Federal judge upholds Trump admin executive order banning federal contractors’ DEI initiatives
A Biden appointee has upheld an executive order from President Donald Trump, further eroding federal contractors' ability to promote DEI initiatives.
A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden declined to temporarily block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting race-based discrimination by federal contractors.
Campus Reform previously reported on Executive Order 14398, which prohibits contractors working with executive agencies from engaging in “disparate treatment based on race or ethnicity in the recruitment, employment (e.g., hiring, promotions), contracting (e.g., vendor agreements), program participation, or allocation or deployment of an entity’s resources.”
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A month after signing the EO, also referred to as the “Contractors Order,” several higher education groups filed a lawsuit challenging the executive order. They claim the Trump administration “views discussion of race and ethnicity as unlawful” and the executive order “sanctions legal, and laudable, expression on race or ethnicity, and in doing so, violates the free speech, free association, and due process rights of plaintiffs and their members.”
Plaintiffs in this case include the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC), among others.
But on Oct. 14th, United States District Judge Adam Abelson denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.
In his decision, Judge Abelson found that the plaintiffs had not shown that they would be likely to win the lawsuit, or that they are “suffering irreparable harm,” two elements which are necessary for a preliminary injunction.
Regarding the groups’ claims of unconstitutional applications, Abelson found that the executive order doesn’t “prohibit a ‘substantially disproportionate’ amount of constitutionally protected speech,” and is not in violation of the Fifth Amendment by being “impermissibly vague.”
Abelson also concluded that the EO does not prohibit, for example, racial differences in disease outcomes, teaching courses on topics of race, contractors’ discussion of historical racial disparities, or publishing materials related to race or diversity, as the Plaintiffs claimed.
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