A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from conditioning domestic violence-related grants on things like whether a program recipient promotes gender ideology or diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks.
In his Aug. 8 opinion, U.S. District of Rhode Island Judge William Smith refrained from saying the new conditions were substantively invalid, but decided the administration hadn’t demonstrated that it went through the proper process.
More specifically, he said the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act by implementing the conditions through a “wholly under-reasoned and arbitrary process,” noting, for example, that it failed to consider the impact of including vague and confusing language in the conditions….