Sophie Lawton at MMFA:
The Heritage Foundation and other Project 2025 partners are praising the Supreme Court decision opening the doors for President Donald Trump to dismantle the Department of Education — a key Project 2025 initiative marking another U-turn from Trump's early disavowal of the unpopular transition plan. The court's July 14 ruling allows the administration to continue with the reduction in force of over 1,300 Education Department employees, more than one-quarter of the department's workforce. Trump praised the decision in a post on Truth Social, writing, “The Trump Administration may proceed on returning the functions of the Department of Education BACK TO THE STATES.” The ruling also reverses a block on Trump's March executive order to close the department, though officially shuttering it requires congressional approval. The lower court judge who had halted the administration's efforts claimed the layoffs alone would effectively “cripple” the department.
The Department of Education has already struggled with enforcing civil rights laws and supporting students with disabilities since the Trump administration ordered a freeze on new cases and pressured the office to focus on investigations into transgender students on sports teams and antisemitism. The approved layoffs will shutter seven regional civil rights offices in major cities like New York and Chicago. The department’s Federal Student Aid office, which has already battled technical difficulties due to layoffs, is also facing large cuts. According to a Time magazine review, reducing the FSA offices may “massively disrupt” student loan operations. Trump has announced plans to move many of these offices’ functions to other government departments such as Health and Human Services and the Small Business Administration, both of which are also facing layoffs. Alongside the personnel cuts and grand plans for closure of the department, the Trump administration is withholding billions of dollars in federal education grants to ensure they “align with President Donald Trump’s priorities,” effectively shuttering many after-school programs and other federally funded education initiatives. Project 2025 — the extreme right-wing plan for a second Trump administration organized by the Heritage Foundation and over 100 conservative partners — pledged to “gut federal education funding, sanction discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, divert taxpayer funds to private schools,” and “dismantle the federal role in public education.” Now, Project 2025 partner organizations are celebrating the Supreme Court ruling.
[...] All of the Trump administration's steps to dismantle the Department of Education reflect the goals of the Project 2025 policy book, Mandate for Leadership. The Heritage Foundation has argued for shuttering the Department of Education since the first Mandate for Leadership book published in 1981. The 2024 edition of Mandate included specific plans for demolishing the Department of Education in a chapter written by Heritage's Lindsey Burke. Burke's chapter for Project 2025 called for the Trump administration to “devolve” the Department of Education “as a stand-alone Cabinet-level department" and recommended that its programs, offices, and personnel be moved to other federal agencies or completely eliminated. Project 2025 specifically argued that the department’s Office of Civil Rights “should move to the Department of Justice,” a plan that Education Secretary Linda McMahon echoed during her confirmation hearing. Burke also suggested that only “employees whose positions are determined to be essential to the mission” would possibly move to other agencies now handling their office's work. Closing down the Department of Education is just one area of many policies where the Trump administration is following the lead of Project 2025.
Project 2025 contributors give blessing to the right-wing MAGA Majority on SCOTUS permitting Donald Trump to dismantle of the US Department of Education.
