A federal judge temporarily barred Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive student data on Monday, after the American Federation of Teachers sued over privacy concerns.
The judge, Deborah Boardman of the District Court of Maryland, said the federal government had not provided convincing evidence that DOGE needed the information to achieve its goals. Last week, in a separate case brought by the University of California Student Association against the Education Department, a different judge declined to bar DOGE from accessing student data, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t shown any harm done. But Boardman, a Biden appointee, argued that DOGE staff being given access was enough to merit the injunction.
Education Department staff and student advocates raised concerns about DOGE employees’ access to student loan and financial aid data, which includes troves of uniquely sensitive, personally identifiable information. The injunction prevents the office from executing what Musk has referred to as an “audit” of the student loan system for at least two weeks while the lawsuit is ongoing, as well as from accessing financial aid data.
“We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government—namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan—they expect that data to be protected,” AFT president Randi Weingarten wrote in a statement.
The court-ordered stoppage is the latest in a string of injunctions issued against Musk and the Trump administration in recent weeks, as lawsuits pile up against the administration’s attempts to swiftly upend the federal bureaucracy. On Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump from enforcing large parts of his executive order against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
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UPDATE: Feb. 12, 2025: The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday agreed to temporarily block staffers of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing student aid information and other data systems until at least Feb. 17.
On that date, a federal judge overseeing the case is expected to rule on a student group’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the agency from sharing sensitive data with DOGE.
Dive Brief:
A group representing University of California students filed a lawsuit Friday to block the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal financial aid data.
The University of California Student Association cited reports that DOGE members gained access to federal student loan data, which includes information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, account information and driver’s license numbers.
The complaint accuses the U.S. Department of Education of violating federal privacy laws and regulations by granting DOGE staffers access to the data. “The scale of intrusion into individuals’ privacy is enormous and unprecedented,” the lawsuit says.
Dive Insight:
President Donald Trump created DOGE through executive order on the first day of his second term, tasking the team, led by Tesla co-founder and Trump adviser Musk, with rooting out what the new administration deems as government waste.
DOGE has since accessed the data of several government agencies, sparking concerns that its staffers are violating privacy laws and overstepping the executive branch’s power. With the new lawsuit, the University of California Student Association joins the growing chorus of groups that say DOGE is flouting federal statutes.
One of those groups — 19 state attorneys general — scored a victory over the weekend. On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department’s payments and data system, which disburses Social Security benefits, tax returns and federal employee salaries.
The University of California Student Association has likewise asked the judge to temporarily block the Education Department from sharing sensitive data with DOGE staffers and to retrieve any information that has already been transferred to them.
The group argues that the Education Department is violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which says that government agencies may not disclose an individual’s data “to any person, or to another agency,” without their consent, except in limited circumstances. The Internal Revenue Code has similar protections for personal information.
“None of the targeted exceptions in these laws allows individuals associated with DOGE, or anyone else, to obtain or access students’ personal information, except for specific purposes — purposes not implicated here,” the lawsuit says.
The Washington Post reported on Feb. 3 that some DOGE team members had in fact gained access to “multiple sensitive internal systems,” including federal financial aid data, as part of larger plans to carry out Trump’s goal to eventually eliminate the Education Department.
“ED did not publicly announce this new policy — what is known is based on media reporting — or attempt to justify it,” Friday’s lawsuit says. “Rather, ED secretly decided to allow individuals with no role in the federal student aid program to root around millions of students’ sensitive records.”
In response to the Post’s Feb. 3 reporting, Musk on the same day posted on X that Trump “will succeed” in dismantling the agency.
Later that week, the Post reported that DOGE staffers were feeding sensitive Education Departmentdata into artificial intelligence software to analyze the agency’s spending.
The moves have also attracted lawmakers’ attention. Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the top-ranking Democrat on the House’s education committee, asked the Government Accountability Office on Friday to probe the security of information technology systems at the Education Department’s and several other agencies.
An Education Department spokesperson said Monday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Chief strategy officer of global digital content provider VitalSource Jared Pearlman joins Martin Betts on HEDx this week to discuss the need for HE to deliver affordable student experiences and business models for technology providers that make these experiences sustainable.
He provides a great summary of current global barriers to providing equitable, ed-tech enabled access to learning.
