In a win for parents, students, and states, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-3 in McMahon v. New York to approve a Trump administration emergency request to continue dismantling the Department of Education. The unsigned order pauses a lower court’s preliminary injunction from a Massachusetts federal judge that had blocked the administration from downsizing the department and had ordered some of the 1,378 laid-off employees be reinstated. The decision affirms President Trump’s authority to direct the executive branch and permits Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to follow his March 20 executive order to prepare for the eventual shutdown of the department that would return education back to the states.
The High Court did not explain the decision. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. Since this case was on SCOTUS’ emergency docket, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has not yet had a chance to fully adjudicate the federal government’s appeal. While the First Circuit initially declined to pause the injunction on June 4, its pending decision could either uphold or remove the injunction. Any further appeal based on that decision could return to the case to the Supreme Court for a more final decision.
Secretary McMahon celebrated the decision as “a significant win for students and families.” In a press release, she stated the Supreme Court “confirmed the obvious” that the executive branch “has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies.”
Acting on a campaign promise, President Trump signed Executive Order 14242 aiming to eventually close the Department of Education. The order states the agency “has entrenched the education bureaucracy and sought to convince America that Federal control over education is beneficial.” The order highlights that more than 70 percent of eighth graders are below proficient in reading and math, and that the department’s federal student aid program is about the same size as America’s largest banks managing $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt. The department “does not educate anyone” and the “bureaucracy is not working,” stated the order.
In the case, SCOTUS rejected a challenge by Department of Education employees, involving 19 states, led by New York, as well as the District of Columbia, several teachers’ unions, and two public school districts. The challengers argued that the reductions were politically motivated and violated both the Constitution and the federal laws governing administrative agencies. However, the order from SCOTUS clears the path, for now, for President Trump to act on education agenda free from potential bureaucratic and judicial overreach.
In the emergency request, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the district court overstepped its authority in restricting the executive branch’s discretion to manage its agencies.
“In this case, the district court is attempting to prevent the Department from restructuring its workforce, despite lacking jurisdiction several times over,” wrote SG Sauer.
SG Sauer noted that all the reductions do is eliminate any “discretionary functions that, in the Administration’s view, are better left to the States.”
SG Sauer stated that Congress established the department in 1979 and that the federal government has been “crystal clear” that only Congress can eliminate it.
He wrote that the government needs to “retain sufficient staff to continue fulfilling statutorily mandated functions and has kept the personnel that, in its judgment, are necessary for those tasks.”
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Education belongs to parents and families, not the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered a win for the American people affirming that the President, the head of the executive branch, has the authority to deal with failing agencies. While only Congress can abolish the Department of Education, the federal government can streamline processes that prepares for the return of education back to the states. Parents know what is best for the children and taxpayer resources can be better used to help actual families and children achieve a better education.”
