Federal Appeals Court Temporarily Reinstates Trump’s Challenged DEI Executive Orders
“The judges of this panel unanimously agree that the entire substance of the preliminary injunction must be stayed, not just trimmed back in scope.” The government is likely to succeed on the merits.
A group of DEI advocates suffered a setback on Friday when a federal appeals court temporarily reinstated key parts of the President’s orders to end discriminatory “diversity equity and inclusion” programs in federal agencies.
In a unanimous ruling, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned federal district Judge Adam Abelson’s decision to temporarily block the directives. The three-judge appellate panel, including one Trump and two Obama appointees, agreed the government had made a strong showing that the challenged directives were likely constitutional.
The case concerns two Executive Orders, 14151 and 14173, which instructed executive agencies to end DEI programs within federal grant and contract processes.
In February, a group of professors and diversity officers sued the administration, claiming three of the orders’ provisions violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.
As we reported here, the district court found the challenged provisions were likely unconstitutional and issued a nationwide injunction barring the government from enforcing them. It later clarified that its sweeping injunction extended to unnamed defendants, including “other federal executive branch agencies, departments, and commissions, and their heads, officers, agents, and subdivisions.”
That was a bridge too far, Judge Allison Rushing, the Trump appointee, wrote in her concurring opinion last week: “The scope of the preliminary injunction alone should raise red flags: the district court purported to enjoin nondefendants from taking action against nonplaintiffs.”
“But, more than that,” Judge Rushing continued, “the judges of this panel unanimously agree that the entire substance of the preliminary injunction must be stayed, not just trimmed back in scope. The government is likely to demonstrate “that the challenged provisions of the Executive Orders—all of which are directives from the President to his officers—do not violate the First or Fifth Amendments,” Judge Rushing concluded.
Chief Judge Albert Diaz and Judge Pamela Harris were compelled to give Trump the win, but they each made sure the audience knew which side they were on: “People of good faith who work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion deserve praise, not opprobrium,” they both wrote in their concurring opinions.
But those personal beliefs “should play absolutely no part in deciding this case,” Judge Rushing shot back. “We must not lose sight of the boundaries of our constitutional role and the imperative of judicial impartiality. Any individual judge’s view on whether certain Executive action is good policy is not only irrelevant to fulfilling our duty to adjudicate cases and controversies according to the law, it is an impermissible consideration,” Judge Rushing wrote in her opinion.
The challenged orders will remain unblocked pending the outcome of the government’s appeal. And that appeal is now headed toward a court that—the judges’ individual viewpoints aside—has signaled its consensus they are likely constitutional.
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Comments
You don’t have to agree personally with Trump’s policies but you have to abide by the constitution, which grants him the authority to set those policies. Too bad other judges haven’t gotten that memo.
Yes these two are at least good judges. They disagreed with the decision personally but still made the decision that was right by the law.
It’s obvious that we’re still on a knife-edge when judges spout ridiculous left wing agitprop like “people of good faith who work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion deserve praise, not opprobrium,” since the whole notion of DEI is to create cultural disunity and unfair employment rule sets.
Opprobrium doesn’t enter into the government’s actions. It would be emotionally subjective and not objective. The law is what it is, not what somebody wants it to be.
The civil rights acts from the mid 60s were and still are intended to level the playing field for all concerned. If one team in a game needs rules changed to their favor, that’s cheating and an admission that they can’t win any other way. In that case, they should either prepare better or forfeit to the other team, and nobody with any sense of fairness wants to see that happen.
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Agree. I can’t see that racism is ever in good faith and never deserves praise.
It remains racism, no matter what name you attach.
It’s not true that “the whole notion of DEI is to create cultural disunity and unfair employment rule sets”. That is how many DEI programs work, but it’s not inherent in the concept, and some don’t work like that. Some people of good faith work to promote genuine diversity, equity, and inclusion, without violating the civil rights laws. Efforts to expand the recruitment pool, to make the positions available more attractive to potentially valuable employees who are currently not applying, etc. Either out of a genuine concern that the company is passing up employees who could be very valuable, or out of a superstitious but perfectly legal desire to have a more diverse workforce.
Dude, when you literally treat people differently because of superficial characteristics like skin color or ethnicity then yeah, that’s evil and it’s very much inherent in the way their system works.
I guess “disparite impact” doesn’t apply to White people. Must be nice…
‘Equity’ violates the civil rights laws, democrat.
Diversity divides, that is what it IS.
You lies are dying even as they spew forth from your corrupt lips.
The day you slink back under your rock, to melt into the diseased slime that forms you cannot come too fast.
You will demoralize no more.
No natural right depends on the government or the POTUS for its existence, therefore no natural right can be violated by the POTUS exercising his authority over the Executive branch, which perforce deals entirely with internal government matters and not with natural rights.
Yes, judge Diaz waves the woke flag at every opportunity, so the world knows his personal policy preferences. He should have been a legislator, rather than a jurist.
He is a dictator masking as a jurist.
My only surprise here is that it was the Fourth Circuit that found President Trump’s EOs constitutional. I say that because the Fourth Circuit is a lot like the Ninth Circuit.
You get some decent decisions out of the 9th too. It depends on the panel. And at least sometimes on how obvious the merits of the case are.
Yes, abiding by the equal protection Clause of the Constitution is constitutional. Duh
““People of good faith who work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion deserve praise, not opprobrium,”
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So nauseating that the judges felt the need to obnoxiously insert their leftist political opinions into a decision where even they knew that POTUS has the better legal argument and will win on the merits.
Doncha know that fewer White people in the workforce always deserves praise. /s
It is clear in the Constitution and in Congressional Civil Rights Law that DEI is not valid. The Dems and certain Black groups are pushing for DEI and for separating Blacks from other groups that were fought hard in the late 50s and early 60s to get all groups to be combined always.
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