Judge pauses sweeping Trump orders rolling back diversity programs, warning of threat of ‘pernicious’ enforcement

The Trump administration’s sweeping executive orders seeking to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government and private sector have temporarily been put on hold, after a federal judge in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit from civic and educational groups challenging the policies.

In a ruling on Friday, Judge Adam B. Adelson held that the challengers had shown they had viable First and Fifth Amendment concerns about the orders, which eliminated all federal spending on DEI programs and barred those getting government funds from engaging in such work, regardless of whether the government was funding such programs.

Adelson, a Biden appointee, wrote that the Trump administration hadn’t bothered to define what constituted DEI, even as it threatened financial penalties and government investigations against violators, raising the risk of “arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.”

“The possibilities are almost endless, and many are pernicious,” Adelson wrote. “If an elementary school receives Department of Education funding for technology access, and a teacher uses a computer to teach the history of Jim Crow laws, does that risk the grant being deemed ‘equity-related’ and the school being stripped of funding? If a road construction grant is used to fill potholes in a low-income neighborhood instead of a wealthy neighborhood, does that render it ‘equity-related’?”

Democracy Forward, a liberal-leaning advocacy group, helped bring the suit earlier this month alongside the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the City of Baltimore, the American Association of University Professors, and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

It celebrated the Friday ruling.

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“Our Constitution protects all Americans – whether you are a university professor or a restaurant worker – from unlawful intrusion on speech, ideas, and expression and entitles all Americans to fair process,” CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement, adding, “As our complaint states, in the United States, there is no King.”

The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.

The lawsuit took issue with two executive orders.

One, signed January 20, ordered the government to terminate “equity-related” grants and contracts as well as “discriminatory” and “illegal DEI” work inside agencies. That order also required federal contracts to have a clause ensuring those getting government funds didn’t operate programs “promoting DEI.”

A second order at issue, signed a day later, directed federal officials to draw up enforcement plans on how they’d “deter DEI programs or principles” in and outside the government, including by launching investigations into companies and educational institutions.

The Trump administration had argued in court the challenges to the orders were “speculative,” and that it was only trying to prevent conduct that was already illegal under existing civil rights laws.

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While the injunction may pause the executive orders, they’ve already had massive impacts across the federal government, ranging from millions of dollars of contracts and grants being canceled, to federal DEI workers being fired.

The Trump administration has joined a wider backlash against DEI that’s taken root on the right since the 2020 racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.

Administration figures have in recent days, without evidence, blamed everything from the recent plane crash outside Washington to the fires in Southern California on DEI.

The growing political and cultural backlash against DEI, along with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending race-based affirmative action, has prompted major private companies to roll back DEI efforts as well, including McDonald’s, Walmart, Harley-Davidson, Meta, and Amazon.