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“The Supreme Court [last] Monday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts that would require the Department of Education to reinstate nearly 1,400 employees who were fired earlier this year as part of the department’s efforts to reduce the size of its workforce. In a brief unsigned ruling, the justices blocked the order issued in May by U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, who had concluded that the Trump administration’s ‘true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department’ even though in his view it lacked the power to do so…
“The court’s order came in a dispute that began shortly after the department’s March 11 announcement of a reduction in force involving 1,378 employees. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a press release that the RIF ‘reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.’ In an executive order issued nine days later, President Donald Trump instructed McMahon to ‘take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure’ of the department.” SCOTUSblog
The left opposes the ruling, and argues that the president cannot unilaterally abolish the Department of Education.
“The McMahon decision is particularly unnerving because it suggests that President Donald Trump is allowed to ‘impound’ federal spending — unilaterally refusing to spend money or to continue federal programs that are mandated by an act of Congress. While McMahon does not explicitly authorize impoundment, it allows the Trump administration to fire so many federal workers, in so many key roles, that the practical effect is to cancel entire federal programs…
“Impoundment is unconstitutional, and even some of the Court’s Republicans have previously said as much. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a 2013 opinion when he was still a lower court judge, ‘even the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds. Instead, the President must propose the rescission of funds, and Congress then may decide whether to approve a rescission bill.’ If the president had the power to impound funds, he could effectively cancel any federal law.”
Ian Millhiser, Vox
“They’re firing everybody in the English Language Acquisition department, everybody in the Special Education department responsible for ensuring compliance with the American with Disabilities Act, and, of course, the members of seven of the 12 regional divisions of the department’s Office of Civil Rights. These terminations aren’t targeted just at workers but at programs: programs that have already been authorized and funded by Congress…
“I cannot emphasize enough how much this ruling upends anything approaching the constitutional order as we’ve come to understand it. Under this ruling, Trump can simply fire anybody in the federal government administering a program he doesn’t like. That is not the power of a president, it’s the power of a dictator. More than granting Trump immunity, more than anything else this court has done, this ruling gives him the powers of a king.”
Elie Mystal, The Nation
“Given the potentially devastating effects of the Supreme Court’s ruling on congressionally mandated programs, it’s all the more galling that the majority didn’t bother to provide even a cursory explanation of its thinking… There’s something taunting, almost bullying, about this lack of reasoning, as if the conservative supermajority is saying to the country: You don’t even deserve an explanation… This silence is damaging…
“The judiciary is a branch of government that is meant to provide reasons for its actions—to explain, both to litigants and to the public, why judges have done what they have done. This is part of what distinguishes law from the raw exercise of power, and what anchors the courts as a component of a democratic system rather than setting them apart as unaccountable sages. With a written opinion, people can evaluate the justices’ reasoning for themselves. Without it, they are left to puzzle over the Court’s thinking like ancients struggling to decipher the wrath of gods in the scattering of entrails.”
Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic
The right supports the ruling, and argues that the Department of Education should be abolished.
The right supports the ruling, and argues that the Department of Education should be abolished.
“More than 40 years ago, the then-new federal education bureaucracy was supposed to improve student learning. Yet only 31 percent of fourth-graders performed as proficient or better at reading in last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress test; 40 percent of fourth-graders were below basic. No surprise: According to a recent Gallup poll, 73 percent of adults are dissatisfied with the quality of public education…
“‘A lot of money gets spent paying people in the bureaucracy’ as opposed to the classroom itself, Bill Evers, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Independent Institute, told me. And, Evers reminded me, he’s a former assistant secretary at the Department of Education… I don’t think that today’s K-12 students are going to be shortchanged because of some D.C. layoffs, at least not the way kids were left out in the cold during COVID-19.”
Debra J. Saunders, American Spectator
“‘Nearly 45 years after its creation under former President Jimmy Carter, high school seniors’ math and reading outcomes remain stagnant,’ [The Heritage Foundation] wrote. ‘Worse still, the academic achievement gap between the United States’ poorest and wealthiest students, a gap of four grade levels, has not narrowed since the department’s inception.’ If anything, American academics have steadily declined since the creation of the Department of Education…
“The Department of Education’s failures have come at an enormous, mushrooming price tag. Not only has the department grown immensely in size and scope, but administrative bloat has occurred in schools across the country in part due to compliance with federal rules… K-12 and higher education is now deeply reliant on federal largesse. Because of that reality, education can be manipulated at the federal level… [This is] a win for education and constitutional government.”
Jarrett Stepman, Daily Signal
“The biggest problem, aside from poor educational outcomes, is the fundamental misallocation of responsibility for K-12 education. That responsibility should be local. The decision makers should be local school boards, responsible to the voters and each state’s department of education, responsible to the governor. That, plus local funding, is how we handled education and most other social issues until the mid-1960s, when responsibilities were shifted wholesale to Washington…
“Americans have a shared commitment to ensure children in impoverished areas have adequate funding for schooling and, if necessary, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If states and localities cannot afford to pay for those, the federal government can and will pay. Likewise, Washington can be expected to help with educating children with severe disabilities, whose expensive schooling may be beyond the resources of some states and localities. Meeting those exceptional needs requires money, but it does not require a large, centralized bureaucracy.”
Charles Lipson, Spectator World
U.S. couple makes history at Wife-Carrying World Championships.
Canadian Running
