A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from carrying out an executive order to take steps to dismantle the Department of Education.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston granted a preliminary injunction blocking the March executive order in an order that also directs the department to reinstate employees who were fired as part of a workforce reduction that cut nearly 50 percent of its workforce.
The plaintiffs argued that the executive order and subsequent firings go beyond an agency reorganization and instead are a violation of separation of powers. The ruling addresses a pair of consolidated lawsuits: one from a coalition of attorneys general representing 20 states and the District of Columbia and a second from the Massachusetts-based Somerville and Easthampton school districts, the American Federation of Teachers and a number of other education groups.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, argued that a preliminary injunction would “superintend the United States’ education system and its authority as an employer.” The administration in court documents has framed the so-called “reduction in force,” or RIF, as an effort to streamline the department while recognizing the need for congressional action to shutter the agency.
Joun rejected the administration’s argument that the move is simply a reorganization, citing in the order President Donald Trump’s repeated statements on the campaign trail indicating his intent to eliminate the department.
“Not only is there no evidence that Defendants are pursuing a ‘legislative goal’ or otherwise working with Congress to reach a resolution, but there is also no evidence that the RIF has actually made the Department more efficient,” Joun wrote in the order. “Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.”
House Democrats have repeatedly criticized the cuts, including at a Wednesday budget hearing with Education Secretary Linda McMahon, while Republicans have largely thrown their support behind the effort.
“You are usurping Congress’s authority and infringing on Congress’s power of the purse, and you will continue to lose these battles in the courts,” Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee, said during the hearing.
Joun said in his order that the harm to state and local educational institutions “cannot be remedied through retroactive relief and money damage,” meaning that without an injunction, the risk of harm is “immediate and irreparable.”
The Department of Education plans to challenge the order on an emergency basis.
“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.
“President Trump and the Senate-confirmed Secretary of Education clearly have the authority to make decisions about agency reorganization efforts, not an unelected Judge with a political axe to grind.”
McMahon during her Wednesday testimony defended her agency’s preliminary budget request for fiscal 2026. During the hearing, she described the shuttering of the department as the agency’s “final mission.”
McMahon also defended the sweeping staff cuts and the subsequent rehiring of some fired employees, saying that “sometimes you cut a little into the muscle” while trying to trim the fat from an agency’s workforce. She estimated that around 74 terminated employees had been asked to return to their roles.
Amid the workforce cuts, McMahon and the Trump administration are trying to pitch a fiscal 2026 budget for the department that includes about $12 billion in cuts to federal education spending — about a 15 percent decrease from fiscal 2025.
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