As President Donald Trump deliberates how to abolish the education department, his administration’s cuts to the agency’s programs are already facing a legal challenge.
A coalition of attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Trump administration for terminating funds that went toward training new teachers.
Among those impacted, two colleges — Montclair State University and The College of New Jersey — were notified that they would lose $600 million in funding as a result of Department of Government Efficiency cuts, according to the New Jersey attorney general’s office. Those schools used the funds to recruit and train teachers to work in the state.
“If you live in a rural area, if you live in an urban area, and you want to make sure there’s a teacher pipeline of qualified teachers to teach your kids, then you should be concerned about these programs,” Matthew Platkin, the attorney general of New Jersey, whose state is among those leading the new lawsuit, told NOTUS. “They’re authorized by Congress to address a really critical need in this country, which is the teacher shortfall that we have.”
This latest lawsuit comes as Trump himself claims that agencies should use a “scalpel” to cut funding and staff at the agencies, despite DOGE’s large-scale funding slashes. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the Trump administration would attempt to take a sledgehammer to the Department of Education though an executive order on Thursday — reporting that the White House refuted. Trump said Thursday that the administration was not reconsidering its plans to abolish the department, but rather it was working out the details on how student loan funding, one of the department’s key functions, would work.
Platkin has joined several lawsuits pushing back against Trump and Elon Musk’s funding cuts. He and other attorneys general have argued that it’s unconstitutional for the president to unilaterally defund programs voted into law by Congress. While, as Democrats, the attorneys general behind these suits have regularly voiced concerns about the president’s policy goals, they have continued to insist they can only take Trump to court when he circumvents the separation of powers.
“He has a policy view. That’s fine. That’s his prerogative,” Platkin said. “I wish he would go to Congress and try to work through the legal channels, but the reality is, it’s not as easy to do that, and he wants to act like a king, not act consistently with the Constitution.”
The courts have repeatedly told the Trump administration to pause its funding freezes, in a fight that’s expected to ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit was filed in a Massachusetts federal court. California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin also joined the suit. The suit alleges that the termination of the funding contracts is in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and further, that the quality of education students will receive would suffer as a result of the grant terminations.
Specifically, the lawsuit focuses on the termination of the Teacher Quality Partnership grant program, which funded teacher training programs for undergraduate students, academics and professionals who were new to teaching, and of the Supporting Effective Educator Development grant program, which was authorized as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act to support practices that increase the number of effective educators.
Recruiting and retaining teachers has become an increasingly urgent priority for many states, as teacher shortages make it more difficult for students in public schools to receive quality education. The National Center for Education Statistics, within the Department of Education, found that most schools struggled with hiring teachers coming into the 2023-24 academic year.
On Monday, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the National Center for Teacher Residencies and the Maryland Association of Colleges for Teacher Education filed a similar lawsuit over the termination of the TQP and SEED programs, in addition to the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program, which supported educators in high-need schools to improve human capital management systems.
According to the lawsuit, the reasoning given by the Department of Education for terminating the contracts was to do with what the department is calling discrimination.
“Illegal DEI policies and practices can violate both the letter and purpose of Federal civil rights law and conflict with the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education,” the lawsuit says the department wrote in letters alongside the termination notifications.
Even broadly, the Trump administration’s siege on diversity, equity and inclusion-related initiatives has brought on lawsuits. The administration has been sued multiple times in federal courts over its anti-DEI executive orders, which opponents say are a targeted and intentional infringement on free speech and academic freedom.
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.