BALTIMORE — A federal district court judge ruled the Trump Administration's termination of teacher training grants over Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts is unconstitutional.
Judge Julie Rubin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, who formerly sat on the Baltimore City Circuit Court, is ordering the U.S. Department of Education to restart three different grants to a trio of organizations including the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR), and the Maryland Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (MACTE).
President Donald Trump campaigned on dismantling DEI, and from day one since returning to the White House, he's issued several executive orders looking to follow through.
One order focused on $600 million Department of Education grants which historically have gone to organizations who've prioritized what Trump considers DEI initiatives.
The three grants in question come from the Education Department's Teacher Quality Partnership Program (TQP), Supporting Effective Educator Development Program (SEED), and the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program (TSL).
This is how the judge describes what the grant money is used for:
SEED Grant:
(1) Providing teachers, principals, or other school leaders from nontraditional preparation and certification routes or pathways to serve in traditionally underserved local educational agencies.
(2) Providing evidence-based professional development activities that address literacy, numeracy, remedial, or other needs of local educational agencies and the students the agencies serve.
(3) Providing teachers, principals, or other school leaders with professional development activities that enhance or enable the provision of postsecondary coursework through dual or concurrent enrollment programs and early college high school settings across a local educational agency.
(4) Making freely available services and learning opportunities to local educational agencies, through partnerships and cooperative agreements or by making the services or opportunities publicly accessible through electronic means.
(5) Providing teachers, principals, or other school leaders with evidence-based professional enhancement activities, which may include activities that lead to an advanced credential.
TSL Grant:
(1) To assist States, local educational agencies, and nonprofit organizations to develop, implement, improve, or expand comprehensive performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers, principals, or other school leaders (especially for teachers, principals, or other school leaders in high-need schools) who raise student academic achievement and close the achievement gap between high- and low-performing students.
(2) To study and review performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers, principals, or other school leaders to evaluate the effectiveness, fairness, quality, consistency, and reliability of the systems.
These are examples the Trump Administration provided of grant applications they received, which made them decide to cut funding.
- Requiring practitioners to take personal and institutional responsibility for systemic inequities (e.g., racism) and critically reassess their own practices.
- Receiving professional development workshops and equity training on topics such as “Building Cultural Competence,” “Dismantling Racial Bias” and “Centering Equity in the Classroom.”
- Acknowledging and responding to systemic forms of oppression and inequity, including racism, ableism, “gender-based” discrimination, homophobia, and ageism
- Providing “targeted practices in culturally relevant and responsive teaching abolitionist pedagogies and issues of diversity in classroom management.”
- Providing spaces for critical reflection to help educators confront biases and have transformative conversations about equity.
Rubin believes the Department of Education revoked the grants in violation of the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA), which requires the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) be followed before any changes are made to the grant approval process.
The APA mandates advanced notice be provided, allowing public comment prior to modifying policies.
Because the Trump Administration's initiatives differ from prior Presidents, and are contrary to the grants mission, the government argued no notice was needed.
The judge disagreed, setting up a potential appeal.
In her ruling, Rubin makes mention how teachers groups tried linking this case with another DEI related lawsuit filed by Baltimore City which resulted in a second Biden appointed judge issuing an injunction. While Rubin, acknowledged one had nothing to do with the other, she did not state how the other ruling was later overturned by an appeals court.
Although Congress constitutionally controls the government's purse strings, meaning only they can technically allocate funding, it's generally the executive branch, for which the Department of Education falls under, that assumes discretion of how the agency spends, which typically falls in line with administrative policies and priorities.
Nonetheless, this latest ruling by Rubin is another judicial setback for the Trump Administration, whose also defending a separate lawsuit from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown over a massive cut to Education Department staffing.
Since being back in office, a number of federal judges throughout the nation have stepped in to block large swaths of Trump's agenda.
Such decisions have raised separation of power concerns, sparking questions of whether Trump will comply or defy, considering courts have no true enforcement mechanism against a sitting President with sweeping immunity and control of the DOJ, whose tasked with implementing judicial orders.
Some critics, including Elon Musk have openly supported the idea of Trump ignoring the courts.
Several attorneys, including Vice President JD Vance, have called out judges for what he's perceived to be illegal rulings.
On Tuesday, Trump, like Musk suggested impeachment, prompting a response from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who urged critics to instead choose the appeals route.
Some lawmakers have already filed articles of impeachment against a pair of judges for earlier rulings against Trump. Due to the super majority needed to achieve impeachment, it's highly unlikely those efforts succeed.