Before Trump took office, the Department of Education had 4,133 employees. After the massive layoffs, the department will have less than 2,200 staff.
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The Supreme Court on Monday approved the Education Secretary Linda McMahon to fire half of the department’s staff and transfer some responsibilities to other agencies.
The unsigned single-paragraph order did not explain why the justice decided to overturn the lower-level injunction upheld by the Court of Appeal. However, it does explain that the ban will still be blocked as litigation challenges the department’s massive layoffs. The High Court order is a huge step forward in President Donald Trump’s efforts to demolish the 45-year-old institution.
“Today, the Supreme Court has confirmed this obvious again: the U.S. president, as head of the executive branch, has the ultimate authority to determine the number of personnel, the day-to-day operations of executive organizations and federal agencies,” McMahon said in the decision. Now, the department will “promote efficiency and accountability and ensure that resources are directed to where most important – students, parents and teachers.”
The U.S. Government Employees Federation, which represents the department’s employee federation said the ruling was “very disappointing” and would allow the Trump administration to continue its “anti-democracy” plan, which is “inconsistent”[ed] with the Constitution. ” AFGE Local 252 President Sheria Smith added that just because McMahon can remove the department does not mean she has to do so.
“Let’s make it clear that despite the decision, the Department of Education has a choice – the choice to provide critical services to the American people and reject the political agenda. The agency does not have to continue to take such a ruthless act of eliminating services and ending dedicated workers,” Smith wrote.
The initial ruling of the Maryland District Court judge demanded that McMahon recover more than 2,000 employees fired in March. (As of July 8, 527 of the employees have found other jobs.)
Advocates of higher education policy and layoff staff warn that the department is already working to keep up with the overload of civil rights complaints and financial aid applications. They say that with half of the workforce, it is almost impossible to perform these statutory duties.
In addition to layoffs, subordinate orders prevent McMahon from executing Trump’s executive order to close the department “at the maximum extent that the law is appropriate and permitted.” Department officials later revealed in court documents that the order blocked plans to raise funds for the vocational and technical education programs from the Department of Labor.
The department reached an agreement on the CTE plan in May, but none of them publicly expressed any comments on it. CTE advocates fear that putting Labor in charge of about $2.7 billion in grants could seed chaos and reduce the quality of these secondary and junior college careers secondary school programs. Others see the transition as the beginning of the end of the education sector. Democrats in Congress oppose the plan, which can now move forward.
Education policy experts issued an alert after news of the Supreme Court order fell on Monday and raised questions in the absence of explanation.
“The president can’t shut down Fiat, but Congress and Scotus can certainly promote it,” Dominique Baker, associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, wrote on the Blues.
Daniel Collier, assistant professor of higher education at the University of Memphis, also asked: “Do I believe in the minority that all SCOTUS rulings should have a detailed and written basis, and is it no exception?”
The Supreme Court orders included the harsh dissent of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan competed. Sotomayor noted that the department plays a “critical role” in the country’s education system by “maintaining equal access” and allocating billions of dollars in federal funds. She knew this, adding: “Only Congress has the right to abolish the department.”
“When executives publicly declare their intention to violate the law and then fulfill that promise, it is the responsibility of the judiciary to check for such violations rather than speed it up,” Sotomayor wrote. “Two lower courts have initially banned mass shootings while the lawsuit is still ongoing. However, the court now intervenes to lift the injunction and allow the government to revoke the department. The decision is unpredictable.”
But others say the Supreme Court made the right call.
“There is nothing unconstitutional in the executive branch trying to enforce the law with fewer people, and that’s what the Trump administration is doing,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom in the Cato College, a liberal think tank. Internal Advanced ED today. He said if the Trump administration wants to unilaterally eliminate the Department of Education, he said: “It will fire everyone. Not only does it do so, but administration members say that the department’s Congress must be eliminated eventually.”
