NEA sues Trump administration over DEI ban in schools

The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, is challenging the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal funding from schools that participate in diversity, equity and inclusion programming.

The NEA, its New Hampshire affiliate and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. Department of Education in federal court Wednesday, alleging that the threat violated teachers’ due process and free speech rights. The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association is the NEA’s affiliate in Hawaiʻi.

“We’re urging the court to block the Department of Education from enforcing this harmful and vague directive and protect students from politically motivated attacks that stifle speech and erase critical lessons,” NEA President Becky Pringle, said in a statement.

“Teaching should be guided by what’s best for students, not by threat of illegal restrictions and punishment,” Pringle added.

The lawsuit is at least the second filed nationally by a teachers union to challenge the U.S. DOE February directive, which informed schools that engage in “overt [or] covert racial discrimination” that they would lose funding.

“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” Craig Trainor, the acting U.S. DOE assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a letter on Feb. 14.

The union questioned what exactly the directive barred and included descriptions of six members whose work could conceivably be affected.

The members listed ranged from an eighth-grade social studies teacher whose curriculum covers the Civil War to a middle school counselor whose work involves “creating a school culture that fosters safe and positive identity development.”

The New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association represents 17,000 members and is one of two unions with a presence in the state. The other, the American Federation of Teachers, was responsible for the first lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s threat.

The NEA complaint alleges the directive violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, which lays out a process for imposing legal obligations.

The union is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, said, “Teachers are already reporting being afraid to teach for fear of having their teaching deemed unlawful, and that deprives Granite State students of the complete education that they deserve.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the case had not yet been assigned to a federal court judge.