Attorney General Neronha sues Trump Administration over threat to withhold $116 million in funding for R.I. K-12 Schools

Published on Friday, April 25, 2025

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Attorney General Neronha today joined a coalition of 19 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit 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 Department of Education informed state and local 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. Rhode Island, like many other states, refused to certify its compliance with these new requirements, 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 today’s lawsuit, Attorney General Neronha and the coalition seek to bar the Department from withholding any funding based on these unlawful conditions.

“The President’s unconstitutional attacks on education will upend the lives of children in Rhode Island and across the country,” said Attorney General Neronha. “The most vulnerable children in our state rely on this federal financial support for access to the services they need to learn. Kids with special needs who require IEPs, kids who need to learn English as a second language, kids in foster homes, and more depend on these programs. Further, our schools are counting on this money to train our teachers to support student success. By conditioning this funding in an illegal and thoughtless way, the Administration will cause irreversible harm to children in our state. This attack is unacceptable, and we will do everything we can to stop it.”

The U.S. Department of Education provides Rhode Island with over $116 million in congressionally mandated financial support each year 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 in foster care and without housing. As a condition of receiving these funds, state and local education agencies provide written assurances they will comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin, and Rhode Island has consistently and regularly certified its compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulations.

However, on April 3, the 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 un-defined 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, Rhode Island informed the Department that it continues to stand by its prior certifications of compliance with Title VI and its lawfully issued implementing regulations in the Department’s possession but would not assent to the unlawfully issued certification.

In the lawsuit, Attorney General Neronha and the multistate coalition assert that the 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 Neronha joins the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin in filing the lawsuit.

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