The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed President Donald Trump another legal victory by allowing his administration to move forward with plans to dismantle the Department of Education, a core part of his broader push to shift educational authority from the federal government to individual states.
In a brief, unsigned decision, the justices overturned a lower court’s ruling that had blocked mass layoffs and restored nearly 1,400 employees whose positions had been eliminated under the restructuring effort. The court’s three liberal members dissented.
While legal battles over the department’s future continue in lower courts, Monday’s ruling enables the administration to proceed with transferring several key education functions to other federal agencies.
A coalition of 21 Democratic state attorneys general, alongside unions and school districts, had argued that shuttering the department would cripple its ability to fulfil basic educational responsibilities. Democracy Forward, the legal group representing them, described the Supreme Court’s intervention as a severe setback for the principle of equal public education access.
Despite the decision, opponents vow to press on with legal challenges, insisting that dismantling the department jeopardises educational equity nationwide.
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First established by Congress in 1979, the Department of Education has long overseen critical responsibilities such as managing student loan programmes, safeguarding civil rights protections in schools, and collecting nationwide data on student performance. It also channels federal aid to underfunded school districts and supports services for students with disabilities.
Despite its reach, the department’s mandate stops short of telling schools how to operate day-to-day. By law, curriculum design, classroom instruction and teacher hiring remain firmly under the control of state and local governments, which shoulder the vast majority — more than 85% — of the country’s public education funding.
Yet for years, Republican critics have painted the department as an emblem of bloated federal oversight, arguing that education should rest closer to communities rather than Washington’s bureaucracy.
In March, President Trump reignited the debate by signing an executive order intended to dismantle the agency as far as legally possible, fulfilling a major promise to conservatives to reduce the federal government’s role in education. During the signing ceremony on March 20, he pledged to return decision-making power to state governments, stating that education was being put back in the hands of parents, teachers, and local leaders, where he believed it belonged.