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us supreme court
Sotomayor: Supreme Court Expedites Trump 'Lawlessness' With Education Department Decision
"That decision is indefensible," the justice wrote. "It hands the executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out."
Jul 14, 2025
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday delivered a blistering dissent to an emergency decision that enables President Donald Trump to plow ahead with laying off nearly 1,400 employees at the Department of Education while a case challenging the plan plays out.
"This case arises out of the president's unilateral efforts to eliminate a Cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago," wrote Sotomayor, joined by her liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. "As Congress mandated, the department plays a vital role in this nation's education system, safeguarding equal access to learning and channeling billions of dollars to schools and students across the country each year."
"Only Congress has the power to abolish the department," she continued, calling out Trump's executive order and Education Secretary Linda McMahon's subsequent move to fire half the agency's workforce. "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."
Sotomayor explained that "two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the government to proceed with dismantling the department."
"That decision is indefensible," she argued. "It 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. Unable to join in this misuse of our emergency docket, I respectfully dissent."
If a Democratic president declared his intention to unilaterally shut down the Department of Homeland Security, then attempted to transfer or shutter its key offices and decimate its workforce, does anyone seriously think this Supreme Court would let him?
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 3:51 PM
The high court's right-wing majority—which includes three Trump appointees—did not write an opinion, as is customary for shadow docket decisions. The administration responded by pledging to proceed with its efforts to eviscerate the department.
"It is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution," McMahon said in a statement. "We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most – to students, parents, and teachers."
Supreme Court says the president can’t abolish student debt, but he CAN abolish the Department of Education.This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s end times fascism—a fatalistic politics willing torch the government and incinerate the future to maintain hierarchy and subvert democracy.
— Astra Taylor (@astra.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 4:32 PM
McMahon and Trump's mass firing effort—part of a broader effort to shutter the department—had been blocked by a U.S. district court in Massachusetts and the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in response to a lawsuit in which Democracy Forward is representing a coalition that includes the American Federation of Teachers and Service Employees International Union.
"We are 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," the coalition said in a Monday statement. "This unlawful plan will immediately and irreparably harm students, educators, and communities across our nation."
"Children will be among those hurt the most by this decision," the coalition stressed. "We will never stop fighting on behalf of all students and public schools and the protections, services, and resources they need to thrive."
The Associated Press reported that "separately on Monday, more than 20 states sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs, and more."
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Federal Judge Blocks Trump Birthright Citizenship Order, But Fight 'Far From Over'
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," said a member of the legal team behind the class action suit.
Jul 10, 2025
The battle over U.S. President Donald Trump's attack on birthright citizenship continued on Thursday, when a federal judge in New Hampshire gave a green light to a class action lawsuit and blocked the Republican's contested executive order.
Advocacy groups including the ACLU, Asian Law Caucus, Democracy Defenders Fund, and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) launched the case last month, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority limited nationwide injunctions—often used by lower courts to stop seemingly illegal policies like Trump's birthright move—but declined to weigh in on the actual order, which three different district judges had blocked.
"The court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship."
Experts warn there will still be challenges to the class action route, but U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—gave the groups their first win in the new case, certifying "a nationwide class that protects the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil," with a seven-day delay to allow for an appeal from the Trump adminsitration.
"Class petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that class petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted; that the potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to respondents if the order is granted; and that the issuance of this order is in the public interest," the judge wrote.
ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project deputy director Cody Wofsy, who argued the case, said in a statement that "this ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended."
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," Wofsy declared.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus, noted that "since the Supreme Court's decision, parents have lived in fear and uncertainty, wondering whether they should give birth in a different state, whether their newborns would be subject to deportation, and what kind of future awaits their children."
BREAKING: Judge in new case challenging Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship grants class certification and blocks enforcement of the order. The injunction is stayed for seven days to allow any appeal.
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
LDF senior counsel Morenike Fajana called the district judge's decision "a powerful affirmation of the 14th Amendment and the enduring principle that citizenship in the United States is a right by birth, not a privilege granted by politics."
"By granting nationwide class certification and blocking the executive order from taking effect, the court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship," Fajana continued. "This is a critical victory for families across the country, and we will continue to defend the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law."
While welcoming Thursday's win for the plaintiffs, "and millions of families across this country, who deserve clarity, and stability," Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, also stressed that "the fight to uphold the guarantee of birthright citizenship is far from over, and we will continue to advocate to ensure we keep that promise."
Though not directly commenting on the judge's decision, the Trump administration signaled Thursday that it will keep fighting to end birthright citizenship and impose the other components of the president's anti-immigrant agenda.
"The Trump administration," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC News ahead of the hearing, "is committed to lawfully implementing the president's executive order to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship and which restores the 14th Amendment to its original intent."
After Thursday's ruling, according to the news outlet,
the Department of Justice referred NBC News to a previous statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi last week that followed another judge's order in a separate immigration case, saying a "rogue district court judge is already trying to circumvent the Supreme Court's recent ruling against nationwide injunctions." Bondi added in that statement, "the American people see right through this" and that Department of Justice attorneys will continue to fight for Trump's agenda to secure the U.S. border.
Bondi's statement last week was in response to a judge in Washington, D.C. blocking Trump's crackdown on asylum-seekers.
Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who argued that case, said at the time that the "hugely important decision" will "save the lives of families fleeing grave danger" and "reaffirms that the president cannot ignore the laws Congress has passed and the most basic premise of our country's separation of powers."
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In 'Serious Blow to Our Democracy,' Supreme Court Allows Trump Mass Firing Order
The high court's decision to "release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation," said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, "is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless."
Jul 08, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a block on U.S. President Donald Trump's February executive order directing federal agency leaders to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" and a related memorandum.
In response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits, Judge Susan Illston—appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by former President Bill Clinton—had issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction, which was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in May.
That legal battle led to the Supreme Court's shadow docket, where emergency decisions don't have to be signed. The Tuesday opinion from the high court's unidentified majority states that Illston's injunction was based on a view that Trump's order implementing his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "Workforce Optimization Initiative" and a joint memo from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management "are unlawful."
"Because the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application," the Supreme Court continued, emphasizing that the justices did not weigh in on the legality of any related agency reduction in force (RIF) and reorganization plans.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to resume agency mass-firing plans over the dissent of Justice Jackson, who criticized "this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture." More to come at Law Dork:
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented on Tuesday. Another liberal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote in a short concurrence that "the plans themselves are not before this court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the court's stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance."
Meanwhile, Jackson argued that "given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the president to dramatically reconfigure the federal government, it was eminently reasonable for the district court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the president's executive action."
She continued:
At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress' policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this court sees fit to step in now and release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.
In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless. Lower court judges have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening on the ground and are indisputably best positioned to determine the relevant facts—including those that underlie fair assessments of the merits, harms, and equities. I see no basis to conclude that the district court erred—let alone clearly so—in finding that the president is attempting to fundamentally restructure the federal government.
Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts for Slate, said on social media that "Justice Jackson's criticism is spot-on, of course. But as Justice Sotomayor's concurrence suggests, SCOTUS' order looks like a negotiated compromise that leaves the district court room to block future RIFs and agency 'restructuring.' So the damage is limited."
"The real test will be what happens once agencies start to develop and implement plans for mass firings—which will, by and large, be illegal," he warned. "District courts still have discretion, for now, to stop them. Will SCOTUS freeze their orders and let unlawful RIFs and restructurings proceed? I fear it will."
Trump’s firings at federal agencies have upended the lives of thousands of workers.These are the people who oversee air safety, food and drug safety, disaster response, public health, and much more.Replacing civil servants with Trump loyalists is right out of Project 2025.
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— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The coalition that challenged the order and memo includes the American Federation of Government Employees and four AFGE locals; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Service Employees International Union and three SEIU Locals; Alliance for Retired Americans; American Geophysical Union; American Public Health Association; Center for Taxpayer Rights; Coalition to Protect America's National Parks; Common Defense; Main Street Alliance; Natural Resources Defense Council; Northeast Organic Farming Association Inc.; VoteVets; and Western Watersheds Project.
It also includes the governments of Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Harris County, Texas; King County, Washington; and both San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California.
"Today's decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy," the coalition said Tuesday. "This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution."
"While we are disappointed in this decision," the coalition added, "we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy."
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was similarly critical but determined on Tuesday.
"The Trump-appointed Supreme Court just surrendered to a dangerous vision for America, letting the administration gut federal agencies by firing expert civil servants," he said. " The damage from these mass firings will last for decades, and weaken the government’s ability to respond to disasters and provide essential benefits and services. Oversight Democrats will not sit back as Trump turns the court into a political weapon. We will keep fighting to protect the American people and prevent the destruction of our federal agencies."
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