Donald Trump has hailed a court ruling greenlighting 1,300 job cuts at the Department of Education as a “major victory” for parents and students that will allow him to press on with shuttering the department completely.
Trump took to Truth Social to thank the Supreme Court for its “GREAT” ruling after it overruled a lower court injunction issued by a federal judge in May that had paused his staff cuts. Those cuts are part of the president’s plan to gut the education department and return its functions back to individual states, with no federal funding.
The department, which enforces civil rights in schools, supports students with disabilities and handles students loans among its duties, has been in MAGA crosshairs all year but Trump did not have the power to shut it himself. Because an act of Congress established the Department of Education in 1979, the same process must be followed to dismantle it.
There is still a legal challenge in the lower courts against Trump’s plans, but the president and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are forging ahead with abolishing the department that she leads.
In March, McMahon, a former WWE CEO, called out “radical anti-American ideology” in schools and said, “We must start thinking about our final mission at the department as an overhaul—a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great."
On Monday, Trump posted: “The United States Supreme Court has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country, by declaring the Trump Administration may proceed on returning the functions of the Department of Education BACK TO THE STATES. Now, with this GREAT Supreme Court Decision, our Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, may begin this very important process.
“The Federal Government has been running our Education System into the ground, but we are going to turn it all around by giving the Power back to the PEOPLE. America’s Students will be the best, brightest, and most Highly Educated anywhere in the World.”
McMahon now has the power to cut more staff and outsource DEO functions to other federal agencies. CNN reported DEO staff started receiving emails two hours after the court decision, notifying them they would lose their jobs on Aug. 1.
In a statement McMahon said, it was a “shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution.”
Moving forward, McMahon is cutting seven of the 12 offices of the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights, while the Treasury Department is expected to take over federal student loans—a debt which is set at $1.6 trillion.
In a statement, DNC Chair Ken Martin criticized the attacks on the Department of Education.
“Donald Trump handpicked radical, out-of-touch Supreme Court justices to clear the path for his reckless agenda and today they delivered another blow to the millions of American families who rely on public education,” Martin said.
Martin added, “Trump and his billionaire donor Secretary of Education Linda McMahon have made it crystal clear they don’t give a damn about America’s public school students. Defunding public schools won’t make America smarter or stronger—it will set back our kids and leave future generations worse off.”
Unusually, the court order was unsigned and no vote count was released, however Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Sotomayor wrote in her 19-page dissent, “Only Congress has the power to abolish the department.”
She added, “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.”
