From the Daily Mail: The Trump administration has won a court battle to gut the Department of Education as the president prepares to celebrate his birthday military parade.
A Maryland federal court declined to block a sweeping round of layoffs at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) – a quiet but crucial arm of the Department of Education that gathers and analyzes data on how American schools are performing.
In April, two groups representing education researchers sued the government, claiming the Department had recklessly slashed 90 per cent of IES staff, canceled major research contracts, and put decades of valuable data at risk.
They asked the court to reinstate the workers, revive the contracts, and stop any data from being destroyed.
But Judge Stephanie Gallagher ruled against them, at least for now, saying the lawsuit was too broad, lacked hard evidence, and didn’t clearly show any direct harm.
‘The record in this case underscores that it is poorly suited for preliminary relief,’ Gallagher wrote in a 13-page opinion.
However, the judge emphasized that her ruling doesn’t mean the case is over, but said the case needs to go to trial with a full set of facts, and indicated both sides may need to make some compromises.
ABOUT THIS JUDGE: Judge Stephanie Gallagher, born in 1972, is a U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. She is a Democrat, and was first nominated by Barack Obama in September 2015, but her nomination expired before she was confirmed. Gallagher was then re-nominated by President Donald Trump in June 2018, and finally confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Sept. 11, 2019.
⚖️ In American Educational Research Association v. U.S. Department of Education (challenging dismantling of Institute of Education Sciences (“IES”), Judge Stephanie Gallagher (Maryland) denies Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction.https://t.co/rqeqDB4AHg
— Susie Moore ⚾️🌻🐶 (@SmoosieQ) June 13, 2025
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