In a landmark 6-3 decision on Monday, the Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump’s administration a major victory, allowing the Department of Education to move forward with long-planned workforce reductions aimed at downsizing bloated bureaucracy and restoring authority back to states and families.
This ruling overturns a lower court order that had blocked Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s effort to cut the department’s workforce in half — a key step in President Trump’s broader agenda to streamline Washington and empower local control over education.
The cuts, announced in March, are projected to remove more than 2,000 positions from the department — reducing its 4,133-employee roster by half. Yet despite the uproar from Washington bureaucrats and union-backed lawsuits, Secretary McMahon has made it clear: no core student services will be impacted.
Officials emphasized that federal mandates like student aid distribution, special needs funding, civil rights enforcement, and the FAFSA rollout will all continue uninterrupted. The reduction targets redundancies, unnecessary contractor oversight, and duplicative administrative work that drains taxpayer dollars without benefiting students.
The case stems from a ruling by U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in May, who blocked the cuts and ordered the reinstatement of more than 1,400 employees — claiming the Trump administration needed Congress’s sign-off to make such personnel decisions. But the Supreme Court disagreed, lifting the injunction and reaffirming executive authority over agency operations.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in a sharply worded opinion joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, claiming the move undermines separation of powers. But the majority did not dignify the dissent with a written response — a signal that the ruling was straightforward, rooted in constitutional logic, and not up for debate.
Secretary McMahon celebrated the court’s ruling as a win for American families and the Constitution:
“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States… has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels… to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution.”
McMahon reaffirmed her mission to “promote efficiency and accountability” by reducing federal overreach and ensuring education dollars actually reach students, teachers, and classrooms — not D.C. office suites.
President Trump has long called for the elimination of the Department of Education, which was created by Congress in 1979 under Jimmy Carter — part of a broader push by the left to federalize control over local schools. Trump has said he wants McMahon to “put herself out of a job,” and signed an executive order to begin the process of dismantling the department.
But Congress holds the final say — and this Supreme Court ruling brings the Trump administration one step closer to that goal by reasserting executive control over federal staffing decisions.
This ruling is part of a broader pattern from the High Court — increasingly skeptical of lower court judges issuing sweeping nationwide injunctions that block presidential authority. Just last week, the Court allowed broader plans to trim the federal workforce to move ahead as well.
As Washington grows more bloated and unaccountable, conservatives see these rulings as course corrections — re-centering the balance of power where it belongs: with elected leaders and the American people.
Great! Now how about defunding and disbanding the Democrap Party!