Office for Civil Rights (U.S. Department of Education)

Have ready

• your name and address, and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours if you can give one (the page says the number is not required)
• the name of the school or district, and its city and state
• a description of what happened, in enough detail for OCR to understand what occurred, when it occurred, and the basis for the alleged discrimination
• if the student is over 18: the student's written consent, which the page says you must get when you file for them

They can

• take a complaint about discrimination at a school or school system that gets federal Department of Education money, because of race, color, national origin, sex, disability or age
• include, under race, color and national origin, discrimination based on actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, including membership in a religion that may be perceived to exhibit such characteristics (the page names Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh people as examples)
• take a complaint from anyone: the person filing does not have to be the one who was harmed
• take a complaint without you using the school's own grievance process first: the page says the law does not require it
• look at a complaint that a school punished someone for complaining: the page says a school that gets federal money may not retaliate, and you may file with OCR if you think it did
• take a complaint online, by email to ocr@ed.gov, or by mail or fax, using OCR's form or your own signed letter

They cannot

• reach a private school that gets no federal Department of Education money: the page says the laws it enforces cover programs that receive that money, which include all public schools