On Friday, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration and overturned a judge's injunction that had prevented the cancellation of $148 million in grants intended for recruiting and training new educators in California as well as additional funds across the country.
With a 5-4 majority, the justices approved the administration's appeal and put the funding on hold temporarily.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stated he would have rejected the appeal, with the Court's three liberal justices—Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—issuing a written dissent.
"As I see it, there was nothing urgent about this case that required our prompt involvement," Kagan stated.
Most of them did not provide an explanation for their choice. In a short, unnamed ruling, they stated that the plaintiffs failed to “dispute the Government’s assertion that it is improbable to retrieve the grant money after distribution.”
The legal team representing the Trump administration encouraged the court to limit judges who were assuming roles akin to "self-proclaimed overseers" of the federal government.
In early February, the Education Department officials appointed by Trump examined ongoing grants with the intention to cease funding for "discriminatory practices, such as those found in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives."
They opted to end 104 out of 109 teacher training grants worth approximately $600 million across the nation. This decision was communicated via standardized letters stating that these grants were no longer furthering the agency’s goals.
Led by Attorney General Rob Bonta of California, eight states withDemocratic leanings initiated legal action in Boston, contending that although Congress had endorsed the grants, their abrupt cancellation was unjustified. "authorized by law." The lawsuit was aimed at roughly $250 million worth of revoked grants, with approximately $148 million of that total benefiting California.
California has been joined in the lawsuit by Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Colorado. There are no filings from Republican-led states.
Bonta's case hinged on the Administrative Procedure Act, prohibiting federal agencies from making sudden alterations to their regulatory stances without providing a transparent and justifiable rationale.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, appointed by President Joe Biden, concurred that the Education Department’s sudden termination of the grants was both “arbitrary and capricious” and unlawful according to the Administrative Procedure Act. He noted that "no individual assessment was conducted for any of the programs" that were ended.
On March 10, he imposed a provisional injunction to keep things as they were.
When a federal appeals court declined to overturn that ruling, the Trump administration attorneys petitioned the Supreme Court .
"The court ought to quickly bring an end to the unconstitutional authority wielded by federal district courts as they assume the role of managing the executive branch’s funding and grant distribution decisions without proper authorization," Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris stated in her appeal for U.S. Department of Education v. State of California.
A statement from Bonta's office indicated that the Supreme Court order "doesn’t definitively settle any of the matters in this case, and the preliminary injunction motion remains pending."
The Trump administration is pushing for an education policy that could remove teachers from schools and stop those nearly prepared to teach from entering classrooms," Bonta stated. "Although we would have liked to keep the temporary restraining order, we respect the judicial process and are eager to continue presenting our argument in the lower court.
Bonta's lawsuit stated that both the California State University system and the University of California faced the loss of eight grants totaling approximately $56 million. These federal grants aimed to support the recruitment and training of educators for service in challenging schools located in either rural or urban regions.
One of the terminated initiatives included a $7.5 million grant to California State University, Los Angeles, aimed at training and certifying 276 educators over half a decade to serve in underprivileged or economically disadvantaged schools within theLos Angeles Unified School District and the Pasadena Unified School District.
Another canceled initiative was an $8 million project at UCLA aimed at training a minimum of 314 middle school principals along with math, English, science, and social studies educators to work across multiple school districts in Los Angeles County.
In a statement, California Teachers Association President David Goldberg condemned the Supreme Court's decision.
"At a time when we continue to face staff shortages in our public schools, we should focus additional resources on recruiting and retaining teachers rather than using essential funds as leverage for pushing political goals,” Goldberg stated.
Daniel Miller, a Times staff writer, contributed to this article.
This tale initially surfaced in Los Angeles Times .
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