Judge blocks Trump's education executive order and orders agency to reinstate fired employees

A judge has stopped Donald Trump's executive order to dismantle the US Department of Education Department in its tracks.

Earlier this year, the US Department of Education revealed its initiation of a reduction in force (RIF) impacting 'nearly 50 percent of the Department's workforce'.

The US Department of Education released a press release noting the Department's workforce stood at 4,133 workers when Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States back in January.

As a result of the RIF being initiated, the Department's workforce has since been set to 'roughly 2,183 workers' - a reduction of around 1,950 employees.

In a statement on March 11, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said that the reduction 'reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers'.

Donald Trump slashed a number of jobs with the order (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

During an interview on Fox News' Laura Ingraham's The Ingraham Angle, McMahon also said that the layoffs were part of Trump's 'mandate' and 'directive' to 'shut down the Department of Education', adding: "What we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat."

Now, US District Judge Myong Joun has granted a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from carrying out their plans, with the injunction being filed by education groups, including the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts and the American Federation of Teachers (via CNN).

Judge Joun revealed in his order that the plaintiffs told a 'stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations'.

The judge went on to say the layoffs 'will likely cripple the Department', and has since ordered the education to reinstate the federal workers who were fired last month.

The judge called Trump's plan for the Department of Education is to 'effectively dismantle the department without an authorizing statute' (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

According to The Independent, Trump's administration admitted that the Department of Education 'cannot be shut down' without Congress' intervention, Joun said.

He added that 'yet they simultaneously claim that their legislative goals (obtaining Congressional approval to shut down the Department) are distinct from their administrative goals (improving efficiency)'.

"There is nothing in the record to support these contradictory positions." Joun said.

He went on to say the administration's 'true intention is to effectively dismantle the department without an authorizing statute'.

As for the mass sacking, he wrote that 'a department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all' and the court cannot be asked to 'close their eyes' to the continuous firing 'until the Department becomes a shell of itself'.

According to PBS, the administration said that restructuring the entire department 'may impact certain services until the reorganization is finished', however, they were committed to fulfilling statutory requirements.