Judge Blocks Shutdown for Department of Education

District Court Judge Myong J. Joun issued a preliminary injunction barring implementation of Donald Trump’s executive order to close the Department of Education.

Joun ordered reinstatement of about 1,300 federal employees in the department who were told in March that their jobs were being terminated. He said “to restore the Department to the status quo.”

In addition, Joun prohibited Trump from moving the department’s federal student loan portfolio and “special needs” programs out of the department to other agencies.

He wrote:

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.

and

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.

Joun noted that Trump probably violated Constitutional separation of powers through actions contrary to his “duties to take care to faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress, as well as its duties to expend funds that Congress has authorized it to appropriate.”

The case is a consolidation of two cases brought in March by 20 states and the District of Columbia, the American Federation of Teachers, two school districts and other labor unions.

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Click here to read the injunction.