By Tierney Sneed

(CNN) — A federal judge significantly curtailed the Trump administration from implementing a policy that threatens to withhold federal funding from schools for engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion – or DEI – programs or if they incorporate race in certain ways in many other aspects of student life.

US District Judge Landya McCafferty said in a scathing opinion that the administration’s policy, laid out by the Department of Education in a letter to educators earlier this year, was “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” likely violating the First Amendment’s Free Speech protections.

She also concluded that the National Education Association, the administration’s opponent in the case, was likely to succeed in its arguments that the policy was unconstitutionally vague and that the agency ran afoul of procedural steps required by law in how it implemented the policy.

“The ban on DEI embodied in the 2025 Letter leaves teachers with a Hobson’s Choice,” the judge, a Barack Obama appointee who sits in New Hampshire, wrote, noting that the educators must choose between teaching curricula that invites penalty from the federal government or risking their professional credentials by aiding by the Trump policy.

“The Constitution requires more,” she wrote.

McCafferty declined to issue a nationwide order blocking the policy, but is halting the administration from enforcing it against any school that employs members of the National Education Association and receives federal funding.

Her preliminary injunction comes after the administration and the challengers had reached a short-term agreement to delay implementation of the policy, included a certification process that would require schools to turn over certain information, so that the judge could consider the case. That agreement was set to expire on Thursday.

At least two other courts are considering challenges to the policy, including a DC judge who is hearing arguments in the lawsuit before her on Thursday.

Thursday’s ruling is the latest development in legal challenges to Trump’s policy targeting DEI programs in schools. During the two-week enforcement pause, the administration was not allowed to bring any enforcement actions or investigations under a so-called “Dear Colleague” letter sent to schools in February that threatened to withhold federal funding from schools if they engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion programs or if race played a role in other aspects of student life.

The letter was geared toward all preschool, elementary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies that receive financial assistance from the federal government.

The National Education Association and its New Hampshire chapter sued over the policy, alleging the letter as both impermissible vague and encroaching “on teaching and academic freedom.”

Trump has waged war on DEI efforts since the start of his second term and has taken action against several elite universities, demanding changes to their DEI programs. The administration has already rolled back DEI programs, arrested international students and revoked their visas, and frozen federal funding for schools that refused to submit to its demands.

The administration froze over $2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts at Harvard University after its leaders refused to make key policy changes, including eliminating DEI programs, resulting in a clash over academic freedom, federal funding and campus oversight as Harvard sued the federal government.

Policy changes were also demanded of Columbia University, though the school later announced several changes to address the Trump administration’s demands, an apparent concession to the federal government.

This story has been updated with additional developpments.

CNN’s Shania Shelton and Kristin Chapman contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.