A district judge on Thursday blocked President Trump’s executive order calling for the closure of the Department of Education as well as against the reduction in force that laid off half of the agency’s workers.
The ruling is a blow to Trump’s efforts to eliminate the department and the quick actions taken by Education Secretary Linda McMahon to make that campaign pledge a reality.
The plaintiffs “have provided an in-depth look into how the massive reduction in staff has made it effectively impossible for the Department to carry out its statutorily mandated functions,” District Judge Myong Joun said.
Joun ordered the department to reinstate the hundreds of employees who were fired after Trump took office.
Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Education Department, said the federal agency “will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”
“Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people,” Biedermann said.
“President Trump and the Senate-confirmed Secretary of Education clearly have the authority to make decisions about agency reorganization efforts, not an unelected Judge with a political axe to grind. This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families,” she added.
The ruling also stifles Trump’s directive to move student loans and programs for students with disabilities outside the Department of Education.
McMahon has insisted the dismantling of the Education Department will follow the law.
The Trump administration is expected to file an appeal to the ruling as McMahon has insisted the dismantling of the Education Department will follow the law.
“I think [Trump] was correct in saying that we were going to do everything legally. That’s what he has said to me from the very beginning,” McMahon said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Special Report” with Bret Baier.
In his ruling, Joun wrote the plaintiffs have demonstrated irreparable harm with school districts having delays in their federal funding and the layoffs resulted in the “practical elimination” of the essential offices in the Federal Student Aid office.
“The Department’s actions have directly impacted the FAFSA system and risk its functionality,” he wrote.
The lawsuit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), along with other education groups.
“Today, the court rightly rejected one of the administration’s very first illegal, and consequential, acts: abolishing the federal role in education. This decision is a first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity,” said Randi Weingarten, president of AFT.
“For America to build a brighter future, we must all take more responsibility, not less, for the success of our children,” Weingarten added.
Only an act of Congress can definitively shut down the Education Department, but Trump and McMahon are seeking to reduce its size and scope as much as possible while also calling on lawmakers to eliminate it entirely.
—Updated at 11:52 a.m. EDT
