McMahon v. New York, 145 S.Ct. 2643

The case arises from President Trump's directive, via Executive Order 14242, to close the Department of Education without Congressional involvement, a power historically reserved to Congress.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, following the directive, terminated approximately 50% of the Department staff, affecting core statutory functions, including federal student aid and civil rights enforcement.
Plaintiffs (20 states, D.C., school districts, and unions) challenged the executive actions as violations of the separation of powers, the Take Care Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The District Court granted a preliminary injunction blocking the terminations and related executive actions, finding irreparable harm and likely unlawful conduct by the executive.
The First Circuit denied the government's request to stay the injunction, citing unrebutted evidence of executive intent to dismantle the Department and concrete harm to statutory functions.
The Supreme Court, on emergency application, stayed the district court's injunction pending appeal, allowing the executive actions to proceed for now, with dissent by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Executive authority to dissolve Department of Education	Only Congress can abolish a cabinet agency; the President must execute, not repeal, statutes	The mass terminations are part of an efficiency effort, not abolition	Stay granted (allows executive action pending appeal)
Violation of the Take Care Clause and separation of powers	President is refusing to execute statutorily mandated functions	No explicit defense on merits; jurisdictional and remedial defenses raised instead	Stay granted; court did not reach merits definitively
Sufficiency of showing irreparable harm and standing	States and schools face concrete, immediate injuries due to service degradation and funding disruption	Harms claimed are speculative and not traceable to terminations	Stay granted; majority did not credit plaintiffs' harm claims for emergency relief
Scope and propriety of district court's remedial order	Injunction and reinstatement of employees necessary to preserve statutory compliance	Court lacked authority to order reinstatement, or order was overbroad	Stay granted; questions of remedy left to lower courts

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) (Only Congress can make or repeal laws; the President cannot displace Congressional prerogatives)
Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998) (President lacks authority to unilaterally repeal statutes)
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302 (2014) (President must faithfully execute laws under Article II)
Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co., 463 U.S. 1315 (1983) (Extraordinary circumstances required for Supreme Court emergency relief)
Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418 (2009) (Standard for stays pending appeal: likelihood of success, irreparable harm, and balancing of equities)
Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183 (2010) (Per curiam: Standard for emergency stays)