Judge Blocks Dismantling Of Education Department, Orders Fired Workers Back

A federal judge issued an injunction Thursday blocking the Trump administration from dismantling the Education Department and ordered that fired employees be allowed to come back to work.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Massachusetts ruled that the administration was trying to illegally shut down the department without Congress’s approval.

“The record abundantly reveals that Defendants’ true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute,” Joun wrote.

“The supporting declarations of former Department employees, educational institutions, unions, and educators paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations,” the judge wrote.

Joun also said that prior to the mass layoffs, the department was “already struggling to meet its goals,” so more reductions would “likely cripple” it.

The ruling came after two lawsuits, one filed by a pair of Massachusetts school districts and the American Federation of Teachers union, and the other filed by 21 Democratic attorneys general.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order dismantling the Department of Education, following through on a key campaign promise to strengthen parental rights and improve academic outcomes across the country.

Trump’s order directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States and local communities.”

However, the order also told McMahon to “ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Also, any programs still receiving Department of Education funds will “terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology.”

Frustration with public schools reached a boiling point over the last several years. During the pandemic, parents pleaded with schools to open the classrooms and stop requiring face masks on children. After COVID, parents complained of crippling learning loss, schools hiding children’s gender identity changes, and teachers pushing controversial ideologies like Critical Race Theory.

“Everybody knows it’s right. The Democrats know it’s right,” Trump said just before signing the order. “We’re going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs, and this is a very popular thing to do, but much more importantly, it’s a common sense thing to do, and it’s going to work. Absolutely, it’s going to work.”

Trump said the United States has “two stats you don’t want — the most money spent per pupil, and you’re at the bottom of the list, and that’s where we are, like it or not, and we’ve been there for a long time.”