Trump Anti-DEI Orders to Proceed as Appeals Court Ends Block (2)

Key provisions of President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders are fair game for federal agencies to enforce, after the Fourth Circuit reversed a federal judge’s decision blocking implementation.

Challengers to Trump’s directives targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are unlikely to show they facially violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment free speech and Fifth Amendment due process rights, a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Friday.

The unanimous panel decision lifts the preliminary injunction that Judge Adam Abelson of the US District Court for the District of Maryland granted in February 2025. He broadly prohibited all federal agencies from carrying out three provisions of Trump’s executive orders.

The challengers failed to show the orders infringed on their constitutional rights, largely because they were Trump’s instructions to federal agencies that only indirectly required compliance action by the plaintiffs, Judge Albert Diaz wrote in the panel opinion.

If federal agencies have terminated funding in ways that violate free speech protections, “then plaintiffs can sue those actors for terminating those contracts,” Diaz wrote. The executive orders’ “plain text doesn’t terminate any contracts, nor does it directly regulate nongovernmental conduct.”

In a separate concurring opinion, Diaz wrote that his ruling wasn’t an indication of support for Trump’s anti-DEI policies, but rather intended as a narrow decision on the legal posture of this litigation.

“For those disappointed by the outcome, I say this: Follow the law. Continue your critical work. Keep the faith. And depend on the Constitution, which remains a beacon amid the tumult,” he wrote.

The decision addresses a motion for emergency relief and not the underlying merits of the case, which will return to district court, said Skye Perryman, president & CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the legal advocacy groups representing the plaintiffs.

“We will continue to use every legal tool available to take this administration to court—and win—as we have done when the administration’s actions infringe on the rights of people and communities,” she said in a written statement.

The White House and Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday’s ruling.

Short-Lived Win

Abelson’s decision had been a win for a group of challengers that includes the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and the City of Baltimore. The Fourth Circuit in March had granted a stay of that injunction pending appeal.

Trump signed the pair of anti-DEI executive orders on days one and two of his second term, broadly restricting government agencies and private-sector entities from practices that his administration deems illegal and discriminatory.

The lawsuit was one of the earliest to challenge the DEI orders—many of the suits claimed the directives were unconstitutionally vague—and got perhaps the broadest injunction yet granted to block them. Months after Abelson’s initial decision, the US Supreme Court cast doubt on judges’ authority to issue universal or nationwide injunctions against executive branch actions in Trump v. CASA.

The injunction focused on three provisions of the orders: a requirement for federal contractors and grant recipients to certify they don’t operate any illegal or discriminatory DEI programs, a mandate for federal agencies to terminate “equity-related” grants or contracts wherever legally allowed, and an instruction for Attorney General Pam Bondi to draw up enforcement plans for possible civil investigations into private-sector entities’ DEI programs.

The certification requirement carries a risk of prosecution under the federal False Claims Act, if the Justice Department deems a contractor’s or grant recipient’s DEI program to violate anti-bias laws. Bondi also told DOJ personnel in a staff memo that illegal DEI programs could be subject to criminal prosecution.

Attorneys from Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Democracy Forward Foundation represented the plaintiffs.

Justice Department attorneys represented the government.

Judge Allison Jones Rushing joined in the panel opinion. Judge Pamela A. Harris partially agreed, but wrote a concurring opinion to reject a portion of the panel’s reasoning on plaintiffs’ standing.

The case is Nat’l Assoc. of Diversity Officers in Higher Ed. v. Trump, 4th Cir., No. 25-1189, 2/6/26.