On Friday, a federal judge partly blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to root out programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, within the government.
That includes at least one far-reaching executive order titled, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” in which the president claimed DEI programs are illegal. As my colleague Alex Nguyen reported at the time:
[The order] argues that DEI programs violate civil rights laws by illegally enforcing “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences” that “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement.” The White House also claimed that these policies are discriminatory because they select based on “how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.”
As the New York Times has reported in detail, Maryland District Judge Adam B. Abelson barred the Trump administration from any effort to “pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate any awards, contracts or obligations” related to diversity and inclusion, noting that such programs have been seen as “uncontroversially legal for decades.”
A coalition of academic institutions brought the lawsuit. In the initial complaint, as the Associated Press reports, the plaintiffs argued that “ordinary citizens” would “bear the brunt” of Trump’s DEI crackdown: “Plaintiffs and their members receive federal funds to support educators, academics, students, workers, and communities across the country,” it read. “As federal agencies make arbitrary decisions about whether grants are ‘equity-related,’ Plaintiffs are left in limbo.” After weeks of chaos within the educational system, the plaintiffs were granted some relief.