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Nevada Attorney General Ford announced Friday his office will take part in an attempt to block the Trump administration’s mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education after filing a preliminary injunction Monday.
Ford joined a coalition of 20 other attorneys general that filed a lawsuit after the administration announced plans to cut half of the DOE’s workforce. Thursday, a federal judge set a hearing for April 25.
On March 20, Trump gave an executive order mandating the closure of the department. This also included the transfer of student loan oversight and special education services to other departments.
During a Friday press conference, Ford said the president does not have the authority to dismantle an agency at his pleasure.
“Congress created the Department of Education,” Ford said. “It exists to carry out the law that Congress has passed. Now unless Congress says otherwise, it stays. The executive branch cannot bypass the Constitution and it certainly can’t do so at the expense of millions of Americans and Nevada education.”
Ford called the DOE a lifeline for children, stating Nevada receives $6 billion in federal aid, including Pell grants for 41,000 college students. Approximately $38 million is allocated to the state’s Career and Technical Education programs, and more than $315 million goes toward special education services, he said. The DOE also supports 60,000 with special needs.
“If you take that (funding) away … you’re pulling out the rug for kids who need it the most,” Ford said.
Tille Torres, a Clark County public school teacher who spoke during Friday’s press conference, said she has taught in Nevada for 25 years. In her dual-credit English program, she has two support professionals who provide intervention services for students with special needs. Federal funding helps keep education support professionals such as her reading specialist and speech therapist in Nevada’s classrooms, she said.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Torres said. “When I learned about Trump’s executive order to shut down, my heart sank. It wasn’t an abstract policy change. This was personal. I thought, ‘What’s going to happen to (the students?)’
“They’re telling us it’s about giving power back to the states and the parents. It sounds like it’s taking of all my support.”
Nevada Solicitor General Heidi Stern said Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are subject to the nation’s laws and cannot unilaterally terminate the department’s staff. She also cited the various offices and services that provide or oversee numerous services to children in Nevada receiving federal support, including student privacy policy, the Homeless Assistance Act, Office of Civil Rights, Office of English Language Acquisition and others. Higher education institutions and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid likely will be impacted as well, Stern said.
“Because the actions of the president and secretary of the Department of (Education) violate our country’s laws and because they harm Nevada, we filed a motion earlier this week to enjoin these actions and stop harm to Nevada schoolchildren and children across the country,” Stern said. “I look forward to prevailing on that motion on April 25.”