Teachers' unions, NAACP sue to stop Trump's plan to abolish Education Dept

By Akayla Gardner

 

The two largest US teachers’ unions and a prominent civil-rights group sued the Trump administration for moving to abolish the Education Department, adding to a growing number of lawsuits against the president’s far-reaching efforts to transform the federal government.  

The National Education Association and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Monday challenged President Donald Trump’s executive order directing his education secretary to “take all necessary steps to facilitate” the department’s closing, in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Maryland. The suit cites deep spending cuts and a drastic reduction in workforce. 

 

The American Federation of Teachers filed its own suit Monday in federal court in Massachusetts. The AFT lawsuit, led by two Massachusetts public school districts, and the NEA-NAACP suit follow a complaint earlier this month by a group of mostly Democratic-led states.

 

The flurry of litigation comes as the Education Department has lost nearly half of its staff since Trump took office, including in a mass layoff of more than 1,300 workers this month. The NEA-NAACP suit alleges that the department has terminated at least $1.5 billion in contracts and grants for research, data collection, training and teacher recruitment programs. 

Trump unveiled plans on Friday to shift oversight of $1.6 trillion in federal student loans to the Small Business Administration and to transfer implementation of a law protecting students with disabilities to the Health and Human Services Department. 

 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who is named in both suits, and Trump acknowledge that congressional action is needed to eliminate the department established by Congress in 1979. 

 

A statement issued by the administration said union opposition to the overhaul is forcing the government to “waste resources on litigation.”

 

“As President Trump and Secretary McMahon have made clear, sunsetting the Department of Education will be done in partnership with Congress and national and state leaders to ensure all statutorily required programs are managed responsibly and where they best serve students and families,” according to the statement by Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the Department of Education.

 

The complaint argues that the administration’s actions “constitute a de facto dismantling of the Department by executive fiat” and asks the court to halt them immediately. It accuses the defendants of violating the Administrative Procedure Act, which sets guidelines for public notice of regulatory changes and allows for judicial review of final agency actions, among other requirements. 

 

“The Constitution gives power over ‘the establishment of offices [and] the determination of their functions and jurisdiction’ to Congress — not to the president or any officer working under him,” according to the complaint.

 

Other plaintiffs in the case include a Maryland union that represents more than 50,000 public service workers, as well as multiple public-school parents. The National Student Legal Defense Network and the Education Law Center are supporting lawyers from the NAACP and the NEA. 

 

Core functions of the Education Department include administering federal financial assistance to subsidize educational costs, collecting and disseminating data and investigating civil-rights violations at institutions across the country. It offers support to K-12 schools with large numbers of low-income students, English-language learners and kids with disabilities, along with facilities in rural and indigenous communities. 

 

“Gutting the Department of Education will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more out of reach, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement. “This will widen the gaps in education.”

 

NAACP President and Chief Executive Officer Derrick Johnson said “the forceful elimination of thousands of essential workers will harm the most vulnerable in our communities.” He said his organization, which was involved in a 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision to end racial segregation in schools, is equipped “with the necessary legal measures to prevent this unlawful attack on our children’s future.”

 

On Thursday, Trump said that certain programs overseen by the department will be “fully preserved,” such as Pell Grants, the largest source of undergraduate financial aid for low-income students. They will be “redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them,” he added, mentioning elementary and secondary funding for poor students and disability assistance, too.

 

In addition to the pair of new lawsuits and the earlier one by Democratic states, there has also been litigation seeking to shield the Education Department from access by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, and to undo cuts to the department’s civil rights office.

 

Federal agencies have seen drastic reductions in staffing and expenditures under Musk’s DOGE. The two government offices hardest hit so far by Trump’s push to slash the federal workforce and halt programs and services: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the US Agency for International Development. Both were created by Congress, and legal challenges have followed.

 

More than 150 lawsuits have been filed challenging Trump’s agenda during the first two months of his term, according to a Bloomberg News review of filings in federal courts.