COURT REINS IN US PRESIDENT'S DEI FUNDS CUTS

A federal judge in New Hampshire on Thursday limited the Trump administration’s ability to withhold federal funds from public schools that have certain diversity and equity initiatives.

- Dana Goldstein

Judge Landya B McCafferty said the administration had not provided an adequately detailed definition of “diversity, equity and inclusion”, and that its policy threatened to restrict free speech in the classroom while overstepping the executive branch’s legal authority over local schools.

She also wrote the loss of federal funding “would cripple the operations of many educational institutions”.

The decision followed a demand earlier this month by the Trump administration that all 50 state education agencies attest their schools do not use DEI practices that violate President Donald Trump's interpretation of civil rights law.

Otherwise, they would risk losing billions in Title I money, which is targeted towards low-income students. About a dozen states, mostly Democratic-leaning, refused to sign the document.

In issuing her decision, Judge McCafferty declined to issue a nationwide pause on the policy. Instead, she limited her ruling to schools that employ or contract with at least one member of the groups that brought the lawsuit: the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, and the Center for Black Educator Development, a non-profit that seeks to recruit and train black teachers.