Over one billion dollars in federal education funds at risk in Michigan
LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Friday, as part of a coalition of 19 attorneys general, filed a lawsuit (PDF) challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s threat to withhold federal funding from state and local agencies that refuse to abandon lawful programs and policies that promote equal access to education in K-12 classrooms across the nation.
On April 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education informed state and local education agencies that they must accept the Trump Administration’s new and legally incoherent interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts — or else risk immediate and catastrophic loss of federal education funds. Michigan, like many other states, declined to sign the certification form as drafted, explaining that there is no lawful or practical way to do so given the Department’s vague, contradictory, and unsupported interpretation of Title VI. In filing the lawsuit, Attorney General Nessel and the coalition seek to bar the Department from withholding any funding based on these unlawful conditions.
“That the federal government would strangle our schools and shutter classrooms to achieve their political attacks on DEI programming is appalling,” said Nessel Friday. “Our educational agencies cannot be expected to comply with legally incoherent demands that undercut the 1964 Civil Rights Act, particularly when our schools are not in violation of Title VI and have annually certified compliance with this law. Federal educational funds are a significant portion of the funding needed to teach the children of our state, and right now, in the face of these unlawful demands, we're fighting the Trump administration just to keep special education in our public schools.”
For fiscal year 2024, Michigan was allocated $1,267,843,245 in congressionally mandated financial support through the U.S. Department of Education for a wide variety of needs and services related to children and education. This funding includes financial support to ensure that students from low-income families have the same access to high-quality education as their peers, provide special education services, recruit and train highly skilled and dedicated teachers, fund programming for non-native speakers to learn English, and provide support to vulnerable children who are in foster care and without housing. As a condition of receiving these funds, state and local education agencies provide written assurances that they will comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin, and Michigan has consistently and regularly certified its compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulations.
However, on April 3, the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter that conditioned continued federal financial assistance on state and local education agencies certifying that they are not operating programs inconsistent with the Trump Administration’s view that efforts supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion are unlawful. The letter forced state and local agencies to choose between two untenable options: (1) refuse to certify compliance based on the Department’s undefined viewpoint on what constitutes unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, curriculum, instruction, and policies, and place federal funding in peril or (2) certify compliance, attempt to identify and eliminate lawful diversity, equity, and inclusion to the detriment of students, and still face liability for failing to fully comply with the Department’s vague and ill-defined order. Faced with this choice, the Michigan Department of Education informed the U.S. Department of Education that it continues to stand by its prior certifications of compliance with Title VI, but would not assent to the unlawfully issued certification.
In the lawsuit, Attorney General Nessel and the multistate coalition assert that the U.S. Department of Education’s attempt to terminate federal education funding based on its misinterpretation of Title VI violates the Spending Clause, the Appropriations Clause, the separation of powers, and the Administrative Procedures Act.
Attorney General Nessel joins the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin in filing the lawsuit.
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