In summary
Under Trump’s directive the Department of Education laid off half its staff. The lawsuit argues Trump has no authority to make such drastic changes.
California and 19 other states plus Washington D.C. pushed back today against the Trump administration’s gutting of the Department of Education, saying the impact would be catastrophic for millions of K-12 and college students – especially students who are low-income or are in special education.
In a lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other Democratic attorneys general said President Donald Trump had no authority to dismantle the department, which was established by Congress in 1979. They’re asking a judge to require the federal government to bring back the 1,300 workers who were laid off this week.
“What’s so troubling here is that the reduction in force is so severe and so extreme that it incapacitates the department from performing statutory functions,” Bonta said during a press conference this morning. “Only Congress can make such drastic changes. Not the agency. Not the president.”
The suit alleges that the Trump administration violated the U.S. Constitution and didn’t follow legal procedures.
Earlier in the week, under Trump’s directive, the department reduced its staff by about half, laying off about 1,300 and accepting buyouts from nearly 600 employees, following through on Trump’s promise to gut federal education programs. Republicans have long said they want to get rid of the Department of Education entirely and shift its responsibilities to other federal departments as a way to cut back on bureaucracy and save money.
The layoffs are one of several Trump moves to reshape schools. In recent weeks, he’s cracked down on schools that protect transgender students and promote diversity initiatives. He also removed federal guidance that keeps immigration agents off school campuses.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the education cuts would make the department more efficient and wouldn’t affect funding for special education, student loans or high-poverty schools. But she also said “all divisions within the Department are impacted by the reduction, with some divisions requiring significant reorganization to better serve students, parents, educators, and taxpayers.”
Lack of transparency
So far, the cuts seemed focused on data collection and research, although it’s unclear how extensively other divisions have been affected. In addition to special education and funding for high-poverty schools and student loans, the department enforces civil rights laws on campuses, runs early childhood and bilingual education programs, and gives out grants to help homeless students and support career and technical education, among other initiatives.
The lack of transparency in the cuts is “troubling,” said UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller.
“We don’t know whether those fired have been running programs for disabled kids, aid for low-income schools, or reducing college debt,” Fuller said. “McMahon claims they are not cutting these programs. But is anybody at the wheel, ensuring funds flow to states?”
Even if the cuts are limited to research and data collection, the impact is devastating, said Joe Bishop, who runs the Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA. Researchers study education initiatives to see what’s working, what isn’t, which students need extra help and how effective schools are generally.
“The cuts … are a direct threat to the intellectual infrastructure established by Congress to ensure there are systems in place to examine student learning and school system health across the United States,” Bishop said. “These ‘efficiency’ cuts are creating new costs that will burden the lives of students and families for generations.”
California’s K-12 schools last year received $10.7 billion from the federal government, about 9% of its overall K-12 budget. It paid for things like tutoring, after-school programs, meals and services for students enrolled in special education.
Colleges also affected, suit says
Colleges and their students would be affected by the department’s layoffs, too, the suit argued.
More than 800,000 California college students received federal Pell grants in 2021-22, which are worth as much as $7,400 annually and are crucial for making a degree affordable for students. The state’s students got more than $3.5 billion in Pell grant dollars in 2021-22. Federal college loans are also often the only way a student can pay for the costs of earning a degree. Hundreds of thousands of Californians receive those, too.
“Abolishing the department would accomplish the opposite of the administration’s stated goals and instead lead to costly inefficiencies and a lack of accountability,” said Jessie Ryan, president of the California-based advocacy and research group Campaign for College Opportunity.
The suit listed numerous higher education programs created by Congress that the Department of Education administers. With massive staff cuts, the suit stresses that financial aid may not arrive on time to students and the campuses they attend, which would be an instance of “functionally eliminating the availability of financial aid,” the suit said.
The agency oversees $120 billion annually in low-interest student loans, grants and work-study programs for 13 million students.
The suit argues that even if the money for these programs remains on the books, the programs “cannot operate” without Department of Education staff. “Students at state universities do not know whether their federal student aid packages will be timely processed and made available before the Fall 2025 semester begins,” the suit said.
The attorneys general also presented examples of how the flow of federal education funds has been hampered ever since the department announced its mass layoffs on March 11. The department’s system for disbursing federal funds to states became unavailable on March 12. When some users tried the listed backup website, they got an alert that said “Due to severe staffing restraints, you can expect delays in connecting to a live help desk agent.”
Many public university systems would face “an existential threat” if students don’t receive their federal grant aid on time, the suit stated.
The suit also stresses that the oversight and compliance duties of the department may be compromised due to the layoffs. For example, the School Eligibility and Oversight Services Group helps to ensure that campuses receiving federal financial aid money are following rules governing the disbursal of those funds. The department’s layoffs have “effectively eliminated” that division, the suit said.
Today’s lawsuit is the eighth filed by Bonta and the other Democratic attorneys general. Bonta and the other Democratic attorneys general who filed today’s lawsuit have filed seven others against the Trump administration. They said they’d continue suing whenever they believe Trump has broken the law or acted beyond his authority.
Also today, a San Francisco judge sided with the attorneys general on one of their previous lawsuits related to Trump’s federal workforce reduction. The judge ordered the federal government to rehire thousands of workers who were let go from six agencies.
