Supreme Court Backs Trump On Major Cuts To U.S. Education Department

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to resume the gutting of the U.S. Department of Education. This dismantling goes hand in hand with his larger plan to shrink the federal government’s role in education in favor of more control by the states, a la Project 2025.

In yet another high court win for Trump, the justices lifted a federal judge’s order that had reinstated nearly 1,400 workers affected by mass layoffs at the department and blocked the administration from transferring key functions to other federal agencies.

A legal challenge is continuing to play out in lower courts, but it deals a serious blow to the states and schools districts who had filed suit and who worry that, without an injunction, much of the damage done to the department before a final ruling will be impossible to reverse.

This week’s ruling was set in motion back in May, when U.S. District Court Judge Myong J. Joun issued a preliminary injunction, blocking President Trump and McMahon from carrying out an executive order calling for the total closure of the Education Department.

Joun also ordered the administration “to restore the Department to the status quo” and, more specifically, to rehire the hundreds of employees who were told in March they would lose their jobs.

“A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” Joun wrote in May. “This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”

In slightly worrisome news, the court’s decision to allow Trump to continue the gutting of the Department of Education was unsigned, and the majority did not explain its thinking on the vote, as is customary in emergency appeals.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor did offer a notable dissent, saying the decision is “indefensible” and that “it hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. 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.”

Meanwhile, in a press release, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon was thrilled with the decision while simultaneously criticizing the checks and balances of the U.S. government that have been in place for literally hundreds of years.

“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 granted to him by the U.S. Constitution,” she said.

In a statement later Monday evening on Truth Social, Trump celebrated the Supreme Court’s order, which marked the latest in a string of emergency decisions by the high court that have been favorable to Trump.

“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,” Trump wrote.

National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues blasted the Supreme Court’s decision in a statement.

“The Supreme Court chose politics over the Constitution and, in doing so, put millions of American students at risk,” Rodrigues said. “This ruling gives the green light to an outrageous and unlawful power grab by President Trump, who is attempting to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education without any action from Congress.”

National Education Association President Becky Pringle said, “Everyone who cares about America’s students and public schools should be appalled by the Supreme Court’s premature intervention in this case today.”

This is yet another example of the Supreme Court handing Trump a victory in his effort to remake the federal government, after lower courts have found the administration’s actions probably violate federal law.

Last week, the justices gave the go-ahead for Trump’s plan to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce. On the education front, the high court has previously allowed cuts in teacher-training grants to go forward.

But no one is going down without a fight. More than 20 states sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs, and more.