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CBS News
04-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to cancel education grants for now
Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to cancel millions of dollars in federal education grants because it said they funded programs that involve diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The high court split 5-4 in granting a request from the Justice Department to pause a federal district court order that required the Department of Education to reinstate the grants that had been awarded to universities and nonprofit organizations in eight states. The court said in an unsigned opinion that its stay will remain in place while legal proceedings move forward. "Respondents have represented in this litigation that they have the financial wherewithal to keep their programs running. So, if respondents ultimately prevail, they can recover any wrongfully withheld funds through suit in an appropriate forum," the court said. "And if respondents instead decline to keep the programs operating, then any ensuing irreparable harm would be of their own making." Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the three liberal justices in dissent. The legal battle over the administration's decision to cut off the grants is the latest challenging President Trump's second-term policies to reach the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority. The Trump administration has sought to cut off federal assistance funding and foreign aid, but has so far been rebuffed by the courts. There are three other requests for relief from the Justice Department that are still awaiting action from the Supreme Court, though more emergency appeals are expected to reach the justices as the president faces a slew of lawsuits targeting his second-term agenda. At issue in this dispute over Education Department funds is up to $65 million in grants awarded through the Teacher Quality Partnership program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development program, which support teacher recruitment and training. In early February, the acting secretary of education directed an internal review of the department's grant awards to ensure they did not fund programs with DEI practices, which the Trump administration has claimed are discriminatory. The Education Department ultimately decided 104 grants should be terminated because they did not align with its policy objectives, according to the Justice Department. Five grants were left in place, the department said. Following the grant cancellations, a group of eight states sued the Trump administration and asked a federal district court to issue temporary relief while the case moved forward. The states — California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin — said organizations within their states received the grants and argued the terminations violated a federal law that governs the agency rulemaking process. U.S. District Judge Myong Joun agreed to grant a temporary restraining order, in place until April 7, that required the government to reinstate the grants to recipients in the eight states. The court also temporarily blocked the government from reinstating the terminations, or cancelling any other awards for organizations in the states. The Trump administration asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit to pause that order while proceedings continue, which it declined to do. The Justice Department then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court. In filings with the justices, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued that the district court's order is one of several that raise the question of whether a district court judge can force the government to pay out millions in taxpayer dollars. "Unless and until this court addresses that question, federal district courts will continue exceeding their jurisdiction by ordering the executive branch to restore lawfully terminated grants across the government, keep paying for programs that the executive branch views as inconsistent with the interests of the United States, and send out the door taxpayer money that may never be clawed back," she wrote. Harris urged the Supreme Court to "put a swift end to federal district courts' unconstitutional reign as self-appointed managers of executive branch funding and grant-disbursement decisions." In a separate case, the high court rejected an earlier bid from the Trump administration to pause an order that required it to pay out an estimated $2 billion in foreign-aid funding to groups that received money from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. In a filing with the Supreme Court, lawyers for the states argued that the issue for the Justice Department is with other cases elsewhere, where courts are dealing with a slew of legal disputes arising out of Mr. Trump's executive actions. "Those concerns are properly litigated in the context of those other cases," the states said in a filing . "They provide no basis for this court to grant emergency relief here, where the district court appropriately granted a narrow and time-limited restraining order to preserve the status quo while it adjudicates the preliminary-injunction motion that was argued earlier today." Lawyers for the states said that the grant recipients are providing a pipeline of qualified teachers for local schools within their states, and warned that if the awards could be cancelled, programs that they fund will have to be scaled back or shut down entirely. "Any harm that defendants might face from the temporary restraining order in the few days remaining before that order expires is far outweighed by the immediate harm the states will suffer if the order were stayed or vacated," they said.
Boston Globe
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump asks Supreme Court to let him cancel grants to teachers
The Education Department last month sent grant recipients boilerplate form letters ending the funding, saying the recipients were engaged in activities 'that violate either the letter or purpose of federal civil rights law; that conflict with the department's policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education; that are not free from fraud, abuse, or duplication; or that otherwise fail to serve the best interests of the United States.' Advertisement Judge Myong J. Joun of the US District Court in Massachusetts temporarily ordered the grants to remain available while he considered a suit brought by California and seven other states challenging the terminations. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up On Friday, the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, rejected a request from the Trump administration to pause Joun's order, saying the government's arguments were based on 'speculation and hyperbole.' In temporarily blocking the cancellation of the grants, Joun said he sought to maintain the status quo. He wrote that if he failed to do so, 'dozens of programs upon which public schools, public universities, students, teachers, and faculty rely will be gutted.' On the other hand, he reasoned, if he did pause the Trump administration action, the groups would merely continue to receive funds that had been appropriated by Congress. In the administration's emergency application in the Supreme Court, Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general, said Joun's order was one of many lower-court rulings thwarting government initiatives. 'The aim is clear: to stop the executive branch in its tracks and prevent the administration from changing direction on hundreds of billions of dollars of government largesse that the executive branch considers contrary to the United States' interests and fiscal health,' she wrote. She added, 'Only this court can right the ship — and the time to do so is now.' Advertisement The case followed the Trump administration's termination of more than $600 million in grants for teacher training in February, as part of its crackdown on efforts related to diversity and equity. The Education Department claimed the funding was being used 'to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies' like social justice activism and anti-racism. It came amid broader upheaval in the department that reached a climax this month, when Trump instructed the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to begin shutting down the agency altogether, though it cannot be closed without the approval of Congress. The raft of cuts to training grants had decimated two of the department's largest professional development programs, known as the Supporting Effective Educator Development program and the Teacher Quality Partnership Program. The initiatives offered competitive grants that helped place teachers in underserved schools — like low-income or rural regions — and addressed teacher shortages. Among their goals was to develop a diverse educational workforce. In New York, for example, officials said that public university systems had been granted more than $16 million to support students in graduating from teaching programs — who would then help to fill spots in tough-to-staff areas, such as math and special education. The lawsuit filed this month challenging the cuts came from a coalition of eight attorneys general, including those for New York and Massachusetts. It argued that the cuts would destabilize both urban and rural school districts, forcing them to hire 'long-term substitutes, teachers with emergency credentials, and unlicensed teachers on waivers.' 'This will harm the quality of instruction and can lead to increased numbers of students falling short of national standards,' the attorneys general wrote. Advertisement If the cuts were allowed to continue, the group contended, public school students and their teachers-in-training would suffer 'immediate and irreparable harm.' This article originally appeared in
