Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court to Let It Block Education Grants Over DEI Concerns

A district court stopped the administration’s plan to cancel grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Jan. 29, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to halt a lower court order that prevented the administration from cutting a long list of Department of Education grants it targeted over concerns about the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in schools.

Since entering his second term, Trump has issued multiple executive orders targeting DEI.

One titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which stated the administration would “enforce the law to ensure that recipients of federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris filed a brief on March 26 telling the justices that a federal judge in Massachusetts had exceeded his authority by interfering with what she described as “essentially a contract dispute that belongs in the Court of Federal Claims, not a district court.” She added that the order was “predictably impeding the executive branch’s constitutional functions,” noting that the administration had “made a judgment to terminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related grants.”

The case—U.S. Department of Education et al. v. State of California et al.—involved eight states suing the administration over its decision to terminate the grants, which they said were authorized to address teacher shortages and improve teacher quality in low-income communities.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun said in a March 10 order that the states were likely to succeed in their claims that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act because it didn’t provide a reasoned explanation for grant terminations. Rather, it sent a standardized letter to various recipients, Joun said.

“I see no reasoned explanation articulated for the department’s action here,” he said. He added that “the record reflects a lack of individualized reasoning and analysis required.”

Both Joun and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the administration’s requests to halt his order.

Harris’s brief was just the latest by the administration challenging a lower court’s attempt to block its agenda.

“District Court judges in a handful of forums across the country are now pervasively reimagining contract and grant-termination claims as Administrative Procedure Act (APA) suits, vesting themselves with jurisdiction that Congress has withheld from them,” Harris said.

“The aim is clear: to stop the executive branch in its tracks and prevent the administration from changing directions on hundreds of billions of dollars of government largesse that the executive branch considers contrary to the United States’ interests and fiscal health.”

The administration similarly asked the Supreme Court to block a lower court order forcing the disbursal of foreign assistance funds, but the court as a whole rejected its request. Justice Samuel Alito penned a dissent, which Harris quoted in her March 26 brief.

“This case exemplifies a flood of recent suits that raise the question: ‘Does a single district court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever)’ millions in taxpayer dollars?” Harris’s brief read, quoting Alito’s dissent from earlier this month.

Harris told the Supreme Court that the Department of Education reviewed existing grants “individually ... and found objectionable DEI material in many of them.” The department eventually concluded that 104 grants should be terminated as contrary to law while five grants remained.

The appeal came alongside a similar case in Maryland, where a federal judge ordered the Department of Education to reinstate grants that it had canceled based on concerns about DEI— specifically those grants awarded to three teacher-education organizations.