WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with plans to carry out mass layoffs at the Department of Education that were blocked by a federal judge.
The conservative-majority court, without any explanation, granted an emergency application from the administration that blocks the federal judge’s ruling.
The court’s three liberal members objected, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing a blistering dissenting opinion.
“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,” she wrote.
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The court’s 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 added.
She said the decision also “rewards clear defiance” of the Constitution.
The case is a separate dispute to the one the Supreme Court decided last week when it allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with plans to conduct layoffs across a wide range of government agencies.
In the Education Department case, Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Myong Joun wrote in his May 22 ruling that the evidence “reveals that the defendants’ true intention is to effectively dismantle the department without an authorizing statute.”
The administration in its early months has sought to aggressively reduce the size of some government agencies to the point of making them ineffective, prompting claims that it has usurped the role of Congress, which set them up and funds them.
Upon taking office earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order saying his administration would “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon then ordered mass layoffs, saying in a memo circulated to employees that her ultimate goal was to “shut down the Department,” a move that has not been approved by Congress.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in court papers that Joun’s ruling should be put on hold because it encroaches on the president’s authority to operate federal agencies.
He also argued that the plaintiffs challenging the move, including states, school districts and employee unions, did not have legal standing to bring their claims.
Sauer said the “reduction in force” plan involves 1,378 employees, adding that the government has been “crystal clear” that it is not part of an effort to eliminate the department altogether as some Republicans want.
Only Congress can do that, Sauer acknowledged.
In court papers, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the challengers had shown that Trump’s move was “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and unconstitutional.”
Among other things, the reduction in force “improperly eliminated or decimated teams that perform statutorily mandated tasks without considering, much less providing for, alternate mechanisms by which such duties can be satisfied,” she added.
Furthermore, the policy “violates affirmative statutory restrictions on the Secretary’s authority to reallocate, consolidate, alter, or abolish statutory functions within the Department,” James said.
