Washington — The Trump administration requested on Wednesday that the Supreme Court get involved in a dispute regarding Department of Education grants that were revoked due to their support for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
In a submission to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department asked the justices to halt a temporary order from a lower court mandating the Education Department to restore millions in grants to recipients in eight states that challenged the cancellations.
A federal appeals court denied relief to the Justice Department, siding with the district court, which concluded that the cancellation of the grants likely breached federal law governing agency rulemaking.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris voiced concerns about the lower court’s order, reflecting issues raised in other emergency appeals to the Supreme Court. Recently, the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of nationwide injunctions, with over a dozen issued by district courts addressing legal challenges to President Trump’s policies.
“This court should swiftly end the unconstitutional dominance of federal district courts acting as self-appointed overseers of Executive Branch funding and grant distribution decisions,” she stated.
The Justice Department has also urged the Supreme Court to intervene in conflicts related to Mr. Trump’s executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship and efforts to terminate thousands of federal probationary employees. The high court has not yet responded to these requests for emergency relief.
The grant programs involved, namely the Teacher Quality Partnership program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development program (TQP and SEED), focus on enhancing teacher development and quality. In early February, the acting education secretary initiated a review of all grant awards to confirm they did not finance so-called DEI practices, which the Trump administration claims are discriminatory. This review determined that 104 grants should be canceled as they were inconsistent with the department’s policy objectives.
About a month after the cancellations, the eight states filed a lawsuit and requested a temporary restraining order from a federal district judge in Massachusetts. Public and private universities, along with nonprofit organizations in these states, had received TQP and SEED grants from the federal government.
The states—California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Wisconsin—contend that the cancellation of the grants breaches the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the agency rulemaking process, partly because the Education Department did not “provide a transparent and reasonable explanation for the termination of the grants.”
The Massachusetts district court issued a temporary restraining order, initially intended to last for 14 days, directing the Trump administration to reinstate grants for all recipients in the states. This order also temporarily prohibited the Education Department from canceling any further grants for beneficiaries in the states involved in the challenge.
While the administration began efforts to restore access to the funds, it concurrently requested the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit to pause the lower court’s orders and permit the continuation of grant cancellations.
However, the 1st Circuit denied the Department of Education’s request. The district court later extended its temporary order to remain effective until April 7, while it contemplated a request for longer-term relief.
The Massachusetts case is not the sole challenge to the Education Department’s decision to eliminate DEI-related grants. In a separate case in Maryland, a federal district court ordered the administration to restore TQP and SEED grants for members of teacher-education organizations.
In its emergency relief request to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration cautioned that the two court orders from Maryland and Massachusetts might overlap. The government reiterated its opposition to the widespread injunctions issued by district courts in this series of cases.
“If this court does not address this issue, federal district courts will keep overstepping their jurisdiction by mandating the Executive Branch to restore lawfully terminated grants and continue funding programs the Executive Branch considers inconsistent with the nation’s interests, thereby spending taxpayer money that may not be recoverable,” Harris asserted.
She contended that the temporary restraining order provides relief to all grant recipients in the states, rather than limiting it to the states or their instrumentalities. The district court, according to Harris, instructed a federal agency and its leadership to immediately allocate millions of dollars for programs deemed incompatible with the administration’s goals.
“This represents a significant intrusion into the Operations of the Executive Branch and is the kind of judicial action that this court has typically chosen to review,” she stated.
Concerning the case’s merits, the acting solicitor general, representing the government before the Supreme Court, indicated that the Massachusetts court lacked jurisdiction to address the states’ claims since the case is essentially a contract dispute that should be resolved by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
