Justices allow mass layoffs at Education Department

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Jul 14, 2025

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The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to start mass layoffs at the Department of Education Monday, lifting a lower court order that paused the layoffs while a challenge played out.

The unsigned, unexplained order from the justices Monday lifted a May order from Judge Myong J. Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts that paused the administration’s plans to lay off more than 1,000 employees as part of an attempted shutdown of the Education Department.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon praised the decision in a statement Monday, saying it recognized President Donald Trump as “the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies.”

“We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most — to students, parents, and teachers. As we return education to the states, this Administration will continue to perform all statutory duties while empowering families and teachers by reducing education bureaucracy,” McMahon’s statement said.

The case is separate from one last week, when the Supreme Court allowed the administration to move forward on government mass layoff plans in general as a result of a separate executive order.

Monday’s case stems from Trump’s March executive order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities” in which he directed the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”

A coalition of employee unions and Democratic attorneys general challenged the efforts to carry out the order in court, arguing that the firings and other moves violated federal law by hampering the department’s ability to carry out its legal obligations. Joun agreed in May and enjoined the Trump administration’s firings while the case played out.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction and the administration asked the Supreme Court to weigh in — ultimately resulting in Monday’s order.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from Monday’s order and criticized the majority for allowing Trump to disregard federal law when “President Trump has made clear that he intends to close the Department without Congress’s involvement.”

“When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Sotomayor wrote.

Sotomayor wrote that the effect of Monday’s decision allowed the president to ignore federal law by firing the people responsible for carrying out that law.

“It hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave,” Sotomayor wrote.

The case is Linda McMahon, secretary of Education, et al. v. New York et al.

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