Judge Questions Trump’s Justice Department on Education Cuts

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday sharply questioned a lawyer from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department who defended the administration’s decision to terminate over 1,300 U.S. Department of Education employees in response to a lawsuit by Democratic-led states.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, during a hearing in Boston, expressed skepticism about the administration’s claims. Lawyers for the Republican administration disputed the argument that the mass termination, announced last month, of nearly half of the department’s workforce, represented an unlawful effort by Trump to abolish the agency.

Democratic attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia, along with several school districts and teachers’ unions, have challenged these staff terminations in lawsuits before Judge Joun.

> “There’s nothing in the record to show Congress has authorized the closure of the department,” Joun, appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, told Eric Hamilton, a lawyer for Trump’s Justice Department.

Hamilton responded that the Education Department “is not closed and it is not closing absent an act of Congress,” a goal he said Trump would pursue through legislation.

The president last month signed an executive order calling for the department’s closure as part of a longstanding promise aimed at decentralizing school policy and placing it in the hands of state and local boards.

Hamilton claimed that the mass terminations, announced on March 11 by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, are part of a lawful effort to streamline the department by cutting “bureaucratic bloat.”

However, Rabia Muqaddam, a lawyer with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office, argued that the cuts amounted to more than a reorganization as they severely diminished core units and stripped the agency of essential resources to fulfill its statutory obligations.

She and her co-counsel stated that the cuts had rendered the agency incapable of administering funding for public schools, managing student loans, and enforcing civil rights law, ultimately harming states and school districts dependent on significant federal education funding.

> “The department is no longer functioning, and it is getting worse every day,” Muqaddam stated.

Hamilton contended that the state attorneys general sought a court order that would place them as the chief human resources officer for the department. Judge Joun questioned if that was an accurate representation of the situation.

The Boston judge compared the scenario to a Dunkin’ Donuts shop, suggesting that if employees lost their jobs, his primary concern would be whether he could get served, not their rehiring.

> “They’re saying, ’I want my cup of coffee,’” he remarked.