On Monday, the U.S Supreme Court said that the Trump administration may proceed with mass firings at the Department of Education by lifting an injunction while litigation proceeds in the courts. Within two hours, the Department of Education sent notices to employees indicating it is immediately resuming its plans to shrink the department.
In an unsigned order, the justices lifted for now a lower court ruling that had indefinitely paused Trump’s plan. The Supreme Court’s decision puts that ruling on hold while the legal challenge plays out. In March, the agency’s workforce was slashed in half, 1,378 employees, in an effort by Trump to ultimately dismantle the agency.
The vote was 6-3 with all the liberal judges dissenting. The conservatives didn’t issue an opinion as is customary in an emergency ruling but Justice Sonia Storomayor wrote a dissent that was joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor, the court’s senior liberal member, said her colleagues had made an “indefensible” decision to let Trump proceed with taking apart an agency that ordinarily can be dismantled only by Congress: “The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave .. The Department is responsible for providing critical funding and services to millions of students and scores of schools across the country. Lifting the District Court’s injunction will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, another civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.”
In March, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the agency, which was created in 1979 when Jimmy Carter was president. However U.S. District Judge Myonmg Juon, serving in Massachusetts, blocked the firings in May, determining that congressional authorization was needed. Juon was appointed by President Joe Biden.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the layoffs would resume, writing in a statement: While today’s ruling is a significant win for students and families, it is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities grant to him by the U.S. Constitution.”
In addition, Trump praised the high court’s decision in a Truth Social post Monday: “The United States Supreme Court has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country, by declaring the Trump Administration may proceed on returning the functions of the Department of Education BACK TO THE STATES. Now, with this GREAT Supreme Court Decision, our Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, may begin this very important process.”
Editorial credit: NLM Photo / Shutterstock.com
