In a deeply consequential move, the US Supreme Court on Monday granted President Donald Trump the authority to continue dismantling the Department of Education, lifting a lower court’s order that had temporarily blocked his sweeping layoffs at the agency.
The decision came via an unsigned order, reflecting the Court’s 6–3 ideological split, with the three liberal justices dissenting. The ruling allows Trump — now back in the White House — to advance his longstanding goal of eliminating the federal department, which he claims is bloated and redundant.
Earlier this year, Trump moved to cut the department’s workforce by nearly half, instructing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “put herself out of a job.”
The decision has triggered legal and political backlash, particularly from teachers’ unions and 20 states that sued the administration, accusing Trump of violating the Constitution’s separation of powers. They argued that only Congress has the authority to dissolve a federal agency.
In May, District Judge Myong Joun sided with the plaintiffs and ordered hundreds of employees reinstated. But that decision has now been overturned by the Supreme Court’s action.
In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned that the Court’s majority is “willfully blind” to the constitutional crisis their ruling could provoke.
“Only Congress has the power to abolish the Department,” Sotomayor wrote. “The threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.”
While the federal government funds only about 13% of K–12 education, it plays a critical role in supporting low-income schools, students with disabilities, and enforcing civil rights protections.
This move comes on the heels of another Supreme Court ruling that enabled Trump to move forward with mass firings across the federal government, in line with a sweeping government overhaul plan drafted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), previously led by Elon Musk.
Under this agenda, Trump is aggressively reshaping the federal government, targeting agencies like USAID, eliminating diversity initiatives, and now pursuing the abolition of the Education Department, marking one of the most radical reorganizations of the U.S. executive branch in decades.
