The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the administration of President Donald Trump can proceed with plans to slash funding and resources for the federal Department of Education.
The conservative-majority court ruled on Monday that the government could move forward with plans to lay off nearly 1,400 employees as part of Trump’s push to effectively dismantle the 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 US Constitution,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement celebrating the decision.
Monday’s ruling cancels a previous order on the administration’s efforts to fire about 1,400 workers at the Education Department, which US District Judge Myong Joun had ruled against in May, stating that it would “likely cripple the department”.
A US Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling on June 4 that the cuts would make it “effectively impossible for the Department to carry out its statutory functions”, which include overseeing student loans and enforcing civil rights law in US education, the site of previous political battles over issues such as federal efforts to combat racial segregation.
Critics have accused the Trump administration of working to effectively abolish federal agencies, established and funded by Congress, through a maximalist interpretation of executive power.
Trump and his Republican allies have depicted federal agencies as being at odds with their political agenda, and as hotbeds of leftist ideology and bureaucratic excess.
The Trump administration has also sought to impose greater control over US universities, seeking a larger role in shaping curricula and threatening to withdraw federal funds if universities do not comply with government demands concerning issues such as cracking down on pro-Palestine student activism.
In response to the court’s decision on Monday, a liberal legal group that helped bring the challenge to Trump’s efforts lamented that the ruling “dealt a devastating blow to this nation’s promise of public education for all children”.
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