Noah Feldman, Columnist

The Supreme Court’s Silent Opinions Undermine Its Legitimacy

Without explanation, the majority blocked lower court orders halting President Trump's dismantling of the Department of Education. That erodes the rule of law.

July 15, 2025 at 3:22 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Straining the court’s credibility.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

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In an unsigned order with no explanation, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority blocked the lower court orders that had stopped Donald Trump from shuttering the Department of Education.

The decision seems legally wrong to me, given that Congress created the department and only Congress should have the legal power to shut it down. But how can I even make a fair-minded argument to that effect, when the majority — unlike the three liberal dissenters — didn’t deign to provide even one word of explanation for its reasoning?