A federal judge dealt a new blow to the Trump administration’s attempt to reel in diversity, equity and inclusion policies, blocking the Department of Homeland Security from conditioning disaster relief on states ditching DEI.
U.S. District Judge Michael McShane, an Obama appointee to the court in Oregon, said it was “hard to imagine the connection between the use of preferred pronouns and the fires burning through central Oregon.”
He said the federal government has made a commitment to states and localities to help them recover from natural disasters, and imposing new and “unrelated” conditions involving “gender ideology” breaks that promise.
“There is simply no nexus between the challenged conditions and the grant programs here,” he wrote.
Judge McShane also said the Trump policy was too vague, leaving communities unsure of how to comply. He said that violated the Constitution’s spending rules. And he said the Trump administration likely broke the Administrative Procedure Act by issuing an arbitrary policy.
He ruled in favor of Salem, the state’s capital city, which had sued to keep disaster money flowing without having to bow to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI demands.
Judge McShane issued a preliminary injunction, which prevents the administration from withholding money while the case develops.
President Trump has issued multiple executive orders instructing federal agencies to eliminate DEI programs where they can.
That’s spurred shutdowns of DEI offices within the agencies themselves, and attempts to cajole others to make the same commitment — usually by making it a condition of grant money.
The internal efforts have largely survived court challenges, but the attempts to force others to comply have been met with a wall of opposition from judges who say that because Congress created the grant programs, it’s up to Capitol Hill, not the president, to add external factors.
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