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President Donald Trump’s plan to shut down the Department of Education is officially on pause.
A federal judge on Thursday issued a ruling blocking Trump’s administration from carrying out its executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. The ruling also blocked the department’s plan to fire additional employees and its intent to transfer student loans out of the department to another agency.
The judge also directed the department to “to restore the Department to the status quo such that it is able to carry out its statutory functions” by reinstating all federal employees who were terminated from the department in March.
Shutting down a federal agency requires congressional approval. While Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary, has repeatedly said that she intends to work with Congress to shut down the department and improve efficiency at the agency, the judge wrote that there is “nothing in the record” to back up those points.
“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,” the ruling said, referring to the formal name for the firings, reductions-in-force. “Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.”
Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, told Business Insider in a statement that “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.”
“This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families,” Biedermann said. “We will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”
Thursday’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of professors and teachers’ unions. The group argued that attempts to dismantle the Department of Education would harm students and families who rely on federal aid and grants.
On March 11, the department announced it was terminating over 1,300 workers. McMahon said this was part of the department’s “commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”
The judge said that the cuts “paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”
“Indeed, prior to the RIF, the Department was already struggling to meet its goals, so it is only reasonable to expect that an RIF of this magnitude will likely cripple the Department,” the judge said.
Student loan borrowers are navigating a changing landscape. The Trump administration restarted collections on defaulted student loans on May 5 after a five-year pause. It is also looking into redefining eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Meanwhile, 2 million student-loan borrowers are still waiting for their income-driven repayment plan applications to be processed while the SAVE plan remains blocked.
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