Sotomayor torches SCOTUS for 'indefensible' ruling on Trump gutting Education Department

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, left, exchanges words with President Donald Trump, right, on Feb. 28. 2017, when Trump addressed a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The U.S. Supreme Court gave the Trump administration free rein to gut the Department of Education on Monday — voting 6-3 to lift a federal judge's order blocking the dismantling — in what Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted in a scathing dissent as an "abuse of our equitable authority" that she "cannot condone."

Joined by the two other Democratic-appointed justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor called out their conservative colleagues for granting the Justice Department's bid to bypass the lower court, which she condemned as an attempt to "unleash untold harm" by delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations "without the federal resources Congress intended," according to Sotomayor.

"The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them," said Sotomayor, an Obama appointee. "That basic rule undergirds our Constitution's separation of powers. Yet today, the majority rewards clear defiance of that core principle with emergency relief. Because I cannot condone such abuse of our equitable authority, I respectfully dissent."

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Monday's order, which was unsigned and issued through the emergency docket, did not offer any explanation or rationale from the other justices for granting the Trump administration's request to follow through with proposed mass firings and transfers of various programs, like student loan portfolios, to other agencies while case continues.

Last month, the Trump administration filed an emergency application asking the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass the lower court order barring the Education Department from going through with planned changes. The Justice Department's 40-page application complained that the lower court in question lacked the jurisdiction to issue the preliminary injunction at issue in the present case.

"For the second time in three months, the same district court has thwarted the Executive Branch's authority to manage the Department of Education despite lacking jurisdiction to second-guess the Executive's internal management decisions," the application said. "This Court curtailed that overreach when the district court attempted to prevent the Department from terminating discretionary grants. In this case, the district court is attempting to prevent the Department from restructuring its workforce, despite lacking jurisdiction several times over. Intervention is again warranted."

The underlying litigation is a combination of two cases: one lawsuit filed by the state of New York and another lawsuit filed by several school districts and labor unions, docketed in March against the Education Department over a planned "reduction-in-force" (RIF) that aimed to cut the agency's staff by 50 percent. The lawsuits also take issue with plans to transfer the Federal Student Aid (FSA) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs to other agencies, which the plaintiffs say is not allowed under the laws creating the programs.

In late May, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, a Joe Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction barring the government from carrying out the RIF, ordered the reinstatement of all DOE employees terminated since President Donald Trump's inauguration, and prohibited the DOE from transferring the FSA and IDEA programs. Monday's Supreme Court decision lifted that injunction.

Bashing it as "indefensible," Sotomayor said the other justices were handing the executive branch "the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out," per her dissent.

"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," Sotomayor charged.

She noted how the Trump administration claims the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate an "'actual or imminent" harm caused by the dismantling, and that any harms caused by the department's mass terminations are simply "too speculative," according to DOJ lawyers.

"That claim is belied by both the record and common sense," Sotomayor said.

"The plaintiff states, schools, and unions rely on a range of Department services that support their operations and allow them to receive federal funding," she explained. "Dismantling those services has jeopardized funding streams and required schools to divert resources to fill the gaps, causing concrete monetary damages and operational harm to plaintiffs."

Sotomayor added, "When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary's duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it."

Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.