Updated: This story has been updated to reflect a Dec. 23 ruling in an education-related case, which followed this story鈥檚 publication.
President Donald Trump鈥檚 executive actions have prompted legal challenges virtually from the moment he took office for a second term in January. His education-related policies haven鈥檛 been immune.
This year, Education Week tracked the lawsuits that school districts, universities, multistate coalitions, teachers鈥� unions, professional associations, and others have filed against the Trump administration to challenge unilateral funding freezes; U.S. Department of Education downsizing; grant terminations; directives concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion and transgender-student rights; and more.
As of Dec. 24, we鈥檝e tallied 71 lawsuits challenging the administration鈥檚 education actions or broader policy changes that affect education. These lawsuits鈥攎ost of which are still making their way through the courts鈥攐ffer a window into the education policies that have had the biggest impact. How these cases have played out so far also offers some clues into what could happen in the year to come.
Below are some highlights from a year鈥檚 worth of lawsuits challenging the president鈥檚 education policies.
The most commonly challenged education policy
Since its first days, the administration has been focused on excising federal spending that it claims goes against the president鈥檚 priorities of eradicating what he considers to be DEI and 鈥済ender ideology.鈥�
To that end, the Trump administration has canceled hundreds of multiyear education grants prematurely. The volume of midcourse cancellations has been unprecedented; before this administration, such terminations had been rare and only related to grantee misconduct.
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency spearheaded early rounds of grant and contract cancellations that terminated spending on teacher training, research and data collection, and technical assistance for schools and state departments of education.
Later rounds affected funding for school mental health; special education teacher training; college preparation for low-income students; arts, civics, and literacy education; and, most recently, schools that act as social service hubs.
To date, we鈥檝e tallied 11 lawsuits challenging grant terminations. Some have prompted judges to restore funding, but that relief for grantees hasn鈥檛 always lasted. After eight Democrat-led states challenged the termination of teacher-training grants and a judge ordered the Trump administration to restore funding, administration lawyers kept appealing until the Supreme Court ruled the grant terminations could proceed while the case played out.
That and other interim Supreme Court rulings have cast a shadow over grant-termination challenges, reducing the likelihood grantees can quickly have their money restored by a judge.
The policy that comes in a close second for the number of lawsuits it鈥檚 prompted is the Education Department鈥檚 downsizing. The president鈥檚 mid-March executive order telling Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to 鈥渇acilitate鈥� her department鈥檚 closure, layoffs, and more recent moves to disperse the department鈥檚 functions to other federal agencies have all prompted legal action.
To date, 10 lawsuits have challenged these reductions. In one case, 21 Democratic state attorneys general persuaded a judge to temporarily halt Education Department layoffs. But the Supreme Court allowed the layoffs to proceed once the administration鈥檚 appeals reached the high court.
When the most lawsuits were filed
Of the 71 education-related lawsuits we鈥檝e tallied this year, 18 came in April鈥攁 reflection of how active the Trump administration was in March.
Five of those April lawsuits challenged Education Department reductions in the weeks after the administration said it was shrinking the agency鈥檚 staff by nearly half. Four challenged cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences, the department鈥檚 research arm. Another challenged reductions to the office for civil rights, which investigates discrimination claims in schools.
April also saw lawsuits challenging the Trump administration鈥檚 effort to require that states and school districts sign a certification that they don鈥檛 use 鈥渋llegal DEI.鈥� By the end of the month, three judges had separately stopped that policy.
Also in April, 17 Democratic attorneys general challenged the Education Department鈥檚 abrupt, late-March reversal of an extended time frame for states and schools to spend pandemic-relief aid, imperiling about $1 billion in planned spending on student services and school construction. A judge agreed to the states鈥� request to restore the extensions, but his order covered only the states that sued. Ultimately, the department reversed course and kept the extended deadlines in place for all states.
In addition, April marked the beginning of a key challenge to the president鈥檚 tariffs, with a lawsuit filed by two educational toymakers. The Supreme Court heard arguments in that case, Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, in November, and most justices appeared skeptical the president had the authority to impose sweeping tariffs.
How Trump and plaintiffs have fared in these legal battles
There鈥檚 been some degree of resolution in 53 of the 71 cases we鈥檝e tallied, according to our tracker. In 68% of those cases鈥�36鈥攖he cases have gone the plaintiffs鈥� way at least initially, at the lower-court level, whether through temporary or permanent orders partially or fully reversing the challenged policies.
In the other 17 cases, judges have either dismissed the complaints or denied legal challengers鈥� requests for preliminary injunctions, amounting to a Trump administration win. Such injunctions temporarily stop a policy while the legal cases plays out.
The Trump administration, however, has had more success with higher courts. In eight education cases we鈥檝e tracked, the Supreme Court or appeals courts have blocked lower-court rulings that put the administration鈥檚 education-related policies on hold.
Those cases include the teacher-training-grants legal challenge and challenges to Education Department layoffs.
All in all, with those higher-court victories, the Trump administration鈥檚 record on education cases improves to 25 wins and 28 losses鈥攁t least as the cases stand so far.
