President Donald Trump’s initiatives are getting smacked down in courtrooms across the country. In a series of major legal defeats this week, multiple federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself—struck down key executive actions targeting education, immigration, and voting rights.
In one stinging blow, three federal judges rejected a Trump administration policy that threatened to pull federal funding from schools that didn’t comply with its ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The policy, pushed by Trump’s Department of Education through a letter sent in February, would have forced schools to submit compliance reports or risk losing money.
Judge Landya McCafferty called the move “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” blasting it as a clear violation of the First Amendment. In her ruling, she wrote that teachers were being forced to choose between following federal orders or doing their jobs: “The ban on DEI embodied in the 2025 Letter leaves teachers with a Hobson’s Choice.” She added, “The Constitution requires more.”
Even Trump-appointed judges weren’t buying it. Judge Dabney Friedrich said the policy didn’t clearly explain what was allowed and what wasn’t, saying it failed to “delineate between a lawful DEI practice and an unlawful one.” Another Trump appointee, Judge Stephanie Gallagher, slammed the administration for breaking rules in how it pushed the policy, saying, “The government did not” follow proper procedures.
The NAACP, which helped lead the legal challenge, called the rulings “a victory for Black and Brown students across the country.” Skye Perryman, head of Democracy Forward, said the decision would at least “pause part of the chaos the Trump administration is unleashing in classrooms.”
The courtroom setbacks didn’t end there.
In California, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from using federal funding as a weapon against “sanctuary” cities—places that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Judge William Orrick ruled that Trump’s orders to cut off funding to these cities were unconstitutional.
Orrick ordered that Trump’s team stop trying to “withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds” based on immigration policy. He noted that cities like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago had every reason to be alarmed, writing, “Their well-founded fear of enforcement is even stronger than it was in 2017,” CNN reports. That was when Trump first tried, and failed, to punish sanctuary cities during his first term.
And in Washington, D.C., another Trump order took a hit—this one aimed at ramping up voter ID requirements. Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked part of an executive order that would have forced Americans to prove their citizenship when registering to vote using federal forms.
“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her ruling. She made it clear that Trump overstepped: “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”
In just one week, Trump has watched judges across the country—appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike—shut down some of his biggest moves on education, immigration, and elections. The message from the courts was loud and clear: the law still matters.
