Four months after President Trump ordered his government to begin winding down the Education Department, a split Supreme Court has cleared the way for almost 40% of the personnel to be let go.
On Monday, the justices seemed to vote 6-3 to withdraw the injunction that a federal court in Boston had given in May, which had prevented the firings. The judge’s ruling said that the agency will be unable to fulfill its Congressionally-mandated responsibilities due to the severe workforce reductions. In addition, he claimed that Trump seemed to be planning to dismantle the Education Department altogether, which would be illegal without legislative approval, which would explain the mass firings.
In March, Trump issued an executive order instructing the education secretary to “facilitate” the department’s dissolution, fulfilling a campaign promise he made to eliminate the agency. The government, however, has argued in court that the department is not being intended to be abolished in its whole and that the layoffs at issue here are just intended to increase efficiency.
In a 19-page dissent, the three liberal justices of the high court accused the conservative majority of favoring the Trump administration when evaluating emergency cases, while the majority of the court did not provide a rationale for its decision.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the Judiciary should not speed up lawlessness when the Executive publicly states its purpose to disobey the law and then follows through on that promise.
While praising the decision as “a significant win for students and families,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon expressed her disappointment that the nation’s top court had to intervene to enable President Trump to implement the reforms that Americans elected him to accomplish within the bounds of the constitutional powers.
