Federal Judge Halts US Department of Education Closure Plan

The Trump administration's plan to close the U.S. Department of Education by executive action was stopped in federal court on May 20, 2025, when U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns in Boston issued a preliminary injunction that bars the department from carrying out the closure plan while a legal challenge proceeds. The decision pauses an effort that began on March 20, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take all lawful steps to close the department.

The ruling is not a final judgment on whether the department will close. It is a finding that the administration's chosen method oversteps presidential authority. The judge concluded that the president cannot dismantle an agency Congress created by statute without an act of Congress, a principle that now returns the fight to the legislative branch.

Before the order was halted, the department had already cut its workforce sharply. On March 11, the agency announced a reduction in force that would shrink its staff from 4,133 to roughly 2,183 employees, a cut of nearly half. Approximately 1,315 employees received layoff notices, while another 572 left through voluntary separation or retirement packages. Those cuts hit the Office for Civil Rights, the Institute of Education Sciences, and regional grant offices, among other units.

The Boston ruling means those cuts cannot continue to function as a vehicle for closing the agency. Judge Stearns directed the department to suspend further implementation of the March 20 executive order and to halt additional steps that would dismantle core functions while the case moves toward trial. The practical effect reaches school districts that rely on federal grant offices and civil rights investigators, not only the employees who lost jobs.

It reaches state education agencies that build budgets around Title I money and special education funding, operations that do not stop simply because a department restructuring begins.

What the Judge Actually Enjoined

The injunction is narrower than a final ruling on whether the president can close the department. It pauses enforcement of the March 20 executive order and bars the agency from continuing the reductions and transfers that would make closure irreversible before a court can rule on the merits. The judge emphasized that Congress created the department and assigned it duties under laws including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, so the executive branch cannot eliminate those duties by reorganizing them out of existence.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, along with other plaintiffs. They argued that the department had already begun to dismantle itself through staffing cuts and the reassignment of enforcement functions, and that those moves harmed students, families, and school districts that rely on federal oversight and funding channels.

The Executive Order and the Department's Work

The March 20 order did not mention closure in its title; it was titled 'Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities.' Its operating instruction was to facilitate the department's closure and return education authority to states and local communities. The department's workforce reduction followed that instruction, with cuts falling first on the offices that investigate discrimination complaints and manage grants for districts serving low-income students.

In the weeks after the order, administration officials described the plan as the fulfillment of a long-standing campaign commitment. The legal problem identified by the court is not about the commitment; it is about the mechanism. A federal agency created by statute cannot be closed by an executive order, and the judge returned to that point throughout the opinion.

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash

Who Brought the Case and Why

The American Federation of Teachers lawsuit focuses on more than the legality of an executive order. It describes the department as the enforcement backstop for federal civil rights protections in public education and the distribution point for Title I money that reaches school districts serving high concentrations of low-income students. When the department cuts civil rights investigators and grant staff, the lawsuit argues, those districts do not simply lose a contact in Washington; they lose the process that investigates discrimination complaints and the staff who know how to keep federal funds moving.

State attorneys general from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and other states joined separate legal challenges. Their concern overlaps with the unions' concern, but it is anchored in a different practical fact: state education agencies budget against federal grants years in advance, and the sudden dismantling of the department scrambles the assumptions those budgets are built on.

The statutory frame for the ruling is the Department of Education Organization Act, which passed in 1979 and split the department from the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The court's reasoning leans on that origin. The president can propose a closure, reduce a budget request, and appoint leaders who carry out fewer of an agency's functions. What the president cannot do, the judge held, is stop an agency from carrying out laws Congress has not repealed.

The Timeline That Led to the Injunction

• March 11, 2025: The department announces a reduction in force, cutting staff from 4,133 to approximately 2,183.
• March 20, 2025: President Trump signs the executive order directing closure of the department to the extent permitted by law.
• March 2025: The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association file suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
• May 20, 2025: Judge Richard G. Stearns issues a preliminary injunction, halting implementation of the closure plan while litigation continues.

The timeline matters because the administrative cuts and the legal challenge moved on parallel tracks. By the time the injunction arrived, the department had already reconstructed its staffing around a smaller footprint, which makes compliance with the order a slower and messier process than a paper filing would suggest.

What the Ruling Does Not Do

The preliminary injunction does not mean the department will remain at full strength permanently, and it does not settle whether Congress could lawfully close the department. That power sits with Congress, not the president. The decision returns the debate to the branch that created the department in 1979.

Congress can repeal the Department of Education Organization Act the same way it passed it: through a bill that passes both chambers and is signed by the president or overrides a veto. The court's ruling does not foreclose that route. It simply says the route runs through the Capitol, not through an executive order signed in the Oval Office.

What School Districts Are Watching Next

District superintendents and state education officials are watching two things. First, whether the administration will appeal the injunction to the First Circuit and ask for an emergency stay, which could put the workforce cuts back into effect within weeks. Second, whether the department will comply with the order to restore the functions it had already wound down, particularly in civil rights enforcement and grant administration.

The second question is often the one that matters more on the ground. Restoring a position on an organization chart is not the same as restoring the expertise, the case files, and the relationships that left with the employees who were cut. That difference will show up in the next round of grant cycles and in the backlog of pending civil rights complaints.

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash

The administration has said it will appeal, and the case now moves into a phase where the litigation schedule and the political calendar run on different clocks. The judge's order buys time, but it does not buy certainty. For school districts, the year two question is not whether the department can be closed; it is whether the agency they deal with in the meantime has enough people left to answer the phone, process the grants, and investigate the complaint that has been pending since before the layoffs began.