In a deeply divided decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump to continue dismantling the Department of Education, granting an emergency request from his administration to pause a lower court’s order that had required the rehiring of up to 1,400 laid-off employees.
The court’s conservative majority issued the ruling without explanation, allowing Trump’s plan to proceed while legal challenges continue. The move follows a similar Supreme Court decision last week that gave the green light to Trump’s broader agenda to slash the size of the federal workforce.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent for the court’s three liberal justices, called the ruling “indefensible” and warned it grants the president unchecked authority to sidestep Congress. “The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive,” she wrote, “but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.”
The legal fight centers on Trump’s March 20 executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all steps necessary to shut down the department, following her earlier announcement that half of its staff would be cut. The decision has triggered lawsuits from a coalition of Democratic-led states and a group of Massachusetts school districts and unions.
“Without explaining to the American people its reasoning, a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have dealt a devastating blow to this nation’s promise of public education for all children,” said Skye Perryman, president of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs.
McMahon, in a statement, defended the court’s ruling, saying it reaffirmed the president’s authority to manage the structure and staffing of executive agencies.
But critics argue the move effectively guts the department. In May, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun ruled that the cuts would “likely cripple the department,” making it incapable of fulfilling its legal obligations. He added that laying off staff, closing regional offices, and transferring programs amounted to dissolving the agency altogether.
“A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” Judge Joun wrote.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to intervene, paving the way for the matter to reach the Supreme Court.
This case adds to a growing list of legal battles over Trump’s efforts to dismantle or weaken agencies created by Congress, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
