March 14, 2025
Josh Morgan/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The Trump administration announced plans Tuesday to reduce the Education Department staff by roughly half. The move prompted a lawsuit from 20 state attorneys general and protests, like the one pictured above in Washington, D.C.
New Jersey and 19 other U.S. states have taken the Trump administration to court over its proposed cuts to the Department of Education.
The lawsuit argues the president does not have the power to abolish or "incapacitate" congressionally created administrative agencies. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced a nearly 50% reduction in staff Tuesday as part of the department's "final mission," presumably to eliminate itself. Both she and President Donald Trump have expressed their intention to shutter the department in previous statements.
Under McMahon's directive, her staff would shrink from 4,133 to 2,183. Affected employees would be placed on administrative leave beginning Friday, March 21. Their pay and benefits would expire June 9. The reductions will impact every division of the department, McMahon said.
The state attorneys general allege that Trump has exceeded the powers of the executive branch, which can't create or close an agency established by Congress. The Education Department grew out of a 1979 federal law. By drastically cutting its workforce, the lawsuit alleges, the Trump administration has eliminated the personnel "required to implement the agency’s statutorily-mandated duties." The staff reduction is also a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, the state attorneys general claim.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin called the administration's actions "blatantly illegal" in a statement accompanying the lawsuit Thursday.
"As I have said, President Trump is not a king, and he cannot unilaterally decide to close a Cabinet agency," Platkin continued. "We are taking the Trump Administration to court again to prevent the Trump Administration from inflicting grave harm on our state’s schools, and especially our special needs students."
The Education Department serves over 50 million K-12 students across the country. Platkin's office said those with special needs will lose "critical" resources in the cuts. Financial aid programs for college students and the department's Office for Civil Rights, which enforces anti-discrimination laws, will also be severely affected, his office wrote.
Other plaintiffs on the lawsuit are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont. The District of Columbia also joined. They have asked the court to halt the Trump administration's staff reductions and permanently bar the president from implementing them.
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