WASHINGTON—The nation’s two big teachers unions, AFT and NEA, plus the State, County and Municipal Employees, hit the ceiling when the U.S. Supreme Court’s GOP majority let Republican President Donald Trump dismantle the half of the Education Department he hasn’t already smashed.
The six Republican-named justices gave no reasons for letting Trump resume the wholesale chain-sawing of the 46-year-old department. That would finish the guillotining, which Trump’s Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, began. McMahon is a GOP big giver and former head of World Wide Entertainment, aka the World Wrestling Federation.
Carrying out a Trump edict, McMahon fired half the department’s staff in her first days in office. Trump openly wants her to fire the rest and “put yourself out of a job” because the department wouldn’t exist.
Eliminating the Education Department is a favorite social issue for the radical right and the white nationalists who follow Trump. He, and they, view the agency as a nest of radicals and as undermining their “principles” by actually teaching children to think.
They also hate the department’s enforcement of civil rights laws in U.S. schools—unless the agency pursues alleged discrimination against white people. And misogynists among them hate its mandate for equality for women and LGBTQ people, especially in school sports.
Leading the three dissenting, Democratic-named jurists, Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared Trump’s go-ahead, even while trials on the merits of his extermination continue in lower courts, “indefensible.”
“When the executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes that promise, it is the judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Sotomayor said.
Lifting the injunction against killing the department “hands the executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. 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.”
AFT said it’s “incredibly disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Trump-Vance administration to proceed with its harmful efforts to dismantle the Department of Education while our case moves forward.
“This unlawful plan will immediately and irreparably harm students, educators, and communities. Children will be among those hurt the most by this decision. We will never stop fighting on behalf of all students and public schools and the protections, services, and resources they need to thrive.
“From distributing funds to helping schools educate students with disabilities, to providing support and assistance to parents and families, protecting students’ civil rights, and making sure higher education is affordable for students, the Department of Education’s work is essential to the success of students.”
And Trump also plans to move some Education Department programs, such as administering federal college student loans, to other agencies “which have no expertise” in running them, AFT said.
Those same loans, along with Pell Grants and aid to K-12 schools, fell victim to another ax just days before, suffering huge spending cuts in the “big bad budget bill” the GOP-run Congress passed on party-line votes. Trump pushed for that law and signed it on Independence Day.
Administrators also upset
The smaller union of School Administrators (AFSA) was also upset, and it noted that just two weeks before the High Court let Trump finish dismantling the department, McMahon foreshadowed that by pulling $6.9 billion in federal grants to local schools.
“Nothing is more important than the success of students. America’s educators and parents won’t be silent as Donald Trump, with the support of the MAGA Supreme Court, strips our students, our families, and our communities of protections and funding that Congress has mandated,” said National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle, a Philadelphia science teacher.
“Gutting the Department of Education has already harmed students and communities. Today’s ruling withholding relief that the lower courts ordered will only compound the harm.
“NEA will continue our efforts in and outside of court to protect students, school districts, parents, and educators from Trump’s illegal and destructive dismantling of the department,” Pringle vowed.
Dismantling the department would “send class sizes soaring, cut job training and career and technical education programs, make higher education further out of reach, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections.”
Pringle called Trump’s dismantling “unlawful and promised “parents, educators, and community leaders won’t be silent as Trump and his allies take a wrecking ball to public schools and the futures of the 50 million students…We will continue to organize, advocate, and mobilize until all students have the opportunity to attend the well-resourced public schools where they can thrive.”
The court’s ruling also “incensed” AFSCME President Lee Saunders, whose union represents thousands of school support staffers, such as bus drivers and cafeteria workers. He called dismantling the department “a direct violation of the Constitution.
“This agency was created by an act of Congress to ensure equal access to education, and it cannot be eliminated simply because a president wills it.” The department “ensures all students, no matter their zip code, economic class, or disability, can learn and thrive.”
The School Administrators (AFSA) said the money cuts are almost as harmful as killing the agency.
They cause “immediate and widespread disruptions in school systems across the country—putting essential programs, staffing, and ultimately, student success at serious risk.
“With just weeks before students return to classrooms, school districts and state education agencies are finalizing their plans for the new school year. This abrupt and unexplained funding delay has thrown those preparations and their budgets into disarray.
“Districts are being forced to slash programs, freeze contracts, and halt hiring. School leaders now face the impossible task of opening schools without knowing whether the federal funds they relied on will arrive—or when.”
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