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U.S.|A Legal Battle Over Trump’s Threats to Public School Funding Has Begun
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/us/dei-public-schools-trump-administration-lawsuit.html
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Can President Trump withhold federal money for low-income students? A brewing fight over diversity, equity and inclusion programs may force the courts to decide.
April 17, 2025, 5:05 a.m. ET
The Trump administration is facing lawsuits and growing pushback over its demand that all 50 states end the use of what it says are illegal diversity programs in public schools or risk losing federal funding for low-income students.
About a dozen mostly Democratic-leaning states including California, New York and Michigan, have refused to sign on to the administration’s directive. The nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, along with the N.A.A.C.P., are challenging the demand in federal court.
Arguments in one of those cases will be heard in New Hampshire on Thursday, escalating an increasingly tense standoff over the federal government’s role in local education.
The Trump administration is relying on a novel interpretation of civil rights law, arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision in 2023 overturning affirmative action in college admissions also applies to K-12 public schools. Federal officials say the ruling “sets forth a framework” for the use of race in education generally. And they say it requires banning curriculum and programs that are targeted toward specific racial groups, or that center on concepts such as structural racism, the idea that racial discrimination is pervasive in the economy, law and other institutions.
But that interpretation of federal law is contested by many education officials and legal scholars.
“The Trump administration is trying to use a relatively narrow decision and turn it into a broad holding that brings about whatever it wishes,” said Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School and an expert on the Constitution and education.
Now, several court cases are teed up to determine if Washington can withhold billions of federal dollars for schools to educate low-income students, a program known as Title I. Many of the nation’s poorest school districts rely heavily on the funds, but even affluent districts receive some Title I money if they serve low-income students.
