Ruling Allows Education Department to Move Forward with Downsizing, Reorganization Plan

A Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for the Department of Education to continue pursuing its plan to drastically shrink the size of the agency. The Court’s decision also has allowed the Department to move forward with its effort to shift some of its programs to other agencies.  

Although the Court’s ruling gives the Department the flexibility to determine, within statutory limits, its own staffing and program needs while the lawsuit continues, abolishing the agency entirely would still require Congress to act. 

In March, the Department announced that it was reducing its workforce in half firing over 1,300 employees. In response, a group of states sued the Department seeking a halt to the plan, and a lower court issued a preliminary injunction pausing the Trump Administration’s effort to abolish the Department of Education by ordering the agency to reinstate the fired employees and refrain from transferring programs to other agencies.  

In a brief, unsigned ruling, the Supreme Court lifted the injunction issued by the lower court. The procedural decision allows the Department to move ahead with its downsizing and reorganization plan while the litigation continues in the lower court, which will eventually rule on the merits of the underlying legal challenge.  

In the wake of the Court’s ruling, the Department announced this week that it would move forward with its effort to shift the administration of certain programs to other agencies, including moving career and technical education programs to the Department of Labor.