WASHINGTON — The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
The Supreme Court on Monday lifted an injunction against the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the Department of Education.
The move allows the administration to proceed, for now, with mass firings that slashed nearly half of the agency’s workforce in March as well as other actions, such as shifting management of the federal student loan portfolio.
A federal judge in Massachusetts had barred the administration from moving forward, rejecting the administration’s argument that the steps were aimed at efficiency rather than effectively carrying out President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to shutter the agency, something that would require congressional approval.
Legal challenges continue in the lower courts against the Trump education orders.
The Supreme Court’s majority didn’t explain its decision. The three liberal justices opposed the order, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing in dissent.
“The Department is responsible for providing critical funding and services to millions of students and scores of schools across the country. Lifting the District Court’s injunction will unleash 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,” Sotomayor wrote.
“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,” Sotomayor added.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon celebrated the decision, saying the agency will carry out its reduction in workforce and ongoing efforts to return education to the states.
“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 McMahon called the ruling a victory, she said it was 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.”
National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues blasted the Supreme Court’s decision in a statement.
“The Supreme Court chose politics over the Constitution and, in doing so, put millions of American students at risk,” Rodrigues said. “This ruling gives the green light to an outrageous and unlawful power grab by President Trump, who is attempting to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education without any action from Congress.”
National Education Association President Becky Pringle said, “Everyone who cares about America’s students and public schools should be appalled by the Supreme Court’s premature intervention in this case today.”
Several former Department of Education staffers impacted by the reduction in force and Monday’s Supreme Court decision said they’re heartbroken.
Rachel Gittleman, formerly of the agency’s ombudsman’s office in the Federal Student Aid office, told ABC News she’s feeling a lot of “heartbreak,” “rage,” and “sadness.”
“We care about the work, we care about the people that we serve, and we believe in government,” Gittleman said in a phone interview. “I wanted to help people, and I believe the federal government is one tool to help people in this country.”
Débora Menieur Núñez also lost her job through the agency’s RIF this spring, but she had been refreshing the Supreme Court’s homepage in hopes there was a way forward to return to a life of civil service.
“It is very heartbreaking,” Núñez wrote in a statement to ABC News, adding, “I joined the civil service to build a career in service of others, to be part of the workforce making way for all students to have access to quality education.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to grant the administration’s emergency request is another win, albeit a temporary one, for Trump’s efforts to overhaul the federal government.
Last week, the nation’s high court lifted a preliminary injunction to let Trump move forward with an executive order mandating a restructure of federal agencies and mass layoffs of federal workers.
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