February 2025 – State Attorneys General Blog

February 25, 2025February 26, 2025 by Karen Lehmann Alexander

Multistate Coalition of Attorneys General Issue Guidance on DEI/DEIA Employment Initiatives Following Executive Order

On February 13, 2025, a coalition of 16 Attorneys General issued a document titled “Multi-State Guidance Concerning Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Employment Initiatives” (“Guidance”). The stated purpose of the Guidance is “to help businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations operating in our respective states understand the continued viability and important role of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts” after private sector participants raised concerns about the continued viability of such policies and programming following an Executive Order that purports to target “illegal DEI and DEIA policies” across a wide range of organizations.

The Guidance reports that “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility best practices are not illegal,” and that “the federal government does not have the legal authority to issue an executive order that prohibits otherwise lawful activities in the private sector or mandates the wholesale removal of these policies and practices within private organizations[.]” The Guidance contends that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives help businesses prevent workplace discrimination and are consistent with federal and state law. The Guidance concludes with a list of best practices for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the areas of recruitment and hiring, professional development and retention, and assessment and integration.

The Attorneys General for the states of Massachusetts, Illinois, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont joined in the Guidance. The full text can be found here.

Meanwhile, on February 21, 2025, in Nat’l Assoc. of Diversity Officers in Higher Ed. v. Trump, D. Md, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction that blocks, at least for now, some of the more salient provisions of the executive order that affect federal contractors and other private sector employers. In particular, the court took issue with the constitutionality of the certification and enforcement threat provisions (anchored in the False Claims Act). An analysis of the implications of the injunction for employers and others may be found here.

February 24, 2025November 10, 2025 by Daniel R. Walworth

Court Extends TROs Enjoining Enforcement of NIH Rate Change within 22 Plaintiff States

By Dan Walworth, Rolando Sanchez, Frederick Ball, Geoffrey Goodale and Sara Smith

Since taking office, the Trump Administration has taken steps to reshape the United States’ federal funding infrastructure. One such action relates to the National Institutes of Health’s (“NIH”) rate change, imposing a 15% cap for indirect costs, for new grants and for existing grants awarded to institutions of higher education (“IHEs”). This rate change, which represents a drastic reduction from historical rates normally negotiated by grant recipients, will impact ongoing research programs and clinical trials, and will have a long-term impact on the United States’ research infrastructure and abilities.

On February 10, 2025, the day the rate change was intended to go into effect, three lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging the rate change. The lawsuits were filed by a group of stakeholders, including twenty-two states, thirteen universities, three university associations and five associations. Also on February 10, 2025, a district court judge granted two temporary restraining orders (“TROs”), enjoining enforcement of the rate change within the 22 Plaintiff states, and enjoining enforcement nationwide with respect to institutions. On February 21, 2025, following a hearing on the Plaintiffs’ motions for injunctive relief, the district court ordered that the TROs entered on February 10, 2025, are extended and will remain in effect until further order of the Court.

February 11, 2025November 10, 2025 by Daniel R. Walworth

Court Rules Trump Administration Violated TRO Enjoining Administration’s Funding Freeze

By Christopher H. Casey, Daniel R. Walworth and Sara Smith

On February 10, 2025, Judge John McConnell of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted the motion of the state attorneys general for enforcement of the January 31, 2025, temporary restraining order (TRO) relating to the Trump Administration’s proposed “pause” or “freeze” of federal grant funding payments.

The January 31, 2025, TRO prohibits all pauses or freezes on federal funding based on the OMB Directive. Judge McConnell found the Trump administration in violation of this TRO. His February 10, 2025, order provides that “[t]he States have presented evidence in th[eir] motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds.” Such pauses in funding violate the express terms of the TRO, the Court said.

The February 10, 2025, order requires the Trump administration, during the pendency of the TRO, to restore frozen funding, to end any federal funding pause, to take every step necessary to effectuate and comply with the TRO, to immediately restore withheld federal funds, and to resume the funding of institutes and agencies, such as the National Institute for Health.

February 6, 2025September 24, 2025 by Christopher H. Casey

State Attorneys General Diverge on Birthright Citizenship Executive Order

On January 23, 2025, Judge John C. Coughenour of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington granted a TRO in one of two cases (in Massachusetts and Washington federal courts) brought by attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia to enjoin implementation of a Trump Administration Executive Order concerning “automatic” birthright citizenship. The Order, set to take effect on February 19, 2025, absent an injunction, directed federal agencies not to issue citizenship documents to those born in the United States to a mother who is unlawfully present or lawfully present on a temporary basis and a father who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

In advance of preliminary injunction hearings in the Western District of Washington scheduled for February 6, 2025, a second group of 18 state attorneys general have filed an amici curiae brief in that district, opposing the preliminary injunction being sought by the other AGs. The amici AGs opposing the injunction includes the Attorneys General of Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming.

On February 5, 2025, Judge Deborah Boardman of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland granted a nationwide injunction halting the Executive Order in a separate suit brought by immigration advocacy groups. The preliminary injunction hearings in the two cases brought by the state AGs are still scheduled to go forward.

February 3, 2025February 3, 2025 by Daniel R. Walworth

Court Grants State Attorneys General TRO Enjoining Administration’s Funding “Freeze”

On January 31, 2025, Judge John McConnell of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted the TRO sought by 22 state attorneys general and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia challenging the Trump Administration’s “pause” or “freeze” of grant funding payments.

The Court found that the attorneys general had a likelihood of success on the merits on their claims that the pause violated the Administrative Procedure Act, is arbitrary and capricious; violates separation of powers; and violates the Constitution’s Spending, Presentment, and Take Care clauses. The Court reached its determination “[b]ecause of the breadth and ambiguity of the ‘pause,’” and therefore anchored its reasoning “based on the effect it will have on many—but perhaps not all—grants and programs it is intended to cover.”

In rejecting the Administration’s argument that the Rescission Memo from OMB mooted the case, the Court relied upon a tweet by the White House Press Secretary –and an email from the EPA sent after the Rescission Memo stating that money would not be disbursed while the EPA determined how to implement the funding “freeze” memo from OMB. The Court found that “the OMB Directive that the States challenge here [is] still in full force and effect.”

To address the Administration’s statements that the “freeze” or “pause” would continue notwithstanding the Rescission Memo, the scope of the TRO prohibits the Trump Administration Defendants from “reissuing, adopting, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to the OMB Directive under any other name or title or through any other Defendants (or agency supervised, administered, or controlled by any Defendant), such as the continued implementation identified by the White House Press Secretary’s statement of January 29, 2025.”