President Donald Trump holds an executive order to begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 20. On Monday, two lawsuits were filed asking the courts to stop Trump from closing the department. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI |
License PhotoMarch 24 (UPI) — A pair of lawsuits have been filed by educators, school districts and unions asking the courts to prevent the Trump administration from dismantling the Department of Education on the grounds that only Congress can do that.
The Department of Education was created in 1979 to ensure equal access to education. President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized the department during his re-election campaign for pushing alleged “left-wing indoctrination” in schools, despite its main function being the distribution of federal funding.
Earlier this month, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that nearly 50% of the department’s 4,133 federal workers were being fired en masse.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order to close the department and move its responsibilities to the states.
The first lawsuit filed against the executive order on Monday was brought by Democracy Forward in Massachusetts on behalf of a local school district and several teachers and professors unions.
The second lawsuit was filed in Maryland shortly afterward by the National Education Association on behalf of the NAACP and others.
Both lawsuits argue that since the department was created by Congress, it is Congress, and not the president, that has the power to dismantle it.
“Because the Department of Education was created by Congress — and mandated by Congress to operate various programs for the benefit of America’s students, parents and schools — it cannot be eliminated by the President or the Secretary of Education,” the Massachusetts lawsuit argues.
In response to the lawsuits, Education Department spokeswoman Madi Biedermann said in a statement that the Trump administration has promised to work with Congress to close the department.
“Instead of focusing on the facts and offering helpful solutions to improve student outcomes, the union is once again misleading the American public to keep their stranglehold on the American education bureaucracy,” she said, referring to the American Federation of Teachers union, a plaintiff in the first case.
In the Maryland case, the plaintiffs argue that the steps taken by the Trump administration since the Jan. 20 inauguration “constitute a de facto dismantling” of the department by “executive fiat.”
They warn that shuttering the department puts millions of vulnerable students, including those from low-income families and English-language learners as well as homeless and rural students, at risk, along with more than 400,000 educator jobs.
“Education is power. By firing half of the workforce at the Department of Education, Trump is not only seeking to dismantle an agency — he is deliberately destroying the pathway many Americans have to a better life,” Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, said.
