WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Education Department and ordered the agency to reinstate employees who were fired in mass layoffs. The administration said it would challenge the ruling.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from carrying out plans announced in March that sought to work toward Trump’s goal to shut down the department. It marks a setback to one of the Republican president’s campaign promises.
The ruling came in two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump’s plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department.
One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other suit was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general, include Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey.
The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws.
“Today’s injunction is yet another in a series of wins that demonstrate the Trump Administration is not above the law,” Frey said Thursday afternoon. “My colleagues and I will not stand by while our nation’s foundation is gutted and services that Mainers rely upon are destroyed.”
In his order, Joun said the plaintiffs painted 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.”
Layoffs of that scale, he added, “will likely cripple the Department. The idea that Defendants’ actions are merely a ‘reorganization’ is plainly not true.”
Hours later, the Trump administration appealed the ruling.
“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,” spokesperson Madi Biedermann said in a statement.
Joun ordered the Education Department to reinstate federal workers who were terminated as part of the March 11 layoff announcement.
That announcement led to the firing of about 1,300 people. Some Education Department employees have left through buyout offers and the termination of probationary employees, which combined with the layoffs have reduced the staff to roughly half the 4,100 the department had when Trump took office.
“Today’s order means that the Trump administration’s disastrous mass firings of career civil servants are blocked while this wildly disruptive and unlawful agency action is litigated,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represents plaintiffs in the Somerville case.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the decision “a first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity.”
The administration has said the layoffs are aimed at efficiency, not a department shutdown. Trump has called for the closure of the agency but recognizes it must be carried out by Congress, the government said.
The administration said restructuring the agency “may impact certain services until the reorganization is finished” but it’s committed to fulfilling its statutory requirements.
Story by Collin Binkley, Associated Press. BDN reporter Leela Stockley contributed to this report.
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