The Supreme Court agreed on Monday that the Trump administration can proceed with dismantling the Education Department by firing more than a thousand workers, The New York Times and NBC News report.
Earlier this year, the administration announced that it would fire more than 1,300 workers, out of approximately 4,000, at the federal education department. That would effectively strip the department “down to the plywood,” as challengers argued in their court filing. The department manages federal student loans, tracks student achievement, and enforces civil rights laws in schools.
The actual shuttering of the department would require an act of Congress, but firing so many employees as to create a skeleton staff would severely limit the department’s effectiveness in serving its mission.
In addition to overseeing college loans, Pell grants, and other entitlement funding, the US Education Department also helps fund programs to support students with disabilities and for students living in poverty. Importantly, the department also enforces civil rights laws designed to prevent discrimination based on race or sex in schools that receive federal funds.
The decision was delivered without a vote count or signed opinion, as is typical for emergency applications, which is what this was. However, three justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan — joined a dissent written by Justice Sotomayor.
The decision, she wrote, would have severe consequences for the country’s students by unleashing “untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.”
But Education Secretary Linda McMahon cheered the decision, pledging to “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 added that the administration would “return education to the states,” but would “continue to perform all statutory duties” while “reducing education bureaucracy.”
