Chalkbeat

A federal judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and said the agency must reinstate the employees who were fired as part of mass layoffs. After U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the agency’s plans in March to slash its workforce by roughly half, she called it a first step in getting rid of the agency. Trump followed days later with his executive order aiming to eliminate the department, a move he has long wanted. But only Congress can actually eliminate the department, and the administration’s attempt at getting around that influenced U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s Thursday ruling. The Trump administration argued that they implemented agency layoffs to improve “efficiency” and “accountability,” the Massachusetts judge wrote, but then said: “The record abundantly reveals that [the administration’s] true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute.”