A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot conduct mass firings at the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights because such action would be unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction against the large-scale reduction in force (RIF) announced on March 11.
In his decision, he found that there was a “likelihood of success” in the plaintiffs’ argument that the RIF was “arbitrary and capricious” and that the order will cause them “irreparable harm”.
The case was filed by two students “who have experienced severe race-based and disability-based harassment in school” and their parents, as well as the Victim Rights Law Center (VRLC), a nonprofit organization that represents sex-based harassment victims.
The plaintiffs argued that the RIF would prevent the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), whose mission is to “ensure equal access to education and promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil rights in our nation’s schools,” from carrying out its intended functions.
Joun, a Joe Biden appointee, found merit in this claim.
“[T]he RIF leaves OCR with the capacity to address only a small fraction of the complaints that it receives, making it impossible for OCR to comply with its statutory and regulatory obligations,” he wrote. He mentioned “shuttered offices” as well as the absence of “regional expertise and community relationships.”
“The closings have made it costly and often infeasible for investigators to visit schools in-person to gather critical facts, making it impossible for OCR to complete investigations and cases promptly and fairly,” Joun told reporters.
He discovered that when schools engage in discrimination or allow it to continue, students’ only option is to turn to OCR. And because the student plaintiffs are unable to return to school while their cases are pending, and investigations in these cases have stalled due to the RIF, “they face irreparable harm.”
Regarding VRLC, Joun wrote that because the organization has had to deviate from its “core mission” of “providing legal recourse to victims of sexual and gender-based violence” because it no longer has OCR as a resource, it, too, faces “irreparable harm.”
“Taken together, the harm Plaintiffs face cannot be mitigated by retroactive relief or monetary damages. Thus, I am convinced that, in the absence of an injunction, Plaintiffs face immediate and irreparable harm,” the judge wrote.
As part of the order, the Trump administration is not only prohibited from carrying out its March 11 RIF against the OCR, but it is also required to “take all steps necessary to facilitate the return” of employees who have been fired or are scheduled to be fired. The federal government was also given 72 hours to submit a status report on its compliance efforts.
As Joun noted, the lawsuit was similar to one he heard filed by nearly two dozen attorneys general, school districts, and other organizations in March after the RIF was filed, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon suggested it was a first step toward the department’s full closure.
In that case, which was not specific to the OCR, the Boston-based judge also granted a preliminary injunction, ruling that the “RIF effectively eliminates the Department without Congressional approval, in violation of the APA and the Constitution.”
He stated that a separate decision was necessary in the case involving his Tuesday order to “address the unique harms [the plaintiffs] are suffering.”
