On May 21, 2025, just four days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, the Trump administration announced that it would rescind federal oversight agreements for local police departments in cities such as Minneapolis and Louisville—agreements designed to address long-standing civil rights abuses. At the same time, the Justice Department declared that prior investigations into several other cities, including Memphis and Phoenix, were being closed, and the findings of unconstitutional policing reversed.

While officials in cities like Minneapolis say they will proceed with reforms regardless of Washington’s stance, the decision represents more than a bureaucratic shift. It is a philosophical rupture: a deliberate turn away from federal responsibility in enforcing civil rights within local law enforcement. And it has deep historical and institutional consequences.

I. A Brief History of Federal Police Oversight

The modern framework for federal oversight of local police departments dates to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, signed by President Clinton in the wake of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles. It introduced what came to be known as consent decrees: legally binding agreements between the Justice Department and local governments, overseen by a federal judge, requiring systemic reforms in departments found to have patterns of constitutional violations.

These consent decrees are not light-touch interventions. They impose mandatory changes in use-of-force policies, training practices, data transparency, and community engagement. They also bring in independent monitors and federal judges to oversee compliance. In theory, they exist to balance two needs: local autonomy and national accountability.

In practice, they have been uneven, sometimes costly, and politically fraught. Yet for cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Cleveland, they have also served as critical tools to force deeply resistant institutions to confront systemic injustice.

In practice, they have been uneven, sometimes costly, and politically fraught. Yet for cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Cleveland, they have also served as critical tools to force deeply resistant institutions to confront systemic injustice.

II. A Political Pendulum

Federal commitment to consent decrees has ebbed and flowed with partisan control of the executive branch. The Obama administration dramatically expanded their use in the wake of high-profile killings of unarmed Black Americans. The first Trump administration moved to limit them in 2017 under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, arguing that such decrees hamstrung police officers and imposed a one-size-fits-all federal template.

The Biden administration reversed course, reopening investigations and entering into new agreements—including in Minneapolis, following the murder of George Floyd, and Louisville, after the police killing of Breonna Taylor. These consent decrees were not yet finalized but represented years of community input, data gathering, and negotiation.

Now, with Trump back in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi has not only halted the process but nullified previous findings. In a statement, civil rights division head Harmeet Dhillon described the decrees as “overbroad” and part of an “anti-police agenda.”

But that framing misrepresents both the legal function and historical intent of oversight. These decrees are not about federal overreach—they are about constitutional compliance. They are used in situations where local mechanisms have failed, often for decades, to ensure equal protection under the law.

III. The Consequences of Retreat

What does it mean to walk away from federal oversight now?

First, it sends a clear message to law enforcement agencies: reform is optional. While mayors like Jacob Frey in Minneapolis have pledged to move forward with reforms regardless of federal backing, the absence of outside pressure—and federal funding—makes implementation more difficult and less durable.

Second, it undermines community trust. For many citizens, particularly in Black and Indigenous communities, the only meaningful attempts to reform policing have come under the weight of federal intervention. Without it, promises of reform can feel like little more than public relations.

Third, it deprives reform-minded police chiefs of leverage. Consent decrees give internal reformers an external mandate. Without that structure, progressive leadership within departments often struggles to push back against entrenched cultures of resistance.

IV. A False Choice: Public Safety vs. Oversight

Supporters of Trump’s rollback argue that local control ensures better policing. But this framing creates a false binary between safety and accountability. The real choice is not between order and oversight—but between law enforcement that protects all citizens equally and law enforcement that erodes its legitimacy through abuse and impunity.

Police reform is not anti-police. In fact, many chiefs and officers across the country have welcomed consent decrees as tools for modernization and professionalization. They provide access to federal resources, technical assistance, and best practices. What they challenge is not policing per se, but unconstitutional policing.

V. An Alternative Path Forward

If federal consent decrees are off the table, what remains?

1. State-level enforcement: States can and should step in. The agreement between the city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota is a promising model, one that bypasses federal retrenchment.
2. Municipal transparency laws: Cities should adopt legally binding rules on data disclosure, civilian oversight, and accountability—even without a federal mandate.
3. Civic coalitions: Community organizations, churches, and civil rights groups must intensify local pressure campaigns, ensuring that reform is not seen as optional but as the political cost of doing business.
4. Federal legislative pressure: Congress can act. Bills like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act should be reintroduced with specific incentives for cities that voluntarily adopt rigorous oversight structures.
5. Public visibility: Media, academia, and civic platforms should keep a spotlight on the reforms—tracking promises, highlighting gaps, and elevating voices from impacted communities.

VI. Toward a Harder Kind of Hope

This is not a time for resignation. Consent decrees are tools, not magic wands. They have succeeded and failed in equal measure. But to abandon them wholesale—to declare them flawed and therefore irrelevant—is to mistake the instrument for the principle.

Accountability is not optional. Justice is not partisan. The legitimacy of policing in a democracy depends not on whether the federal government approves—but on whether the people do.

The struggle for civil rights has never been won from the top down. It has always required persistent bottom-up pressure, grounded in law, sustained by vigilance, and fueled by an insistence on dignity.

We must not look away.

Welcome to the conversation.