Diversity Officers and Professors Sue to Block Trump’s DEI Orders

Supporters gather last month for the People’s March at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington.
13:18 JST, February 4, 2025
A coalition of professors, diversity officers and restaurant worker advocates filed a federal lawsuit Monday in a bid to block President Donald Trump’s executive orders that target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the U.S. government, the private sector and academia, alleging that he exceeded his authority in issuing them.
The 40-page federal lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, is the first such challenge to the sweeping orders issued in the first days of the new administration. The edicts to end “illegal discrimination” and “wasteful government DEI programs” have already resulted in widespread purges of federal workers.
The plaintiffs include the American Association of University Professors, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and the mayor and city council of Baltimore. They’re asking a judge to block two of the DEI-related orders Trump issued in the first two days of his second term and rule that they are unlawful. The groups are being represented by Democracy Forward, a liberal nonprofit legal group that successfully persuaded a judge last week to temporarily block Trump’s order to pause trillions of dollars in federal spending. Asian Americans Advancing Justice is also representing the plaintiffs.
“Our Constitution protects all Americans – whether you are a university professor or a restaurant worker – from unlawful intrusion on speech, ideas, and expression and entitles all Americans to fair process,” Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, said in a statement. Trump’s “Anti-DEIA Executive Orders offend these protections and others.” (The “A” stands for “accessibility.”)
“The coalition bringing this suit represents people of diverse professions and backgrounds who are all harmed by these unlawful orders, which have chilled their activities and provision of essential services,” Perryman added.
The orders issued in the first 48 hours of Trump’s second term were meant to quash DEI in the public sector and chill such efforts in corporate America and academia – long a goal of a conservative movement that contends diversity efforts, which are intended to provide equal access to underrepresented groups, discriminate against White people and men.
The first order, issued on Jan. 20, ordered federal diversity offices closed, prompting widespread dismissals of DEI staff and even non-DEI staffers who had only previously done such work. That order also directed agencies to terminate “equity-related” grants and contracts.
The second order, issued on Jan. 21, directed the attorney general and certain agency heads to draw up lists of publicly traded companies and universities with endowments over $1 billion to potentially investigate over their DEI programs. Furthermore, the order requires federal contractors to certify that they don’t operate DEI programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws under the penalty of being charged under the False Claims Act, which can bring heavy financial penalties.
Trump exceeded his legal authority in issuing the first order, the lawsuit alleges, as he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate “equity-related” grants and contracts “without express statutory authority.”
It further charges that both orders are overly vague, failing to define such terms as “DEI,” “equity” and “illegal DEIA” – and therefore do not adequately give fair notice of what is prohibited. Pointing to the order directing agency heads to identify “up to nine” entities for potential civil investigation, the lawsuit alleges that the order does not provide clear criteria for how they will be selected.
“Without any definitive criteria or information, any of the over 130 colleges and universities in the United States with endowments over $1 billion … are potentially in the crosshairs of the order,” the lawsuit states.
That vagueness is a violation of the plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment due process rights, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit further alleges that the second order hampers the First Amendment free speech rights of university professors and diversity officers by threating civil investigations.
“The President makes threats of civil investigation and undefined ‘deterrence’ against anyone who expresses support for what he imprecisely defines as ‘illegal DEI,’” the lawsuit states.
Lastly, the lawsuit alleges that neither the president nor the executive branch have the authority to dictate how government funds are spent – and therefore cannot force contractors and grantees to certify that they do not run diversity programs that potentially violate federal laws.
“Higher education is about opening up opportunity, innovation and progress for people across the nation. Yet, these Executive Orders will undermine our ability to do that and will have catastrophic impacts on colleges, universities, and higher education institutions, and all of the students and communities they serve,” Paulette Granberry Russell, president and CEO of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said in a statement. “As the nation’s leading association for diversity officers and professionals in higher education, we will use all tools available, including the legal process, to block these harmful orders.”
Legal experts say the executive orders were an extension of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that overturned affirmative action in university admissions, which alone spawned dozens of lawsuits against government and corporate programs alleging that they discriminate on the basis of race, sex and sexual orientation.
They also represent a stark shift since 2020, when the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial justice movement and billions of dollars in commitments from corporate America to advance policies meant to increase opportunity for historically marginalized groups. Since then, DEI – which encompasses a broad array of practices designed to diversify companies and institutions – has become a divisive term: a focus of derision for many conservatives.
Trump has blamed DEI for a range of problems, including inflation, as well as last week’s deadly collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines plane near Reagan National Airport. Elon Musk and other allies have suggested diversity as a contributor to Los Angeles’ wildfire response, the collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge, the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and security failures leading to the July assassination attempt against Trump.
“This executive order goes beyond just attacking DEI; it aims to establish the legal framework to attack anyone or any place who dares to celebrate our diversity,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D), whom some online critics derided as the “DEI mayor” after the Key Bridge collapse in March.
“Doing so directly threatens many programs and entities that serve our community on a daily basis for no other reason than political posturing,” Scott added in a statement.
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