The groups argued that only Congress, not the president, has the authority to dismantle the Department of Education.
A coalition of advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday to block the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, calling the move illegal.
The
lawsuit alleged that President Donald Trump’s executive
order to dismantle the Education Department exceeds his constitutional authority and violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act.
The groups asked the court to block the department’s closure, arguing that only Congress, not the president, has the authority to dismantle it since the department was created by Congress.
“Taken together, Defendants’ steps since January 20, 2025, constitute a de facto dismantling of the Department by executive fiat,” the groups stated in the complaint. “But 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.”
The coalition includes the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), public school parents, the National Education Association (NEA), and AFSCME Maryland Council 3.
NEA said that eliminating the department would put more than 400,000 educator jobs at risk and make it difficult to track the use of federal education funding approved by Congress.
“The forceful elimination of thousands of essential workers will harm the most vulnerable in our communities,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a
statement, adding that the NAACP will take the “necessary legal measures” to stop the administration’s actions.
Another
lawsuit was filed on Monday by Democracy Forward on behalf of teachers, school districts, and unions, challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down the department. Similarly, they argued that Trump lacked congressional approval to take such actions.
Plaintiffs in that complaint include the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of University Professors, the Service Employees International Union, and two Massachusetts public school districts.
“Dismantling the federal government’s role—whether it’s by an illegal executive order or widespread firings to bring critical services and support to a halt—will cause the most harm to students with the greatest needs, greatly diminishing our ability to provide all children with a free and equal education,” American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts President Jessica Tang said in a March 24
statement.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Education Department for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
The Education Department managed about 100,000 public schools and 34,000 private schools,
according to its website. It provided grants, loans, and work-study assistance to about 10 million undergraduate students.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon
said on March 11 that the department would be reduced by nearly 50 percent of its workforce from 4,133 workers to about 2,183. Impacted employees were placed on administrative leave from March 31.
Trump’s March 20 order directed McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
The president has
argued that the United States spends more money on education than most other countries and yet its performance in mathematics ranks among the lowest and has been declining for decades. As of 2022, the United States
ranked 28th in math out of 37 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“We’re going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs, and we want to have our children well educated and we want them to love going to school,” Trump
said on March 22.
The Department of Education was created in 1979 and was pioneered by President Jimmy Carter as a form of welfare access to impoverished children.
The American Federation of Teachers has decried Trump’s order, saying that it would affect millions of students who depend on financial aid from the department to pursue their studies.
“No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that. But this isn’t efficiency, it’s evisceration,” the organization’s president, Randi Weingarten, said in a March 20
statement.
Stuart Liess contributed to this report.
