SCOTUS Allows Termination of Dept of Education Employees

In McMahon v. New York, 606 U.S. ____ (2025), the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to stay a district court order requiring the government to reinstate Department of Education employees fired as part of a reduction in force.

Facts of the Case

On March 11, 2025, about a week into her tenure, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced a reduction in force that would eliminate “nearly 50% of the Department’s workforce,” reducing the number of employees from 4,133 to 2,183. That RIF effectuates the Administration’s policy of streamlining the Department and eliminating discretionary functions that, in the Administration’s view, are better left to the States. In anexecutive orderissued nine days later, President Donald Trump instructed McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the Department.

A group of 20 States and the District of Columbia sued the Department in federal court. They argued that the reductions in force “effective[ly] dismantl[ed] the Department” and “incapacitat[ed] components of the Department responsible for performing functions mandated by statute.”

According to the States, that unilateral executive action violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, the Take Care Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Later that month, a group of school districts and unions filed a similar suit. The District Court consolidated the cases, and both sets of plaintiffs sought preliminary injunctions to preserve the status quo while litigation remained ongoing.

On May 22, 2025, the district court issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Department to reverse the RIF, reinstate all affected employees to active status, produce status reports starting within two business days and continuing every week thereafter, and take additional measures to turn back the clock at the Department of Education “to the status quo prior to January 20, 2025.” The district court also enjoined the Department and the Secretary from taking any steps to “implement[]” or “giv[e] effect to” the President’s executive order to restore control over education to the States and communities, to the extent permitted by law.

Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court granted the stay on July 14, 2025. The opinion did not explain the Court’s reasoning. Rather, it simply stated: “The May 22, 2025 preliminary injunction entered by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 1:25–cv–10601, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.”

Dissent

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, which Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined. The dissenters argued that Presidents have long recognized they lack the unilateral authority to eradicate a Department that Congress has tasked with fulfilling statutory duties. She wrote:

When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it. Two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this Court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the Government to proceed with dismantling the Department. That decision is indefensible. 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 naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.