Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia are suing Donald Trump’s administration for withholding $7 billion in federal funding for education, The Washington Post reported.
A lawsuit filed Monday against Trump, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Office of Budgement Management Director Russell Vought claimed that the Trump administration had “caused chaos” for K-12 school districts by refusing to distribute funding to six long-standing grant programs.
Those grants provide funding for after-school care for children of working parents, English classes for non-native speakers, bullying and suicide prevention, and expanding science and arts curricula. The funding also goes toward recruitment and training for teachers, which is particularly crucial as 79 percent of public schools nationwide have reported difficulties with hiring in the last year.
When the funds were expected to roll in at the beginning of July, the Department of Education notified states that the money was under review for compliance with Trump’s agenda, and OMB stated that it was investigating if the funds had been used for a “radical leftwing agenda.”
The plaintiffs, who sought relief for their own states, alleged that by freezing the funds, the Trump administration had overstepped Congress’s power of purse, violating the Impoundment Control Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
“The federal government cannot use our children’s classrooms to advance its assault on immigrant and working families,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “This illegal and unjustified funding freeze will be devastating for students and families nationwide, especially for those who rely on these programs for childcare or to learn English. Congress allocated these funds, and the law requires that they be delivered. We will not allow this administration to rewrite the rules to punish the communities it doesn’t like.”
The lawsuit was joined by attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
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