Maryland unions, NAACP sue over Trump plan to dismantle Education Department

Dan Belson, The Baltimore Sun on Mar 24, 2025

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A range of national and local education groups, including the union representing Maryland state employees, sued the U.S. Department of Education on Monday as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to dismantle the agency.

Filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Maryland, the lawsuit seeks for a judge to halt the Trump administration’s plan to gut the department. The plaintiffs include AFSCME Council 3 as well as the Baltimore-based NAACP, the National Education Association, the Prince George’s County Educators Association and two parents with students enrolled in Montgomery County Public Schools.

Trump, who has derided the federal Education Department as wasteful and stated that he desires to shut down the agency entirely, ordered last Thursday for the department to be dismantled as much as legally possible. Eliminating it entirely would most likely require an act of Congress, though last week’s executive order directs the department’s secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate” its closure “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” The department had already initiated a sweeping reduction in force, it said earlier in March, calling the mass layoffs a part of the agency’s “final mission.”

The plaintiffs alleged in their Monday filing that the Trump administration’s actions prevent the department from carrying out functions that are required by law, from compiling education data to supporting students with disabilities and enforcing civil rights laws. It alleges that the department also violated the Constitution by unilaterally canceling $1.5 billion in federal contracts and grants.

AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran, whose union represents 300 public school employees and thousands of workers in Maryland’s higher education system, said in a statement that the Trump administration’s “illegal” moves would be “devastating to our state’s public schools.” He said that the executive branch dismantling the department bypasses Congress, which established the department in 1979, and that federal education funds support union members on a day-to-day basis.

“Without this funding, we lose essential school workers — and our most vulnerable students will pay the price.”

Another group of education groups, unions and school districts filed a similar lawsuit Monday in a federal court in Massachusetts. Both lawsuits seek for a federal judge to declare Trump’s executive order unlawful and legally bar the Education Department from continuing to dismantle the department.

Maryland, where Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, had success in appointing new federal judges, has become a popular venue for lawsuits against the Trump administration. The state’s federal courts have blocked the Trump administration from actions on issues ranging from birthright citizenship to contracts supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

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