Overview
- U.S. District Judge Kymberly K. Evanson issued a preliminary injunction on Oct. 27 that pauses the termination of roughly four dozen grants in 15 states while litigation continues.
- The order covers only grantees that filed declarations describing harm and also bars the Education Department from reallocating their funds through its reworked competition.
- Evanson found the discontinuation decisions likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act for using boilerplate notices without individualized reasoning and for disregarding evidence of real-world harms.
- The Education Department says it will appeal and defends its revised grant priorities that removed diversity preferences, prohibited uses tied to “gender ideology” and “racial stereotyping,” and narrowed the focus to school psychologists.
- The contested programs, expanded with about $1 billion through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act after major school shootings, fund hiring and training of counselors, psychologists, and social workers; termination notices were sent in April telling recipients funding would end in December.