A federal judge in New Hampshire on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from cutting funding to public schools that maintain diversity programs, a setback to its broader crackdown on DEI.
U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty said the effort by Trump’s Education Department to block federal funding to public schools that continue to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs likely violates the First Amendment, presenting what she described as ‘textbook viewpoint discrimination.’
At issue is a memo sent by the Education Department this month to public schools nationwide, threatening to withhold Title I federal funds from public schools that continue to ‘unfairly’ promote DEI views or programs.
The effort sparked an immediate wave of concern, and lawsuits, across the country from education groups that cited the importance of Title I funds as a critical source of funding for many low-income public schools.
The DEI-slashing effort was met with a wave of court challenges, including a lawsuit filed by the National Education Association, the group’s New Hampshire affiliate chapter, and the Center for Black Educator Development, who challenged the case in New Hampshire’s federal court.
Two other U.S. courts are slated to hear similar challenges to the Education Department’s effort, with one case in Washington, D.C., expected to be heard as early as this week.
McCafferty’s ruling stopped short of issuing a nationwide injunction to block the policy in all 50 states.
Rather, it blocks the Trump administration from halting the disbursement of Title I funds to any schools that employ or contract with plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
‘The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is … one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes,’ McCafferty said in her 82-page opinion, adding that the actions taken by the Education Department ‘threate[n] to erode these foundational principles.’
She also said the Trump administration failed to provide the court with a sufficient definition of the DEI programs that were at risk as a result of the anti-DEI push.
The order comes after the Trump administration and the plaintiffs in the lawsuit reached a short-term agreement to delay the policy from taking force.
That agreement was slated to expire Thursday, prompting the court to rule on the matter.