Trump-appointed judge rules against Education Department’s DEI crackdown

A Trump-appointed judge in Baltimore on Thursday blocked the Education Department from withholding billions of dollars in federal funding from public schools that continue to practice diversity inclusion initiatives — delivering a significant blow to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI initiatives, though it is almost certain to be appealed to higher courts for review.

At issue were two Education Department memos issued earlier this year that threatened to withhold combined billions of dollars of funding from schools who failed to wind down their DEI programs, a key issue for the department in Trump’s second term. Those efforts sparked a flurry of federal lawsuits and requests for emergency relief earlier this year. 

In a sharp, 76-page ruling  Thursday, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher said that that the Trump administration’s efforts to slash funding from educational institutions that kept in place with DEI initiatives ran afoul of the Administrative Procedures Act, and risked threatening free speech protections under the First Amendment.

“The administration is entitled to express its viewpoints and to promulgate policies aligned with those viewpoints,” Gallagher said. “But it must do so within the procedural bounds Congress has outlined. And it may not do so at the expense of constitutional rights.” 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WARNS THAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS MUST REMOVE DEI POLICIES OR LOSE FEDERAL FUNDING 

While the ruling itself is unlikely to change anything in the near-term, as the anti-DEI push in question had already been temporarily paused by several federal courts earlier this year, Gallagher’s ruling officially ruled that the Education Department’s efforts were illegal, and ordered the administration to reverse course. 

Trump officials are almost certain to kick the case up to hgiher courts for review, keeping the issue tied up in courts for the foreseeable future.  

“The government did not merely remind educators that discrimination is illegal: it initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial,…