Judge blocks Trump DEI cuts to teacher-training funds

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(The Center Square) – A Massachusetts federal judge blocked the Trump administration from cutting around $600 million in teacher-training funds, finding the Education Department’s effort to target programs tied to diversity, equity and inclusion was “arbitrary and capricious.” 

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, a Biden appointee in the District of Massachusetts, in a 70-page ruling, found the administration's move was “arbitrary and capricious,” in part because the directive did not clearly define DEI or explain why the programs were discriminatory.

“It is difficult to see how topics can be ‘anti-racis[t]’ yet simultaneously fall within the Directive’s category of ‘discriminatory’ activities,” Kelley wrote. “The record likewise shows that the Directive swept in topics as broad and amorphous as ‘Family and Community in the Classroom’ and ‘social-emotional learning.’ These topics do not, on their face, have any apparent connection to discrimination.”

The two federal grant programs, the Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator Development, are managed through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and support educator training and professional development.  

The Education Department issued the directive in February 2025 as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to eliminate federal funding it associated with DEI and what it described as “divisive ideologies.”

Eight Democratic states sued, arguing the Trump administration unlawfully cut funding that Congress had already approved.  

“Taxpayer dollars should support preparing teachers for meaningful student learning, expanding the pipeline of high-quality teachers and retaining top talent — not funding divisive ideology or racial preferences," Savannah Newhouse, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, told The Center Square.

Kelley said the directive lacked sufficient standards for determining which programs fell under its definition of DEI.

“In sum, because the Directive provides no discernible criteria for 'DEI,' and thus for determining the type of programs and activities it disfavors, it fails to provide the explanation necessary to guide implementation,” the judge wrote in the ruling. “Accordingly, the Directive is arbitrary and capricious.”