The Supreme Court ruled Monday to allow the Trump administration to move forward with mass layoffs at the Department of Education, a move supported by President Trump-appointed leadership at the federal agency but feared by education supporters.
The 6-3 ruling along ideological lines helps Trump partially fulfill his campaign promise of dismantling the Education Department.
“While today’s ruling is a significant win for students and families, it is 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,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
But the liberal justices and other advocates worry the emergency decision will lead the department to fail in its statutory obligations designated by Congress.
Here’s what to know about the move:
The case returns to the appeals court
While the Supreme Court lifted an injunction on the Trump layoffs by a district judge, the case will return the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The injunction had been placed by U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in May. Now the federal agency will have to go back to the appeals court, which will make a determination on the legality of the layoffs for the lower courts.
If the appeals court rules against the administration, the president can, once again, appeal to the Supreme Court and get on its normal docket.
The injunction would not go into place to stop the layoffs until a final ruling from the Supreme Court.
Trump can’t fully eliminate the department
Trump has acknowledged he doesn’t have the authority to fully dismantle the Education Department on his own.
A federal Cabinet-level agency must be eliminated by Congress, and even with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, such a change is considered unlikely to move forward.
In the Senate, 60 votes would be needed to kill the Education Department, which the GOP doesn’t have, even if all its members support the move.
“The department’s useful functions … will be preserved, fully preserved,” Trump said when he signed the executive order to eliminate the agency, referring to Pell Grants, Title I funding and programs for students with disabilities. “They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments.”
“But beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” he added.
Conservative majority doesn’t explain decision, but liberals dissent
The 6-3 order lifting the injunction did not explain its reasoning, but that is not abnormal for an emergency ruling.
However, the liberal justices made their anger with the decision well-known.
“It hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“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,” they added.
SCOTUS gives another win to Trump administration
The president has been on a winning streak with the nation’s highest court.
The Supreme Court recently ruled his administration can deport immigrants to countries they do not have ties to, take away temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants, and allow employees with the Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security data, among other pro-Trump moves.
The cases have infuriated the liberal justices and advocates, and calls of ideological bias have abounded.
“Nothing is more important than the success of students. America’s educators and parents won’t be silent as Donald Trump, with the support of the MAGA Supreme Court, strips our students, our families, and our communities of protections and funding that Congress has mandated. Gutting the Department of Education has already harmed students and communities. Today’s ruling withholding relief that the lower courts ordered will only compound the harm,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said of Monday’s ruling.
Trump has talked about shuttering other federal agencies
The Department of Education has not been the only agency in the president’s crosshairs.
Trump has also called for the elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the beginning of July when he announced USAID would “officially cease to implement foreign assistance.”
“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” he added.
Some layoffs at other agencies have been stymied by the courts, and administration officials have shifted their rhetoric away from nixing FEMA in favor of reforming it.
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