Chicago – May 22, 2025
A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked President Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon from carrying out an executive order that called for closing the U.S. Department of Education. The judge also ordered that around 1,300 Education Department employees, who were told in March they would lose their jobs, be reinstated. The judge directed the department to return to its previous state before the job cuts and other changes.
District Court Judge Myong J. Joun explained that a department without enough workers to do its job isn’t really a department at all. He said the court cannot ignore the fact that employees are being fired and key parts of the department are being moved away until it becomes useless.
The judge also stopped the Trump administration from moving federal student loans and programs for special needs students to other agencies, a plan that President Trump had announced in the Oval Office. The administration argued that reducing staff would make the department more efficient, but the judge found no proof of this. Instead, he said there was plenty of evidence showing the opposite — that the changes were actually hurting the department’s ability to do its work.
Finally, the judge said the Trump administration likely violated the U.S. Constitution by taking actions that went against its duty to properly enforce the laws passed by Congress and use government funds as authorized.
