President Donald Trump‘s executive order to begin shutting down the Department of Education is all but guaranteed to face several challenges in court after multiple critics decried the action as unconstitutional.
Legally, only Congress can shut down the Education Department. It is unclear if the president has the necessary votes.
Still, Trump’s order calls for Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting it down, and prior efforts of layoffs or deferred resignations have already significantly reduced the workforce and severely limited its Office for Civil Rights.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) threatened future litigation in his reaction to Trump’s order on Thursday, as did multiple unions.
“Congress created the Department of Education and only an act of Congress can eliminate it. We will stop this malignant Republican scheme in the House of Representatives and in the Courts,” he said in a statement.
“This executive order is nothing more than an illegal overreach of executive power designed to unemploy dedicated civil servants and decimate the critical services they provide to millions of Americans across this country,” American Federation of Government Employees Local 252 President Sheria Smith said in a statement.
AFGE is the exclusive representative for federal employees at the Department of Education and, in an email, stated it was currently weighing its options regarding challenging Trump’s directive.
“See you in court,” added Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a statement.
Trump hinted at the problems he may face in persuading the GOP-controlled Congress to gut the department during his remarks in the East Room.
“It sounds strange doesn’t it, Department of Education we’re going to eliminate it, and everybody knows it’s right, and the Democrats know it’s right,” Trump said. “And I hope they’re going to be voting for it because, ultimately, it may come before them.”
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the ranking member on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, quickly claimed in a statement that Trump’s order to “dismantle the Department of Education and ‘return education to the states’ will be challenged in the Courts.”
Democrats are hoping that the judicial system will block the order gutting the Education Department in a similar move to how a federal judge ruled that the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, must stop any further cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled on Tuesday that DOGE likely violated the Constitution by unilaterally shutting down USAID.
In an attempt to ward off possible legal losses, Trump claimed that “Pell Grants, Title One funding, resources for children with disabilities and special needs, will be preserved” under his order.
Republicans defended Trump’s attempt to keep the most significant part of the department after the signing.
“As I understand what the president said, he said that the Pell Grant is going to continue just like it has in the past, maybe under a different named agency, but he said nothing at all about eliminating or reducing Pell Grants,” Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said.
“You can tell by both what the president said during his comments but also by what his office has put out. They truly are dedicated to [making] sure that all the grant programs that currently exist will continue to operate flawlessly,” he added.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, praised Trump’s order in a statement and said he would work to dismantle the department through Congress.
“I agree with President Trump that the Department of Education has failed its mission,” Cassidy said. “Since the Department can only be shut down with congressional approval, I will support the President’s goals by submitting legislation to accomplish this as soon as possible.”
Conservatives have long pushed for the federal government to cede control of the public education system to individual states in the aftermath of former President Jimmy Carter creating the department in 1979.
TRUMP’S PLEDGE TO SHUT DOWN THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT BECOMES OFFICIAL
Trump’s order fulfills a long-promised campaign pledge to the GOP.
“When it comes to an issue as important as the education of our children, no one knows better than those closest to them,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) wrote on X. “Unelected federal bureaucrats who have minimal knowledge of the real needs of the future generation have only wasted tax dollars and made the education our kids receive worse. President Trump and Secretary McMahon are putting education back to where it belongs – with our states.”