Trump seeks Supreme Court nod for Department of Education downsizing amid legal challenges

President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the US Supreme Court to permit a sweeping downsizing of the Department of Education, one of the president’s key policy goals that has so far been blocked by lower courts.

According to a CNN report, the emergency appeal comes just days after the First US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston refused to overturn a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked large-scale layoffs at the department.

The department was established under President Jimmy Carter and has remained a fixture in the federal government since.

This marks one of more than a dozen emergency appeals Trump has filed with the Supreme Court since returning to office in January, added the report.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration argued that its actions at the Department of Education are part of “internal management decisions” aimed at trimming “discretionary functions that, in the administration’s view, are better handled by the states.”

While President Trump has frequently pledged to eliminate the department altogether, government lawyers clarified in their filing that “the government has been crystal clear in acknowledging that only Congress can eliminate the Department of Education", reported CNN.

Earlier this year, President Trump ordered mass layoffs at the Department of Education.

However, since the department was established by an act of Congress, lower courts have ruled that it cannot be dismantled unilaterally by the executive branch. That said, the administration retains the authority to reduce the size of federal agencies — provided they can still fulfill their legal obligations.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice argued that this is exactly what the administration is doing.

“The Department remains committed to implementing its statutorily mandated functions,” the DOJ stated in its filing.

With inputs from agencies