A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday issued an injunction to block President Donald Trump from shutting down the Department of Education and is requiring fired employees to be reinstated.
Note: This story will be updated with future developments.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun delivered a major blow to Linda McMahon’s efforts to “put herself out of a job” by eliminating the agency.
“The record abundantly reveals that Defendants’ true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute,” Joun wrote, adding that “the Department cannot be shut down without Congress’s approval.”
Joun added that the injunction is necessary because “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.”
Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Education Department, told The Hill that the federal agency “will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”
“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,” Biedermann said.
The ruling also challenges Trump’s directive to move student loans and programs for students with disabilities outside the Department of Education.
The decision comes one week after McMahon made a public appearance at the CATO Institute to discuss her plans to lawfully begin restructuring the department and designate K12 funding streams to other federal agencies. She said that dismantling the department wouldn’t effectively end public education.
“We don’t set curriculum,” she said. “We don’t buy books. We don’t hire teachers in states. We don’t do any of those things. We’re really more of a pass-through of funding at this particular point, which I’ve mentioned before, that can pass through other agencies.
“We want to get that money directly to the states as quickly as possible. So let’s take the bureaucracy out of Washington that costs money, and have more money to be able to get to the child.”
