| SCOTUS clears way for Department of Education layoffs |
A divided Supreme Court has lifted a temporary lower-court ruling preventing the Trump administration from radically downsizing the Department of Education. The decision in New York v. McMahon, announced on Monday, green-lights the department’s reduction in force initiated in March as the original question of the layoffs’ legality works its way through the lower courts. The justices have lifted an order that had reinstated nearly 1,400 workers affected by mass layoffs at the department and blocked the administration from transferring key functions to other federal agencies. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon hailed the decision, adding: “Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies." In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the court's two other liberal members called the decision "indefensible," adding: that it “hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naïve, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.” The layoffs leave the department with only about 2,183 employees out of its previous approximately 4,133. Offices impacted include the Office for Civil Rights, the Institute of Education Services, and the Federal Student Aid office.
