WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue unwinding the Education Department, allowing it to move ahead with mass layoffs and a plan to outsource the department’s operations to other agencies.
The justices paused a lower court order that had halted nearly 1,400 layoffs and had called into question the legality of President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the department.
Now, Trump and his education secretary, Linda McMahon, are free to execute the layoffs and break up the department’s work among other federal agencies.
They’re expected to move quickly—department lawyers have already previewed the plans in court filings.
What happens with student loans, civil rights cases
Trump and McMahon have acknowledged only Congress has authority to close the Education Department fully, but both have suggested its core functions could be parceled out to different federal agencies.
Among the most important decisions is where to put management of federal student loans, a $1.6 trillion portfolio affecting nearly 43 million borrowers.
Trump in March suggested the Small Business Administration would take on federal student loans, but a June court filing indicated the Treasury Department is expected to take over the work. The Education Department said it had been negotiating a contract with Treasury but paused discussions when the court intervened. That work is now expected to proceed in coming days.
Under a separate arrangement, nine Education Department workers already have been detailed to Treasury, according to court filing.
The department had also recently struck a deal to outsource the management of several grant programs for workforce training and adult education to the Department of Labor. The Education Department agreed to send $2.6 billion to Labor to oversee grants, which are distributed to states to be passed down to schools and colleges.
Combining workforce training programs at Education and Labor would “provide a coordinated federal education and workforce system,” according to the agreement.
Additional agreements are expected to follow with other agencies. At her Senate confirmation hearing, McMahon suggested that enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act could be handled by the Department of Health and Human Services. Civil rights work could be managed by the Justice Department, she said.
Laying off staff
Trump campaigned on a promise to close the agency, and in March ordered it to be wound down “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” McMahon had already started a dramatic downsizing, laying off about 1,400 workers and declaring “one final mission” to turn over the agency’s power to states.
Education Department employees targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff. The lower court order had prevented the department from fully terminating them, though none had been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without the lower court order, the workers would have been terminated in early June.
The Education Department had said earlier in June that it was “actively assessing how to reintegrate” the employees if courts did not rule in Trump’s favor.
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