President Trump can go ahead with mass layoffs at the Department of Education, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The decision is the latest in a streak of court victories for Trump, who is pursuing an aggressive effort to dismantle the Department and much of the federal bureaucracy.
The justices provided no explanation for the move, which reversed a lower court ruling that ordered Trump to reinstate 1,400 employees - roughly half the agency's workforce.
Trump has pledged to end the Department of Education, citing low academic performance in American public schools.
The Department handles roles like tracking student progress, overseeing financial aid, including student loans, and enforcing federal civil rights law. Since the agency can only be abolished by an act of Congress, Trump has tried to tear it down piecemeal.
A federal judge appointed by President Biden, Judge Myong J. Joun, had blocked Trump in May from firing 1,400 employees, ruling the mass layoffs amounted to an illegal effort to bypass Congress.
The Supreme Court's reversal is the latest Trump victory to come from the so-called emergency docket. Such rulings often come with little explanation and without a full briefing.
The court's ruling prompted a furious dissent from the liberal justices, who have vocally criticized recent Supreme Court rulings in Trump's favor.
The Supreme Court "hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out," liberal Sonia Sotomayor wrote.
"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."
The ruling allows Trump to proceed with layoffs while the legal battle continues.
While liberals responded with predictable alarmism, the Trump administration hailed the Supreme Court's decision as a necessary rebuke of judicial activism coming from lower courts.
White House spokeswoman, Liz Huston, said in a statement that the court had “once again recognized what radical district court judges refuse to accept — President Trump, as head of the executive branch, has absolute constitutional authority to direct and manage its agencies and officers.”
In a separate decision last week, the Supreme Court cleared Trump to lay off thousands of employees at different federal agencies, reversing a district court that tried to block the plan.
Within days of the Supreme Court's reversal, the State Department fired 1,300 staffers.
