Democratic-led states sue to halt Trump from dismantling US Education Department

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By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – A group of Democratic state attorneys general on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking to block Republican U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and halt it from laying off nearly half of its staff.

Attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia filed the lawsuit in federal court in Boston after the Education Department on Tuesday announced plans to lay off more than 1,300 of its employees as part of the agency’s “final mission.”

Trump has vowed to eliminate the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for needy districts. The job cuts, if implemented, would leave the department with 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.

The layoffs are in addition to cuts in staff achieved through buyout offers and the firing of probationary employees carried out as part of Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the government, led by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

The lawsuit argues that the massive job cuts will render the agency unable to perform core functions authorized by statute, including in the civil rights arena, effectively usurping Congress’s authority in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit argued that Secretary of Education Linda McMahon “is not permitted to eliminate or disrupt functions required by statute, nor can she transfer the department’s responsibilities to another agency outside of its statutory authorization.”

“Neither President Trump nor his secretary have the power to demolish a congressionally-created department,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement.

Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann in a statement said Trump was “elected with a mandate from the American public to return education authority to the states.” The job cuts were being carried out in compliance with all applicable regulations and laws, she said.

“They are strategic, internal-facing cuts that will not directly impact students and families,” Biedermann said.

The department announced the planned layoffs, formally known within the government as a reduction in force, on Tuesday. Impacted department staff are set to be placed on administrative leave beginning on March 21.

The Education Department layoffs were launched just a week after the Republican-led U.S. Senate confirmed former pro-wrestling mogul McMahon to lead the agency.

Trump has said he would like McMahon “to put herself out of a job,” and that he would like to immediately close the Education Department, an agency created by Congress in 1979 that has long drawn Republican ire.

In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, McMahon said Trump’s “directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education.” She said that while Congress would be needed to close it, the layoffs were “the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.”

But New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who is co-leading Thursday’s lawsuit, said firing nearly half of the department’s workforce would hurt students, particularly low-income ones and those with disabilities who rely on federal funding.

“This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal,” she said.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Alexia Garamfalvi, Bill Berkrot and Aurora Ellis)