Challengers of President Donald Trump’s decision to close the U.S. Department of Education asked the U.S. Supreme Court on June 13 to uphold a Massachusetts judge’s order preventing the department’s closure.
Those challenging the decision include 20 states, Washington, D.C. and multiple teachers’ unions and school districts. The filing continues a months-long battle against the Trump administration to determine if the president has the authority to enforce his March executive order, which directed U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to effectively close the department and heavily reduce its workforce without congressional approval. If the Supreme Court allows Trump to enforce his order, the department’s staff will be cut by about half, according to previous reporting by the Texan.
The Trump administration has been prevented from closing the department since Myong Joun, a Massachusetts federal judge, issued an injunction preventing the administration from enforcing the executive order. The order also mandated that the government rehire nearly 1,400 employees in May, stating the order would prevent the department from fulfilling its obligations set by Congress.
The Department of Education has given millions of dollars in grants to the UT College of Education’s low-income public school research and student support. The Department of Education also manages the student loan portfolio and investigates possible civil rights violations in higher education, such as Title IX disputes. In his ruling, Joun said the department’s grant offices would be “effectively abolished or materially impacted” by the cuts to staff.
The Trump administration sought the Supreme Court’s permission to close the department on June 6, despite Joun’s order.
“The Constitution vests the Executive Branch, not district courts, with the authority to make judgments about how many employees are needed to carry out an agency’s statutory functions and whom they should be,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer stated in his filing to the court.
While the case is on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, the court normally finishes issuing decisions at the end of June or in early July, according to the court’s website.
