Washington, D.C. — Today, advocacy organizations, representing millions of educators, civil rights champions, school employees, students, and families have filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump Administration’s illegal attempts to dismantle the United States Department of Education. The plaintiffs include the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), public school parents, The National Education Association (NEA), and AFSCME Maryland Council 3, and they are supported by Student Defense and Education Law Center (ELC).
Since taking office, Trump Administration officials have taken an escalating series of steps to dismantle the Department, including a series of staff reductions and the termination of $1.5 billion in current contracts and grants for Congressionally-authorized programs and activities. On March 11, the Secretary instituted a Department-wide reduction in force, which, when combined with prior staff reductions, slashes the already lean Department workforce in half.
Most recently, on March 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order formally instructing Secretary Linda McMahon to pursue “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States.” The very next day, President Trump indicated that the administration would move the higher education student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration and disability-related programs to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Taken together, Defendants’ steps since January 20, 2025, constitute a de facto dismantling of the Department by executive fiat…,” the complaint argues. “But the Constitution gives power over ‘the establishment of offices [and] the determination of their functions and jurisdiction’ to Congress — not to the President or any officer working under him.” Because it is a Congressionally-created federal agency, legally eliminating the Department of Education, or its constituent offices, or transferring them to other federal agencies, requires Congressional approval.
While state and local governments are responsible for the vast majority of America’s public education system, Congress created the Department to help bridge longstanding gaps in educational opportunity and provide critical funding and supports to students. The Department fulfills that role by enforcing civil rights laws, supporting students with disabilities, promoting equal educational opportunities, bolstering the educator workforce, and administering the Federal Student Aid programs that place college within reach of working Americans.
Eliminating or effectively shuttering the Department puts at risk the millions of vulnerable students, including those from low-income families, English learners, homeless students, rural students and others, who depend on Department support. It also jeopardizes more than 400,000 educator jobs; makes it impossible for the Department to ensure that federal education funding actually is spent as Congress intended; threatens support for 7.5 million students with disabilities; and leaves millions of students vulnerable to discrimination. It could also reduce access to Pell Grants, upend repayments for student loan borrowers, and invite fraudulent and predatory behavior from unscrupulous institutions of higher education.
The lawsuit alleges that actions to dismantle the Department exceed the constitutional authority of the executive branch and violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act. It asks the court to immediately halt the government’s attempt to dismantle the Department.
“As a parent of a child with disabilities who has an Individual Education Program (IEP), I am deeply troubled by the severe cuts the Trump Administration has made to the Department of Education,” said Mara Greengrass, a Maryland mother who is a plaintiff in the litigation. “Funding for special education and the Department’s oversight have been crucial in ensuring my son receives the quality education he — and every child in this country — deserves.”
“Nothing is more important than the success of students. America’s educators and parents won’t be silent as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Linda McMahon try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Gutting the Department of Education will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more out of reach, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections. Parents, educators, and community leaders know this will widen the gaps in education, which is why we will do everything in our power to protect our students and their futures,”said National Education Association President Becky Pringle.
“Education is power. By firing half of the workforce at the Department of Education, Trump is not only seeking to dismantle an agency — he is deliberately destroying the pathway many Americans have to a better life,” said Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP. “The forceful elimination of thousands of essential workers will harm the most vulnerable in our communities. The NAACP and our partners are equipped with the necessary legal measures to prevent this unlawful attack on our children’s future.”
“Congress created the Department of Education, and Congress controls its future — not billionaires Marylanders never voted for,” said AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran. “This illegal move to bypass our elected representatives would be devastating to our state’s public schools. Department of Education funding supports AFSCME Council 3 members in their essential work every day. It helps bus drivers get students in rural areas to school on time, ensures cafeteria workers can deliver consistent meals to students in low-income areas, keeps custodial workers on staff to ensure public schools are safe environments, supports disability and English as a second language school services, and more. Without this funding, we lose essential school workers — and our most vulnerable students will pay the price.”
“The Trump Administration’s effort to dismantle the Department of Education is not only illegal; it inflicts great harm on students, schools, and communities across the country,” said Robert Kim, Education Law Center Executive Director. “The Administration’s assertion that critical federal funding and support for schools and students will somehow continue as normal even after shuttering the Department reveals a dangerous lack of understanding of the Department’s role to provide funding for and implement programs for our most underserved student populations, ensure equal access and opportunity, and enforce civil rights in our nation’s schools. We cannot afford to let the Trump Administration throw our public schools into chaos.”
“Donald Trump’s own Secretary of Education has acknowledged they can’t legally shut down the Department of Education without Congress,” said Student Defense President Aaron Ament. “Yet that is, for all intents and purposes, exactly what they are doing. It’s a brazen violation of the law that will upend the lives of countless students and families.”
