A federal judge has denied an effort to immediately block DOGE staff from accessing Americans’ personal data stored at the Department of Education.
U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss of the District of Columbia wrote in an order yesterday that the plaintiff, the University California Student Association, “has failed to clear” the “essential hurdle” by not showing how it would likely suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an emergency injunction.
“UCSA is correct that a disclosure of information generally cannot be “undone,” … but that is not sufficient to show irreparable harm,” the judge wrote.
The judge continued, “What UCSA overlooks is that the context of the dissemination matters. Courts find dissemination of information to be an irreparable injury where, for example, highly sensitive information will be made public, or ends up in the hands of someone with no obligation to keep it confidential.”
Moss, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, also argued that the UCSA provided “no evidence, beyond sheer speculation, that would allow the Court to infer that ED or DOGE staffers will misuse or further disseminate this information.”
