SCOTUS sides with Trump, stays order requiring pay-out of teacher training grants

A narrowly divided Supreme Court issued an order Friday allowing the Trump administration to move forward with cancellation of federal funding for teacher training initiatives in eight states, lifting a temporary restraining order by a district court judge who had said the pay-outs must continue.

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, a five-justice majority concluded that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear the states' claims and that the government should be given deference in retaining the money as litigation over it continues.

Four justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberal justices -- indicated that they would have denied Trump's request.

The eight states involved in the case are: California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin.

"[The states] have represented in this litigation that they have the financial wherewithal to keep their programs running. So, if [they] ultimately prevail, they can recover any wrongfully withheld funds through suit in an appropriate forum," the court's majority wrote. "And if respondents instead decline to keep the programs operating, then any ensuing irreparable harm would be of their own making."

The decision is the first substantive ruling by the Supreme Court on a challenge to a Trump executive action in his second term.

It also signals that the high court is potentially inclined to side with Trump in similar pending lawsuits over cancellation of federal grants, contracts and programs that had been authorized by Congress.

"The Tucker Act grants the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction over suits based on any express or implied contract with the United States," the court wrote.

The states had argued in district court that by abruptly canceling the teacher training grants -- awarded to public schools and universities nationwide through the Department of Education -- Trump had violated the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires proper notice and impact assessment before implementing major policy change.

Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, said the impact of the decision would not be insignificant.

"The states have consistently represented that the loss of these grants will force them -- indeed, has already forced them -- to curtail teacher training programs," she wrote.

The programs in question total more than $600 million nationwide with special emphasis on training teachers for math, science and special education. The Trump administration halted the programs in February citing aspects that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said her colleagues were unnecessarily intervening in the cased too soon.

"This Court's eagerness to insert itself into this early stage of ongoing litigation over the lawfulness of the Department's actions -- even when doing so facilitates the infliction of significant harms on the Plaintiff States, and even though the Government has not bothered to press any argument that the Department's harmcausing conduct is lawful -- is equal parts unprincipled and unfortunate," she wrote. "It is also entirely unwarranted. We do not ordinarily exercise jurisdiction over [temporary restraining orders], and this one is no different."