- Friday, April 25, 2025
Teachers’ unions had filed a lawsuit to prevent the US Department of Education from cutting funding to K-12 schools and universities if they did not end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
By: India Weekly
US president Donald Trump’s plan to stop the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in America’s public schools suffered a setback after federal judges in Maryland, New Hampshire and Washington blocked the proposed move.
Teachers’ unions and civil rights groups had filed a lawsuit to prevent the US Department of Education from cutting funding to K-12 schools and universities if they did not end DEI initiatives.
Interestingly, two of the rulings were made by judges whom Trump had appointed during his first term in office.
Each court decision carries national implications that temporarily block Trump administration from carrying out this month’s directive that school systems comply with its interpretation of federal anti-discrimination law or risk sanctions.
The policy at issue was outlined in February in the form of a letter and the administration said it was intended to remind schools that receive federal funding to comply with existing civil rights law.
It had pointed out that schools in recent years had embraced “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” and “toxically indoctrinated” students by teaching about the history of systemic racism.
The education department alleged that DEI proponents were “smuggling” such practices into everyday training, programming and discipline, and advised schools that it would take action against such practices.
US district judge Landya McCafferty in Concord, New Hampshire, sided with the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union, and two other groups.
She ruled that the policy was unconstitutionally vague and violated educators’ free speech rights under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
McCafferty, a Barack Obama appointee, said that while the letter made clear the department’s view that DEI programs violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it never defined what a “DEI program” even was.
She pointed out that DEI as a concept was broad: “One can imagine a wide range of viewpoints on what the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion mean when describing a program or practice,” she wrote.
The second court ruling from US district judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, in Baltimore issued an order similarly halting the Education Department’s policy at the behest of the American Federation of Teachers, the American Sociological Association, and others.
She ruled that the Education Department failed to follow proper rulemaking processes and lacked the authority to adopt the policy under the Department of Education Organization Act of 1979.
That law bars the Education Department from directing or supervising a school’s curriculum, instructional program, administration or personnel.
In the Washington case, Trump-appointed US district judge Dabney Friedrich agreed with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which brought the case, that the policy was too vague.
Skye Perryman, whose legal group Democracy Forward represented the plaintiffs in the Maryland case, said in a statement that the ruling “affirms what we have always known: this administration’s attempts to censor schools, teachers, educators, colleges, and universities is unlawful.”
The Education Department did not immediately respond to the rulings, but the administration is likely to appeal the decisions.
