Attorney General Charity Clark has joined a coalition of states in filing an amended complaint to broaden their legal challenge against the Trump Administration’s actions involving the U.S. Department of Education. The new complaint, submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, addresses additional efforts by the administration to move essential Department functions to other federal agencies.
Earlier, in March, the coalition filed a lawsuit contesting what they called an unlawful mass firing at the Department and criticized the transfer of key responsibilities out of its purview. Despite this legal action, the Department proceeded with shifting further critical duties—including student loan management, K-12 funding distribution, and career training programs—to other agencies through Inter Agency Agreements (IAAs), allegedly without assessing whether those agencies could manage them.
The Department of Education is responsible for various roles such as supporting low-income children, offering vocational training, and enforcing anti-discrimination laws. These functions are seen as integral to both federal and state education systems. The coalition argues that recent reductions in staff and transfers of responsibilities amount to dismantling the Department.
On March 11, 2025, nearly half of the Department’s workforce was cut as part of what has been described as President Trump’s “final mission” to close down the agency. The ongoing lawsuit claims these measures taken by Secretary Linda McMahon and others are illegal. A preliminary injunction was issued by a federal judge to stop the firings—a decision later upheld by an appellate court but now stayed by the Supreme Court.
Further action came on November 18, 2025, when six more partnerships were announced with other federal departments—Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State—through IAAs intended to shift resources away from Education. According to Attorney General Clark and her colleagues in today’s amended complaint: “the recent attempts to transfer critical functions via IAAs directly contradict with Congress’s mandate – expressed in the Department of Education Organization Act and elsewhere – that these crucial functions be performed by ED and not other agencies or departments of the United States.” They allege these actions violate both constitutional provisions and administrative law.
A copy of the amended complaint can be found on Attorney General Clark’s website.
