Will the U.S. Supreme Court allow President Donald Trump’s administration to freeze millions of dollars in grants for teacher training? That question is currently hanging following a Wednesday request.
According to an application to vacate the order issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and a request for an immediate administrative stay, as provided by CNN, Acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris asked the U.S. Supreme Court to help keep the funds frozen.
In a March 12 press release, California Attorney General Rob Bonta explained that “Congress established and allocated funding pursuant to the Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator Development grant programs,” to train teachers in an effort to deal with a shortage of more than 400,000 teaching positions in the U.S. He said that shortage represents around one in eight teaching positions nationwide.
“When schools are unable to find qualified teachers, students suffer,” said Bonta. “Teacher shortages can result in larger class sizes, cancelled courses, or classes staffed with teachers less able to teach a subject.”
With the training grants, Congress hoped to create a new pipeline of qualified teachers in the U.S. After it passed, the U.S. Department of Education awarded and obligated funds to states’ public universities and associated nonprofit grants under these programs, per Bonta’s release.
However, the new Trump administration has been working to cut federal spending in many areas, including education, and Trump even issued an executive order calling for the U.S. Department of Education to be dismantled. A Feb. 17 press release from the department said that it planned to terminate “over $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies.”
It terminated the K-12 teacher preparation programs ten days before that release, according to Bonta. CNN said that, in early February, the Trump administration attempted to terminate 104 of 109 grants that had been awarded under two programs that train teachers in traditionally underserved schools.
Bonta led a coalition of eight attorneys general in filing a lawsuit challenging the administration’s cut of K-12 teacher preparation pipeline grants and this month the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts temporarily blocked the funding freeze. Per CNN, a federal appeals court declined to overturn the order. That’s where things stood before the Wednesday request from Harris.
CNN reported that the administration argued that the funds should be frozen because the money was being used on programs that take part in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Trump has made DEI programs a target of cuts and issued an action titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing” on his first day in office this January.
However, CNN also noted that “officials sent a brief form notice to the grant awardees and did not provide specific evidence that their programs were engaged in any DEI practices.”
Harris also made an argument against district court judges in the Wednesday request.
“This case exemplifies a flood of recent suits that raise the question: ‘Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever)’ millions in taxpayer dollars?” she told the Supreme Court.
Other court orders under consideration by the justices include one blocking President Donald Trump from enforcing his birthright citizenship order and a case involving probationary federal employees, CNN said. This also isn’t the first time that judges have reversed attempts by the administration to withhold federal funding that has already been promised.
According to CNN, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson handles emergency appeals rising from the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals. She ordered the states that sued to respond by Friday.