Court ruling further complicates Trump's anti-DEI push

President Trump's plans to rid the country’s education system of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) were thrown further into chaos this week when a judge ruled against the Education Department's directives.  

States, fiercely divided on the issue, were already dealing with a delayed certification deadline and murky enforcement mechanisms before federal Judge Landya McCafferty issued her preliminary injunction on Trump's anti-DEI measures. 

"Thankfully, many schools and districts and colleges and universities have been waiting to see what would happen because they knew and understood that what they were being asked to do was blatantly unlawful and nonsensical,” said Liz King, senior director of education equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.  

“And so, hopefully this gives the assurance that schools need that they should not be bending to the whims of this administration,” King added.  

On Feb. 14, the Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to universities, saying they could risk losing federal funding if they do not get rid of DEI efforts.  

Weeks later, state education and K-12 district leaders were told they needed to certify their schools had no DEI programs or also risk losing federal funding.  

The Education Department also created a “DEI portal” to allow parents and others to report programs or initiatives they feel are in violation of Trump's executive orders.  

All these efforts resulted in lawsuits and were blocked by three judges on Thursday, including two that were appointed by Trump.  

District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, called the efforts unconstitutionally vague and said the letter did not “delineate between a lawful DEI practice and an unlawful one.” 

The Education Department is likely to appeal the decision, with supporters encouraging it to get more specific when it does.

“As part of the appeal, my guess is that they are going to point [...] at the actual practices that result in racial discrimination,” said Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at the Heritage Foundation. 

“From teacher trainings to types of programs that compel or ask someone to state that they are oppressive based on their skin color or otherwise [...] some sort of racial favoritism,” Butcher added. “Frankly, it’s a step in the process.”  

The Hill has reached out to the Department of Education for comment. 

The lack of clarity on DEI in schools has been an issue since Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s confirmation hearing, where she was unable to say if classes focusing on Black history would be allowed under her leadership.  

In the case of the “Dear Colleague” letter, the department had to send out a follow-up memo after some universities were unclear if the guidance meant student groups based on race or ethnicity were still allowed. 

Meanwhile, multiple blue states were openly refusing to certify that their schools were DEI-free.

“As noted at the outset, MDE [Minnesota Department of Education] has already provided the requisite guarantee that it has and will comply with Title VI and its implementing regulation, and that includes our assurance that we do and will comply with Supreme Court cases interpreting the same. We submit this letter to serve as our response to this specific request,” Minnesota wrote to the federal government.   

The Department of Education is seeking to expand on the 2023 affirmative action Supreme Court ruling that said universities could not take race into account in admissions, holding that the decision reaches beyond the student application process.

“Unfortunately, we have seen too many schools flout or outright violate these obligations, including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, wrote in the K-12 certification letter.   

Federal funding only makes up around 10 percent of money that goes to K-12 schools, although lower-income districts get a bit more help.  

At universities, the Trump administration has shown it is not afraid to pull millions or even billions of dollars in federal funding from schools it alleges have committed civil rights violations, even before any investigation takes place.  

One of those schools, Harvard University, is suing the administration over funding cuts that were announced after it refused to bow to a list of demands from Trump, including eliminating DEI policies.

The day after the suit was filed, the leaders of more than 100 colleges and universities, including Cornell, Tufts and Princeton, issued a joint letter condemning Trump’s “political interference” and “coercive use of public research funding.”

But as some colleges have lost funding, others have preemptively began dismantling some of their DEI efforts.

The University of Michigan said last month it would be closing its DEI offices.  

“I understand the fear [...] They've basically been blackmailing institutions with federal funds. They've created deliberate chaos with the [executive orders] and vague instructions so that people are preemptively complying with things,” said Andrea Abrams, executive director of the Defending American Values Coalition. 

“The reasons [they] are afraid are sound, but the reasons to be brave are also sound,” she added.