The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has accused a federal judge in Boston of disregarding the authority of the Supreme Court by keeping in place an order that prevents it from carrying out planned firings at the Department of Education.
The judge’s decision follows a similar order he issued earlier, which the justices had already overturned.
The U.S. Department of Justice asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene on Thursday after U.S. District Judge Myong Joun a day earlier said he would not lift an injunction requiring the administration to reinstate staff members it terminated en masse from the department’s Office for Civil Rights.
Justice Department attorneys said Joun should have vacated his injunction after the Supreme Court last month paused a broader injunction he issued preventing wide-scale Education Department firings. The administration asked the 1st Circuit to act in order to avoid a second round of litigation at the high court.
“The district court’s disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling represents an affront to the Supreme Court’s authority—and thus to the rule of law in the United States,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.
Judiciary-Trump Administration Tensions
The 1st Circuit on Friday directed lawyers for the plaintiffs challenging the job cuts to respond to the Justice Department’s motion by Friday so the court can address it “promptly.”
The filing came as tensions continue to flare between the judiciary and the Trump administration, which has itself been repeatedly accused of not complying with judicial orders, including in the case before Joun.
The lawsuit followed an announcement in March by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon of a mass layoff of more than 1,300 employees. Trump has called for the department’s shuttering, which only Congress could ultimately authorize.
Joun, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, in May blocked the job cuts at the behest of a group of Democratic-led states, school districts and teachers’ unions.
At the administration’s request, the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, on July 14 lifted Joun’s injunction.
But the court did not address a narrower injunction Joun had issued covering just the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces federal civil rights laws in schools and was facing a loss of half of its employees.
The civil rights office cuts were challenged by two students and Victim Rights Law Center, which represents sexual assault victims. Citing the Supreme Court’s order, the Justice Department said the injunction they won could no longer stand.
Joun declined, calling the Supreme Court’s brief order “unreasoned.” He said the administration had also “not substantially complied with the preliminary injunction order,” as employees in the civil rights office have still not returned to work following his injunction.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs in court papers have argued that setting aside the injunction at this point would “reward the government’s noncompliance with extraordinary equitable relief.”
The case is Victim Rights Law Center v. United States Department of Education, 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 25-1787.
For the plaintiffs: Sean Ouellette of Public Justice and Reid Skibell of Glenn Agre Bergman & Fuentes
For the United States: Melissa Patterson and Steven Myers of the U.S. Department of Justice.
(With inputs from Reuters)
