On Thursday, a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon from carrying out Trump's executive order calling for the secretary to close the Education Department.
The judge also told the administration to reinstate the roughly 1,300 Education Department employees who were told in March that they would lose their jobs as part of a sweeping reduction-in-force and "to restore the Department to the status quo."
In his ruling, District Court Judge Myong J. Joun wrote, "A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all. This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department's employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself."
Joun also barred Trump from following through on a pledge he made in the Oval Office to move management of the entire federal student loan portfolio and the department's "special needs" programs to other federal agencies.
In a statement, Madi Biedermann, the department's deputy assistant secretary for communications, wrote: "Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people."
While the administration had argued in court that its reductions were intended to make the department more efficient, Joun wrote that he saw "no evidence that the [reduction-in-force] has actually made the Department more efficient. Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite."
What's more, Joun wrote, the Trump administration had likely violated the separation of powers by taking actions that conflicted with its "duties to take care to faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress, as well as its duties to expend funds that Congress has authorized it to appropriate."
When President Trump took office, the U.S. Department of Education had 4,133 employees, according to the administration's own numbers.
The reduction-in-force, announced on March 11, terminated the roles of more than 1,300 employees. At the same time, nearly 600 more had chosen to leave by resigning or retiring.
That left roughly 2,180 remaining staff – roughly half the department's size in January.
Among the duties the plaintiffs argued the department could no longer faithfully execute was the management of the federal student loan portfolio, including making sure colleges and universities comply with federal funding requirements and that student loan servicers meet their contractual obligations to serve borrowers.
The case is the consolidation of two separate cases, each brought in March in response to the administration's sweeping moves to shrink and eventually close the Education Department. The plaintiffs include 20 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), two school districts and other unions.
AFT President Randi Weingarten cheered the ruling, saying in a statement: "This decision is a first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity. For America to build a brighter future, we must all take more responsibility, not less, for the success of our children."
The department's Biedermann said, "We will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis."
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