Trump Administration Loses DEI Case
The state of digital equity remains unsettled.
WASHINGTON, August 19, 2025 – A federal judge has struck down Trump administration directives that threatened schools and colleges with funding cuts for maintaining DEI programs, dealing a blow to one front of the administration’s broader campaign against equity.
Earlier this year, the Department of Education warned universities in a letter that federal funds would be cut if they continued with their diversity, equity and inclusion programs that the Trump administration considers "illegal." Soon after, the Department threatened to withdraw federal financial assistance to K-12 public schools unless they confirmed their compliance with "antidiscrimination obligations," including eliminating their DEI programs.
Following a February suit by the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association challenging the government’s actions, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, permanently blocked Trump’s actions aimed at universities in a ruling Thursday.
Gallagher’s decision was made on the grounds that the Education Department’s threat to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives violated federal law and the freedom of speech.
“The Court must conclude that, by seeking to substantially alter the legal obligations of schools and educators without employing the procedures necessary to implement such a change, the government ran afoul of the APA’s procedural requirements,” Gallagher’s decision said. “The regulation of speech cannot be done casually.”
Gallagher, also rejected the administration’s argument that these directives only served to remind schools that discrimination is illegal.
Rather, “It initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished," Gallagher ruled.
Trump’s crackdown on DEI has affected digital policy. In May, the Department of Commerce cancelled funding for programs under the Digital Equity Act. Trump used reasoning similar to that in his attack on DEI in educational institutions, calling the Biden-era program “unconstitutional,” while Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, referred to funding efforts to get racial minorities, among other groups, online “impermissible race-based discrimination.”
A coalition of 21 states and the District of Columbia have filed suit against the Trump Administration over the cancellation of Digital Equity Act funds, but the lawsuit has yet to be settled.
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