US Supreme Court lets Trump cut teacher training grants in DEI-related case

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Donald Trump's administration on Friday to proceed with millions of dollars of cuts to teacher training grants - part of his crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives - handing the Republican president his first victory at the nation's highest judicial body since he returned to office in January.

The court decided 5-4 to put on hold Boston-based U.S. District Judge Myong Joun's March 10 order requiring the Department of Education to reinstate in eight Democratic-led states funding for grants under two teacher training programs while a legal challenge by the states continues.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberal justices dissented from the decision. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The three conservative justices who Trump appointed during his first presidential term sided with him in the decision. 

The brief and unsigned opinion from the court said that the administration is "likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the payment of money," as occurred in this case. The decision marked an early win for Trump after the court previously declined to let him immediately fire a U.S. watchdog agency head or withhold payment to foreign aid groups for past work.

The eight states - California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin - sued after the Department of Education announced on February 17 that it had cut $600 million in teacher training funds that were promoting what it called "divisive ideologies" including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI.

Joun decided that the administration likely violated a U.S. law called the Administrative Procedure Act governing federal agency actions given that the Department of Education abruptly terminated grants awarded under programs authorized by Congress without providing individualized analyses of the programs. The Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator grant programs were established to help support institutions that recruit and train educators in a bid to address critical teacher shortages, especially in rural and underserved communities.

The Republican president and officials in his administration have accused various judges who have issued rulings impeding his policies of overstepping their authority. The Justice Department told the Supreme Court in its request that in this case and others, federal judges are impermissibly micromanaging the government's spending decisions.

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, a Trump appointee, said that Wednesday's decision "marks a significant victory for President Trump and the rule of law. This Supreme Court ruling vindicates what the Department of Justice has been arguing for months: local district judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of taxpayer dollars, force the government to pay out billions, or unilaterally halt President Trump’s policy agenda. Department of Justice attorneys will continue fighting to protect the executive branch from gross judicial overreach.”

Grant recipients received a standardized letter notifying them that the Department of Education does not support programs or organizations that promote DEI "or any other initiatives that unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or another protected characteristic."

Without an order to restore the funding, "dozens of programs upon which public schools, public universities, students, teachers and faculty rely will be gutted," Joun, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, wrote in his temporary restraining order. 

'IT IS A MISTAKE'

In its decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court suggested that the challenge should have been brought in a different judicial body, the Court of Federal Claims, which specializes in money damages claims against the government. 

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said in a dissent that the reasoning on that issue presented in the decision "is at the least under-developed, and very possibly wrong." 

"It is a mistake for the court to grant this emergency application," Kagan wrote. "Nowhere in its papers does the government defend the legality of canceling the education grants at issue here."

Fellow liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she saw no reason to doubt Joun's findings. 

"The harms that will result from permitting the department to reinstate these terminations are directly contrary to Congress's goals in enacting the (programs) and in entrusting the department with their implementation," Jackson wrote. 

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 21 declined to pause Joun's order. The judge on March 24 had extended the order.

Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk have moved to dismantle the Education Department as part of their plan to slash the federal workforce and reshape the government. Trump on March 20 signed an executive order as a first step "to eliminate" the department, making good on a longstanding campaign promise to conservatives. 

Completely abolishing the department would require an act of Congress, and Trump currently lacks the votes for that.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Additional reporting by John Kruzel in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)