A group of Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Thursday to block significant cuts to the Department of Education made by the Trump administration this week.
Led by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, the coalition of more than 20 states filed suit in federal court after the agency cut about half of its workforce. More than 1,300 employees were laid off in a single day, the latest move toward Donald Trump’s goal of dismantling the department entirely.
The lawsuit alleges the cuts to the department have “devastating effects” on the states, which receive anywhere from millions to billions of dollars from the federal education department annually, James said in a press release. The cuts will hurt students, including those with special needs and those from low-income households.
Cuts to the office of civil rights will harm students who have experienced discrimination or sexual assault. The reductions in staff will also make financial aid processing more difficult, affecting students who use federal grants, loans or work study programs.
“This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal,” James said in a statement.
Trump is said to be preparing an executive order to close the department completely, though it is not clear how he could without congressional approval. In the meantime, he can deprive the agency of resources, making it much harder to carry out its mission.
The lawsuit asks a Massachusetts federal court to halt the drastic cuts, alleging the moves to dismantle the department are unconstitutional and illegal because the department and its various programs and funding streams were authorized by Congress. The executive branch “can neither outright abolish an agency nor incapacitate it by cutting away the personnel required to implement the agency’s statutorily-mandated duties”, the lawsuit argues.
The lawsuit cites the appearance by the education secretary, Linda McMahon, on Fox News, where she said the president’s directive to her was to shut down the department, and the cuts were the “first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat”.
The idea of dismantling the education department has become increasingly mainstream among conservatives, though it is nearly as old as the department itself, which was created by Congress as a cabinet-level agency in 1979. Trump has wanted to eliminate it since his first term. Project 2025, the conservative manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, also calls for dismantling the department.
The other state attorneys general joining the lawsuit represent: 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.
Democratic attorneys general have filed a host of lawsuits since Trump took office, providing a legal counter-response to the administration’s slash-and-burn approach to governing. A separate suit by a smaller group of Democratic attorneys general was filed last week against cuts to teacher training programs in the education department.
