Supreme Court Allows Trump to Gut Education Department With Mass Firings

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday that the Trump administration can proceed with dismantling the Education Department by firing more than a thousand workers.

The order is a significant victory for the administration and could ease President Trump’s efforts to sharply curtail the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools.

The Trump administration has announced plans to fire more than 1,300 workers, a move that would effectively gut the department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools.

The Education Department began the year with more than 4,000 employees. The administration also fired some probationary workers and offered employees the ability to resign. Altogether, after the terminations, the Education Department will have a work force of about half the size it did before Mr. Trump returned to office.

The move by the justices represents an expansion of presidential power, allowing Mr. Trump to dismantle the inner workings of a government department created by Congress without legislators’ input. The firings will hobble much of the department’s work, supporters argued in court filings. Particularly hard hit was the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which had seven of its 12 offices shuttered.

It comes after a decision by the justices last week that cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with cutting thousands of jobs across a number of federal agencies, including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, State and Treasury.