Supreme Court allows Trump to restart mass layoffs at education department

New Delhi,UPDATED: Jul 15, 2025 01:56 IST

The US Supreme Court on Monday gave the Trump administration the green light to resume layoffs of over 1,300 employees at the Department of Education and press forward with a controversial plan to dismantle the agency altogether.

In an unsigned order, the justices lifted a lower court’s block on the firings, enabling President Donald Trump to push ahead with one of his boldest efforts to shrink the federal government and shift power over education back to the states.

“This will likely cripple the department,” warned US District Judge Myong Joun of Boston in a previous ruling, which reinstated nearly 1,400 laid-off employees and froze the administration’s attempts to redistribute the department’s responsibilities to other federal agencies.

That ruling was backed by a federal appeals court, but the Supreme Court, in a 6–3 decision with the three liberal justices dissenting, paused the order, clearing the way for the White House to continue winding down the department.

The layoffs and departmental shutdown have been opposed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general, school districts, and education unions. In court filings, they argued that the administration’s actions risk undermining key federal education duties, such as enforcing civil rights, managing student loans, and supporting students with disabilities.

“Trump’s shutdown efforts threatened to impair the department’s ability to perform its core duties,” the plaintiffs warned.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said it’s a “shame” it took the Supreme Court’s intervention to let Trump’s plan move ahead.

“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 organisation, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement.

The Department of Education, established by Congress in 1979, does not dictate curriculum or classroom instruction—those powers are left to states and localities, which provide the lion’s share of school funding. But it plays a critical role in distributing aid to needy schools, ensuring compliance with federal education law, and collecting national data on student achievement.

On Monday, more than 20 states also sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs and more. Education Department employees who were targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff.

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