US judge blocks Trump administration plan to gut Education Department

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US judge blocks Trump administration plan to gut Education Department
By Nate Raymond
May 22, 202512:04 PM EDTUpdated 14 min ago


BOSTON, May 22 (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to reinstate more than 1,300 U.S. Department of Education employees, saying they were terminated en masse in an effort to shut down the agency without the approval of Congress.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston at the behest of a group of Democratic-led states, school districts and teachers' unions issued an injunction blocking the administration from moving forward with a mass layoff announced in March that would cut the Education Department's staff by half.

"The record abundantly reveals that defendants' true intention is to effectively dismantle the department without an authorizing statute," wrote Joun, an appointee of President Donald Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.

Lawyers with the Justice Department argued that the mass terminations were not an effort to shutter the agency but a lawful effort to eliminate bureaucratic bloat while fulfilling its overall statutory mission more efficiently.

But Joun said the cuts were having the opposite effect, as the "massive reduction in staff has made it effectively impossible for the department to carry out its statutorily mandated functions."

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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-judge-blocks-trump-administration-plan-gut-education-department-2025-05-22/