July 23, 2025 • 33 mins
The Supreme Court says it's okay for the Trump Administration to shutter the U.S. Department of Education while they wait for the case to formally reach them. AND, the Office of Management and Budget withholds BILLIONS of Title funds from states and districts. All this has Zac and Stephanie reeling with questions. So, they ask Education Law Professor Jon Becker back on the show to...you guessed it...make sense of public education.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in again to
Academic Distinctions.
This is Zach.
We've got a great conversationtoday about the Supreme Court's
recent shadow docket ruling onthe dismantling of the U.S.
Department of Education, as wellas a wonderful conversation with
the inimitable John Becker aboutthe withholding of federal funds
from states and districts forpublic education.
We did record this prior to OMBreleasing about$1.4 billion for
(00:27):
Title IV funds, but that doesnot mean that Thank you.
Thank you.
(00:59):
Hey, Stephanie.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00):
Hey, Zach.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
You look like you've got some questions.
SPEAKER_02 (01:03):
I do.
I do.
You know, I'm just trying tolike wrap my brain around what
is going on in D.C.
I think not that there's a daythat I'm not trying to wrap my
brain around what's happening inD.C., but you know.
SPEAKER_03 (01:14):
That's fair.
That's fair.
SPEAKER_02 (01:18):
Yeah.
So the Supreme Court issued aNot a ruling, a ruling, a
something that said Trump can goahead, like, just go for it,
babe.
Go ahead and dismantle theDepartment of Education.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Sort of.
SPEAKER_02 (01:35):
Sort of, right?
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
So what they wanted to do was dismantle and take
apart the Department ofEducation.
And folks said, wait a minute,you can't do that.
And so they filed for aninjunction.
SPEAKER_02 (01:50):
Who's they?
Who's they?
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
The plaintiffs lost multiple lower courts, like
across the country, multiplelower courts were like, you
can't just dismantle theDepartment of Education.
SPEAKER_02 (02:05):
That takes like an act of Congress, right?
Like as far as I know.
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
Right.
And so the suits were like, youneed to stop doing that because
we don't think you're allowed todo this.
And so lower courts were like,we think you're right.
And so they issued a preliminaryinjunction.
which basically said, hey, LindaMcMahon, you are too ready to
rumble.
(02:29):
I'm going to get as manywrestling references as
possible.
And so they issued theinjunction and said, you have to
stop doing that.
Now, what you and I maybe knowas folks who are employed by the
U.S.
Department of Education.
Well, now we got an email fromH.R., that said, hey, because of
(02:52):
this preliminary injunction, wewant to know if you want to come
back here because we have beentold we have to stop doing this.
And the Secretary of Educationwent to the Supreme Court and
said, guys...
I want to destroy this thing I'min charge of.
And so asked for an emergencyruling on what sometimes is
(03:15):
called the like the shadowdocket.
Yeah.
What is the
SPEAKER_02 (03:19):
shadow docket?
SPEAKER_00 (03:20):
It's the emergency docket.
And so the Supreme Court haslike a session where they hear
cases like they announce herethe cases we're going to hear.
They hear those cases argued.
Then they take some time.
They all write.
They kind of come to a decisionand they issue their opinions
very formally.
the emergency docket is this,this kind of separate track
(03:40):
where you've got something thatyou're saying, like, we need to
get this decided right away.
So they hear it and then theymove forward.
Bush V Gore would be a goodexample, right?
Some hanging chads that wasn'tlike, they didn't wait to get on
the, on the courts session, likeon their docket, their formal
docket.
There was like, we need adecision right now.
(04:00):
So the justices came together,they moved very quickly and, And
so the Supreme Court justices ina 6-3 ruling said, yeah, we're
going to say no to thatpreliminary injunction.
You can go ahead and do what youwant to do.
You have the authority to dothis, largely saying things
(04:21):
like, well, you're going to movethis program from the U.S.
Department of Education to theDepartment of Labor, right?
So saying like you've accountedfor congressionally mandated
programs.
in some ways.
And so you're doing some thingsthat are fine.
And other ways, like you've gotexecutive power to do these
things, even while that largercase of whether or not you can
(04:43):
do these things or you need togo to Congress is making its way
formally to the Supreme Court,right?
So there's like the lower courtsand then appeal and then
challenge, challenge, challenge,the way things normally get to
the Supreme Court's regulardocket.
So that will be where theydecide whether or not The
executive has this power or ifthey need to go to get an act of
(05:04):
Congress to do what they'redoing.
So this didn't say, yes, you candestroy the– you can get rid of
the Department of Education.
What it said was you can keepworking– while this case is
making its way to us, which kindof in a de facto way means they
are dismantling the Departmentof Education because right away,
like moments after that newsbroke, I got an email from HR
(05:27):
that said, hey, according tothis ruling, you are going to go
ahead and get let go, which weknow we are, but they keep
sending these emails to ourpersonal addresses.
So that is what that means.
with this SCOTUS ruling.
Still really worrying, and ourfriend John Becker, who we'll be
(05:48):
talking to a little bit later inthe pod, has a great piece that
will, a great kind of outline ofthis, and then links to a
Georgetown con law professorthat talks about how this issue
is actually the opposite of whatthe court did in the challenge
to the Biden administration'sstudent loan save repayment
(06:08):
program.
What they said there was, no,no, no, we can't let this
happen.
We are going to put thisinjunction in place while we
wait for that case to make itsway to us.
So very, and along very similarlines.
So very interesting things goingon right now.
All very bad for the children, Ishould say, and the teachers.
(06:31):
But not as bad as what we reallywant to talk about today.
Does that answer your question,Stephanie?
SPEAKER_02 (06:36):
I think so.
So if I can say it back to you,basically, it's like...
SPEAKER_00 (06:43):
Back up a bit more from your mic.
You're coming in real hot.
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
So sorry.
How's that?
Is that better?
Yeah.
UNKNOWN (06:50):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (06:50):
So let me see if I can say back to you a little bit
what you said to me.
So it's not that the SupremeCourt said, go for it.
It's just the Supreme Courtsaid, we're not going to tell
you to stop.
SPEAKER_00 (07:01):
We're not going to tell you to stop while we wait
for this other case to make itsway to us.
SPEAKER_02 (07:06):
Right.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
They could have said, wait a minute.
If that case comes and wedecide, no, you don't have the
power to dismantle theDepartment of Education, it'd be
a real bummer if you'd alreadydismantled it.
But instead they were like,while we wait for it, go and do
whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_02 (07:21):
Let's see what plays out.
Yeah.
Let's see what happens.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:26):
What you might take is a bit of a wink to like, we
kind of know how that one'sgoing to play out.
Yeah.
And what I will say is that iffolks want to head over to the
strict scrutiny podcast, seasonsix, episode 39 deals very
specifically.
So if you want to really nerdout on, on SCOTUS decisions and
the workings of the, of thejudiciary, which always makes me
(07:49):
think of the rural juror, um,strict scrutiny season six,
episode 39 titled SCOTUSstrengthens conservative war on
education.
So I think some probably heavysize there too.
SPEAKER_02 (08:02):
It sounds like so much fun, like a real uplifting.
Listen.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:07):
Speaking of depressing.
Yeah.
Um,
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
what else we got?
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Have you ever had a budget issue?
SPEAKER_02 (08:13):
several times in my whole life.
SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Uh-huh.
Okay.
So this is going to surpriseyou, but schools, districts, and
state education offices alsohave budgets, Stephanie.
SPEAKER_02 (08:25):
Yes, this I am very familiar with as somebody who
has taught through multiple,multiple budget deficiencies.
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Yeah.
And so they start getting readyfor the next school year in like
the beginning of the calendaryear.
Correct.
Because schools and districtsand states want to get that
hiring wrapped up.
So hiring plans happen at thebeginning of the year.
Those hiring plans get approved.
(08:52):
Folks look at numbers forenrollment.
Yeah, exactly.
PD plans, definitely, right?
Because how are we going tospend this money?
SPEAKER_02 (09:00):
We look at programs for how do we support kids that
are not...
are not getting the servicesthat they need.
Like what programs can we put inplace to help our learners who
are currently struggling inparticular avenues?
And how do we support ourstudents who are coming in who
need support with English as asecond language or something
(09:21):
like that?
You know, multilingual learnersin general.
SPEAKER_00 (09:24):
Exactly.
So they do all that work in thespring.
SPEAKER_02 (09:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:27):
And then they go about hiring and they do that
work largely in the like May,April period.
They say, here's the moneythat's going to come in.
Here are the student populationsthat we're going to have.
Here are our priorities.
Here's what we want to do PD.
We plan all of that out.
(09:48):
That money is largely planned onand encumbered before everybody
leaves on summer break.
And you want to know why?
Because people actually leave onsummer break.
They go places or they go to PD.
I should say that too, right?
We did a
SPEAKER_02 (10:03):
lot.
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
I feel like that's a pretty
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
traditional thing.
Many teachers spend their summerbreaks learning or planning for
the next year, right?
Like how many times did I figureout that my schedule changed
from one year to the next in themiddle of the summer?
And suddenly I had a whole newcourse that I had to write like
resources for.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
But if you were to go to a school right now, right
in the middle of July, if youwere to go to the school down
the street, probably maybe threepeople would be there.
Maybe.
Yeah.
And maybe only one of them waslike contractually required to
be there or there's a summerschool opportunity or something
going on that the building isbeing used.
(10:43):
But those things tend to be runby teachers from other places in
the district.
They have tend to haveadministrators who are not
necessarily that building'sadministrator.
Right.
So there's like a summer schoolprincipal, which tends to be
somebody who's like gettingtheir feet wet as a principal.
So like the people in yourbuilding are not the permanent
staff right now over the summer.
(11:05):
I say all this to help folksunderstand that at the very
beginning of July, whenbuildings and schools across the
country were largely dormant,there was an announcement made
by the US Department ofEducation that it was
withholding title funds frombeing distributed across the
country.
And we've talked a little bitabout how title funds work,
right?
So title one, It helps toameliorate the impact of
(11:31):
poverty.
And Title II, Title II islargely around professional
learning and development.
Title III is around multilinguallearning.
Title IV has a whole bunch ofuses to it.
But those titles, those I, II,III, and IV are figured out
based on an equation, right?
SPEAKER_02 (11:51):
You
SPEAKER_00 (11:53):
know I love a good equation.
(12:14):
Title one funding is not tosupplant.
So it's on top of whatever thefunding is that you get for the
basic provision of services atyour school.
So when the federal governmentin the middle of summer vacation
says we are withholding thatmoney, it breaks a lot of
systems down.
SPEAKER_02 (12:37):
Yeah.
Seems like, um, it seems, Funfact, not fun fact, fun opinion.
It kind of seems like not onlyare they dismantling the
Department of Education, they'redismantling education at the
state level, which they saidthey were going to return to
states, right?
SPEAKER_00 (12:54):
Yeah.
It sounds like the federalgovernment is saying we are
getting out of the business ofensuring that all students in
this country have a right tolearn.
SPEAKER_02 (13:09):
It's so backwards.
How do we think our country isgoing to compete with other
countries if we do not takepublic education, education as a
whole, I should say, seriouslyor value it?
We have completely devalued it.
(13:29):
And when I say we, I mean them.
They have completely devaluededucation as a public good, it
seems.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Yes.
as a national public good,right?
So the language that's beingused is this is still a
state-level good.
States go ahead and do this.
But the states have builtbudgets that are dependent upon
that federal money happening.
And one of the things we need totalk about is that that makes a
(13:57):
difference to your neighbor.
That makes a difference to yourniece, to your nephew, to your
grandchildren.
That makes a difference to theteachers you know in your lives.
This removal of funding meansthat your public school, your
local public school is going tosuffer.
Children you know are going tosuffer.
SPEAKER_02 (14:17):
Children you don't know are going to suffer.
Even if you don't know somebodywho goes to school, you went to
school.
Come
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
on.
But if you're mildly selfish anddon't care about other children
you don't know, I'm telling youright now that the children you
know are going to suffer.
And also if you know somebodywho works in a field related to
education, That is going tosuffer.
Or if you know somebody whoworks in a field that sells
something to schools, thoseschools now have less money to
buy those things.
So they're probably not going tobuy those things because they're
(14:47):
going to retract that money andthey're going to go then say,
okay, we have to fund theseteachers because we need to save
these jobs.
The decision to withhold thesetitle funds has ripple effects
across an entirety of oureconomy.
SPEAKER_02 (15:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
To say nothing of keeping kids and teachers safe
and learning and teaching.
SPEAKER_02 (15:11):
Yeah.
How are they allowed to do this?
Like, how can they just wake upon July 1st and be like, I'm
just kidding.
We're not going to send you themoney that we said we were going
to give you that Congress hasalready approved to send to you.
I
SPEAKER_03 (15:22):
would
SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
like to make a joke here that's like, it's the
federal government.
Nobody just wakes up and doessomething.
But the way that this particularadministration has been
operating, I think maybesomebody did just like, let's
write a letter.
And so...
But I also think there areprobably some legal
ramifications here.
But don't worry, Stephanie.
John Becker is here to help.
SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
I am so glad.
SPEAKER_00 (15:48):
All right, John Becker.
We're real worried about, well,everything.
So...
Let's start at the verybeginning.
Stephanie asked a really goodquestion.
Can the executive branch legallydo what it is doing in
(16:12):
withholding title funds fromstates and districts across the
country?
SPEAKER_01 (16:19):
I'll say probably not.
How's that?
Okay.
To me, it's not all thatdifferent than the issue that
the Supreme Court just– um,dealt with in a bizarre way, um,
in that.
So in the, in the Supreme courtlifted a preliminary injunction,
(16:42):
um, about whether the educationdepartment could, uh, fire
without, you know, over athousand people.
Um, and so there were, you know,the questions can, can the
executive get rid of a cabinetlevel agency?
Um, and you know, that'sprobably not to, uh, But I say
(17:06):
probably not because the lawsays things like this stuff has
to be done through the Secretaryof Education.
So title one, let's say, of theElementary and Secondary
Education Act, the actuallanguage of the statute says the
(17:29):
Secretary of Education shall.
Well, so what happens if there'sno secretary of education?
You'd have to get rid of theagency in order for it to not
exist.
And then you'd have to changethe law to say the federal
(17:52):
government shall or an agency ofthe executive branch of the
federal government.
And so it's all tied together.
That sounds
SPEAKER_02 (18:02):
really ugly.
Yeah.
I mean, if he wants to dismantlethe department, all he has to do
is fire Linda McMahon?
Am I removing
SPEAKER_01 (18:17):
her?
That's the probably no part.
I mean, I think most experts saythe language that created the...
Department of Education saysthat Congress shall create this
thing and therefore theassumption is Congress is the
only agency that could– or onlybranch that could get rid of it.
(18:41):
But again, like if they got ridof it, what do you do with the
fact that the statute says theSecretary of Education shall?
And so like if you go back tolike Project 2025 says, for
example– the Office of CivilRights within the Department of
Education would move to theDepartment of Justice, right?
(19:02):
Well, there are things that OCRhas to do by statute that say
Secretary of Education shall.
So can the Attorney General dothat stuff?
Not by statute.
That's why you'd need Congressinvolved here.
There's a statutory languageunder ESEA, but there's also
issues around what's called theImpoundment Control Act.
SPEAKER_02 (19:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talk about that.
SPEAKER_01 (19:27):
Colloquial language is Congress has the powers of
the purse.
Right.
And so Congress authorizesspending certain money in
certain ways, and they'resupposed to control it.
And there are– instances whenthe executive branch can make
modifications, but generallyit's prohibited under the
(19:49):
Impoundment Control Act.
It's considered an act ofimpoundment for another branch
of government to modify thespending that Congress
authorized.
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
What's interesting there is that the thing that is
happening while we are recordingthis episode is that the Senate
is taking up the rescission offunding to the corporation for
public broadcast, like monies,like there's a way to do this.
Yep.
There's an appropriate andapproved way to do this, but
(20:24):
they're not doing that in thisparticular case.
SPEAKER_01 (20:28):
Uh, yes.
And my suspicion is that, um,it's, uh, well, it's less, uh,
consequential or it's, it's, Theperception is less– like if we
got rid of NPR or PBS, not ahuge deal.
And so we can go through theprocess.
(20:49):
The Senate will agree to itbecause there's no, I don't
know, electoral consequences forgetting rid of NPR funding.
SPEAKER_00 (20:56):
But if a senator says we're going to get rid of
special education services, thenthey're probably not going to
get reelected.
SPEAKER_03 (21:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:05):
Yeah.
I mean, I've been saying that ifI think if Democrats were smart,
they ought to be pounding thelanguage of like defunding
education the same way thatRepublicans pounded this idea of
like defunding the police, whichwasn't really actually about
defunding the police.
If we said Republicans aredefunding education, which
they're not really fully doing,but, you know, in a lot of ways
(21:26):
they are.
And I think that's a prettystrong electoral argument.
campaign message.
They're defunding publiceducation.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
They're defunding your schools, right?
That's the pieces.
I think, I think that folks, Ithink that we talk a lot about
property taxes, right?
We know that the majority ofeducation funding doesn't come
from the federal government.
And so I think people think,okay, if we cut off the federal
funding, we still got everythingwe need to run these schools,
(21:55):
but schools are, have been, beenbuilt around an assumption that,
and a belief and a promise thatthose federal funds are coming.
And so they have hired andstaffed and designed themselves
in such a way that if you don'tbring them that money, you've
actually broken those schools.
SPEAKER_03 (22:12):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (22:13):
I have a really interesting, like, well, not
interesting.
I have a hard time with the,like, well, if we don't have
funding, we have everything weneed.
It's like, well, no, you don'tlike the title funding accounts
for in some cases, more than 15%of your state education budget.
And if you think that that doesnot, impact schools
disproportionately in, in areasof increased poverty, let's say
(22:37):
like, where do you think thatmoney's going to come from?
SPEAKER_01 (22:41):
Yep.
I mean, say to tell parentslike, well, we've got to lay off
15% of our teachers.
Right.
And so your kid's class goesfrom, you know, 20 kids to 30
kids.
How do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_02 (22:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, so I.
Not great.
SPEAKER_00 (22:58):
No.
If that was not a rhetoricalquestion, I just went, no, I
would not feel great.
SPEAKER_02 (23:01):
I used to work in my local school district and we had
a class cap, class size cap of36 with our, with our current
contract.
But previously to that, we usedto have a, you had to have a
class average, class sizeaverage of 36.
So I could have one class and Ihad one class in one of my first
(23:23):
years at this one school sitewhere I had 18 kids in one class
and 49 in another.
SPEAKER_01 (23:30):
49.
SPEAKER_02 (23:34):
Yeah.
And that was, that was eighthgraders.
I had 49 eighth graders in aclass.
Like, whew, that was, that wasfun.
SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
Even half, even half of that is too much.
SPEAKER_02 (23:47):
Preaching to the choir.
It was like we had first comefirst serve seating.
I could not have a seatingchart.
How long can they withhold thesefunds?
SPEAKER_01 (23:58):
Forever?
I wonder if they waited to likeas late as they possibly could
(24:21):
and could make the argument thatif we don't know we're getting
the funds like we're planningright now for next year.
Right.
So if they filed this in inJune, it might have been like,
well, we can still make someadjustments.
But like now we need to knowlike right now that we're
getting these funds or we're notgetting
SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
it.
It was it was only 15 days.
Right.
So the announcement was madeJuly 1st.
So.
Yes.
I don't know.
Two weeks to get 24 attorneysgeneral moving seems pretty
good.
SPEAKER_02 (24:51):
Yeah, that's not too bad.
SPEAKER_01 (24:52):
Yeah.
So now– well, and the otherissue is let's say these 24
attorneys general get the courtsto issue a preliminary
injunction.
We have another Supreme Courtissue where the Supreme Court
recently said actuallypreliminary injunctions can't be
nationwide for the most part.
UNKNOWN (25:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:15):
So now what?
So let's say they get– what thecourts can do now pursuant to
the Supreme Court is they couldget a preliminary injunction as
to the plaintiffs.
So this funding will only haveto resume for those 24 states.
This is why the Supreme Courtdecision about nationwide
(25:36):
injunctions is ridiculousbecause– Right.
So the Department of Educationis only going to have to release
the funds to those 24 states?
That's– That's logisticallysilly and obnoxious.
SPEAKER_00 (25:48):
John, if you're reading, so let's say
preliminary injunctions, right?
They pop up.
And if you look at a map at whohas made these suits, it is the
left and the right of thecountry, not so much the bottom
or the middle.
Those are going to be local,right?
If there are preliminaryinjunctions, those are going to
be local to those states.
(26:09):
But a preliminary injunctionwould say you have to send that
money out.
SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
A preliminary injunction would stop them from
not sending it, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (26:19):
So it would compel them to send the money?
SPEAKER_01 (26:21):
I would think so, yes.
The federal government could– ifa district court issues a
preliminary injunction, thefederal government could ask for
a stay of that.
And all the stay does is itkeeps the status quo– while the
lawsuit proceeds.
But these lawsuits could take ayear or two, and that makes no
(26:43):
sense in this case because theyneed the money right now.
SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
I want there to be happy, fun legal questions where
we invite you on, John, becauseyou're a real fun person.
Yeah.
You are a real bummer every timewe've talked to you.
SPEAKER_02 (26:58):
Give us some hope.
Give us some hope.
Assuming that this is a longerprocess, what are some immediate
things that can be done at thispoint?
What can listeners do to securepublic education?
I
SPEAKER_01 (27:15):
would always encourage people to contact
their representatives, theirsenators, and have them put the
pressure on them Russ Vought orwhoever's holding up this money.
Um, there's, there's no reasonyour Senator couldn't make a
(27:35):
phone call or just show up atRuss Vought's office and say,
you know, this, this money isfor my constituents who, um,
need it and are in fact in mostneed of resources for education.
Um, and encourage your, uh,Congress people and senators to,
um, To make this clear, this isbipartisan.
(27:57):
There's a lot of kids in redstates who get a lot of this
funding and are going to loseout.
Just because these are the AGsthat are filing the suit doesn't
mean that those are where theseissues are going to be
problematic.
The other thing I think would be– would be, and I, you know, I'm
sure you all agree, likestorytelling is powerful.
(28:18):
And so being able to tell thestories of what's going to
happen if these particularfunds, because these are very
specific set of grant funds forvery specific set of purposes.
And to be able to say like, thisis what's going to have, these
kids are going to suffer inthese ways.
If these particular funds arenot issued, that could be pretty
(28:39):
compelling.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
All right, John Becker.
Yeah.
How optimistic are you that thismoney is released before schools
start opening like mid-Augustfor some places?
SPEAKER_01 (28:57):
I'd put the odds at like 57%.
How's that?
Less or minus three.
SPEAKER_00 (29:06):
Okay.
It's
SPEAKER_02 (29:06):
probably better than maybe, maybe not.
UNKNOWN (29:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
Even minus three has this over 50%.
And in these times, I will takethat.
SPEAKER_01 (29:14):
Yeah.
I mean, I say that because itfeels to me– well, the Supreme
Court case about the Departmentof Education feels so clear to
me too.
Like it's just so clear that theexecutive branch can't just
close one of its agencieswithout involving Congress.
Yeah.
(29:34):
Again, I'm repeatedlydisappointed because it feels to
me like the law obviously saysthis thing and then the Supreme
Court does something different.
Well, and Congress is not
SPEAKER_00 (29:43):
acting, right?
Like by and large.
SPEAKER_01 (29:45):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
I think sometimes that would be framed
differently.
But like that the majority inCongress right now just seems to
be like, we'll let this ridewhen the executive is just kind
of gobbling up the named powers.
is just kind of amazing towatch.
SPEAKER_01 (30:06):
Yeah.
And, and so, you know, I'm, I'mon the, uh, good side of 50%
because in this case, um, itjust seems clear to me, like if
the, if, even if the feds arearguing that they have the right
to stop these funds to stop themnow, as opposed to say like,
(30:28):
well, next year you're notgetting any.
Right.
Um, right.
That, you know, like there's a,an emergency, uh, In the law, in
the contract, in contracts law,there's a term called reliance.
And if you come to act inreliance on an agreement, you
have a good case.
(30:48):
And I would say here that's kindof what the schools are dealing
with.
Like they've– They were toldthey're getting this money.
They've acted in reliance.
They've made certain hires orwhatever, and now you're telling
us we can't get it.
So there may be sort of acontractual claim here, like you
made an offer, we accepted youroffer, and we acted in reliance
on it, so send us the money.
(31:08):
And if, again, Trump andRoosevelt and Lyndon McMahon
want to stop these particulargrant funds from flowing, then
go through Congress and do itfor next year.
So we can all plan around it.
SPEAKER_00 (31:24):
Which you can then, like, it is interesting to
choose to make so many peopleangry, like the potential to
make so many people angry aboutthis in doing it this way.
It's such a, like, it's adifferent, it's like, why are
you poking this?
SPEAKER_01 (31:40):
Yeah.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
People on your side, on your side on this issue, but
you're doing it in a way that'slike, Oh yeah, my, my, my sister
lost her job or my niece or mynephew or like they got fired
because you did it this way.
SPEAKER_01 (31:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's also, I thinkwhat puts me, you know, over 50%
is, you know, I was making sortof the legal argument, but I
think you're making thepolitical arguments act like
it's at some point someone'sgoing to realize like this is
just a bad, it's bad politicsto, you know, defund education.
(32:14):
Right.
It'll make a lot of
SPEAKER_03 (32:16):
people mad.
SPEAKER_01 (32:17):
Right.
Right.
And so someone's going to cometo their senses around the
federal government.
So, you know what, this isprobably a, this is not a hell
worth dying on.
SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:27):
For now.
For now.
SPEAKER_00 (32:30):
All right.
John Becker, as depressing as itis, it is always a pleasure to
talk to you.
Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01 (32:38):
When we get a new, like, fun thing, like First
Amendment or religion, we cantalk about that stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (32:45):
There you go.
Always a pick-me-up.
UNKNOWN (32:50):
Thanks, John.
Woo!
SPEAKER_00 (33:00):
and thank you for listening to another episode of
academic distinctions forstephanie millville i'm zach
chase thanks to our wonderfulguest john becker for helping us
to make sense of what's going onin education and the law you can
find academic distinctions apodcast to make sense of
american education anywhere youfind podcasts probably where you
(33:21):
found this episode and as alwaysyou can find us on social media
we're on blue sky we're oninstagram we're on facebook and
you can send us mail at mail atacademicdistinctions.com if
there's a topic or questionyou'd like us to tackle.
Until next time, thanks forlistening.
(33:42):
Academic Distinctions issupported financially by the
Federation of AmericanScientists.
You can find out more about FASat FAS.org.
UNKNOWN (33:57):
Music
Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in again to
Academic Distinctions.
This is Zach.
We've got a great conversationtoday about the Supreme Court's
recent shadow docket ruling onthe dismantling of the U.S.
Department of Education, as wellas a wonderful conversation with
the inimitable John Becker aboutthe withholding of federal funds
from states and districts forpublic education.
We did record this prior to OMBreleasing about$1.4 billion for
(00:27):
Title IV funds, but that doesnot mean that Thank you.
Thank you.
(00:59):
Hey, Stephanie.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00):
Hey, Zach.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
You look like you've got some questions.
SPEAKER_02 (01:03):
I do.
I do.
You know, I'm just trying tolike wrap my brain around what
is going on in D.C.
I think not that there's a daythat I'm not trying to wrap my
brain around what's happening inD.C., but you know.
SPEAKER_03 (01:14):
That's fair.
That's fair.
SPEAKER_02 (01:18):
Yeah.
So the Supreme Court issued aNot a ruling, a ruling, a
something that said Trump can goahead, like, just go for it,
babe.
Go ahead and dismantle theDepartment of Education.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
Sort of.
SPEAKER_02 (01:35):
Sort of, right?
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
So what they wanted to do was dismantle and take
apart the Department ofEducation.
And folks said, wait a minute,you can't do that.
And so they filed for aninjunction.
SPEAKER_02 (01:50):
Who's they?
Who's they?
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
The plaintiffs lost multiple lower courts, like
across the country, multiplelower courts were like, you
can't just dismantle theDepartment of Education.
SPEAKER_02 (02:05):
That takes like an act of Congress, right?
Like as far as I know.
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
Right.
And so the suits were like, youneed to stop doing that because
we don't think you're allowed todo this.
And so lower courts were like,we think you're right.
And so they issued a preliminaryinjunction.
which basically said, hey, LindaMcMahon, you are too ready to
rumble.
(02:29):
I'm going to get as manywrestling references as
possible.
And so they issued theinjunction and said, you have to
stop doing that.
Now, what you and I maybe knowas folks who are employed by the
U.S.
Department of Education.
Well, now we got an email fromH.R., that said, hey, because of
(02:52):
this preliminary injunction, wewant to know if you want to come
back here because we have beentold we have to stop doing this.
And the Secretary of Educationwent to the Supreme Court and
said, guys...
I want to destroy this thing I'min charge of.
And so asked for an emergencyruling on what sometimes is
(03:15):
called the like the shadowdocket.
Yeah.
What is the
SPEAKER_02 (03:19):
shadow docket?
SPEAKER_00 (03:20):
It's the emergency docket.
And so the Supreme Court haslike a session where they hear
cases like they announce herethe cases we're going to hear.
They hear those cases argued.
Then they take some time.
They all write.
They kind of come to a decisionand they issue their opinions
very formally.
the emergency docket is this,this kind of separate track
(03:40):
where you've got something thatyou're saying, like, we need to
get this decided right away.
So they hear it and then theymove forward.
Bush V Gore would be a goodexample, right?
Some hanging chads that wasn'tlike, they didn't wait to get on
the, on the courts session, likeon their docket, their formal
docket.
There was like, we need adecision right now.
(04:00):
So the justices came together,they moved very quickly and, And
so the Supreme Court justices ina 6-3 ruling said, yeah, we're
going to say no to thatpreliminary injunction.
You can go ahead and do what youwant to do.
You have the authority to dothis, largely saying things
(04:21):
like, well, you're going to movethis program from the U.S.
Department of Education to theDepartment of Labor, right?
So saying like you've accountedfor congressionally mandated
programs.
in some ways.
And so you're doing some thingsthat are fine.
And other ways, like you've gotexecutive power to do these
things, even while that largercase of whether or not you can
(04:43):
do these things or you need togo to Congress is making its way
formally to the Supreme Court,right?
So there's like the lower courtsand then appeal and then
challenge, challenge, challenge,the way things normally get to
the Supreme Court's regulardocket.
So that will be where theydecide whether or not The
executive has this power or ifthey need to go to get an act of
(05:04):
Congress to do what they'redoing.
So this didn't say, yes, you candestroy the– you can get rid of
the Department of Education.
What it said was you can keepworking– while this case is
making its way to us, which kindof in a de facto way means they
are dismantling the Departmentof Education because right away,
like moments after that newsbroke, I got an email from HR
(05:27):
that said, hey, according tothis ruling, you are going to go
ahead and get let go, which weknow we are, but they keep
sending these emails to ourpersonal addresses.
So that is what that means.
with this SCOTUS ruling.
Still really worrying, and ourfriend John Becker, who we'll be
(05:48):
talking to a little bit later inthe pod, has a great piece that
will, a great kind of outline ofthis, and then links to a
Georgetown con law professorthat talks about how this issue
is actually the opposite of whatthe court did in the challenge
to the Biden administration'sstudent loan save repayment
(06:08):
program.
What they said there was, no,no, no, we can't let this
happen.
We are going to put thisinjunction in place while we
wait for that case to make itsway to us.
So very, and along very similarlines.
So very interesting things goingon right now.
All very bad for the children, Ishould say, and the teachers.
(06:31):
But not as bad as what we reallywant to talk about today.
Does that answer your question,Stephanie?
SPEAKER_02 (06:36):
I think so.
So if I can say it back to you,basically, it's like...
SPEAKER_00 (06:43):
Back up a bit more from your mic.
You're coming in real hot.
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
So sorry.
How's that?
Is that better?
Yeah.
UNKNOWN (06:50):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (06:50):
So let me see if I can say back to you a little bit
what you said to me.
So it's not that the SupremeCourt said, go for it.
It's just the Supreme Courtsaid, we're not going to tell
you to stop.
SPEAKER_00 (07:01):
We're not going to tell you to stop while we wait
for this other case to make itsway to us.
SPEAKER_02 (07:06):
Right.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
They could have said, wait a minute.
If that case comes and wedecide, no, you don't have the
power to dismantle theDepartment of Education, it'd be
a real bummer if you'd alreadydismantled it.
But instead they were like,while we wait for it, go and do
whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_02 (07:21):
Let's see what plays out.
Yeah.
Let's see what happens.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:26):
What you might take is a bit of a wink to like, we
kind of know how that one'sgoing to play out.
Yeah.
And what I will say is that iffolks want to head over to the
strict scrutiny podcast, seasonsix, episode 39 deals very
specifically.
So if you want to really nerdout on, on SCOTUS decisions and
the workings of the, of thejudiciary, which always makes me
(07:49):
think of the rural juror, um,strict scrutiny season six,
episode 39 titled SCOTUSstrengthens conservative war on
education.
So I think some probably heavysize there too.
SPEAKER_02 (08:02):
It sounds like so much fun, like a real uplifting.
Listen.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:07):
Speaking of depressing.
Yeah.
Um,
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
what else we got?
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Have you ever had a budget issue?
SPEAKER_02 (08:13):
several times in my whole life.
SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Uh-huh.
Okay.
So this is going to surpriseyou, but schools, districts, and
state education offices alsohave budgets, Stephanie.
SPEAKER_02 (08:25):
Yes, this I am very familiar with as somebody who
has taught through multiple,multiple budget deficiencies.
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Yeah.
And so they start getting readyfor the next school year in like
the beginning of the calendaryear.
Correct.
Because schools and districtsand states want to get that
hiring wrapped up.
So hiring plans happen at thebeginning of the year.
Those hiring plans get approved.
(08:52):
Folks look at numbers forenrollment.
Yeah, exactly.
PD plans, definitely, right?
Because how are we going tospend this money?
SPEAKER_02 (09:00):
We look at programs for how do we support kids that
are not...
are not getting the servicesthat they need.
Like what programs can we put inplace to help our learners who
are currently struggling inparticular avenues?
And how do we support ourstudents who are coming in who
need support with English as asecond language or something
(09:21):
like that?
You know, multilingual learnersin general.
SPEAKER_00 (09:24):
Exactly.
So they do all that work in thespring.
SPEAKER_02 (09:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:27):
And then they go about hiring and they do that
work largely in the like May,April period.
They say, here's the moneythat's going to come in.
Here are the student populationsthat we're going to have.
Here are our priorities.
Here's what we want to do PD.
We plan all of that out.
(09:48):
That money is largely planned onand encumbered before everybody
leaves on summer break.
And you want to know why?
Because people actually leave onsummer break.
They go places or they go to PD.
I should say that too, right?
We did a
SPEAKER_02 (10:03):
lot.
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
I feel like that's a pretty
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
traditional thing.
Many teachers spend their summerbreaks learning or planning for
the next year, right?
Like how many times did I figureout that my schedule changed
from one year to the next in themiddle of the summer?
And suddenly I had a whole newcourse that I had to write like
resources for.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
But if you were to go to a school right now, right
in the middle of July, if youwere to go to the school down
the street, probably maybe threepeople would be there.
Maybe.
Yeah.
And maybe only one of them waslike contractually required to
be there or there's a summerschool opportunity or something
going on that the building isbeing used.
(10:43):
But those things tend to be runby teachers from other places in
the district.
They have tend to haveadministrators who are not
necessarily that building'sadministrator.
Right.
So there's like a summer schoolprincipal, which tends to be
somebody who's like gettingtheir feet wet as a principal.
So like the people in yourbuilding are not the permanent
staff right now over the summer.
(11:05):
I say all this to help folksunderstand that at the very
beginning of July, whenbuildings and schools across the
country were largely dormant,there was an announcement made
by the US Department ofEducation that it was
withholding title funds frombeing distributed across the
country.
And we've talked a little bitabout how title funds work,
right?
So title one, It helps toameliorate the impact of
(11:31):
poverty.
And Title II, Title II islargely around professional
learning and development.
Title III is around multilinguallearning.
Title IV has a whole bunch ofuses to it.
But those titles, those I, II,III, and IV are figured out
based on an equation, right?
SPEAKER_02 (11:51):
You
SPEAKER_00 (11:53):
know I love a good equation.
(12:14):
Title one funding is not tosupplant.
So it's on top of whatever thefunding is that you get for the
basic provision of services atyour school.
So when the federal governmentin the middle of summer vacation
says we are withholding thatmoney, it breaks a lot of
systems down.
SPEAKER_02 (12:37):
Yeah.
Seems like, um, it seems, Funfact, not fun fact, fun opinion.
It kind of seems like not onlyare they dismantling the
Department of Education, they'redismantling education at the
state level, which they saidthey were going to return to
states, right?
SPEAKER_00 (12:54):
Yeah.
It sounds like the federalgovernment is saying we are
getting out of the business ofensuring that all students in
this country have a right tolearn.
SPEAKER_02 (13:09):
It's so backwards.
How do we think our country isgoing to compete with other
countries if we do not takepublic education, education as a
whole, I should say, seriouslyor value it?
We have completely devalued it.
(13:29):
And when I say we, I mean them.
They have completely devaluededucation as a public good, it
seems.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Yes.
as a national public good,right?
So the language that's beingused is this is still a
state-level good.
States go ahead and do this.
But the states have builtbudgets that are dependent upon
that federal money happening.
And one of the things we need totalk about is that that makes a
(13:57):
difference to your neighbor.
That makes a difference to yourniece, to your nephew, to your
grandchildren.
That makes a difference to theteachers you know in your lives.
This removal of funding meansthat your public school, your
local public school is going tosuffer.
Children you know are going tosuffer.
SPEAKER_02 (14:17):
Children you don't know are going to suffer.
Even if you don't know somebodywho goes to school, you went to
school.
Come
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
on.
But if you're mildly selfish anddon't care about other children
you don't know, I'm telling youright now that the children you
know are going to suffer.
And also if you know somebodywho works in a field related to
education, That is going tosuffer.
Or if you know somebody whoworks in a field that sells
something to schools, thoseschools now have less money to
buy those things.
So they're probably not going tobuy those things because they're
(14:47):
going to retract that money andthey're going to go then say,
okay, we have to fund theseteachers because we need to save
these jobs.
The decision to withhold thesetitle funds has ripple effects
across an entirety of oureconomy.
SPEAKER_02 (15:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
To say nothing of keeping kids and teachers safe
and learning and teaching.
SPEAKER_02 (15:11):
Yeah.
How are they allowed to do this?
Like, how can they just wake upon July 1st and be like, I'm
just kidding.
We're not going to send you themoney that we said we were going
to give you that Congress hasalready approved to send to you.
I
SPEAKER_03 (15:22):
would
SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
like to make a joke here that's like, it's the
federal government.
Nobody just wakes up and doessomething.
But the way that this particularadministration has been
operating, I think maybesomebody did just like, let's
write a letter.
And so...
But I also think there areprobably some legal
ramifications here.
But don't worry, Stephanie.
John Becker is here to help.
SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
I am so glad.
SPEAKER_00 (15:48):
All right, John Becker.
We're real worried about, well,everything.
So...
Let's start at the verybeginning.
Stephanie asked a really goodquestion.
Can the executive branch legallydo what it is doing in
(16:12):
withholding title funds fromstates and districts across the
country?
SPEAKER_01 (16:19):
I'll say probably not.
How's that?
Okay.
To me, it's not all thatdifferent than the issue that
the Supreme Court just– um,dealt with in a bizarre way, um,
in that.
So in the, in the Supreme courtlifted a preliminary injunction,
(16:42):
um, about whether the educationdepartment could, uh, fire
without, you know, over athousand people.
Um, and so there were, you know,the questions can, can the
executive get rid of a cabinetlevel agency?
Um, and you know, that'sprobably not to, uh, But I say
(17:06):
probably not because the lawsays things like this stuff has
to be done through the Secretaryof Education.
So title one, let's say, of theElementary and Secondary
Education Act, the actuallanguage of the statute says the
(17:29):
Secretary of Education shall.
Well, so what happens if there'sno secretary of education?
You'd have to get rid of theagency in order for it to not
exist.
And then you'd have to changethe law to say the federal
(17:52):
government shall or an agency ofthe executive branch of the
federal government.
And so it's all tied together.
That sounds
SPEAKER_02 (18:02):
really ugly.
Yeah.
I mean, if he wants to dismantlethe department, all he has to do
is fire Linda McMahon?
Am I removing
SPEAKER_01 (18:17):
her?
That's the probably no part.
I mean, I think most experts saythe language that created the...
Department of Education saysthat Congress shall create this
thing and therefore theassumption is Congress is the
only agency that could– or onlybranch that could get rid of it.
(18:41):
But again, like if they got ridof it, what do you do with the
fact that the statute says theSecretary of Education shall?
And so like if you go back tolike Project 2025 says, for
example– the Office of CivilRights within the Department of
Education would move to theDepartment of Justice, right?
(19:02):
Well, there are things that OCRhas to do by statute that say
Secretary of Education shall.
So can the Attorney General dothat stuff?
Not by statute.
That's why you'd need Congressinvolved here.
There's a statutory languageunder ESEA, but there's also
issues around what's called theImpoundment Control Act.
SPEAKER_02 (19:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talk about that.
SPEAKER_01 (19:27):
Colloquial language is Congress has the powers of
the purse.
Right.
And so Congress authorizesspending certain money in
certain ways, and they'resupposed to control it.
And there are– instances whenthe executive branch can make
modifications, but generallyit's prohibited under the
(19:49):
Impoundment Control Act.
It's considered an act ofimpoundment for another branch
of government to modify thespending that Congress
authorized.
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
What's interesting there is that the thing that is
happening while we are recordingthis episode is that the Senate
is taking up the rescission offunding to the corporation for
public broadcast, like monies,like there's a way to do this.
Yep.
There's an appropriate andapproved way to do this, but
(20:24):
they're not doing that in thisparticular case.
SPEAKER_01 (20:28):
Uh, yes.
And my suspicion is that, um,it's, uh, well, it's less, uh,
consequential or it's, it's, Theperception is less– like if we
got rid of NPR or PBS, not ahuge deal.
And so we can go through theprocess.
(20:49):
The Senate will agree to itbecause there's no, I don't
know, electoral consequences forgetting rid of NPR funding.
SPEAKER_00 (20:56):
But if a senator says we're going to get rid of
special education services, thenthey're probably not going to
get reelected.
SPEAKER_03 (21:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:05):
Yeah.
I mean, I've been saying that ifI think if Democrats were smart,
they ought to be pounding thelanguage of like defunding
education the same way thatRepublicans pounded this idea of
like defunding the police, whichwasn't really actually about
defunding the police.
If we said Republicans aredefunding education, which
they're not really fully doing,but, you know, in a lot of ways
(21:26):
they are.
And I think that's a prettystrong electoral argument.
campaign message.
They're defunding publiceducation.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
They're defunding your schools, right?
That's the pieces.
I think, I think that folks, Ithink that we talk a lot about
property taxes, right?
We know that the majority ofeducation funding doesn't come
from the federal government.
And so I think people think,okay, if we cut off the federal
funding, we still got everythingwe need to run these schools,
(21:55):
but schools are, have been, beenbuilt around an assumption that,
and a belief and a promise thatthose federal funds are coming.
And so they have hired andstaffed and designed themselves
in such a way that if you don'tbring them that money, you've
actually broken those schools.
SPEAKER_03 (22:12):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (22:13):
I have a really interesting, like, well, not
interesting.
I have a hard time with the,like, well, if we don't have
funding, we have everything weneed.
It's like, well, no, you don'tlike the title funding accounts
for in some cases, more than 15%of your state education budget.
And if you think that that doesnot, impact schools
disproportionately in, in areasof increased poverty, let's say
(22:37):
like, where do you think thatmoney's going to come from?
SPEAKER_01 (22:41):
Yep.
I mean, say to tell parentslike, well, we've got to lay off
15% of our teachers.
Right.
And so your kid's class goesfrom, you know, 20 kids to 30
kids.
How do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_02 (22:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, so I.
Not great.
SPEAKER_00 (22:58):
No.
If that was not a rhetoricalquestion, I just went, no, I
would not feel great.
SPEAKER_02 (23:01):
I used to work in my local school district and we had
a class cap, class size cap of36 with our, with our current
contract.
But previously to that, we usedto have a, you had to have a
class average, class sizeaverage of 36.
So I could have one class and Ihad one class in one of my first
(23:23):
years at this one school sitewhere I had 18 kids in one class
and 49 in another.
SPEAKER_01 (23:30):
49.
SPEAKER_02 (23:34):
Yeah.
And that was, that was eighthgraders.
I had 49 eighth graders in aclass.
Like, whew, that was, that wasfun.
SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
Even half, even half of that is too much.
SPEAKER_02 (23:47):
Preaching to the choir.
It was like we had first comefirst serve seating.
I could not have a seatingchart.
How long can they withhold thesefunds?
SPEAKER_01 (23:58):
Forever?
I wonder if they waited to likeas late as they possibly could
(24:21):
and could make the argument thatif we don't know we're getting
the funds like we're planningright now for next year.
Right.
So if they filed this in inJune, it might have been like,
well, we can still make someadjustments.
But like now we need to knowlike right now that we're
getting these funds or we're notgetting
SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
it.
It was it was only 15 days.
Right.
So the announcement was madeJuly 1st.
So.
Yes.
I don't know.
Two weeks to get 24 attorneysgeneral moving seems pretty
good.
SPEAKER_02 (24:51):
Yeah, that's not too bad.
SPEAKER_01 (24:52):
Yeah.
So now– well, and the otherissue is let's say these 24
attorneys general get the courtsto issue a preliminary
injunction.
We have another Supreme Courtissue where the Supreme Court
recently said actuallypreliminary injunctions can't be
nationwide for the most part.
UNKNOWN (25:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:15):
So now what?
So let's say they get– what thecourts can do now pursuant to
the Supreme Court is they couldget a preliminary injunction as
to the plaintiffs.
So this funding will only haveto resume for those 24 states.
This is why the Supreme Courtdecision about nationwide
(25:36):
injunctions is ridiculousbecause– Right.
So the Department of Educationis only going to have to release
the funds to those 24 states?
That's– That's logisticallysilly and obnoxious.
SPEAKER_00 (25:48):
John, if you're reading, so let's say
preliminary injunctions, right?
They pop up.
And if you look at a map at whohas made these suits, it is the
left and the right of thecountry, not so much the bottom
or the middle.
Those are going to be local,right?
If there are preliminaryinjunctions, those are going to
be local to those states.
(26:09):
But a preliminary injunctionwould say you have to send that
money out.
SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
A preliminary injunction would stop them from
not sending it, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (26:19):
So it would compel them to send the money?
SPEAKER_01 (26:21):
I would think so, yes.
The federal government could– ifa district court issues a
preliminary injunction, thefederal government could ask for
a stay of that.
And all the stay does is itkeeps the status quo– while the
lawsuit proceeds.
But these lawsuits could take ayear or two, and that makes no
(26:43):
sense in this case because theyneed the money right now.
SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
I want there to be happy, fun legal questions where
we invite you on, John, becauseyou're a real fun person.
Yeah.
You are a real bummer every timewe've talked to you.
SPEAKER_02 (26:58):
Give us some hope.
Give us some hope.
Assuming that this is a longerprocess, what are some immediate
things that can be done at thispoint?
What can listeners do to securepublic education?
I
SPEAKER_01 (27:15):
would always encourage people to contact
their representatives, theirsenators, and have them put the
pressure on them Russ Vought orwhoever's holding up this money.
Um, there's, there's no reasonyour Senator couldn't make a
(27:35):
phone call or just show up atRuss Vought's office and say,
you know, this, this money isfor my constituents who, um,
need it and are in fact in mostneed of resources for education.
Um, and encourage your, uh,Congress people and senators to,
um, To make this clear, this isbipartisan.
(27:57):
There's a lot of kids in redstates who get a lot of this
funding and are going to loseout.
Just because these are the AGsthat are filing the suit doesn't
mean that those are where theseissues are going to be
problematic.
The other thing I think would be– would be, and I, you know, I'm
sure you all agree, likestorytelling is powerful.
(28:18):
And so being able to tell thestories of what's going to
happen if these particularfunds, because these are very
specific set of grant funds forvery specific set of purposes.
And to be able to say like, thisis what's going to have, these
kids are going to suffer inthese ways.
If these particular funds arenot issued, that could be pretty
(28:39):
compelling.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
All right, John Becker.
Yeah.
How optimistic are you that thismoney is released before schools
start opening like mid-Augustfor some places?
SPEAKER_01 (28:57):
I'd put the odds at like 57%.
How's that?
Less or minus three.
SPEAKER_00 (29:06):
Okay.
It's
SPEAKER_02 (29:06):
probably better than maybe, maybe not.
UNKNOWN (29:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
Even minus three has this over 50%.
And in these times, I will takethat.
SPEAKER_01 (29:14):
Yeah.
I mean, I say that because itfeels to me– well, the Supreme
Court case about the Departmentof Education feels so clear to
me too.
Like it's just so clear that theexecutive branch can't just
close one of its agencieswithout involving Congress.
Yeah.
(29:34):
Again, I'm repeatedlydisappointed because it feels to
me like the law obviously saysthis thing and then the Supreme
Court does something different.
Well, and Congress is not
SPEAKER_00 (29:43):
acting, right?
Like by and large.
SPEAKER_01 (29:45):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
I think sometimes that would be framed
differently.
But like that the majority inCongress right now just seems to
be like, we'll let this ridewhen the executive is just kind
of gobbling up the named powers.
is just kind of amazing towatch.
SPEAKER_01 (30:06):
Yeah.
And, and so, you know, I'm, I'mon the, uh, good side of 50%
because in this case, um, itjust seems clear to me, like if
the, if, even if the feds arearguing that they have the right
to stop these funds to stop themnow, as opposed to say like,
(30:28):
well, next year you're notgetting any.
Right.
Um, right.
That, you know, like there's a,an emergency, uh, In the law, in
the contract, in contracts law,there's a term called reliance.
And if you come to act inreliance on an agreement, you
have a good case.
(30:48):
And I would say here that's kindof what the schools are dealing
with.
Like they've– They were toldthey're getting this money.
They've acted in reliance.
They've made certain hires orwhatever, and now you're telling
us we can't get it.
So there may be sort of acontractual claim here, like you
made an offer, we accepted youroffer, and we acted in reliance
on it, so send us the money.
(31:08):
And if, again, Trump andRoosevelt and Lyndon McMahon
want to stop these particulargrant funds from flowing, then
go through Congress and do itfor next year.
So we can all plan around it.
SPEAKER_00 (31:24):
Which you can then, like, it is interesting to
choose to make so many peopleangry, like the potential to
make so many people angry aboutthis in doing it this way.
It's such a, like, it's adifferent, it's like, why are
you poking this?
SPEAKER_01 (31:40):
Yeah.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
People on your side, on your side on this issue, but
you're doing it in a way that'slike, Oh yeah, my, my, my sister
lost her job or my niece or mynephew or like they got fired
because you did it this way.
SPEAKER_01 (31:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's also, I thinkwhat puts me, you know, over 50%
is, you know, I was making sortof the legal argument, but I
think you're making thepolitical arguments act like
it's at some point someone'sgoing to realize like this is
just a bad, it's bad politicsto, you know, defund education.
(32:14):
Right.
It'll make a lot of
SPEAKER_03 (32:16):
people mad.
SPEAKER_01 (32:17):
Right.
Right.
And so someone's going to cometo their senses around the
federal government.
So, you know what, this isprobably a, this is not a hell
worth dying on.
SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:27):
For now.
For now.
SPEAKER_00 (32:30):
All right.
John Becker, as depressing as itis, it is always a pleasure to
talk to you.
Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01 (32:38):
When we get a new, like, fun thing, like First
Amendment or religion, we cantalk about that stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (32:45):
There you go.
Always a pick-me-up.
UNKNOWN (32:50):
Thanks, John.
Woo!
SPEAKER_00 (33:00):
and thank you for listening to another episode of
academic distinctions forstephanie millville i'm zach
chase thanks to our wonderfulguest john becker for helping us
to make sense of what's going onin education and the law you can
find academic distinctions apodcast to make sense of
american education anywhere youfind podcasts probably where you
(33:21):
found this episode and as alwaysyou can find us on social media
we're on blue sky we're oninstagram we're on facebook and
you can send us mail at mail atacademicdistinctions.com if
there's a topic or questionyou'd like us to tackle.
Until next time, thanks forlistening.
(33:42):
Academic Distinctions issupported financially by the
Federation of AmericanScientists.
You can find out more about FASat FAS.org.
UNKNOWN (33:57):
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