In a seismic shift with echoes of a broader crusade against federal overreach, the U.S. Supreme Court has swept aside a lower court roadblock, giving Donald Trump the green light to continue hollowing out the U.S. Department of Education—a key pillar of his promise to decentralize power and return control of schools to the states.
The unsigned decision, issued with no fanfare, but heavy consequence, removes protections for nearly 1,400 department employees who had been reinstated by a federal judge. Those jobs—and the core responsibilities they support—are once again hanging by a thread.
Only the Court’s three liberal justices dissented, warning of chaos in classrooms and carnage in civil rights enforcement. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent called the move a handoff of “repeal power” to the presidency—warning it will “delay or deny educational opportunities” and expose students to discrimination and sexual assault without federal safeguards.
Trump, unbowed, hailed the moment as a major victory. “We’re going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs,” he declared in March, just before signing an executive order aimed at shutting down the department “to the maximum extent” allowed by law.
Key programs such as Pell Grants and special education funding, Trump said, would not vanish—but be redistributed. Under his plan, the Small Business Administration is tasked with managing the \$1.6 trillion student loan portfolio. Special education responsibilities would migrate to the Department of Health and Human Services.
While abolishing the department outright would still require Congress, Trump’s scorched-earth downsizing campaign has already been set in motion. Education Secretary Linda McMahon plans to chop staffing by half compared to 2017 levels. She celebrated the court’s move as “a significant win for students and families.”
Critics see it differently. A coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general, school districts, and education unions have warned that this dismantling jeopardizes the very infrastructure meant to support equal access and opportunity.
Skye Perryman, head of the legal group Democracy Forward, which represents several of the plaintiffs, called the court’s action “a devastating blow to this nation’s promise of public education for all children.”
Created in 1979, the Department of Education doesn’t control schools directly—curriculum and instruction are firmly in the hands of states and local governments. But it administers loans, enforces civil rights, and distributes aid to under-resourced districts. Stripping those functions threatens to leave a void that state budgets may be unable—or unwilling—to fill.
A lower court had temporarily blocked the mass layoffs and halted the transfer of departmental duties. U.S. District Judge Myong Joun warned the dismantling would “likely cripple the department.” The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that injunction, but it has now been overturned.
In a filing to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department accused Judge Joun of overstepping his bounds. The justices sided with that view—at least for now. The legal fight isn’t over, but the message from the nation’s highest court is unmistakable: the executive scalpel can cut deeper.
With the bureaucratic machinery of public education under open revision, the long-standing debate over federal versus local control is no longer academic—it’s unfolding in real time, with classrooms, careers, and civil rights caught in the crossfire.
