A federal judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration to try to dismantle the Department of Education.
The American district judge Myong Joun issued a preliminary judicial order on Thursday that prohibits the Trump administration from saying half of the workforce of the Department of Education.
The order of Judge Joun, a designated Biden, also prohibits the Education Department from transferring federal loans for students to the administration of small businesses.
The decision marks the first time that a federal judge determines that the radical changes of the Trump administration in the Department of Education are illegal.
For now, the order ends the effort of the Trump administration to fire more than 2,000 employees of the Department of Education, transfer the obligations of federal student loans and implement the executive order of the president of March 20 to “take all the necessary measures to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”
A group that includes several state general prosecutors, schools and non -profit organizations challenged Trump’s efforts to reduce the size of the education department last month, arguing that the president cannot unilaterally close a federal department created by Congress.
The Trump administration lawyers argued that efforts to reduce the education department would make it more efficient and were separated from Trump’s vote to abolish the department.
The building of the Department of Education in Washington, March 24, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Images
Judge Joun was not convinced. His decision offered an abrasing evaluation of the Trump administration statement that recent changes in the Department of Education are to improve efficiency, instead of carrying out Trump’s vote to abolish the department.
“The idea that the actions of the defendants are simply a ‘reorganization’ is clearly not true,” he wrote.
The changes imposed by Trump’s secretary and Linda McMahon education, Judge Joun wrote: “Indeed impossible for the department to perform its ordinary functions.”
Although Trump has the authority to eliminate executive officials, the president does not have the power to dismantle entire federal departments, he wrote. He also questioned the claim that the legislative effort to abolish the Department of Education was separated from his executive actions.
“Not only is there no evidence that the defendants pursue a” legislative objective “or work with the Congress to achieve a resolution, but there is also no evidence that the RIF has made the department more efficient. Rather, the record is full of evidence otherwise,” the judge wrote, referring to the “reduction of force.”
“Consolidated plaintiffs have shown that the department may not carry out their legal functions, and in some cases, they can no longer do it, and the defendants have not offered evidence otherwise,” he wrote.
