A federal judge Thursday blocked President Trump from dismantling the Department of Education and ordered the reinstatement of thousands of federal workers fired in waves of mass layoffs.
District Court Judge Myong Joun ruled that only Congress can eliminate of the DOE, which assists students with special needs, enforces civil rights laws and manages federal student loan programs among other functions.
“Irreparable harm (would) result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations,” Joun wrote in a sharply worded 86-page ruling.
The judge, who was appointed by former President Biden, said the layoffs of DOE workers amount to far more than a crackdown on waste as the administration has claimed.
“The idea that defendants’ actions are merely a ‘reorganization’ is plainly not true,” he wrote. “(They) will likely cripple the department.”
The court also reversed for now Trump’s push to move management of student loan programs worth $1.7 trillion to the Small Business Administration.
The ruling marks a setback to Trump, who has repeatedly vowed to eliminate the DOE. The administration will likely appeal Joun’s decision to a higher court and eventually to the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.
Joun’s order granted a request for a temporary block on Trump’s actions from the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts and the American Federation of Teachers, along with other education groups.
In their lawsuit, the groups said the layoffs amounted to an illegal shutdown of the Education Department. They said it left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress.
“The court rightly rejected one of the administration’s very first illegal, and consequential, acts: abolishing the federal role in education,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said of the ruling.
Joun ordered the Education Department to reinstate up to 2,000 federal workers, or about half its total staff, who were fired as part of a March 11 Trump announcement.
The Trump administration says the layoffs were carried out as part of the effort spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cut costs and head counts across the federal government, and are not part of the effort to dismantle the agency.
Trump concedes that Congress must act to eliminate the DOE, the government said, and conceded that restructuring the agency “may impact certain services until the reorganization is finished.”
