The agency cannot see or use information from more than a dozen internal databases related to student finance until next Monday.
A federal judge has temporarily barred Elon Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing federal student loan and financial aid information stored at the U.S. Department of Education.
In an order issued Tuesday evening, Judge Randolph Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia barred any members or associates of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from seeing or using information from more than a dozen internal databases related to student finance until next Monday.
Both sides of the lawsuit—a group of students at the University of California (UC) and the Education Department—have agreed to the halt as they prepare arguments.
UC students a week ago accused the Education Department of violating the Privacy Act of 1974, a federal law that restricts federal agencies from sharing personally identifiable information with third parties unless specific legal exceptions apply.
For example, the FUTURE Act of 2019 authorizes the Education Department to import tax return information from the IRS to streamline the financial aid application process.
In their complaint filed at the D.C. federal court, the students allege that the Education Department has