOCES 271/15)
  • The Public Ledgers: district-level restraint-and-seclusion analysis (NY congressional-district map) — [link to be added on publication]

Langworthy’s record (primary):

Note: This entry documents publicly available information from Government Accountability Office and congressional records, the Department of Education’s own Civil Rights Data Collection, House roll-call votes, and bill cosponsor records. It makes no allegation of unlawful conduct. The restraint-and-seclusion counts are school-reported to the Department of Education and are subject to documented undercounting.

Last updated: June 14, 2026