March 13 (UPI) — A group of 21 attorneys general led by New York’s Letitia James Thursday sued the Trump administration in an effort to halt the dismantling of the Education Department.
James said the lawsuit aims to stop the “total shutdown” of the Education Department after Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced nearly half of the agency’s staff would be placed on leave.
“This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal,” James said. “Today I am taking action to stop the madness and protect our schools and the students who depend on them.”
“This administration may claim to be stopping waste and fraud, but it is clear that their only mission is to take away the necessary services, resources, and funding that students and their families need.”
The lawsuit alleges the dismantling is illegal and unconstitutional as the Trump administration has no legal power to dismantle the department and that “only Congress may abolish an agency it created.”
It seeks to “preliminarily and permanently enjoin the agency defendants from implementing President Trump’s directive to dismantle the Department of Education, including through ordering a reduction in force.”
Her office said the Education Department’s programs serve more than 50 million K-12 students while students with disabilities and from low-income families are some of the primary beneficiaries of the department.
According to the New York Attorney General’s Office, the Trump administration’s dismissal of half the Education Department workforce would “gut” the Office of Civil Rights which is responsible for protecting students from discrimination and sexual assault.
“They would additionally hamstring the processing of financial aid, raising costs for college and university students who will have a harder time accessing loans, Pell Grants, and work-study programs,” the office said.
The lawsuit said, the mass firings at the Department of Education are not supported by “any actual reasoning or specific determinations about how to eliminate purported waste in the Department.”
Instead, the suit said, they are “part and parcel of President Trump’s and Secretary McMahon’s opposition to the Department of Education’s entire existence.”
The state AGs argue in the suit that it is illegal for the Trump administration to unilaterally dismantle the Department of Education.
“As the Supreme Court put it nearly a century ago, “[t]o Congress under its legislative power is given the establishment of offices [and] the determination of their functions and jurisdiction.”
The AGs suit said that means administrative agencies “are creatures of statute.”
“Because neither the President nor his agencies can undo the many acts of Congress that authorize the Department, dictate its responsibilities, and appropriate funds for it to administer, the President’s directive to eliminate the Department of Education (“Directive”)-including through the March 11 decimation of the Department’s workforce and any other agency implementation-is an unlawful violation of the separation of powers,” the AGs lawsuit said.
Suit plaintiffs include the AGs in New York, Massachusetts, Hawaii, California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, The District Of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
