The Balance of Power

Dismantling Education Department

Press Release:

AG Tong Sues to Stop Dis­man­tling of Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and to Pro­tect Stu­dents

Preceding Event:

On March 11, 2025, the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion (ED) put out a press release regard­ing a cut in the Depart­men­t’s work­force ini­ti­at­ing a reduc­tion in force “as part of the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion’s final mis­sion.”

Accord­ing to the law­suit, in order to work towards the com­plete shut­down of the U.S.‘s small­est cab­i­net agency, rough­ly half of the depart­men­tal staff had their employ­ment ter­mi­nat­ed — about 1,950 peo­ple. This num­ber is split between those who were direct­ly sub­ject to the reduc­tion, employ­ees that accept­ed what the press release called the “Deferred Res­ig­na­tion Pro­gram” and employ­ees that accept­ed a “Vol­un­tary Sep­a­ra­tion Incen­tive Pay­ment.”

The law­suit alleged that at the begin­ning of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sec­ond term in office, there were about 4,133 work­ers at the depart­ment. The work­force would be cut by approx­i­mate­ly 50%, with a remain­ing work­force of around 2,183 peo­ple.

General Overview:

Accord­ing to the press release from March 13, 2025, Con­necti­cut Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong joined 20 oth­er state attor­neys gen­er­al in suing to stop the dis­man­tling of the depart­ment.
Accord­ing to Tong’s press release, “The ED’s pro­grams serve near­ly 18,200 school dis­tricts and over 50 mil­lion K‑12 stu­dents attend­ing rough­ly 98,000 pub­lic schools and 32,000 pri­vate schools through­out the coun­try. Its high­er edu­ca­tion pro­grams pro­vide ser­vices and sup­port to more than 12 mil­lion post­sec­ondary stu­dents annually…The administration’s lay-off is so mas­sive that ED will be inca­pac­i­tat­ed and unable to per­form essen­tial func­tions.

As the law­suit asserts, the administration’s actions will deprive stu­dents with spe­cial needs of crit­i­cal resources and sup­port. They will gut ED’s Office of Civ­il Rights, which pro­tects stu­dents from dis­crim­i­na­tion and sex­u­al assault. They would addi­tion­al­ly ham­string the pro­cess­ing of finan­cial aid, rais­ing costs for col­lege and uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents who will have a hard­er time access­ing loans, Pell Grants, and work study pro­grams.”

Connecticut Nexus:

Lin­da McMa­hon is a Con­necti­cut native and her busi­ness­es are also based in the state.

Date of filing:

3–13-25

Case #:

1:25-cv-10601

Case title:

State of New York, et al. v. McMa­hon, et al.

Plaintiffs: 20 states and D.C.

Defendants:

Court:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

Related case #(‘s):

1:25-cv-11042-MJJ
1:25-cv-10677-MJJ

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025:

OPEN
Last fil­ing: Nov. 26, 2025

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