California sues Trump administration for cutting teacher training over ‘illegal DEI'
The suit, filed in federal district court in Massachusetts, zeroes in on two Obama-era grants Congress created to address teacher shortages in rural and urban areas and encourage college students studying STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math — to take on teaching jobs in K-12 education.
The Department of Education cuts amounted to roughly $148 million in California and $102 million for the other states that have sued: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin and Colorado. Nationally, the funding losses totaled $600 million. No Republican-led states have filed suit. Three teacher groups filed a separate complaint this week in a Maryland federal court.
In Southern California, nearly 600 college students are in the current cohorts studying to be teachers under the grants and were to be assigned to high-need school districts.
The cut 'isn't just a policy change. It's a betrayal of students, teachers and our communities,' said A.Dee Williams, a Cal State L.A. educator professor who works with trainees as the head of the Los Angeles Urban Teacher Residency Program.
Reached via email, a spokesperson for the Department of Education declined to comment because the litigation is pending.
In announcing the grant cuts Feb. 17, the Department of Education said the programs use taxpayer funds to 'train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies' that were 'inappropriate and unnecessary.' It cited 'critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); social justice activism; 'anti-racism'; and instruction on white privilege and white supremacy.'
President Trump has pledged to rid schools and universities of 'wokeness' and use federal funding as leverage. He also intends to dismantle the Department of Education, calling the agency 'a big con job' infiltrated by 'radicals, zealots, and Marxists' that misused taxpayer dollars.
The Thursday suit alleges the teacher training grant cancellations have led to 'immediate and irreparable harm' that will 'disrupt teacher workforce pipelines, increase reliance on underqualified educators, and destabilize local school systems.'
The University of California and California State University, pipelines to the teaching force, will lose the majority of their $56 million in multiyear grants if a federal judge does not block the cuts. The other $92 million in funds allocated to California go to private universities and other nonprofit educational groups that administer the grants, which are also at risk.
'Universities would have to look to layoffs, reduced hours for university staff, reduced funding for aspiring teachers,' California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in announcing the state's lawsuit.
'Without these programs, impacted rural and urban schools will have to resort to hiring long-term substitutes, teachers with emergency credentials, and unlicensed teachers on waivers. This will harm the quality of instruction and can lead to increased numbers of students falling short of national standards,' the suit states.
The states also allege the Trump administration has violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rule-making, and circumvented Congress, which authorized the funds and controls the federal budget.
'The department's actions appear to encompass 'policy objectives' of ending disfavored but lawful efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion — objectives that Congress expressly directed grantees to carry out in creating these programs,' the suit says. It adds that the programs are mandated by law to ensure 'general education teachers receive training in providing instruction to diverse populations, including children with disabilities, limited English proficient students, and children from low-income families.'
The lawsuit points out that many of the grants — some of which supported increasing racial diversity in teaching — were approved under the first Trump administration. Bonta disputed the department's anti-DEI characterization during a news conference Thursday.
He accused the administration of 'waging the culture wars with these buzzwords' to 'feed their political base and create political cover for a blatantly unlawful action.'
The cuts took place last month amid sweeping undoing of federal spending in the Department of Education and other government agencies and programs since Trump's inauguration. Trump has tasked his chief cost-cutter, Elon Musk, with running the so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency, which is not a federal agency. DOGE has recommended vast cuts to federal programs, many of which involve LGBTQ+ or diversity issues, and been met with a bevy of lawsuits.
Among the canceled programs is a $7.5-million grant at Cal State L.A. to train and certify 276 teachers over five years to work in high-need or high-poverty schools in the Los Angeles Unified and Pasadena Unified school districts. Under the program, teachers would focus on working with disabled students as well as on STEM subjects and bilingual education.
Other cancellations include an $8-million program at UCLA to train at least 314 middle school principals and math, English, science and social science teachers to serve roughly 15,000 students in Los Angeles County school districts, among them LAUSD, Glendale Unified, Lancaster Unified and Norwalk-La Mirada Unified.
'Terminating these education grants will clog the pipeline of passionate, qualified good teachers [and keep them] from entering our classrooms,' Bonta said. 'It'll squash aspiring teachers, individuals who feel called to do this work.... It will yank teachers out of school and away from kids who deserve every investment in their education, in their future.'
Nationally, there is a shortage of about 400,000 teachers, according to the Learning Policy Institute, including tens of thousands of positions in California. With inadequate pay and long hours, the profession has struggled to attract new workers or retain ones who enter, as burnout is a major issue. Schools and districts in less-wealthy and rural areas have also faced hurdles in recruiting or keeping workers.
Shireen Pavri, CSU's assistant vice chancellor for Educator and Leadership Programs, said she was 'devastated' by the cuts.
The decision 'pulls out the academic and financial support from students who are currently enrolled.... It negatively impacts the infrastructure we have carefully built,' said Pavri, who joined Bonta with a colleague and a student at the event Thursday.
At Cal State L.A., Williams has worked closely with grant-funded trainees as a principal investigator for the Los Angeles Urban Teacher Residency Program. The program, which lasts more than a year, works with 'teacher residents' who focus on STEM and are placed in schools alongside mentors to gain on-the-job training.
When the student teachers get permanent jobs in their own classrooms, 'they hit the ground running,' he said, citing grant-funded training and mentorship. 'They know what they are doing. They are confident and they are supported, and that's why they succeed.'
Jonathan Sze, a Cal State L.A. educator in training who teaches chemistry at Woodrow Wilson High School, said the Trump administration's decision would 'likely prevent people who are like me from becoming teachers.'
Sze, who was studying to become a pharmacist, switched in recent years to focus on teaching science. The grant to Cal State L.A. has helped pay for his education and salary in the classroom, where he teachers 10th- and 11th-graders. By August, he expects to have credentials to teach on his own.
Because he received his grant funding before last month's cancellations, Sze said he does not expect the changes to affect his training. 'But this program and programs like this should continue — they have to continue — to support the next generation of teachers.'
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