Calling the U.S. Department of Education a “critical federal agency that ensures tens of millions of students receive a quality education and critical resources,” 21 states sued the Trump administration Thursday over this week’s mass layoffs at the agency and the president’s plans to shut it down.
“This administration may claim to be stopping waste and fraud, but it is clear that their only mission is to take away the necessary services, resources, and funding that students and their families need,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal.”
James is part of a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont and the District of Columbia.
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Earlier this week, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon initiated a 50% reduction in force at her department, laying off about half of the agency’s staff. She called the move the “first step” in closing the agency but has said that funding for key K12 programs such as Title I and IDEA won’t be interrupted.
The Trump administration’s goal is to eliminate “red tape” that holds up education funding and give more financial control to states and districts, McMahon said in a Fox News interview.
“[Trump has] taken bureaucracy out of education so that more money flows to states, and better education is closest to kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards,” she said. “I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students when we can educate them with parental input as well.”
The coalition’s lawsuit warns that the department will be “incapacitated” by the cuts and its remaining staff would not be able to perform essential functions, such as providing services to students with special needs, investigating civil rights complaints and dispensing financial aid to college students.
James notes that she and similar coalitions have in recent weeks secured injunctions against the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate teacher grant programs, access U.S. citizens’ Treasury data and withhold funding from the National Institutes of Health.
