A federal judge in Massachusetts, Judge Myong Joun, blocked President Donald Trump‘s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education on Thursday. Joun also blocked transferring the management of federal student loans and special education functions out of the Education Department, and ordered all fired federal employees of the DOE to be reinstated.
“The record abundantly reveals that Defendants’ true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute,” Joun wrote in his opinion. “The idea that Defendants’ actions are merely a ‘reorganization’ is plainly not true.”
Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) responded on X by writing: “Massive win in court as judge blocks Trump’s wrecking ball which he directed at @usedgov. The court found the president had no right to dismantle a federal agency, its programs or its staff as authorized and funded by Congress. We’re the lawmaking power, Don—get it straight.”
Massive win in court as judge blocks Trump’s wrecking ball which he directed at @usedgov. The court found the president had no right to dismantle a federal agency, its programs or its staff as authorized and funded by Congress.
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) May 23, 2025
We’re the lawmaking power, Don—get it straight. https://t.co/rvEOqi9vNq
MAGA supporters are responding to the news with comments including “lower courts don’t have the authority” and “Trump will win on appeal” while others explain that the President of the United States does not have the authority to undo what Congress has done.
Echoing Raskin’s contention, one commenter replied: “The ruling does not determine whether the Education Department should be removed. That decision is only up to Congress. Presidents cannot unilaterally undo Congress.”
Note: Many of Trump’s orders have been blocked by judges at least temporarily, including the administration’s attempt this week to ban Harvard from enrolling international students and revoking their immigration status, and the administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship which is guaranteed in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, in a case that the Supreme Court will ultimately decide.
In the birthright citizenship case, the Trump administration hopes to bypass lawmaking authority of Congress that Raskin celebrates by offering an alternative interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s intent which differs from the interpretation now commonly in use.
In its order challenging the current interpretation, the administration concedes that the Fourteenth Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
But Trump’s legal team contends that the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a conditional aspect of the law that is wrongfully neglected in the status quo, arguing that “the Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'”
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