Jan Resseger: 3 Federal Judges Stop Trump’s Relentless Attack on Racial Justice in Public Schools, for Now

It hasn’t even been a month since the due date for the loyalty oath deadline for schools. Luckily, as Jan Resseger outlines, judges put a stop to it. Reposted with permission.

Thursday afternoon, April 24, 2025, federal judges released preliminary orders in three separate lawsuits to block temporarily the Trump administration’s effort to seize federal Title I funding from states and school districts whose superintendents had refused to sign an April 3, 2025 certificate promising they had ended all school programming and policies incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion.

A final map published by Education Week, shows that by the end of the April 24, 2025 deadline for states and school districts to sign the certificate, 22 states had refused, on principle, to sign: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Maine, Missouri, Maryland, Rhode Island, Nevada, and South Dakota. The number of school districts across the nation that refused to sign has not been reported.

On April 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education demanded that states and local school superintendents sign the certificate promising their compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned affirmative action in college admissions. The states and school districts that complied by the April 24 deadline would continue to receive their promised federal Title I funding; states and school districts which failed to certify their compliance would lose all of their federal Title I funding.

Chalkbeat‘s Erica Meltzer explains: “The Trump administration argues that many common practices under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion are now illegal in light of the Students for Fair Admissions case. Many legal experts disagree.” “President Trump’s assault on what he’s called ‘discriminatory equity ideology’ is underway…. State school chiefs are being asked to certify they are in compliance with Title VI, which bans discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry. States and school districts already regularly certify Title VI compliance. But the document goes further by also asking them to certify compliance with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard… that barred the use of racial considerations in college admissions.”

President Trump’s Department of Education claims Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard bans not only affirmative action, but also all programs and policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion or targeting services to students in particular racial groups. However, Justin Driver, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University, explains: “The Trump administration is trying to use a relatively narrow decision and turn it into a broad holding that brings about whatever it wishes.”

Three Federal Judges Have Temporarily Halted the Trump Administration’s Threat to Title I Funding and 19 States Filed a Lawsuit Last Friday

Education Week‘s Matthew Stone reports that, in a case brought by the National Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, a New Hampshire federal judge, “said in an 82-page order (that) the administration’s directives were unconstitutionally vague and overstepped the federal government’s authority over schools. Because the directives have neither defined DEI programs nor DEI practices that violate federal civil rights law… schools run the risk of ‘overcorrecting’ and eliminating ‘all vestiges of DEI to avoid even the possibility of funding termination.’ ”

In a press release, NEA President, Becky Pringle described the significance of last Thursday’s order from the New Hampshire federal court: “Today’s ruling allows educators and schools to continue to be guided by what’s best for students, not by the threat of illegal restrictions and punishment.” Speaking for ACLU, the co-plaintiff in the case, Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire declared: “The court’s ruling today is a victory for academic freedom, the free speech rights of educators, and for… students who have a right to an inclusive education free from censorship.”

In Maryland, reports Stone, in a case brought by the American Federation of Teachers, a judge “found the administration hadn’t followed proper procedure in directing schools to eliminate DEI programs…. She also found… ‘The government cannot proclaim entire categories of classroom content discriminatory to sidestep the bounds of its statutory authority.’ ” Speaking for the plaintiffs, the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten commented: “The court agreed that this vague and clearly unconstitutional requirement is a grave attack on students, our profession, honest history, and knowledge itself. It would hamper efforts to extend access to education, and dash the promise of equal opportunity for all….”

Stone adds that in Washington, D.C., a judge in a third case brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “blocked the Trump administration’s enforcement of its certification directive.” The judge in the NAACP case, “agreed that the directive was vague and that the certification order, with its tight timeline, ‘further exacerbates vagueness concerns.’ ” Speaking for the plaintiff in this case, the President and CEO of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson declared: “We look forward to prevailing against their cruel attempts to undermine the mission of the U.S. Department of Education and relegate children of color, students with disabilities, and poor students to a second-class education in a throwback to the era before Brown v. Board of Education.”

While the three court decisions are temporary, pending further legal proceedings, state education leaders and school superintendents who refused to sign the certificate on principle, because in the most basic sense they and their communities value diversity, equity, and inclusion, have expressed relief that right now the students in their schools will not be penalized because their districts defied the April 3rd Department of Education threat to deny noncompliant states and school districts their promised Title I funding.

With the future protection of federal school funding at risk in the long run for programs like Title I, 19 states on Friday, April 25th, filed a federal lawsuit to protect the federal funding for which their school districts qualify to support public schools serving concentrations of students living in poverty. The Associated Press‘s Holly Ramer reported: “Nineteen states that refused to comply with a Trump administration directive aimed at eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public schools went a step further Friday, filing a federal lawsuit challenging what they consider an illegal threat to cut federal funding.” The lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts by the Democratic attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

What Principles are At Stake in the Trump Administration’s Threat to DEI?

The Trump administration has mounted a campaign to stamp out all programs and policies in K-12 public schools and higher education which represent the values of the Civil Rights Movement and to require educators to adopt the Trump administration’s idiosyncratic definition of DEI—“discriminatory equity ideology,” a term the president coined in a February executive order. The administration’s strategies involve censorship and the redefinition—or attack on the definition—of well established concepts. The goal is to demand compliance with vague terms and frighten teachers into compliance with the Trump administration’s ideology. And while proclaiming that the Department of Education is returning K-12 education to the states and to local boards of education, the Trump administration is attempting, illegally according to federal law, to prescribe public school curricula. The threat to Title I funds on April 3 would deny federal funding previously appropriated by Congress, which supposedly has the “power of the purse.” The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has repeatedly violated prescribed procedures by imposing penalties without any kind of public hearing of the facts. Finally, the administration has violated the Constitutional protection of due process of law and the protection of freedom of speech.

You won’t have seen extensive coverage about Trump’s attack on racial justice in public schools on the cable news networks which have focused primarily on the financial and foreign policy implications of the Trump administration along with violation of immigration law. Neither have these civil rights concerns made the local newspapers, at least where I live. Several recent press reports have, however, explored the implications of the Trump administration’s attempt to mandate its own idiosyncratic interpretation of civil rights law in education. Here are two examples.

Associated Press reporters, Holly Ramer and Collin Binkley describe New Hampshire U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty’s highlighting why the Trump administration’s demand that school districts scrub DEI should be of such concern to all of us. They quote Judge McCafferty: “‘The Letter (the April 3 letter threatening to deny Title I funds) does not even define what a ‘DEI program’ is, McCafferty wrote. The judge also said there is reason to believe the department’s actions amount to a violation of teachers’ free speech rights. ‘A professor runs afoul of the 2025 Letter if she expresses the view in her teaching that structural racism exists in America, but does not do so if she denies structural racism’s existence. That is textbook viewpoint discrimination,’ McCafferty wrote.”

In a second example, an April 18, 2025, NY Times news analysis explores the central principles underneath the Trump administration’s ongoing attack on racial justice both in higher education and in K-12 public schools. Jonah Bromwich, Alan Blinder, and Sarah Mervosh describe the attack on Harvard University as evidence that something much broader is going on:

“It is a broadside with little precedent. And… the legal justifications have been muddled, stretched and, in some instances impossible to determine. ‘It’s punishment before a trial, punishment before evidence, punishment before an actual accusation that could be responded to,’ said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and the U.S. Department of Education’s third-ranking official during the Obama administration.”

The writers continue: “The Trump administration has also set its sights on K-12 public schools. It is threatening to withhold federal money for low-income students from states and districts that do not end diversity practices that the Trump administration says violate Title VI (of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). It has not offered an exact list or definition of illegal practices, though it has suggested that teaching about ideas like structural racism, or establishing programs that separate students by race to provide targeted academic or social support, could be objectionable. The administration has relied on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision rejecting affirmative action in college admissions, arguing that it can be applied more broadly for the use of race in education—including K-12… The administration’s broadside against schools and universities has no obvious parallels in modern American history.”

The analysis concludes with a pithy analysis from Derek W. Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina: “They are not engaging in investigations, they are not investigating facts, they are not giving the institution an opportunity to remediate… They are saying, ‘Sign our loyalty pledge, or we are taking your money.’ ”

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In addition to the articles referenced above, there are a number of other concise press reports about last Thursday’s court decisions that will temporarily block the Trump administration’s attempt to end DEI programs and policies. Because the NAACP decision came later on Thursday afternoon, many of these articles, written earlier, refer to only two of the cases:

POLITICO, Juan Perez, Jr., Trio of Rulings Freezes Trump’s Anti-DEI Directives for Schools, February 6, 2025
K-12 Dive, Kara Arundel and Natalie Schwartz, Federal Judges Deal Major Blow to Education Department’s anti-DEI Guidance
Portsmouth Herald, Ian Lenahan, Federal Judge in NH Blocks Trump Administration’s Threats over DEI in Schools
Washington Post, Laura Meckler, Courts Block Trump’s Effort to Prohibit DEI Programs in Schools
Chalkbeat, Erica Meltzer, Department Efforts to Get DEI Out of Schools Hit Roadblock
NY Times, Dana Goldstein, Judge Limits Trump’s Ability to Withhold School Funds Over DEI

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In a series of posts in this blog I have attempted to trace and explore the Trump administration’s growing campaign against racial justice and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the nation’s public schools as this attack has intensified over the past couple of months. Here are those posts in case you wish to look back at any of them.

Jan Resseger: 3 Federal Judges Stop Trump’s Relentless Attack on Racial Justice in Public Schools, for Now

Network for Public Education