Tag: Unlawful

  • Cancellation of mental health grants ruled unlawful

    Cancellation of mental health grants ruled unlawful

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    Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge on Friday ordered the permanent reinstatement of U.S. Department of Education mental health grants in 16 states, ruling that the April cancellation of the school-based and professional development funding was unlawful.
    • The order came a week after the Education Department awarded $208 million in new mental health grants under revised priorities set by the Trump administration that prohibit recipients from “promoting or endorsing gender ideology, political activism, racial stereotyping, or hostile environments for students of particular races.” 
    • The original multi-year grant program first became available in 2018 to help schools address a worsening youth mental health crisis and increased school violence, including by supporting partnerships with colleges to expand the number of mental health providers available to students. Court records in the case, which was filed by the 16 states covered in the ruling, described how the funding brought more mental health professionals into schools and improved school climates.

    Dive Insight:

    The Education Department in April discontinued already approved funding for the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program that had been approved in fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024, saying they conflicted with Trump administration’s priorities. 

    The new grant priorities announced in July limited funding to hiring school psychologists rather than also funding school counselors and social workers, who often also provide student mental health supports. 

    U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson, in the Dec. 19 order in State of Washington v. U.S. Department of Education, took the Education Department to task for politicizing the grant program. “Nothing in the existing regulatory scheme comports with the Department’s view that multi-year grants may be discontinued whenever the political will to do so arises,” the ruling said.

    The Education Department did not return a request for comment Monday.

    The canceled grants caused “significant disruption” to the 16 plaintiff states, according to the judge. Nationally, the Education Department said the canceled grants totaled about $1 billion, according to court records.

    Evanson found the Education Department had violated the Administrative Procedure Act multiple times through actions that “are arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.”

    Specifically, the judge ruled that the department’s discontinuation notices to grantees in the 16 states that sued were “arbitrary and capricious” because they did not explain the reason for the cancellations. “The Department makes no effort to analogize the discontinuation notices or the process by which the notices were issued to the cases they cite,” Evanson said.

    The permanent injunction prevents the Education Department from issuing new priorities or irrelevant information to judge the mental health grant applications. Additionally, the court said it will oversee compliance with the order. In October, Evanson had issued an order granting the state’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

    The mental health grant programs began in 2018, after the school shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which killed 14 students and three staff members. The grants were continued and expanded over the years, including after the 2022 school shooting at Texas’ Robb Elementary School, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. 

    Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, who led the states’ lawsuit, said in a Dec. 20 statement the mental health grants helped schools hire 14,000 mental health professionals who provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 K-12 students nationwide in the first year, helping to reduce wait times for students needing help.

    “We’re facing a youth mental health crisis,” Brown said in response to the latest court order. “Making sure our kids have proper support should never be subject to political whim. This is why we stand firm against this administration’s utter disregard for the law.”

    Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, in a Dec. 22 statement, said the ruling “ensures that our young people are not unlawfully denied resources, including mental health professionals in schools, to help them navigate a nationwide mental health epidemic.” Massachusetts was among the plaintiff states.

    Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists, said that NASP is “pleased to see that the grantees in these plaintiff states will be able to continue their work next year.”

    She added that grantees still have a lot of questions and that NASP “will be working with them to get answers to them in the new year about the future of their grant.”

    Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education, said the ruling could bode well for other plaintiffs suing the administration over canceled grants. “You can’t enforce against a grantee criteria that they didn’t know about when they applied for and received the grant. That doesn’t even pass the laugh test if you ask me,” Mandlawitz said.

    Joining Washington and Massachusetts in the lawsuit were the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

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  • Cancellation of mental health grants ruled unlawful

    Cancellation of mental health grants ruled unlawful

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    Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge on Friday ordered the permanent reinstatement of U.S. Department of Education mental health grants in 16 states, ruling that the April cancellation of the school-based and professional development funding was unlawful.
    • The order came a week after the Education Department awarded $208 million in new mental health grants under revised priorities set by the Trump administration that prohibit recipients from “promoting or endorsing gender ideology, political activism, racial stereotyping, or hostile environments for students of particular races.” 
    • The original multi-year grant program first became available in 2018 to help schools address a worsening youth mental health crisis and increased school violence. Court records in the case, which was filed by the 16 states covered in the ruling, described how the funding brought more mental health professionals into schools and improved school climates.

    Dive Insight:

    The Education Department in April discontinued already approved funding for the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program that had been approved in fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024, saying they conflicted with Trump administration’s priorities. 

    The new grant priorities announced in July limited funding to hiring school psychologists rather than also funding school counselors and social workers, who often also provide student mental health supports. 

    U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson, in the Dec. 19 order in State of Washington v. U.S. Department of Education, took the Education Department to task for politicizing the grant program. “Nothing in the existing regulatory scheme comports with the Department’s view that multi-year grants may be discontinued whenever the political will to do so arises,” the ruling said.

    The Education Department did not return a request for comment Monday.

    The canceled grants caused “significant disruption” to the 16 plaintiff states, according to the judge. Nationally, the Education Department said the canceled grants totaled about $1 billion, according to court records.

    Evanson found the Education Department had violated the Administrative Procedure Act multiple times through actions that “are arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.”

    Specifically, the judge ruled that the department’s discontinuation notices to grantees in the 16 states that sued were “arbitrary and capricious” because they did not explain the reason for the cancellations. “The Department makes no effort to analogize the discontinuation notices or the process by which the notices were issued to the cases they cite,” Evanson said.

    The permanent injunction prevents the Education Department from issuing new priorities or irrelevant information to judge the mental health grant applications. Additionally, the court said it will oversee compliance with the order. In October, Evanson had issued an order granting the state’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

    The mental health grant programs began in 2018, after the school shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which killed 14 students and three staff members. The grants were continued and expanded over the years, including after the 2022 school shooting at Texas’ Robb Elementary School, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. 

    Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, who led the states’ lawsuit, said in a Dec. 20 statement the mental health grants helped schools hire 14,000 mental health professionals who provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 K-12 students nationwide in the first year, helping to reduce wait times for students needing help.

    “We’re facing a youth mental health crisis,” Brown said in response to the latest court order. “Making sure our kids have proper support should never be subject to political whim. This is why we stand firm against this administration’s utter disregard for the law.”

    Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, in a Dec. 22 statement, said the ruling “ensures that our young people are not unlawfully denied resources, including mental health professionals in schools, to help them navigate a nationwide mental health epidemic.” Massachusetts was among the plaintiff states.

    Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists, said that NASP is “pleased to see that the grantees in these plaintiff states will be able to continue their work next year.”

    She added that grantees still have a lot of questions and that NASP “will be working with them to get answers to them in the new year about the future of their grant.”

    Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education, said the ruling could bode well for other plaintiffs suing the administration over canceled grants. “You can’t enforce against a grantee criteria that they didn’t know about when they applied for and received the grant. That doesn’t even pass the laugh test if you ask me,” Mandlawitz said.

    Joining Washington and Massachusetts in the lawsuit were the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

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  • LAWSUIT: Tennessee state employee sues after unlawful firing for Charlie Kirk post

    LAWSUIT: Tennessee state employee sues after unlawful firing for Charlie Kirk post

    • Monica Meeks is a combat veteran and lifelong public servant fired for criticizing Charlie Kirk from her personal Facebook shortly after his assassination.
    • Under the First Amendment, public employers can’t fire people simply because the government doesn’t approve of their off-duty speech.
    • FIRE is suing the Tennessee Commissioner of Commerce and Insurance on Monica’s behalf, seeking reinstatement and damages.

    NASHVILLE, Dec. 10, 2025 — The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of Monica Meeks, a Tennessee public employee unlawfully fired from her state government job solely for criticizing Charlie Kirk in a Facebook comment after his assassination.

    “Our democracy suffers when public employees fear to voice what they are free to think,” said FIRE senior attorney Greg Greubel. “There are more than 23 million government employees across the country — and they can’t be fired simply because their boss or folks online don’t like the opinions they share off the clock.”

    After serving 20 years in the U.S. Army, including a tour of duty in Iraq, Monica joined the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance in 2016. Since joining the department, Monica has received stellar performance reviews and regular raises.

    “I’ve never backed down from a fight in my life, and I don’t plan to start now,” said Monica. “I took an oath to defend the Constitution. Now, it’s time to stand up for it again.”

    COURTESY PHOTOS OF MONICA FOR MEDIA

    In her private life, Monica is politically engaged and even ran for the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2022 as an independent candidate. In her free time, she enjoys joking around and trading hot takes with her old Army “battle buddies” on Facebook. After the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Monica responded to a friend’s post about Kirk with the remark, “The way you tap dance for White Supremacist should be studied!”

    Monica’s post was never intended to go further than two friends amiably sparring over politics — as millions of Americans do every day. But the post escaped her personal circle, and she quickly became swept up in the wave of cancellation attempts that followed the Kirk assassination.

    Only 15 or so X accounts called for Monica to be fired in response to an unrelated post by the Department on the afternoon of September 12. That includes comments marked as “probable spam,” and posts from anonymous accounts like “Bonerville Asskicker” and “NonGMOKaren.” But Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance Commissioner Carter Lawrence publicly announced her firing mere hours later, and sent a termination letter to Monica’s inbox. Lawrence’s letter mentioned no other performance issues whatsoever, nor any disruption to department operations, and made clear he was firing Monica solely for her lone “inflammatory and insulting comment” on Facebook.

    “You may disagree with Monica’s take on Charlie Kirk. But letting a few angry individuals get a public employee fired for off-the-clock speech, even when it has no impact on the workplace, will inevitably boomerang back on people with views you do support,” said FIRE staff attorney Cary Davis. “When public employees are forced into silence for fear of offending someone on the internet, we all lose.”

    Lawrence’s rush to fire Monica violated Supreme Court precedent, which established a three-prong test to determine when a government employee’s speech is constitutionally protected and cannot be punished by the state. First, the employee must speak “as a citizen” rather than as an employee. Second, the speech must involve “a matter of public concern.” Third, the employee’s interest in exercising their right to free expression must outweigh the state’s interest in ensuring effective government operations.

    Monica’s post easily clears all three hurdles:

    1. Monica clearly went to great lengths to establish that she was speaking as a private citizen. Her Facebook had a disclaimer that her views were hers and hers alone, and her profile didn’t even mention that she worked for the department.
    2. Monica’s post obviously involved a matter of public concern. The fact that others might vehemently disagree with her view of Kirk doesn’t change the fact that it was a major news story with political reverberations across the country.
    3. There is no evidence Monica’s post had any disruptive effect on the department or her work for it. Lawrence’s letter cited complaints about the post by members of the public, but there’s no evidence any coworkers complained, or that her opinions on Kirk would in any way impede her ability to investigate financial services fraud. It was hostility to Monica’s politics that drove the decision — not any legitimate government concern.

    FIRE is asking the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to find that Lawrence retaliated against Monica for exercising her clearly established First Amendment rights, and to award her damages and reinstate her to her position. And because Lawrence clearly disregarded her constitutional rights, FIRE is also seeking punitive damages for Monica. Melody Fowler-Green of Yezbak Law Offices is serving as local counsel in the case. 

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • Education Department outsourcing is unlawful, amended lawsuit claims

    Education Department outsourcing is unlawful, amended lawsuit claims

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    The U.S. Department of Education’s plans to move core programming to other agencies is illegal and harmful to K-12 and higher education students, educators and families, according to an amended lawsuit filed Tuesday.

    Brought forth by a broad coalition of school districts, employee unions and a disability rights organization, the amended complaint seeks to halt the outsourcing of Education Department programs. 

    “Taking away the services and supports students rely on will irreparably hurt children, families, educators, schools, and communities, in states across the nation,” said a Tuesday statement by Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case. “The Department of Education offers important support to educators and communities throughout the nation and the unlawful attempts to shut down the Department are nothing less than an abandonment of the future of our country.”

    In a statement emailed to K-12 Dive on Wednesday, Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, said, “It’s no surprise that blue states and unions care more about preserving the DC bureaucracy than about giving parents, students, and teachers more control over education and improving the efficient delivery of funds and services.”

    On Nov. 18, the Education Department announced it was developing interagency agreements with other federal agencies to support six programs, including with the U.S. Department of Labor to handle the management of about $28 billion in K-12 funding for low-income school districts, homeless youth, migrant students, academic support, afterschool programs, districts receiving Impact Aid and other activities.

    Another interagency agreement places about $3.1 billion in institution-based grants for postsecondary education programming at the Labor Department.

    The moves add to a partnership the Education Department created with the Labor Department earlier this year to take over the management of federal career and technical assistance programs. Democratic lawmakers, during a Nov. 19 House Education and Workforce subcommittee hearing, said several state CTE programs ran into funding delays due to a new grant management process at the Labor Department.

    While the Education Department does not yet have formal plans to move the management of special education, civil rights enforcement and federal student aid out of the agency, those options are still being explored, a senior department official said during a press call on Nov. 18.

    Even when programming shifts under the interagency agreements, the Education Department would still be the agency responsible for these programs, with the partner agencies taking on much of the daily operations.

    The Trump administration has said the continual downsizing of the Education Department is meant to reduce federal bureaucracy and give states more autonomy over spending allocations.

    During a White House press conference Nov. 20, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said there’s been a “hard reset” of the country’s educational system. “That reset was a campaign promise from President Trump to send education back to the states and end Washington’s micromanagement of education once and for all,” McMahon said. 

    Critics, however, say the disruptions from shifting agency responsibilities, along with Education Department staff reductions and delays in grant funding, is causing havoc for K-12 and higher education systems. 

    The updated complaint in Somerville v. Trump, which was consolidated with New York v. McMahon, was brought against the Education Department by groups of states, school districts and teacher unions. The Arc of the United States is now an additional plaintiff in the case.

    The cases were heard earlier this year before district and appeals courts, which issued and upheld injunctions blocking the administration’s actions. In July, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request for a stay allowing the changes at the Education Department to take place for now.

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  • US Chamber sues White House to block ‘plainly unlawful’ H-1B visa fee

    US Chamber sues White House to block ‘plainly unlawful’ H-1B visa fee

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    Dive Brief:

    • President Donald Trump’s proclamation placing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas is a “plainly unlawful” expansion of executive authority that violates the Administrative Procedure Act and federal immigration laws, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce alleged in a lawsuit Thursday.
    • Chamber of Commerce v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, et. al. is at least the second such lawsuit against the fee proclamation, following a separate filing earlier this month by plaintiffs in California. The Chamber claimed the fee would “inflict significant harm on American businesses” and render the H-1B program economically unviable for many.
    • The Chamber asked the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to enjoin the fee requirement and vacate any agency actions taken to implement it. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

    Dive Insight:

    The lawsuit is an immediate follow-up to the Chamber’s statement last month calling on the Trump administration to withdraw its fee proclamation. In that statement, the organization said Trump’s move could impede economic growth as well as domestic job creation by incentivizing employers to move some business functions overseas.

    A Chamber press release Thursday reiterated those concerns. Neil Bradley, the organization’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, credited the administration with “securing our nation’s border” while warning of the need for H-1B visas to support growth and attract global talent.

    The fee caught employers by surprise when it was announced in September, particularly so for those in the technology sector, where H-1B visas are routinely sought to staff highly-skilled positions in mathematics, computer science and similar fields. But the fee’s effects could be felt in other fields, including higher and K-12 education, plaintiffs in the California lawsuit alleged.

    New guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued Monday appeared to give the higher education sector some relief, however. It said that the new fee wouldn’t apply to those who are inside the U.S. and “requesting an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay.” That means international students who recently graduated and have H-1B sponsorship wouldn’t be subject to it, Bloomberg Law reported. 

    Trump has touted the fee — which applies prospectively only to H-1B visa petitions filed on or after Sept. 21, 2025, — as a necessary measure to combat “systemic abuse” of the program by employers in an effort to artificially suppress wages while reducing job opportunities for U.S. citizens.

    The Chamber directly addressed this point in its lawsuit, conceding that while abuse of the H-1B program is a serious issue, Congress considered this problem when creating the program and authorized the executive to take certain measures to prevent and remediate such abuse.

    For example, the Chamber noted that Congress twice imposed a temporary $4,000 surcharge fee on certain employers with a high proportion of H-1B visa holders. It also implemented a regulatory framework, the Labor Condition Application, requiring employers seeking H-1B employees to certify that the positions offered to such candidates meet criteria outlined by Congress. The legislature gave the president the authority to enforce such requirements by issuing fines as well as bans on filing future H-1B petitions.

    “What Congress did not authorize is disincentivizing the use of the program by imposing a fee many times the amount of fees set by Congress,” the Chamber said.

    Separately, the organization echoed an argument used by the California plaintiffs in alleging that the fee is arbitrary and capricious and was not submitted to notice-and-comment rulemaking as required under the APA.

    The lawsuits against the fee add to employers’ confusion in the aftermath of the proclamation. Sources previously told HR Dive that businesses have since been left to parse just how to pay the fee or how it will apply to visa petitioners who are already physically present in the U.S.

    Editor’s note: Natalie Schwartz, senior editor at Higher Ed Dive, contributed to this story. 

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  • Judge Rules Campaign Against Noncitizen Protesters Unlawful

    Judge Rules Campaign Against Noncitizen Protesters Unlawful

    In a scathing decision published Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that two federal agencies led a campaign to detain and deport international students and faculty for pro-Palestinian speech with the goal of chilling further protests, violating the First Amendment.

    “There was no ideological deportation policy,” wrote senior U.S. District Judge William G. Young, a Reagan appointee, in the 161-page ruling. “It was never the Secretaries’ [Marco Rubio, of the Department of State, and Kristi Noem, of the Department of Homeland Security] immediate intention to deport all pro-Palestinian non-citizens for that obvious First Amendment violation, that could have raised a major outcry. Rather, the intent of the Secretaries was more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.”

    He also stated unequivocally that noncitizens in the U.S. have the same First Amendment rights as citizens—despite the Trump administration’s argument to the contrary during the trial.

    The decision, which Young said may be the most important ever to fall within his district, comes about two months after the conclusion of a two-week trial in the case of American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, during which State Department and DHS employees explained that they had been tasked with identifying noncitizen pro-Palestinian activists to investigate and deport. Young wrote in his decision that the departments’ actions make it clear that they were working together to conduct targeted deportations with the goal of chilling speech—the repercussions of which are still being felt now.

    The plaintiffs, which include the AAUP, three of its chapters—at Rutgers University, Harvard University and New York University—and the Middle East Studies Association, celebrated the win in a remote press conference Tuesday afternoon.

    “That’s a really important victory and a really historic ruling that should have immediate implications for the Trump administration’s policies,” said Ramya Krishnan, the lead litigator on the case and a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government cannot imprison you because it doesn’t like the speech that you have engaged in, and this decision is really welcome because it reaffirms that basic idea, which is foundational to our democracy.”

    Still, despite the victory, several of the plaintiffs emphasized just how worrying the federal government’s crusade against pro-Palestinian noncitizen students and faculty is. Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, said he believes those actions, as well as the federal government’s other attacks against academic freedom, are an even greater threat to higher education than McCarthyism was.

    “The only equivalents might be the Red Scare and McCarthyism, but this is even worse, right? Because it’s not only attacking individual speech, it’s also attacking institutional independence and speech, right?” he said. “The Trump administration’s attacks on higher ed are the greatest assault on this sector that we have ever seen in the history of this country.”

    So, What Comes Next?

    Young previously separated this case into two phases, one focused on the government’s liability and the other on relief for the plaintiffs. According to Krishnan, the judge will schedule a later hearing to determine that relief. The plaintiffs hope Young will forbid the government from continuing to target noncitizens based on their political views, making permanent an injunction that the judge granted in March.

    But Young noted in his ruling Tuesday that he is unsure what a remedy for the plaintiffs might look like in an era when the president consistently seems able to avoid recourse for unconstitutional acts.

    “I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected,” he wrote, concluding the decision.

    “Is he correct?”

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  • FIRE statement on ruling that Trump’s funding freeze for Harvard was unlawful

    FIRE statement on ruling that Trump’s funding freeze for Harvard was unlawful

    Today, a federal court echoed what FIRE has said all along: The Trump administration trampled Harvard University’s First Amendment rights and broke civil rights law when it yanked billions in federal grants and contracts over alleged Title VI violations.

    The worthy goal of combating unlawful anti-Semitic discrimination on campus cannot justify the flatly unlawful and unconstitutional means used by the Trump administration in this attempted hostile takeover, including demanding that Harvard impose ideological litmus tests and restrictive speech codes. Our government may not use civil rights laws as a pretext to violate the First Amendment. 

    Read FIRE’s amicus brief here.

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  • Justice Department targets ‘unlawful’ DEI in hiring, training

    Justice Department targets ‘unlawful’ DEI in hiring, training

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    The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday released a sweeping guidance document that could impact school district hiring and training practices, as well as the programming available to students. 

    In some situations, districts could be exposed to legal liability by asking job applicants how their “cultural background informs their teaching,” using recruitment strategies targeting candidates from specific geographic areas or racial backgrounds, and asking job candidates to describe how they overcame obstacles, according to the memo from U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi. 

    Such diversity, equity and inclusion practices could amount to “illegal discrimination,” said Bondi in a statement on Wednesday. “This guidance will ensure we are serving the American people and not ideological agendas.” 

    The DOJ memo contains examples of practices it lists as “unlawful” and says could lead to federal funding being revoked, as well as a list of recommendations, which it says are not mandatory, to avoid “legal pitfalls.”

    The guidance issued to all federal agencies also says the following actions could expose federally funded institutions, including school districts,to legal liability based on race, ethnicity or sex-based discrimination: 

    • Providing teacher training that “all white people are inherently privileged” or training on “toxic masculinity.” 
    • Providing areas, such as lounges, that are primarily meant to provide “safe spaces” for traditionally underserved groups. 
    • Using demographically driven criteria “to increase participation by specific racial or sex-based groups” in programs and opportunities. 
    • Asking employees, including teachers, during training sessions to “confess” to personal biases or privileges based on a protected characteristic.

    Instead, school districts and other federally funded institutions should provide opportunities to all races and sex-based groups without regard to their protected characteristics or demographic goals, instead focusing on “universally applicable criteria” such as academic merit or financial hardship, the Justice Department memo said. 

    The guidance could impact districts’ efforts to make education more equitable, such as by diversifying the teacher pool through Black educator pipelines, training teachers on implicit and explicit biases, and creating academic or enrichment programs to increase engagement from minority student groups. 

    The directive is in line with the Trump administration’s push to pare back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, including through the U.S. Department of Education. In recent months, the Education Department has increasingly collaborated with the Department of Justice to enforce civil rights laws, often seeking to protect Asian and White students. 

    The guidance from the Justice Department illustrates the major shift in how both agencies under President Donald Trump approach enforcement of civil rights laws, with officials now targeting programs that were often launched to fight systemic discrimination.

    In April, the Education Department announced a Title VI investigation into Chicago Public Schools over allegations from the conservative group Defending Education that the district’s “Black Students Success Plan” implemented in 2023-24 discriminated against students based on race. 

    In May, the department announced another Title VI investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools over a 2020 revision to the admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. That policy dropped standardized testing requirements and instead used a holistic review process, which the Education Department said harms Asian American students. 

    In 2024-25, the highly selective magnet school was 61% Asian and 21% White, with Black and Hispanic students making up less than 10% of the student population each.

    The guidance from the Trump administration and the Education Department investigations come after concerns from civil rights groups that recent federal policy changes, along with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, would set back educational equity efforts even outside of race-conscious admissions. 

    Scholarship availability, teacher pipelines and student affinity groups were among the top areas beyond college access that advocates were concerned could be impacted in the wake of that ruling.

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  • DOJ Declares Slew of DEI Practices Unlawful in Memo

    DOJ Declares Slew of DEI Practices Unlawful in Memo

    Attorney General Pamela Bondi authored the memo declaring all race-conscious practices unlawful.

    Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images

    More than three months after a federal court struck down an Education Department directive that barred any practices that consider race at colleges across the country, the Department of Justice declared Wednesday that diversity, equity and inclusion practices are unlawful and “discriminatory.”

    But the agency’s memo goes even further than ED’s guidance, suggesting that programs that rely on what they describe as stand-ins for race, like recruitment efforts that focus on majority-minority geographic areas, could violate federal civil rights laws. The directive applies to any organization that receives federal funds, and DOJ officials warned that engaging in potentially unlawful practices could lead to a loss in grant funding.

    Other examples of “potentially unlawful proxies” include requirements that job applicants “demonstrate ‘cultural competence,’ ‘lived experience,’ or ‘cross-cultural skills’” or narratives about how the applicant has overcome obstacles, Attorney General Pamela Bondi wrote.

    This interpretation of federal law could present new challenges for colleges that have relied on tactics like place-based recruitment to create diverse student bodies since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in 2023. For instance, some colleges have guaranteed admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high schools.

    “This highlights that every practice of colleges is under scrutiny, even ones that have been viewed as politically safe for years (such as top ten percent plans or even TRIO programs). The only truly safe ways to admit students right now are to admit everyone or only use standardized test scores,” Robert Kelchen, a professor in the University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “Being an enrollment management leader has always been tough, but now it’s even more challenging to meet revenue targets and satisfy stakeholders who have politically incompatible goals.”

    The document offers clearer guidance about what the Justice Department considers off-limits as it investigates DEI at colleges and universities. The DOJ is playing a greater role in investigating colleges as it enforces its position that DEI programs as well as efforts to boost diversity among faculty and staff violate federal antidiscrimination laws.

    Since President Trump took office in January, he’s targeted DEI programs, practices and personnel via executive orders and other efforts. However, higher ed experts have repeatedly said that the orders don’t change the underlying laws, so colleges that complied with the law before Jan. 20 remain in compliance. In response to the federal edicts, colleges have rolled back a number of their programs and closed centers that catered to specific student groups.

    Many of the practices declared unlawful in the nine-page memo echo those referenced in the Education Department’s February Dear Colleague letter, such as race-based scholarships. But it also explicitly states that “BIPOC-only study lounges” and similar facilities are unlawful. The Education Department’s guidance mentioned race-based facilities generally but not specifically study lounges.

    DEI advocates have long argued that these centers or lounges are open to all students. Some have persisted even after state DEI bans, but multiple colleges have in recent months closed centers that catered to specific student groups. Bondi argued that such spaces violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race and national origin.

    “Even if access is technically open to all, the identity-based focus creates a perception of segregation and may foster a hostile environment. This extends to any resource allocation—such as study spaces, computer labs, or event venues—that segregates access based on protected characteristics, even if intended to create ‘safe spaces,’” the order reads.

    Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said that the memo is “another example of governmental overreach into academic freedom, institutional autonomy and shared governance that conditions federal funding on ideological alignment with the administration’s viewpoints.”

    She added that the guidelines in the document violate existing constitutional protections and erode federal civil rights law.

    “What is missing from the DOJ narrative on DEI is that treating people differently is not always unjust, especially when doing so corrects a broader pattern of systemic injustice. Considering race and gender in the context of historic unjust discrimination to inform policies and practices at colleges and universities doesn’t in and of itself constitute illegal discrimination, though the letter suggests otherwise.”

    Beyond race-based practices, the letter also addresses transgender student athletes, building on the Trump administration’s previous actions that advocates say deny the existence of trans individuals and roll back their rights. The memo states that it would “typically be unlawful” for someone assigned male at birth to compete on women’s sports teams or for an institution to “compel” individuals to share an intimate space, like a locker room, with someone of another sex.

    Pasquerella noted that the letter offers guidance, not legal mandates.

    “Nevertheless,” she said, “what are described as ‘best practices and nonbinding suggestions’ will likely cause another wave of anticipatory compliance and overcorrection given the climate of fear and intimidation created by the weaponization of research funds.”

    Katherine Knott contributed to this report.

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  • Detaining Öztürk over an op-ed is unlawful and un-American

    Detaining Öztürk over an op-ed is unlawful and un-American

    FIRE has filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of Rümeysa Öztürk in her lawsuit against the Trump administration. FIRE argues that the U.S. government is unlawfully detaining Öztürk for protected speech and reviving the authoritarian spirit of the Alien and Sedition Acts in the process. The brief’s summary of argument follows.

    It is unthinkable that a person in a free society could be snatched from the street, imprisoned, and threatened with deportation for expressing an opinion the government dislikes. Certainly not in the country envisioned by our nation’s framers. America’s founding principle, core to who and what we are as a nation, is that liberty comes not from the benevolent hand of a king, but is an inherent right of every man, woman, and child. That includes “the opportunity for free political discussion” as “a basic tenet of our constitutional democracy.” Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 552 (1965). And “a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4 (1949). For these reasons, along with all citizens, “freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148 (1945).

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, is arresting and detaining a PhD student, Rümeysa Öztürk, not because the government claims she committed a crime or other deportable offense, but for the seemingly sole reason that her expression — an op-ed in a student newspaper — stirred the Trump administration to anger. ICE made a discretionary decision to detain Ms. Öztürk under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e). See Order, ECF No. 104, at 38. This Court explained that “her detention did not flow naturally as a consequence of her removal proceedings.” Id. The Secretary argues his discretionary power over lawfully present international students includes the authority to order their arrest, detention, and deportation for even protected speech. It does not.

    The First Amendment’s protection for free speech trumps a federal statute. United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 268 n.20 (1967). Accepting Secretary Rubio’s position would irreparably damage free expression in the United States, particularly on college campuses. Foreign students would (with good reason) fear criticizing the current American government during classroom debates, in term papers, and on social media, lest they risk arrest, detention, and eventually deportation. That result is utterly incompatible with the longstanding recognition that “[t]he essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident,” and that “students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding.” Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 250 (1957).

    Secretary Rubio claims (as do all censors) that this time is different, that university students’ pro-Palestine (and, as administration officials allege, anti-Israel) views cannot be tolerated. But “if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive.” Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989) (holding the First Amendment protects burning the American flag in protest); see also Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 454 (2011) (holding the First Amendment protects displaying “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” posters outside a military funeral).

    The government’s actions against Ms. Öztürk harken back to the infamous Alien Friends Act of 1798, which allowed President John Adams to deport any alien deemed a danger to “public safety.” An Act Concerning Aliens § 2, 1 Stat. 571 (1798). It was “one of the most notorious laws in our country’s history,” “widely condemned as unconstitutional,” and “may have cost the Federalist Party its existence.” Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. 148, 185 (2018) (Gorsuch, J., concurring). Yet today, Secretary Rubio allows a stain of history to repeat itself. This Court must act.

    The “First Amendment does not speak equivocally. It prohibits any law ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.” Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 263 (1941) (invalidating criminal convictions, including of a non-citizen, based on protected speech). Our “liberty-loving society” does not permit arrest, detention, and deportation as a punishment solely based on an opinion voiced in a newspaper. The Court should grant Ms. Öztürk’s petition.

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