Trump has given states an impossible choice between two contradictory mandates
On April 3, 2025, the Department of Education informed state and local agencies that they must accept the Trump Administration’s new and legally incoherent interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts — or else risk immediate and catastrophic loss of federal education funds.
Like many other states, Rhode Island refused to certify its compliance
with these new requirements, explaining that there is no lawful or practical
way to do so given the Department’s vague, contradictory, and unsupported
interpretation of Title VI. In filing today’s lawsuit, Attorney General Neronha
and the coalition seek to bar the Department from withholding funding based on
these unlawful conditions.
“The President’s unconstitutional attacks on education will upend the lives of children in Rhode Island and across the country,” said Attorney General Neronha.
“The most vulnerable children in our state rely on this
federal financial support to access the services they need to learn. Kids with
special needs who require IEPs, kids who need to learn English as a second
language, kids in foster homes, and more depend on these programs. Further, our
schools count on this money to train our teachers to support student success.
By conditioning this funding in an illegal and thoughtless way, the
Administration will cause irreversible harm to children in our state. This
attack is unacceptable, and we will do everything we can to stop it.”
The U.S. Department of Education provides Rhode Island with over $116 million in congressionally mandated financial support each year for a wide variety of needs and services related to children and education.
This funding includes financial support to ensure that students from low-income families have the same access to high-quality education as their peers, provide special education services, recruit and train highly skilled and dedicated teachers, fund programming for non-native speakers to learn English, and provide support to vulnerable children in foster care and without housing.
As a
condition of receiving these funds, state and local education agencies provide
written assurances they will comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin,
and Rhode Island has consistently and regularly certified its compliance with
Title VI and its implementing regulations.
However, on April 3, the Department of Education issued a letter that conditioned continued federal financial assistance on state and local education agencies certifying that they are not operating programs inconsistent with the Trump Administration’s view that efforts supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion are unlawful.
The letter forced state and local agencies to choose between two untenable options: (1) refuse to certify compliance based on the Department’s un-defined viewpoint on what constitutes unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, curriculum, instruction, and policies, and place federal funding in peril or (2) certify compliance, attempt to identify and eliminate lawful diversity, equity, and inclusion to the detriment of students, and still face liability for failing to fully comply with the Department’s vague and ill-defined order.
Faced with this choice,
Rhode Island informed the Department that it continues to stand by its prior
certifications of compliance with Title VI and its lawfully issued implementing
regulations in the Department’s possession but would not assent to the
unlawfully issued certification.
In the lawsuit, Attorney General Neronha and the multistate
coalition assert that the Department of Education’s attempt to terminate
federal education funding based on its misinterpretation of Title VI violates
the Spending Clause, the Appropriations Clause, the
separation of powers, and the Administrative Procedures Act.
Attorney General Neronha joins the attorneys general of
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin in filing the lawsuit.
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