The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling on Monday allowing President Donald Trump’s Department of Education to resume efforts to slash its workforce in half.
The decision reverses a lower court ruling ordering the reinstatement of Department of Education employees cut loose in mass layoffs, and ultimately allows Education Secretary Linda McMahon to continue her mission of winding down the department.
The Department of Education announced in March that it was reducing its workforce by half in an effort to streamline the department and cut down on unnecessary bureaucracy.
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Before the cuts, the Department of Education had 4,133 total staff, a number senior department officials said “exist[ed] largely to oversee contractors, add strings, and in many cases do duplicative efforts across the department.” Senior department officials said at the time the cuts would not impact student aid, the rollout of FAFSA by October 1, funding for special-needs students, Civil Rights investigations, and other functions statutorily mandated by Congress.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun blocked the department’s downsizing effort in May, ruling that the administration needed congressional authorization. Joun ordered the department to reinstate approximately 1,400 workers who had been terminated.
The majority did not issue an opinion to accompany the order, which is not out of the ordinary. However, the court’s three liberal-leaning justices dissented, decrying the ruling as “indefensible.”
“It hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave,” penned Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
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The Supreme Court’s ruling lifts Joun’s injunction as litigation plays out in lower courts, meaning the case could return before the High Court.
McMahon applauded the ruling as a “significant win for students and families.”
“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement. “While today’s ruling is a significant win for students and families, it is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution.”
“The U.S. Department of Education will now deliver on its mandate to restore excellence in American education. We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most — to students, parents, and teachers,” she continued. “As we return education to the states, this Administration will continue to perform all statutory duties while empowering families and teachers by reducing education bureaucracy.”
The order is the latest in a string of victories for the Trump administration, as the Supreme Court has recently sought to rein in rampant nationwide injunctions from lower judges, and just days ago, justices greenlighted the administration’s plans to more broadly downsize the federal workforce.
President Trump has ultimately said he wants to see the Department of Education abolished and more power sent back to states and communities, and he has quipped that he wants McMahon “to put herself out of a job.” The 45th and 47th president signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the department; however, officially ending the department would take an act of Congress since it was Congress who created it 45 years ago under President Jimmy Carter.
The case is McMahon v. New York, No. 24A1203 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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