President Donald Trump‘s executive order to begin shutting down the Department of Education is all but guaranteed to face several challenges in court after multiple critics decried the action as unconstitutional.
Legally, only Congress can shut down the Education Department. It is unclear if the president has the necessary votes.
Still, Trump’s order calls for Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting it down, and prior efforts of layoffs or deferred resignations have already significantly reduced the workforce and severely limited its Office for Civil Rights.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) threatened future litigation in his reaction to Trump’s order on Thursday, as did multiple unions.
“Congress created the Department of Education and only an act of Congress can eliminate it. We will stop this malignant Republican scheme in…
