According to a lawsuit filed in Maryland district court on April 16, 2025 by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), “Dramatic, unreasoned, and unlawful actions” taken by the Trump administration to significantly downsize the U.S. Department of Education’s(USDE) Institute of Education Sciences (IES) are making it impossible to carry out education research. The lawsuit further avers that the funding and staffing cuts made to IES will hamper the institute’s ability to conduct impartial, high-quality research and share those findings with educators, researchers and policymakers, according to the federal lawsuit, which was filed in Maryland district court.

Another lawsuit that disputes IES shrinkage was previously filed by the Association for Education Finance and Policy and the Institute for Higher Education Policy on April 4th in federal court in Washington, D.C.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.