The Education Department said the grants are used to train teachers on ‘divisive ideologies’ such as DEI,’critical race theory,’ and ‘anti-racism.’
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WASHINGTON – A divided Supreme Court on Friday said the Trump administration doesn’t have to keep paying teacher training grants while states challenge the Education Department’s decision in February to cancel them.
That decision came over the objections of Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices.
The court’s majority said in an unsigned opinion that the administration was likely to show that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the grants be paid. Instead, the states need to take their challenge to a federal claims court that handles contract disputes, the court said.
Roberts did not give a reason for his dissent.
Kagan wrote that the majority’s reasoning “is at the least under-developed, and very possibly wrong.”
She said the court should not have made a decision on the emergency basis requested by the administration, which didn’t allow for the regular briefings, oral arguments or “time for reflection.”
“Rather than make new law on our emergency docket, we should have allowed the dispute to proceed in the ordinary way,” she wrote.
The administration asked the justices to intervene after lower courts said the grants appeared to have been terminated improperly and must be temporarily restored as the litigation continues.
A purpose of one competitive grant program, which was created by Congress, is to recruit “highly qualified individuals, including minorities and individuals from other occupations, into the teaching force.”
Another provides professional development resources to encourage teachers and administrators to work in traditionally underserved schools.
The administration said it killed more than 100 grants from those programs because they promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Eight Democratic-led states said the terminations didn’t follow the law and sued to restore them in their states.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the state attorneys general in their challenge, said California stands to lose at least $148 million.
California State University, for example, received a three-year grant to address a chronic shortage of qualified teachers in rural northeastern California.
The termination notices “did not explain how the grant-funded programs engaged in any of the purportedly disqualifying actions,” Bonta and other attorneys general told the Supreme Court in court documents. The Education Department also ignored the fact that Congress created the programs to promote diversity among teachers and support students from diverse backgrounds, they said.
The administration contends that Congress gave the Education Department broad authority to operate the programs.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris described the case as one of “a flood of recent suits” in which a single District Court judge wielded “unchecked power” to block administration policies that could save taxpayers millions of dollars. She called the case an ideal example to prevent “micromanagement” from District Court judges.
But the states said the order the administration is trying to block was narrowly tailored and time-limited.