Just one day after the Supreme Court provided a temporary green light, the Trump administration has begun the practical work of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. Not by waiting for Congress to pass a new law, but by using the administrative power of the executive branch to transfer the department’s core responsibilities to another agency.

This move to shift federal workforce and adult education programs from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor is more than a bureaucratic shuffle.

It is a profound constitutional test of the limits of presidential power. It forces us to ask a critical question: Can a president, who is sworn to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” use his administrative authority to effectively nullify a cabinet-level department created by Congress?

The Context: A Supreme Court Opening

To understand today’s action, we must revisit the events of the past several months. In March, President Trump signed an executive order directing the closure of the Department of Education, and Secretary Linda McMahon subsequently initiated layoffs for nearly half the department’s workforce.

This move was immediately challenged in court by two dozen states, who argued the administration was illegally destroying a department it was legally bound to operate.

A federal judge agreed with the states and issued a preliminary injunction, halting the administration’s plans. On Monday, however, the Supreme Court issued a temporary stay on that injunction.

While not a final ruling on the merits of the case, the stay lifted the legal barrier and provided the administration with the window it needed to act.

The Strategy of Deconstruction: An Interagency Agreement

The administration is now moving forward by activating an Interagency Agreement (IAA) between the Departments of Education and Labor. This agreement transfers the day-to-day management of adult education, family literacy, and career and technical education programs – key functions of the Education Department – over to the Department of Labor.

Publicly, the administration frames this as a “commonsense step” to streamline services and reduce a “bloated federal bureaucracy.” Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer argued that the current structure is “inefficient and duplicative” and that this move will better serve students and workers.

An End-Run Around Congress

Beneath the language of efficiency, however, lies a direct challenge to the separation of powers. Congress, through the Department of Education Organization Act of 1979, created the department and gave it a specific set of responsibilities. Only Congress has the power to undo that law.

By using an administrative tool like an IAA to transfer a department’s core functions, the executive branch is effectively repealing parts of that law by decree. It is achieving a major political goal—the functional elimination of an agency—without the constitutionally required step of passing new legislation.

This action usurps the fundamental lawmaking authority that Article I of the Constitution grants exclusively to Congress.

This is a direct test of the President’s duty under the Take Care Clause. Can a president claim to be “faithfully executing” the law that establishes the Department of Education while simultaneously stripping it of its staff and core purpose? A faithful execution of the law implies a good-faith effort to make it work as Congress intended. Using administrative power to render an agency obsolete before Congress has acted to eliminate it is the very opposite of a good-faith effort.

This move is a significant and potentially irreversible step toward the President’s goal of eliminating the department. It is a powerful lesson in how modern executive power operates. A determined president doesn’t always need to convince Congress to repeal a law to kill it; they can sometimes achieve the same result by dismantling the agency responsible for it from the inside out, piece by piece. This raises profound questions about the stability of our government institutions and the real-world limits of congressional power when faced with a hostile and determined executive.