Trump urges Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department

President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to allow officials to gut the Department of Education, a key priority for the president that has been stymied by a series of lower court decisions.

President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to allow officials to gut the Department of Education, a key priority for the president that has been stymied by a series of lower court decisions. The emergency appeal landed at the high court days after the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reverse a lower court order that halted mass firings at the department, which was created during the Carter administration. Trump has filed more than a dozen emergency appeals at the Supreme Court since he returned to office in January. In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the administration argues its effort at the Education Department involves “internal management decisions” and “eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration’s view, are better left to the states.” Though Trump has repeatedly vowed to get rid of the department, the administration’s lawyers told the Supreme Court in its filing on Friday that “the government has been crystal clear in acknowledging that only Congress can eliminate the Department of Education.” Trump ordered mass layoffs at the department earlier this year. The problem for the administration is that the department was created by Congress, and so lower courts have ruled it cannot be unilaterally unwound by the White House. At the same time, the administration does have the power to reduce the size of federal agencies, so long as they can continue to carry out their legal requirements. And that, the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court, is precisely what the administration is attempting to do.