The Supreme Court on Monday allowed United States President Donald Trump to carry out the layoffs at the Department of Education. The court paused an order from U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston, who issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs and calling into question the broader plan,” AP reported.
The layoffs “will likely cripple the department,” Joun wrote. After an unsigned order, the Education Department sent notices to employees within two hours indicating it is immediately resuming its plans to shrink the department.
The cut-down was one of the key promises Trump made during his campaign to increase the efficiency of the US administration.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented in the ruling Justice Sonia Sotomayor claiming the decision as "indefensible" and said it gave the president "the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out."
"The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution's separation of powers is grave," said Sotomayor, who was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Trump claimed that the order “has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country.” He said the decision will allow his administration to begin the “very important process” of returning many of the department’s functions “BACK TO THE STATES.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said it’s a “shame” it took the Supreme Court’s intervention to let Trump’s plan move ahead, AP reported.
“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement.
On July 8, Trump had announced to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce.
