Updated: This story has been updated to reflect new court documents and remarks from Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
A federal judge’s order directing President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate laid-off U.S. Department of Education staff has not yet resulted in employees returning to work, much less the full restoration of a federal agency the president hopes to eliminate.
And if the administration gets its way, it will be able to delay following the reinstatement order indefinitely while continuing to whittle away at the Education Department, legal experts say.
Despite a court order issued May 22 calling on the Education Department to undo the firings of hundreds of department staffers, employees who were let go in a mass reduction in force in March have received no communication about returning to work, according to multiple staff members.
It’s not exactly surprising. Some staff were already doubtful that the Trump administration would follow the decision from a Massachusetts-based federal judge, especially as it has resisted similar orders concerning other agencies while pursuing legal appeals.
And the administration has made clear it intends to push back on the Education Department order; it filed an emergency appeal within hours of Judge Myong Joun issuing his order, arguing in a statement that “a far-left judge has dramatically overstepped his authority.” Trump’s administration has prevailed in a number of appeals already.
Despite the court telling the Education Department to reinstate employees, litigation doesn’t shift policy quickly, nor do court orders make detailed policy, said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center and professor of education policy and law at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“It’s a very blunt tool, and it tends to move slowly. It’s the only tool that is available now. Clearly the courts have been important in preventing illegal and unconstitutional actions thus far,” Welner said. “But even setting aside the current Supreme Court’s predisposition to rule in favor of the administration, the courts have limited ability to force the administration to carry out executive functions.”
Since the order, little has changed so far
In March, the Education Department announced it would shed nearly half its staff through layoffs and buyout offers, bringing the agency’s footprint from more than 4,000 employees to fewer than 2,200. The reduction in force gutted offices, shrinking teams that oversee research, English language acquisition, and civil rights enforcement. About a week later, the president signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “facilitate” the department’s closure—acting on a long-awaited campaign promise.
The layoffs and order prompted immediate litigation, with plaintiffs arguing that the Trump administration was overstepping its executive power by dissolving an agency without approval from Congress, which is the only entity that can legally abolish the 45-year-old department.
Joun concurred, and in May, he ordered that the department reinstate the hundreds of employees it had terminated since Trump took office. He also halted enforcement of the president’s executive order. He directed the department to swiftly notify employees of his decision.
The Trump administration quickly appealed the order, known as a preliminary injunction, and also requested that Joun stay—or pause—his injunction. Both Joun and a panel of appeals court judges denied that request, however. The appeals court has yet to rule on a different administration request to block Joun’s order.
But even though the injunction remains in effect, little has changed in the week and a half since Joun issued it.
According to a declaration from the Education Department’s human resources head filed in court on May 27, the department informed all staff, including those who were laid off, of the court’s order via email and posted a notice to the department website.
The email, included in the declaration, provided no further detail on what the court order meant for staff, however. Several employees told Education Week they have received no additional information on possible reinstatement.
“We’ve seen signs of noncompliance with federal rulings over the past 100-plus days from this administration. It would not be surprising if that kind of response would continue forth in response to this particular injunction,” said Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center, which leads education-related litigation.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a June 4 budget hearing before a House of Representatives committee, McMahon told lawmakers the department would comply with the judge’s order.
And according to another declaration filed in court late Tuesday, June 3, the department has convened a committee of senior leaders “to discuss the status of post-RIF activities across department programs and operations, and the impacts of the preliminary injunction on those activities.” The committee discussed the “complex and costly challenges” of again onboarding roughly 1,400 employees, which included securing physical office space and starting contract negotiations.
The Education Department isn’t the only federal agency that’s the subject of litigation
Still, the Education Department is just one of several federal agencies that have seen their staff gutted—and subsequently been the subject of legal challenges.
At least half a dozen lawsuits have challenged reductions in force across the federal government, Welner said. Some have been stayed by higher courts, meaning a lower court’s injunction stopping the dismissals has been halted; other courts have dismissed cases entirely, saying those who sued had no standing to file such litigation.
“There are a lot of cases, and this one is consistent—it’s following a path that is similar to many other cases,” Welner said.
Trump’s administration has prevailed in some of its appeals on other matters, too. After the Education Department canceled scores of grants funding teacher training, a case challenging those terminations went before Joun, who ruled that those dollars had to be reinstated. An appeals court agreed, but the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration, allowing the department to shed more than 100 grants.
A federal appeals court in a separate case challenging teacher-training grant terminations subsequently blocked a lower court’s restoration of those grants, citing the Supreme Court decision.
But even in cases where the lower court’s decision holds, the department can continue trying to resist.
When a judge found that the termination of probationary employees across the federal government, including at the Education Department, was illegal, the employees were reinstated—only to be immediately placed on administrative leave. A federal judge took issue with that response, but the Supreme Court later sided with the Trump administration.
The Education Department case could culminate in something similar: If the department reinstates these employees, McMahon and other agency leaders could tell them simply to not do their jobs, Welner said.
In cases like these, the court doesn’t prescribe steps for the administration to take to enforce the laws enacted by Congress. It simply says that what the administration has done is illegal, he said.
“The administration can say, ‘OK, well, that was illegal. Now I’m going to try these dozen other things to get to my same goal,’” Welner said. “And you have to step in each time and say, ‘Nope, that one’s not OK. That one’s not OK, either.’
“Each time that that’s done, you have the district court acting, and then the Circuit Court of Appeals acting, and then the U.S. Supreme Court acting,” he said. “It just takes a long time. … There’s just limited things the court can do.”
