Two coalitions of higher ed and K12 advocates filed separate lawsuits this week, hoping to derail President Donald Trump’s executive order to close the Department of Education.
One lawsuit was filed by the American Association of University Professors along with two Massachusetts school districts, the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME Council 93 and the Service Employees International Union.
The other legal challenge comes from public school parents, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Education Association. Both suits claim Trump’s executive order and his other efforts to dismantle the Department of Education are illegal because only Congress can shut down the agency and many of its functions are authorized by Congress.
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“The department has played a crucial role in the pathway to higher education for millions of Americans by providing and administering student loans, grants, and work-study programs,” Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said in a statement. “Without it, access to education for working class Americans will decrease. Funding for college education will be stripped away, programs for students with disabilities and students living in poverty will be eviscerated, and enforcement of civil rights laws against race- or sex-based discrimination in higher education will disappear.”
A group of 21 states has already sued the Trump administration for laying off half the agency’s staff earlier this month. Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said dismissing these “essential worker” will harm the nation’s most vulnerable students.
“Education is power,” Johnson said in a statement. “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.”
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to “begin eliminating” the U.S. Department of Education. At a White House ceremony attended by a group of students, he said Linda McMahon would “hopefully” be the last secretary of education.
Both Trump and McMahon have insisted over the last few days that the department’s core functions, such as IDEA funding and student loans, won’t stall because other agencies will administer the programs. Plaintiff Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center, isn’t convinced.
“The administration’s assertion that critical federal funding and support for schools and students will somehow continue as normal even after shuttering the department reveals a dangerous lack of understanding of the department’s role to provide funding for and implement programs for our most underserved student populations, ensure equal access and opportunity, and enforce civil rights in our nation’s schools,” Kim noted in a statement.
