It was rather a day for education news last Thursday: by now you will have seen that U.S. District Judge Myong Joun1 issued an injunction in the two cases filed in U.S. District Court that were before him:
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is among the plaintiffs in the first case; Somerville and Easthampton Public Schools2, alongside AFT, AFT-MA, AFSCME Council 93, American Association of University Professors, and SEIU are the second. They're being taken together.
Not only does the injunction block the Trump administration from dismantling the Department of Education while the case goes forward; it also orders the reinstatement of 1400 laid-off federal workers.
While what ensues at this point of course remains to be seen, I would recommend reading the injunction should this case or even topic be of interest. How judges frame discussions matter, and in Judge Joun, we have some good thinking on why U.S. DoE matters.
Here's the opening of the injunction:
For over 150 years, the federal government has played a crucial role in education. Congress created the Department of Education (the “Department”) in 1979 to streamline federal support of education into a single, Cabinet-level department. The Department’s role in education across the nation cannot be understated: it administers the federal student loan portfolio, provides research and technological assistance to states and their educational institutions, disburses federal education funds, and monitors and enforces compliance with numerous federal laws. Congress enacted these laws to promote equality and anti-discrimination in schools, assist students with special needs and disabilities, ensure student privacy, and much more.
Thus contrary to much of the argument you may have seen, Judge Joun correctly leads with federal attention to education not being at all a new or recent phenomena. The creation of the Department, while recent, was to streamline work already being done by the federal government, and for much of the country's history.
Note also the repetition of "Congress" here right away: "Congress created" and "Congress enacted." The Executive branch lacks the authority to close a Department created by Congressional action, as was done to create the United States Department of Education.
Early on, as well, there is an acknowledgement that the Department, prior to the RIF, "was already struggling to meet its goals." As noted further (page 22) on in the injunction:
Before the RIF, the Department of Education had the smallest staff compared to the 15 other cabinet-level executive Departments, (“[C]ompare just over 4,000 employees at the Department of Education with the approximately 80,000 employees at the Department of State, for example”)].
A Department that was already understaffed to meet the goals established for it then was slashed.
Joun also early calls out the contradiction in the Trump administration's position (this from page 3):
Defendants do acknowledge, as they must, that the Department cannot be shut down without Congress’s approval, yet they simultaneously claim that their legislative goals (obtaining Congressional approval to shut down the Department) are distinct from their administrative goals (improving efficiency). There is nothing in the record to support these contradictory positions. 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. Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.
(emphasis mine)
Should you wish a rundown of what it is the Department does, the injunction goes into that, in detail, including the means by which these "critical programs and functions" are threaded through the daily work and life of schools.
Secretary McMahon herself presenting the contradictory positions above is described (page 21):
Secretary McMahon claimed that the mass firings were meant to improve “efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most.” [Id. at ¶ 54]. Similarly, President Trump maintained that his administration only “want[ed] to cut the people that aren’t working or . . . doing a good job” and “keep[] the best people.” [Id. at ¶ 55]. Yet Secretary McMahon also admitted that the terminations were intended to dismantle the Department, explaining that “[President Trump’s] directive to [her], clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education.” [Id. at ¶ 58]. Moreover, on the same day that the RIF was initiated, Secretary McMahon told Laura Ingraham of Fox News that the workforce reductions were the first steps in shutting down the Department. [Doc. No. 1 at ¶ 119].
As the Trump administration has run into before: the courts do pay attention to what you say on TV and post on social media.
In order for a judge to issue an injunction, there must be (as explained on pages 34ff) both "fitness" and "hardship":
Consolidated Plaintiffs meet both the fitness and the hardship prongs. The issues are fit for judicial review because the claims at issue do not involve uncertain or contingent events. Consolidated Plaintiffs’ claims are not based on an actual closure of the Department, but on the effective incapacitation of the Department to carry out congressionally mandated functions through the guise of what Defendants argue is a “reorganization.
And further:
A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all. This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.
And under "Jurisdiction" (page 42):
...the magnitude and the proportion of the mass terminations accounting for 50% of the Department’s workforce has effectively incapacitated the Department. This case is not about unlawful terminations; this case is about the impact that those terminations have on the Department’s ability to fulfill its congressional obligations.
A preliminary injunction also can only be issued if those seeking it are "likely to succeed on the merits" of the case. Thus the issuance is a bit of a preview of where the judge sees the case at this time. Much of the injunction from the middle on3 goes through what has been presented and why Joun thinks this adds up to probable success. As he writes on page 48:
I find that Consolidated Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that Defendants are effectively disabling the Department from carrying out its statutory duties by firing half of its staff, transferring key programs out of the Department, and eliminating entire offices and programs.
Among the harms cited, by the way, is in the inability of school districts to make plans for the future, given what is not known about federal education funding.4 :
For example, Somerville Public Schools “do not know whether [they] will be able to add staff before the 2025-26 school year, or whether [they] will be able to provide summer school, or whether [they] will be able to retain staff . . . Ultimately without timely and predictable funding, Somerville would be forced to make cuts – including possibly premature cuts – to staff and programs, disrupting services for students and families. This instability makes long-term planning nearly impossible and weakens the district’s ability to provide high-quality education and support.”
I particularly appreciate Joun's conclusion:
Furthermore, a preliminary injunction would serve the public interest because there is a substantial risk that, without it, there will be significant harm to the functioning of public and higher education, particular in Plaintiff States. It is well established that an educated citizenry provides the foundation for our democracy. As the Supreme Court has articulated:
[E]ducation is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society . . . It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.Brown, 347 U.S. at 493. There exists a reciprocal relationship: the citizens of the Plaintiff States have a right to education under their respective constitutions and the Plaintiff States have an interest in an educated citizenry as evidenced by their compulsory education laws. As stated in Members of Congress’s amicus brief, “Congress created the Department in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a time when Congress recognized, from past experience, that ‘the enforcement of the civil rights laws’ could face ‘an inhospitable climate’ depending on the executive in power and the politics of the era.” [Doc. No. 110 at 17 86(citing Legislative History, Pub. L. No. 96-88, 125 Cong. Rec. H14487 (June 12, 1979) (Remarks of Rep. Rosenthal))]. “But now, the Trump administration is engaging in precisely the ‘short-circuit[ing] Congress worked to prevent.” [Id.]. Here, Consolidated Plaintiffs have detailed the consequences that Defendants’ actions will have on students, parents, teachers, and core education programs. See supra Section VI.B. Thus, the balance of the equities and the public interest strongly favor Plaintiffs. Neighborhood Ass’n of the Back Bay, Inc. v. Fed. Transit Admin., 407 F. Supp. 2d 323, 343 (D. Mass. 2005), aff’d, 463 F.3d 50 (1st Cir. 2006) (“[T]he public has an important interest in making sure government agencies follow the law”).
(emphasis mine)
2Not the Worcester Public Schools, which is a declarant in the case, not that you'd know it from the loud trumpeting coming from whomever is deciding what WPS sends out as "news" now. Somerville and Easthampton won this round. It was seriously weird to be following this from the state and national level and see the what WPS sent out. Not cool.
3To be entirely fair to Worcester, information submitted by the district is cited five times in this section.
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