ICYMI: Supreme Court Lets Trump Continue Education Department Purge

A divided US Supreme Court let President Donald Trump resume dismantling the Department of Education, lifting a lower court order that required the reinstatement of as many as 1,400 workers.

Granting an emergency request from the administration, the justices put on hold a federal district court ruling that said the Trump purge would leave the department unable to perform duties required under US law. The Supreme Court order will apply while the case continues on appeal.

Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr breaks down the High Court's decision with Tim Stenovec and Norah Mulinda on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Carol Masser and Tim
Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. A divided US Supreme Court let
President Donald Trump resume dismantling the Department of Education. It
lifts a lower court order that required the reinstatement of
as many as fourteen hundred workers. Greg Store is a
Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter. He joins us from Washington,

(00:30):
d C. He's got the byline on the story as well. Greg.
They granted an emergency request from the administration. The justices
put on hold a federal District Court ruling that said
the Trump purge would leave the department unable to perform
duties required under US law. The Supreme Court order, though,
will apply while the case continues on appeal. I'm reading
right from your story here, because the ink is essentially

(00:52):
still wet on this one. Does this mean that the
Trump administration can can purge other agencies as well?

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Not necessarily, but it certainly helps them at least their
legal case. As you said, the big argument against the
administration was, Hey, you don't have the authority to do this.
Only Congress does, and you're by by firing this many people,
you're leaving the department unable to do things that Congress
said it's.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Supposed to do.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
And that's an argument that has been cropping up in
other cases. And will you know, this decision will probably
you know, boost the administration on those actions.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
So I'm also wondering about what this means just for
the Department of Education and what it means for those workers.
There's a lot of workers who've been left in limbo.
Is that exactly what happens to these workers?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
They're sort of waiting, Well they're sort of waiting, but
but they will be you know, allowed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Put out of a job for for for the for
the least, for the time, and unpaid. You know, I
don't know the answer to that. I have oologize.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
That's okay.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I don't want to speak without without knowledge here. But
you know, given the way the court has been handling
these things, this is supposed to just be a temporary order.
But the cases where the Supreme Court has issued a
temporary order and then later on reversed itself once it
actually took up the legal issues on the merits, that's

(02:23):
a pretty rare occurrence. So this certainly puts the win
that the administration's sales in terms of actually being able
to fire these workers once and for all.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's July fourteenth. Typically, correct me if I'm wrong, Greg,
But this is because this is the world that you
live in. Isn't this a time where the justices are
not doing this stuff? They're like out from June or
early July all the way until October.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
It depends on what you mean by this stuff. This
is part of the so called shadow docket or emergency docket.
It is the administration coming to the Supreme Court. And
this is actually a fairly old request filed a number
of weeks ago, and the administration is saying, hey, we
can't wait. We need you to lift this lower court ruling,
to stay this lower court ruling, to set the rules

(03:11):
of the road while the case.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Is being litigated.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
And that's the sort of thing that the Supreme Court
will act on at any time. It doesn't just do
that in its nine month calendar for the cases that
are considered on the merits.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
When it comes to this case, the three liberals on
the Court dissented.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
What was their message, Yeah, really really strong words from
Justice Soniam Sodomayor, who wrote the opinion for the three
of them. She said that the Court had handed the
executive of the power to repeal statutes by firing all
those necessary to carry them out. And this is a
theme we've been hearing from the Court's liberals. They're saying

(03:50):
that the conservative majority on this court is letting the
president ignore the law just do whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
What do we expect to hear from the Supreme Court
when it comes to the so called shadowed docket before
October or in the meantime.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
We're going to have more of these cases.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right now, there's one other significant one involving another one
of these cases where the president is trying to remove
the heads of these independent agencies, one involving the Consumer
Product Safety Commission. He's trying to fire the Democratic appointed
members there. We'll probably get more cases, really good chance
will get birthright citizenship again in some form not a conceivable.

(04:32):
We'll get terrorists in some form. They're not there yet,
but there's so much lower court litigation going on that
undoubtedly there will be more very big cases at the
Supreme Court this summer.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
And they really seem because of not just because of
the makeup, but it really seems like the president as
having a series of wins when it comes to the
shadow docket.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, he's very much been on a role. We saw
a couple of cases earlier on invo having very fast
deportations under this couple century old law known as the
Alien Enemies Act. That's the cases where the administration was
sending people to the prison in l Salvador, and the
Supreme Court said, whoe hold on. You at least have
to give them a chance to make their case for

(05:16):
why they can't be sent there. Beyond that, however, they've
pretty much given the administration a free hand, whether it
be other immigration related matters or in this case, the
structure of the government and firing people, both mass firings
like this one and firing top officials of agencies.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Hey, Greg Store, thanks for joining us. I know you
just wrote this story. You have been super busy, so
we really appreciate it. This afternoon. That's Greg Store. He's
a Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter. Check out his reporting
and the entire team's reporting. It's on the Bloomberg terminal
and at Bloomberg dot com.