A federal judge has ruled that an effort by the Trump administration to boot blind vendors from Army bases was carried out illegally.Education Secretary Linda McMahon moved late last year to waive a contracting priority for blind entrepreneurs in Army dining halls, part of a broader attack on disability rights in the workplace. She claimed with little evidence that the program “adversely affects the interests of the United States.”Four blind vendors and a pair of advocacy groups sued the administration, arguing that officials ignored the law and that the change was “arbitrary and capricious.” A judge found in their favor in a July 31 ruling that blocks McMahon’s waiver.Nicky Gacos, president of the National Association of Blind Merchants, called the decision “a victory for every blind entrepreneur who has invested years of hard work.”“It preserves those opportunities not only for the entrepreneurs currently serving on Army installations, but for the next generation of blind vendors who deserve the same chance to thrive,” Gacos, whose group was among the plaintiffs, said in a statement Friday. The fight revolves around a 1936 law, the Randolph-Sheppard Act, that requires the government to give priority to the blind to operate snack bars, gift shops, vending machines and cafeterias on federal property. Advocates say the law has been crucial to giving blind people economic opportunities since the New Deal. But the Trump administration has attacked rules and programs aimed at boosting minority groups in the workplace, even those that date back decades. Trump’s Army Secretary, Daniel P. Driscoll, has described the Randolph-Sheppard requirement as wasteful, claiming it forces the government to overpay on contracts. “It’s been interpreted over the years to basically mean we have to prioritize blind people when we go out for our chicken contracts,” he complained on a podcast last year.Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling CEO-turned-education secretary, tried to weaken a longstanding priority for blind vendors on federal property. A judge said she didn’t do it legally.Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBecause the Education Department oversees the Randolph-Sheppard program, it was McMahon, a former professional wrestling CEO, who approved a “limitation” of the priority on Army bases, as HuffPost first reported in December. Her notice provided no firm data to back up the overall claim that it “negatively impacts the availability and quality of food options for the nation’s warfighters.”Neel Lalchandani, an attorney who worked on the case, noted that the law allows for limiting the priority for the blind in certain circumstances. But what McMahon pursued was “a sweeping waiver of the act at every Army dining facility nationwide.”“Those are two very different things,” he told HuffPost. “Our contention all along was that the act doesn’t supply the secretary with that authority.”In his opinion, George L. Russell, chief judge of the Maryland U.S. District Court, ruled that McMahon had failed to publish supporting documentation showing the program has hurt the Army, and to notify the public of the change and allow for comments.“It is clear that Secretary McMahon failed to follow the procedural requirements under both the [law] and the Department of Education’s policy,” he wrote.He added, “The factual findings on which Secretary McMahon relied were, by the [administration’s] admission, incorrect.”The Education Department didn’t immediately respond Friday when asked for comment on the ruling. The agency previously claimed to HuffPost that the Army faces “significant price and efficiency issues due to the requirement, impacting military readiness.”Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind, which was also part of the lawsuit, said the administration tried to ditch a 90-year-old commitment to the blind “through a closed process built on incomplete and inaccurate information.”“The Randolph-Sheppard Act is not a special favor,” he said in a statement Friday. “It is a proven pathway to competitive employment, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity.”During last year’s government shutdown, the Trump administration tried to lay off three blind workers within the Education Department who administer the program, part of a much larger demolition of the agency. A deal Congress reached to end the funding lapse included a provision reversing those layoffs and hundreds of others within the department.Blind entrepreneurs and their advocates say they’ve been appalled by the administration’s attacks on the program.“The mentality of these people is if we have a disability and we have a job, we’re taking it away from an able-bodied person,” one federal worker told HuffPost last year.RelatedDonald TrumpCivil RightsDisability rightslinda mcmahonDan Driscoll