Critics have said Trump’s order conflicts with promise to return education to schools and states.
A federal judge in New Hampshire has restricted the ability of US President Donald Trump’s administration to cut off funding to public schools that engage in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
District Judge Landya McCafferty in Concord issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday preventing the US Department of Education from enforcing its policy against members of three groups, including the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union.
The NEA, its local New Hampshire affiliate and the Center for Black Educator Development sued after the Education Department in February threatened funding cuts for education institutions that engaged in DEI efforts.
In a letter, it said federal law prevented schools from considering race as a factor in areas such as admissions, hiring and promotion, pay, financial aid, scholarships and prizes, housing and graduation ceremonies.
McCafferty, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, declined to issue an injunction blocking enforcement of the policy nationwide, but she said an order was warranted preventing it from being implemented with the plaintiffs, their members or any entity that employs or contracts their members.
In early April, the Trump administration ordered K-12 schools (kindergarten to 12th grade) nationwide to certify within 10 days that they are following federal civil rights laws and ending any discriminatory DEI practices, as a condition for receiving federal money.
It followed a February 14 memo where the Trump administration said it was giving US schools and universities 14 days to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money.
In the memo, the Education Department also gave an ultimatum to stop using “racial preferences” as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other areas.
Since then, schools across the US have been scrambling to determine what practices could run afoul of the anti-DEI orders.
April’s certification letter, however, drew blowback from critics who said it conflicts with Trump’s promise to return education to schools and states.
“Is this what the Trump administration calls local control? You can’t say you’re giving control back to states and then dictate how they run their schools,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, told The Associated Press news agency earlier this month.
The American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers’ union, also said it is suing to block the February 14 memo, saying it violates the First and Fifth amendments.
The union’s president, Randi Weingarten, told The AP in early April that the certification requirement is illegal, and added that federal law prohibits the White House from telling schools and colleges what to teach, and that federal money cannot be withheld without due process.
“He’s wielding a cudgel of billions in federal aid to tens of millions of children, of all races and ethnicities, to force educators to kowtow to his politics and ideology.”