Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Temporarily Reinstate Fired Federal Workers
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
Update: This article was updated to correct and add more information on U.S. District Judge James Bredar ordering the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired probationary federal workers.
A coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Department of Education (ED) and President Donald Trump, seeking to block the administration’s latest plan to lay off nearly half of ED’s workforce. And late on Thursday night, a federal judge ruled in favor of the 20 states, ordering the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of fired probationary federal workers – including those at ED.
On Tuesday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that the department plans to implement a reduction in force (RIF) to lay off nearly 50% of its staff across all divisions in part of an effort to improve efficiency and accountability. ED has not confirmed specifics on which employees were laid off, but there has been some information shared online giving a rough outline of which offices were hit the hardest – which includes Federal Student Aid (FSA). While laid-off staffers are still technically employed until March 21, they've had limited access to their email, phones and computers since the notice was released.
The 20 states in the lawsuit, which was filed in Massachusetts, alleged that the layoffs are illegal and the Trump administration does not have the power to dismantle any agency or override the agency’s statutory requirements. Ultimately, the states are seeking a court order to block the Trump administration from gutting ED’s workforce.
Specifically, the states pointed to a Supreme Court decision, Myers v. United States in 1926, that ruled Congress has the power to establish and determine the functions of administrative agencies.
The coalition of states also alleged that by following through on these layoffs, ED will be unable to perform its duties mandated by statute, including administering postsecondary education programs like the federal Pell Grant program.
“The dismantling of the Department will result in higher costs to attend institutions of higher education,” the lawsuit reads. “Not only will federal funding for Pell grants, work study programs and subsidized loans be at risk, but so too will the Department’s administration of those programs, without which they cannot operate even if they were fully funded. Without these federal programs supporting students of higher education, the cost of pursuing higher education will increase and fewer students will have the opportunity to attend college.”
On Thursday night, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s layoffs as part of this lawsuit. U.S. District Judge James Bredar ordered that the thousands of federal probationary workers fired by the Trump administration be temporarily reinstated – which includes probationary workers from ED and other federal agencies.
In his ruling, Bredar wrote that the Trump administration used boilerplate termination notices for thousands of probationary workers, citing their “performance” as inadequate. However, these workers never received either a formal or informal notice from their supervisor that their performance was inadequate.
Bredar wrote in his decision that “the law is clear” – when dismissing an employee due to unsatisfactory performance, the employer must “honestly” be dissatisfied with the employee's performance.
“Further underscoring the Court’s conclusion that these terminations were not based upon qualification or performance is that many notices to employees did not even cursorily identify any issues with the individual's performance, but rather explained that their terminations were in the public interest or due to the priorities of the current administration, or else provided no reason at all,” Bredar wrote.
According to the Washington Post, 63 of the employees fired by ED were probationary.
Furthermore, Bredar wrote that when the administration conducted its RIF, it gave no advance notice to states that would be impacted. Without advance notice to these states of the administration’s layoffs, the states were harmed since they did not have the opportunity to plan, organize, and reprogram necessary resources for suddenly unemployed workers.
“Lacking the notice to which they were entitled, the States weren’t ready for the impact of so many unemployed people,” Bredar wrote. “They are still scrambling to catch up. They remain impaired in their capacities to meet their legal obligations to their citizens.”
Earlier in the afternoon on Thursday, another federal judge, U.S. District Judge William Alsup, ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired probationary employees. However, his order did not include ED as one of the affected agencies.
In Tuesday’s layoff announcement, ED said it would continue to deliver on “all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview,” which includes Pell Grants, student loans, and more. However, NASFAA Interim President & CEO Beth Maglione noted that decimating entire teams within the department could lead to unintended but dire consequences.
“Claiming that eliminating half the Department won’t affect its services — without any clear plan to redistribute the workload — is, at best, naive and, at worst, deliberately misleading,” Maglione said in a statement. “It also raises serious concerns about how billions of dollars in federal student aid will continue to be disbursed to students without interruption.”
Stay tuned to Today’s News for more coverage of this developing story.
Publication Date: 3/14/2025
David S | 3/19/2025 7:17:56 PM
The issue as it pertains to financial aid professionals is not the legality of these mass firings; that’s for lawyers to wrestle over. The issue is functionality; will the work we rely on ED for get done? Trump has clearly stated his goal of eliminating ED; if he can’t do that he’s obviously trying to keep it from functioning.
And let’s not draw a parallel to Biden dismissing 18 political appointees and Trump firing tens of thousands of civil servants. They obviously don’t have the same impact.
Darren C | 3/19/2025 9:11:05 AM
Armand, reasonable and fair point. I would hope to see the federal Government and our tax payer funds held to a higher standard. You point out that smaller businesses feel the squeeze yet the department of education seemed to have a large amount of misused or misappropriated funds. When looking at salary data reflecting up to March 2025, it appears that the average points to a figure close to $145,000 annually per employee. Yet somehow, they couldn't effectively roll out a FAFSA change without in many cases crippling school's ability to get funding to their students. Additionally, they misled students multiple times regarding student loan forgiveness all the way up to election time. Is letting all of these employee's go the right move? We're not sure yet. But I agree something major needs to change.
Joel T | 3/19/2025 9:7:50 AM
In 2021, President Biden fired all eighteen Trump-appointed board members on the Air Force Academy, Military Academy, and Naval Academy Board of Advisors before their terms were over. Congressmen and political scholars began questioning if this was legal as it was unprecedented and possibly unlawful political firings.
It resulted in a lawsuit (look up Spicer v. Biden) where the D.C. Circuit clarified the extent of the President’s removal authority for such positions and essentially said the President had the right to remove federal appointments and employees, as needed.
As a result, President Biden's decisions and the subsequent legal arguments in court helped establish the precedent that made much of this possible. It’s difficult to express outrage when individuals with differing perspectives begin to follow the same approach that others have already taken.
James C | 3/19/2025 8:33:28 AM
Just as it was illegal for Biden to forgive federal loans outside of the parameters set up by Congress, it is illegal for Trump to be firing probationary employees. Let's start streamlining by first ending some of the onerous regulations like FVT/GE and overly complicated R2T4 rules (among many) which require more staff both at Ed and at the colleges and universities.
David S | 3/18/2025 3:25:50 PM
Armand, I find that the most disrespectful and inappropriate comment I’ve ever seen on NASFAA’s website. Our colleagues at ED have always been hard working, committed professionals who have helped countless financial aid professionals and students. I’m not sure what you meant to accomplish by questioning their work ethic in this forum.
Armand R | 3/17/2025 11:17:59 AM
There are many smaller higher ed institutions that run their financial aid offices with a skeleton crew because they don't have the funding of larger institutions. We double up and triple up responsibilities and we still get the job done because we have to (ED doesn't lighten its regulatory requirements for schools that can't afford a large staff). ED can do the same. Put a little more on everyone's plate and get the job done! An unintended consequence may be that a strong work ethic starts to re-emerge.
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