A leading national teachers union is trumpeting its victory over the Trump administration, which has abandoned a legal effort to quash diversity, equity and inclusion in schools and colleges.
“This is a huge victory for kids,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, hailing what she called the most important of 22 lawsuits filed against the administration by her union.
The Department of Education on Wednesday withdrew its appeal of an August court ruling against its attempt to withhold billions of dollars worth of federal funding from schools that teach race-related lessons and take students’ racial background into consideration for admissions.
“In this case, with the stroke of a pen, the administration tried to take a hatchet to 60 years of civil rights laws that were meant to create educational opportunity for all kids,” Weingarten said in response. “They attempted to rewrite and redefine opportunity to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion and threatened schools and districts with penalties if they failed to comply.”
Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy organization that represented the plaintiffs — a consortium that included the American Sociological Association and the Eugene School District in Oregon — called the dismissal “a welcome relief and a meaningful win for public education.”
The Education Department did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on its decision to withdraw its appeal.
Weingarten said her coalition is “proud that this case has once again halted the administration’s pattern of using executive fiat to undermine America’s laws that enshrine justice and opportunity for all.”
The American Federation of Teachers sued the administration in March last year over a letter published by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Feb. 14, 2025, which threatened to withhold federal funding from institutions.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland ruled in August that the administration acted unconstitutionally, specifically with regard to the regulation of speech.
The case was a key component of the administration’s overall efforts to overhaul education and repeal diversity and equity programs.
Shortly after taking office again last January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to end all DEI initiatives in the federal government. The Department of Justice also launched investigations into several universities — including Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of California, Irvine — over alleged racial preferences in their admissions policies.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.