The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major win Monday, authorizing it to proceed with deep staff cuts at the Department of Education—part of a broader restructuring effort long championed by the president.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court lifted a lower court order that had blocked the Department from moving ahead with layoffs affecting nearly 1,400 employees. The ruling, though temporary, affirms the executive branch’s authority to organize and manage federal agencies without judicial micromanagement.

“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who’s overseeing the department’s overhaul. “The President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies.”

McMahon hailed the ruling as a win for families, arguing that cutting bureaucratic bloat would lead to more efficient and accountable education governance. “This is a significant win for students and families,” she said, lamenting that the administration had to go all the way to the nation’s highest court to assert such basic constitutional authority.

The case arose after a Biden-appointed district court judge sided with union-aligned plaintiffs in May, ordering the Education Department to reinstate the positions. The judge found the mass layoffs potentially unlawful under federal labor statutes and claimed they could “irreparably harm” public education operations.

But the Trump administration countered that it’s within its legal bounds to reduce staff, especially in agencies it believes are failing their mission or have grown bloated with unaccountable middle managers.

At the heart of the dispute is Trump’s promise to “dismantle” the federal education bureaucracy, which he has long criticized as ineffective and ideologically biased. His administration has argued that cutting staff and decentralizing control will return power to parents, states, and local school districts.

Liberal justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the Supreme Court’s ruling. In a scathing opinion, Sotomayor warned that the Court was enabling executive lawlessness.

“When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” she wrote.

Sotomayor accused the conservative majority of ignoring constitutional boundaries and warned the ruling posed a “grave” threat to the separation of powers. “The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive,” she said.

Her dissent echoed warnings from teachers’ unions and progressive groups, who say the cuts could derail key programs, eliminate oversight roles, and hurt vulnerable student populations.

Trump allies see things differently. They argue that the Department of Education, created in 1979, has overstepped its role for decades, injecting federal mandates and leftist ideology into classrooms while failing to raise academic outcomes.

This move is the latest in a string of education reforms under Trump’s second term. Earlier this year, the Department revoked guidance allowing free tuition for illegal immigrants, a policy shift celebrated by immigration hawks. It’s also expected to push forward with efforts to tie federal education dollars to curriculum transparency, charter school expansion, and parental rights.

With the Supreme Court’s green light, the administration is now free to continue its overhaul — and conservatives are celebrating the moment as a turning point.

“This is the kind of decisive leadership Americans voted for,” said one Trump advisor. “The bureaucracy is finally being forced to answer to the people again.”