McMahon v. New York
The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with mass layoffs at the Department of Education while legal challenges continue, setting aside a lower court order that had required the government to restore fired employees and halt the firings.
The emergency ruling does not decide whether the administration's actions were lawful — it only pauses the block on the firings while the case works through the courts — but it affects tens of millions of students and schools that rely on the Department for federal aid and civil rights enforcement.
“The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted.”
The Court's complete majority ruling, granting the emergency stay in a single sentence.
How it got here: A Massachusetts federal district court blocked the mass firings on May 22, 2025; the First Circuit refused to pause that order; the administration then asked the Supreme Court to step in.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The Trump administration fired over half of the Education Department's roughly 4,100 employees in March 2025 — eliminating entire offices — and signed an executive order directing the Secretary to "facilitate the closure" of the Department. A coalition of 20 states, the District of Columbia, school districts, and unions sued, arguing that only Congress has the power to abolish a federal agency it created, and that the mass firings were already preventing the agency from carrying out legally required duties such as administering student aid, enforcing civil rights laws, and supporting special education programs for more than 7 million students with disabilities.
The question before the Court
Can the administration fire over half of the Education Department's staff — effectively shutting it down — without Congress first voting to abolish the agency?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court paused the preliminary injunction that had blocked the administration's mass firings and required reinstatement of fired employees, allowing the layoffs to remain in effect while the legal challenge continues. The order is temporary and does not decide whether the administration acted lawfully in gutting the Department's workforce.
Because the Court issued no written opinion explaining its reasoning, the only detailed legal analysis in this record comes from Justice Sotomayor's dissent, which argued that the government failed to satisfy any of the four factors courts use to justify an emergency pause — including that it was unlikely to win on the merits, and that the harm to students and schools far outweighed any burden on the government from paying employees it had no right to fire.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Tens of millions of students who depend on federal financial aid, special education funding, and civil rights enforcement through the Education Department may face continued service disruptions. Schools and universities that need federal certification to enroll students on financial aid could see ongoing delays in payments and approvals while the legal fight plays out.
What changes now
The First Circuit will now hear the government's appeal of the preliminary injunction with the injunction on pause, meaning the mass firings can remain in effect during that process. If the government seeks Supreme Court review and is denied, the stay ends automatically and the injunction is restored. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, the stay continues until the Court issues a final ruling on the merits. The fundamental legal question — whether the executive can effectively dismantle a congressionally created agency without legislation — remains unresolved.
What this does not decide
The order does not decide whether the administration's mass firings were lawful or whether the President can effectively shut down the Department of Education without an act of Congress. It does not address whether any narrower injunction targeting specific Department functions might still be appropriate — a question the dissent noted the lower courts should consider first.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor argues that the executive branch cannot unilaterally abolish a Cabinet-level agency that Congress created, and that the record plainly showed the mass firings were aimed at closing the Department — not improving efficiency, as the government claimed in court. She contends the government failed all four factors for an emergency stay: it was unlikely to win on the merits, the balance of harms strongly favored students and schools who depend on the Department for billions in aid and civil rights protections, and the equities did not favor a government that pressed pretextual justifications in court. She accuses the majority of enabling the executive's seizure of the power to repeal federal law by firing everyone needed to carry it out.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- To obtain an emergency stay, an applicant must ordinarily show: a strong likelihood of ultimately winning the appeal, that it will suffer serious harm if the pause is denied, that the other side will not be seriously harmed by the pause, and that the public interest favors it. The Court applied that standard here, though it issued no written opinion explaining how.
- The per curiam order grants the stay in a single paragraph without stating the majority's reasoning. The only detailed reasoning before the Court is Justice Sotomayor's dissent, which argued that the government met none of the required factors.
- On the merits, the dissent argued the government was unlikely to win because the Constitution assigns lawmaking — including creating and abolishing agencies — to Congress alone, not the President; the Take Care Clause requires the executive to carry out laws Congress has passed, not dismantle the agencies responsible for carrying them out.
- The dissent further argued that the record was unambiguous: neither the President nor the Secretary made any secret of their intent to close the Department without congressional authorization, the Secretary admitted no analysis was done of the firings' effect on the agency's statutory duties, and the District Court found the Department was already unable to perform many of those duties.
- On the balance of harms, the dissent argued the comparison was lopsided — the government's harm was paying employees it had fired while litigation proceeded, while the harm to the other side included disruptions to billions of dollars in student aid, federal school funding, and civil rights enforcement affecting millions of students nationwide.
- By granting the stay, the majority implicitly concluded the government had made a sufficient showing on the four factors to pause the injunction while the First Circuit hears the full appeal and, if certiorari is sought and granted, while the Supreme Court resolves the underlying constitutional and statutory questions.