Trump Can Cancel Teacher Educators’ DEI Grants, Fourth Cir. Says

The Trump administration can terminate a group of teacher education associations’ grants, which it believes promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, a federal appeals court said Thursday in a reversal.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted the government’s motion to stay a Maryland federal court’s March 17 preliminary injunction barring the Education Department from withholding grants for certain teacher training programs.

Three teacher education associations sued the department last month, alleging it failed to follow agency regulations governing grant terminations and didn’t show the department’s priorities shifted through necessary notice-and-comment rulemaking.

The US Supreme Court on April 4 stayed a federal court’s injunction in a separate case brought by a group of Democratic-led states over the department’s terminations of teacher training grants under the same federal programs. The high court said the administration is likely to show that the US Court of Federal Claims holds jurisdiction under the Tucker Act since the claims stem from the states’ contracts with the federal government.

The government argued in an April 4 letter to the Fourth Circuit that the case’s claims “belong in the Court of Federal Claims,” and that the government “will be harmed when grant recipients draw down money that the government might not recover.”

But, the associations countered in an April 7 letter that their claims are distinguishable from the Supreme Court case since the organizations’ claims are rooted in the government’s alleged actions that go against federal regulations and violate the Administrative Procedure Act.

The order was entered at the direction of Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., with Judges Allison Jones Rushing and Stephanie D. Thacker concurring.

Saul Ewing LLP represents the associations.

The case is Am. Assoc. of Colleges v. McMahon, 4th Cir., No. 25-01281, 4/10/25.