Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PROCEDURE—D. Md.: Education researchers denied preliminary injunction barring dismantling of Institute of Education Sciences, (Jun 13, 2025)

By Ronald Miller, J.D.

Timing alone does not make it proper to challenge all 99 contract terminations as one common agency action.

Two education research organizations were denied a preliminary injunction reversing the contract cancellations and reduction in force of employees of the Institute of Education Sciences, ruled a federal district court in Maryland. Essentially, the plaintiffs challenged the Trump Administration’s dismantling of the IES. However, the court determined that the plaintiffs likely do not have standing to seek the relief they have requested as to the contracts, and thus have not shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits. The plaintiffs fared no better as to their reduction-in-force related claims, and their asserted informational injury did not give them standing to challenge the termination of every employee at IES impacted by the RIF (American Educational Research Association v. Department of Education, No. SAG-25-1230 (D. Md. Jun. 12, 2025)).

Institute of Education Sciences. Congress created the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in 2002, and directed it to “compile statistics, develop products, and conduct research, evaluations, and wide dissemination activities…supported by Federal funds appropriated to the Institute.” IES has four centers, all created by Congress. Congress specifically appropriated $807 million to fund IES in March 2025. No one disputes that IES and its centers have supported the creation and dissemination of important research that has helped educators improve student outcomes.

Contract cancellations. On February 10, 2025, a staff member from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) arrived at the Department of Education with a list of 89 IES contracts to cancel. All of those contracts were canceled within 24 hours without any justification. On February 13, IES canceled all 10 of its contracts to operate Regional Education Laboratories (RELs).

Because IES only had about 200 staff members, it relied heavily on contracts and grants to carry out its core functions. On March 11, 2025, DOE announced a mass reduction in force (RIF) that terminated 90 percent of IES’s staff, leaving 20 remaining staff members.

On March 20, President Trump signed Executive Order 14242 to dismantle the Department of Education in its entirety.

Education researchers. The plaintiffs, two organizations of education researchers, filed this lawsuit on April 4, 2025. The complaint includes two counts: an Administrative Procedure Act claim, and a stand-alone Separation of Powers claim. On April 29, 2025, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking three forms of relief: (1) an order requiring IES to revoke the RIF; (2) an order requiring IES to reinstate the contracts it terminated; and (3) an order requiring the defendants to “take prompt action to preserve all data collected in research conducted by contractors with contracts cancelled.”

A preliminary injunction hearing was held on May 21, 2025. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court ordered the government to produce the at-issue contracts to the plaintiffs. Based on their review of those contracts, the plaintiffs provided a detailed supplement explaining which of the terminated contracts related to IES’s specific statutory mandates, and which did not.

Preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs have two competing, but ultimately interrelated, theories underlying their request for a preliminary injunction reinstating IES’s terminated contracts. The first is that the contract terminations constituted a single discrete agency action. The second is a more individualized challenge to specific contract terminations.

Likelihood of success. As an initial matter, the plaintiffs framed their challenge broadly as contesting a single agency action terminating 99 distinct contracts. However, the court noted that there was no singular policy or pronouncement terminating all of the contracts at issue in this case. It was correct that IES terminated 99 contracts in a matter of days without any justification or deliberative process. But timing alone does not make it proper to challenge all 99 terminations as one common agency action.

Informational injury. The APA expressly precludes programmatic challenges as opposed to challenges to discrete acts to preserve the autonomy of agencies in deciding how to fulfill their statutory functions. For an informational injury to be cognizable under Article III, a plaintiff must show that they: (1) “lack access to information to which [they] are legally entitled;” and (2) the “denial of that information creates a real harm with an adverse effect.”

Although the plaintiffs likely enjoyed the use of broader data, they are only legally entitled to data Congress expressly mandated IES to keep and disseminate. Under that standard, the plaintiffs have not shown they were “legally entitled” to the products of all 99 terminated contracts. Thus, the plaintiffs have failed to show that there was a distinct final agency action terminating all of the contracts, or that it is nevertheless appropriate to consider all of the terminations together.

The plaintiffs also run into problems by asking the court to order the government to reinstate specific contracts. Usually, people who are not party to a contract (or a third-party beneficiary) do not have standing to sue based on the contract. However, the plaintiffs here likely do have standing to challenge the harms they are experiencing because IES is not taking the steps necessary to fill its statutory duties. But they cannot ask the court to order IES to fulfill its duties through a specific contract. First, the contract recipients are the most directly impacted, and it would intrude on their autonomy to reinstate their contracts when they have not asked for that outcome and might not want it. Second, ordering IES to reinstate specific contracts would be impermissible micromanagement of the agency’s operations. And third, intervening as to any specific contract may raise Tucker Act issues.

Irreparable harm. Further, the plaintiffs have not shown that they will be irreparably harmed absent an order reinstating some or all of the contracts. IES terminated the at-issue contracts in February. A preliminary injunction or Section 705 stay would not serve to preserve the status quo, but rather return IES to its status before February 10. Ultimately, the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that a preliminary injunction is necessary to prevent further irreparable harm.

Reduction in force. The plaintiffs fared no better as to their reduction-in-force related claims. They asked the court to order the government to reinstate a large number of employees.

However, the record in this case does not support an indiscriminate, broad, mandatory preliminary action. There is no evidence in the record about which employees or types of employees performed tasks related to statutorily mandated functions. As such, the plaintiffs sought an overbroad mandatory injunction, but had not shown they have standing to seek that relief.

Because the plaintiffs’ standing is based on an informational injury, they need to connect terminated employees to their loss of statutorily required data. But the plaintiffs went for the broader approach, asking that everyone be reinstated. However, the plaintiffs’ asserted injury does not give them standing to challenge the termination of every employee at IES impacted by the RIF.

Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction was denied.

The case is No. SAG-25-1230.

Judge: Gallagher, S.

Attorneys: Daniel A. McGrath (Democracy Forward Foundation) for American Educational Research Association. Brad P. Rosenberg, U.S. Department of Justice, for the U.S. Department of Education.

Companies: American Educational Research Association

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