The Trump administration has abandoned one of its major efforts to restrict diversity and equity programs in schools and colleges.

The effort was a threat by the administration to withhold billions of dollars in education funding from states and schools that refused to sign a document attesting that they did not have diversity and equity programs. Education groups sued in federal court and won a favorable ruling in August, which the government then appealed.

But on Wednesday, the administration withdrew its appeal. The federal judge in Maryland who heard the case, Stephanie Gallagher, ruled against the Trump administration on multiple grounds. She found that the administration had not followed proper procedure in attempting to withhold the funding, and that the underlying policy threatened educators’ free speech in the classroom.

The case was brought by the American Federation of Teachers, the American Sociological Association and a school district in Eugene, Oregon. Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, said the case was the most important of the 22 lawsuits that her union had filed, along with partner groups, against President Donald Trump in his second term, because of the precedent it would establish for limiting executive power.

“You cannot, by executive fiat, rewrite 60 years of educational opportunity,” Weingarten said in an interview, referring to the civil rights laws that protect students from racial discrimination in schools.

Though the lawsuit succeeded in staving off one threat to withhold funding, Weingarten acknowledged that the administration has “other ways of getting to the same result” of rolling back diversity and equity programs in education.

The Trump administration has tried a number of different tactics, with varying degrees of success, including starting civil rights investigations and pressuring schools to sign agreements with the administration.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Dana Goldstein/Eric Lee
c. 2026 The New York Times Company