Dive Brief:
- A federal judge vacated the U.S. Department of Education’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion directive on Thursday. Issued in February 2025, the Trump administration directive was used to justify the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal teacher training grants.
- U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley found that the anti-DEI directive and the Education Department’s related termination of the teacher training grant programs were unlawful. The final court order came down as part of a lawsuit from eight states challenging the grant cuts.
- The order comes over a year after the Education Department abruptly slashed over 100 grants from the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant program. The agency said at the time that the grants were cut because the programs trained teachers using “divisive ideologies.”
Dive Insight:
The order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts stated that the Feb. 5, 2025, directive — entitled “Eliminating Discrimination and Fraud in Department Grant Awards” — was arbitrary, capricious and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
On Feb. 17, 2025, the department announced the TQP and SEED grant cuts, citing funded initiatives that held professional development workshops on dismantling racial bias and activities that required educators to take personal and institutional responsibility for systemic inequities.
“The Department’s hasty implementation of the Directive over less than two weeks, the magnitude of the effects of the termination, as well as the lack of evidence of reasoned decisionmaking in the Administrative Record leave serious doubts as to the Department’s choice to adopt the Directive,” said Kelley in the Sept. 17 order.
The Education Department did not say whether it would appeal Kelley’s decision as of Sept. 21 in a request for comment from K-12 Dive.
Education Department Press Secretary Savannah Newhouse, however, told K-12 Dive, "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."
The Education Department’s Feb. 5, 2025, directive specifically called for agency personnel to review all new grant awards and issued grants to ensure those federal dollars “do not fund discriminatory practices — including in the form of DEI.” The directive added that “Illegal DEI policies and practices can violate both the letter and purpose of Federal civil rights law and conflict with the Department's policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education.”
The lawsuit against the Education Department over the TQP and SEED grant terminations was filed by attorneys general from California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.
California saw at least $148 million in teacher training grant funds canceled beginning in February 2025, according to the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta. The impacted programs were created to address the state’s ongoing teacher shortage by developing teacher pipelines in rural and urban communities. Some of those programs were also designed to help fill hard-to-staff positions such as math and science and were shown to boost teacher retention rates.
“Since Day One, the Trump Administration has pursued an anti-education agenda, repeatedly attempting to slash funding to undermine teacher training, student mental health, classroom technology, and more. Once again, a court said no,” said Bonta in a Sept. 18 statement. “There is nothing more important that our students' educational future — and their success relies on ensuring we’re continuing to train up the teachers of tomorrow.”
Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, CEO and president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, said the organization welcomed the court’s decision.
The order “affirms what AACTE and our partner organizations have consistently emphasized for the past two years: federal investment in educator preparation is essential to strengthening our nation’s teacher workforce and ensuring every student has access to a well-prepared teacher,” Holcomb-McCoy said in a Sept. 21 statement emailed to K-12 Dive. “Withdrawing critical funding without warning and in the middle of a grant cycle causes immediate and lasting harm to institutions, communities, and students.”
