The three-judge panel cited a July Supreme Court ruling lifting a block on the Trump administration’s layoffs.
The federal government can proceed with its plans to make cuts to the Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Civil Rights after a federal appeals court on Sept. 29 ruled against a lower court injunction blocking the action.
In its appeal, the Trump administration cited a July Supreme Court ruling that lifted a lower court
block preventing the ED from moving ahead with planned
layoffs. That lawsuit was
filed by a group of Democratic-led states, school districts, and teachers’ unions.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said those layoffs were to
ensure that federal “resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”
The administration argued that, given the Supreme Court
ruling that has now allowed the department to fire 1,378 employees, or 33 percent of its workforce, the cuts at the ED’s civil rights office should not be blocked either.
Two students and the Victim Rights Law Center, which represents sexual assault victims, had challenged the cuts to the civil rights office, which won them an
injunction from U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in June.
The three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston
ruled to put a hold on Joun’s injunction that ordered the ED to reinstate separated Office for Civil Rights staff while the case is fully heard by the courts.
The panel also denied the plaintiff’s application for an administrative stay, saying it was moot in light of the existing Supreme Court ruling on “overlapping issues presented in both cases.”
Following the Supreme Court ruling, Judge Joun issued a narrower injunction preventing layoffs for just the Office for Civil Rights, citing the office’s purview of enforcing federal civil rights laws in schools nationwide.
Joun then declined to lift that injunction following the ED’s appeal, citing the Supreme Court ruling. He said the apex court’s July order was “unreasoned,” echoing a critique by other lower-court judges of the short orders emanating from the emergency docket.
The Justice Department said Joun’s “disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling represents an affront to the Supreme Court’s authority.”
The
case is Victim Rights Law Center v. United States Department of Education (1:25-cv-11042).
The ED and lawyers for the plaintiffs challenging the cuts have been contacted for comment.
The ED Slims Down
The staff cuts at the ED followed a March announcement by McMahon that the Trump administration would be implementing reduction-in-force efforts to cut around 50 percent of staff at the federal department, while continuing to perform all statutory duties.
The department said at the time that 259 employees had accepted an offer of eight months of paid administrative
leave through Sept. 30 via its Deferred Resignation Program, and another 313 employees had accepted the $25,000
lump-sum Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment.
Trump had campaigned on eliminating the ED entirely, to allow state governments to fully dictate their own education policies.
Trump
signed Executive Order 14242 on March 20, in which he pledged to close the ED, which he said “has entrenched the education bureaucracy and sought to convince America that Federal control over education is beneficial.”
The department “does not educate anyone” and “maintains a public relations office that includes more than 80 staffers at a cost of more than $10 million per year,” the executive order read.
Complete dissolution of the department, however, would require authorisation from Congress.
Matthew Vadum and Reuters contributed to this report.
