By Erik Larson | Bloomberg
President Donald Trump was sued by a group of mostly Democratic-led states over his alleged plan to effectively dismantle the US Education Department by slashing its workforce in half.
The plan to fire about 1,378 employees, on top of buyouts taken earlier by 600 workers, will undermine the Education Department’s ability to perform work mandated by federal law, states including New York and California said in a suit filed Thursday in federal court in Boston.
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The suit against Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon adds to a growing list of cases challenging the administration’s effort to slash spending and reshape the federal government through Elon Musk’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency.
The massive reduction in force, or RIF, “is not supported by any actual reasoning or specific determinations about how to eliminate purported waste in the department — rather, the RIF is part and parcel of President Trump’s and Secretary McMahon’s opposition to the Department of Education’s entire existence,” the states say in the complaint.
Earlier suits are challenging alleged plans to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the US Agency for International Development, or USAID.
The Department of Education said in a statement that the reductions were “internal facing” and wouldn’t directly affect students and families. The White House said that the cuts were designed to deliver on Trump’s campaign promises.
“Partisan elected officials and judicial activists who seek to legally obstruct President Trump’s agenda are defying the will of 77 million Americans who overwhelmingly re-elected President Trump,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. “Their efforts will fail.”
The Education Department said in a March 11 statement announcing the cuts that the agency “will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview.”
But the states say that claim is “easily belied” by the extent of the workforce reduction, as well as McMahon’s assertion on the same day that terminations were the first step toward a “total shutdown.”
The states allege the administration is likely to fire more workers and wind down the entire department, citing public comments by McMahon and others.
“Far from being just a ‘first step,’ the layoffs are an effective dismantling of the department,” according to the states, which allege the reduction violates the US Constitution and the federal Administrative Procedure Act.
According to the complaint, the Education Department performs vital services that are mandated by federal law, including providing funds for low-income children and students with disabilities. The department also enforces laws that prohibit discrimination in education and administers federal student aid programs.
The Education Department was created through an act of Congress and can only be dismantled the same way, according to the suit. The president can’t unilaterally order the closure of the department, and even the Education Secretary is only permitted by law to “modestly restructure” the agency, the states say.
The department serves more than 50 million students at nearly 100,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools, and more than 12 million higher education students, according to the complaint. Before Trump’s election, the department carried out its tasks with a “lean staff of only 4,133 people,” the states said.
“Do not play politics with our kids’ education,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “Donald Trump, his unelected billionaire wrecking ball Elon Musk, and their enabler Linda McMahon want to destroy the Department of Education, and they do not care what harm this inflicts on our kids and teachers.”
The case is State of New York v. McMahon; 1:25-cv-10601; District of Massachusetts (Boston).
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