Federal Judge Hits Pause on Trump’s Push to Halt Federal Funding for DEI Programs

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s push to halt federal funding for programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in a ruling Friday afternoon, granting a reprieve to Harvard researchers who feared their work was on the line.

U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson ruled that the Trump administration’s inauguration day order to terminate “equity-related grants” was likely in violation of the First Amendment for unfairly targeting individuals and organizations on the basis of their beliefs.

Abelson’s ruling blocks the White House from requiring grantees and contractors to prove that federal funding awarded to them would not be used to promote DEI.

Harvard’s administration has scrambled to respond to the swiftly shifting landscape of Trump’s orders, many of which have been paused due to legal challenges. Vice Provost for Research John H. Shaw and other research administrators sent emails to faculty asking them to comply with directives from federal agencies — including NASA and the National Science Foundation — to stop work on DEI-related projects.

More than $3 million in federal grants to Harvard researchers were flagged by a Senate committee for promoting DEI initiatives in a report released last week. And some professors have faced research disruptions or feared a loss of support for graduate students because of the crackdown on diversity-related funding.

A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday evening.

Abelson — a Biden appointee — wrote that the order failed to define important terms like “equity-related” and “illegal DEI” and invited “arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement” in a 63-page memo accompanying the ruling.

“These individuals and organizations have no reasonable way to know what, if anything, they can do to bring their grants into compliance such that they are not considered equity-related,” he wrote.

Abelson’s ruling comes in response to an early February lawsuit filed by the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the American Association of University Professors, and two other groups.

The NADOHE celebrated Abelson’s ruling in a statement on Friday, calling it a “crucial victory for higher education and academic freedom.”

“This ruling underscores that ensuring equity, diversity, and inclusion are the very goals of federal anti-discrimination law, not a violation of the law,” said NADOHE president and chief executive officer Paulette G. Russel.

Stephen Miller — the White House’s deputy chief of staff — slammed the ruling in a Friday post on X, saying it supported using DEI to “illegally punish Americans based solely on their race and skin color.”

“A judge cannot nullify the Civil Rights Acts and order the government to award federal taxpayer dollars to organizations that discriminate based on race,” he wrote.

In the memo, Abelson cited a series of hypothetical situations where federal funding could be unfairly revoked because of a broad interpretation of “equity-related” restrictions.

“If a university grant helps fund the salary of a staff person who then helps teach college students about sexual harassment and the language of consent, would the funding for that person’s salary be stripped as ‘equity-related’?” he asked.

The ruling is the latest episode in a dispute between federal courts and the White House over its orders seeking to review and cut federal funding for programs that do not align with Trump’s agenda.

Earlier this month, a separate federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated a federal order halting an attempt to institute a sweeping freeze on federal funding for colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, and local governments.

And two days before the ruling, a group of civil rights organizations, backed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, sued the Trump administration, alleging that its orders challenging DEI initiatives were discriminatory.

Abelson’s ruling marks a small victory for DEI advocates, who have spent the last month bracing for a fierce federal crackdown.

In a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter, the Department of Education ordered all federally funded institutions, including Harvard, to terminate the use of race in any decisions relating to “aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

Several Ivy League universities have terminated their DEI programs and messaging, most notably the University of Pennsylvania, which replaced its main DEI webpage with a message that it had “initiated a review of our programs in this area to ensure compliance” last week.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.