Judge Blocks HHS, HUD Funding Threats Over Groups’ DEI Efforts

The Trump administration can no longer use the threat of federal grant cuts to force domestic violence victim aid groups not to employ diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, a federal judge ruled.

The groups are “are effectively prevented from participating in the application process and from receiving funding Congress has appropriated for supporting their missions if they decline to abide by the newly implemented Challenged Conditions,” Judge Melissa R. DuBose said Oct. 10 in an order granting them their motion for preliminary injunction.

“Moreover, the Challenged Conditions will change the lawful scope of activities permitted with grant funds, may lead to the termination of grant awards, and will require the Plaintiffs to ‘expose them[selves] to potential criminal and civil liability under the [False Claims Act],’” DuBose, of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island, said in the order.

The preliminary injunction enjoins the US Department of Housing and Urban Development from requiring any recipient or subrecipient among the groups to agree to new conditions such as not using grant funds to promote “gender ideology” as defined in an executive order signed earlier this year.

Nearly two dozen aid groupssued the US Department of Health and Human Services and HUD in July for allegedly forcing them to adhere to anti-DEI executive orders by President Donald Trump at the risk of losing federal funding.

The government’s restrictions don’t “aim to better effectuate the programs’ purposes” and instead try advancing the Trump administration’s ‘wholly unrelated ideological goals—including to end “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,’ deny transgender people’s identities, and cut off access to abortion resources and referrals,” the complaint said.

The plaintiffs in the case receive funding to help domestic violence and sexual assault victims, as well as homeless people.

Later that month, DuBose issued a temporary restraining order blocking the agencies from requiring eight of those organizations to certify that they won’t operate DEI-advancing efforts.

The TRO likewise blocked HUD and the HHS from requiring the groups to certify that they wouldn’t use funds for promoting elective abortions or what the Trump administration defined as gender ideology.

“Although details of the Defendants’ decisionmaking process may be revealed later in the litigation pipeline, at this preliminary injunction stage, the Court must conclude that the Defendants engaged in a baseless and arbitrary process,” DuBose said. “The Defendants merely claim that ‘the rationale for the conditions is self-evident from the language of the conditions themselves.’”

The court also ruled the groups’ claims have been filed in the proper forum and don’t need to be adjudicated in the Court of Federal Claims pursuant to the Tucker Act.

The case is Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence v. Kennedy, D.R.I., No. 1:25-cv-00342, preliminary injunction 10/10/25.