SCOTUS allows Education Department layoffs

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a ruling that allows the Trump administration to move ahead with mass firings planned at the U.S. Department of Education. The ruling pauses a May 22 preliminary injunction previously ordered by U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, who at the time halted plans by Education Secretary Linda McMahon to lay off nearly 1,400 employees. McMahon announced the layoffs in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on March 20 mandating the eventual closure of the Department of Education and, in Trump’s words, returning authority over education to states and local communities.

What arguments did the order make? The brief order, which was obtained by CNN, was unsigned and stated simply that the temporary injunction is blocked until the case makes its way through the U.S. Court of Appeals. The high court’s three left-leaning justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. Sotomayor, who penned the dissent, argued that only Congress has the power to abolish the Department of Education. The president must faithfully execute the nation’s laws, not dismantle them, and the high court’s decision to reward Trump’s defiance of that core principle with emergency relief is an abuse of authority, Sotomayor wrote.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on Trump’s executive order calling for the downsizing of the Department of Education.