A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday blocked the Trump administration’s attempted dismantling of the Department of Education.
Judge Myong Joun, a Biden appointee, blocked the Trump administration from carrying out its reduction-in-force, or RIF, at the Education Department, which was announced on March 11. Joun also blocked transferring the management of federal student loans and special education functions out of the Education Department.
All fired federal employees from the department must be reinstated as well.
Two lawsuits were brought against the Education Department and were consolidated in this case: a number of states who had sued and some local school districts from around the country.
“Indeed, prior to the RIF, the Department was already struggling to meet its goals, so it is only reasonable to expect that an RIF of this magnitude will likely cripple the Department. The idea that Defendants’ actions are merely a ‘reorganization’ is plainly not true,” Joun wrote in his decision.
“Defendants do acknowledge, as they must, that the Department cannot be shut down without Congress’s approval, yet they simultaneously claim that their legislative goals (obtaining Congressional approval to shut down the Department) are distinct from their administrative goals (improving efficiency),” Joun wrote.
“There is nothing in the record to support these contradictory positions,” Joun wrote. “Not only is there no evidence that Defendants are pursuing a ‘legislative goal’ or otherwise working with Congress to reach a resolution, but there is also no evidence that the RIF has actually made the Department more efficient. Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.”
Randi Weingarten, the president of the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement after the ruling that it is the “first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity.”
President Trump had long set his sights on dismantling the Department of Education, saying when he nominated Linda McMahon to head the department that he hoped she would “put herself out of a job.” In February, the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, slashed nearly $1 billion in funding from the department and terminated dozens of contracts and grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
After McMahon was confirmed by the Senate in March, she sent a letter to the department titled “Our Department’s Final Mission,” saying Mr. Trump had “tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education — a momentous final mission — quickly and responsibly.”
Mr. Trump said in March that “hopefully she will be the last secretary of education.”
