On July 14, 2025, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha co-led a coalition of 23 state attorneys general and two states, represented by the governors, in suing Trump Administration over its unlawful and arbitrary decision to freeze funding for six longstanding programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education just weeks before the school year is set to start.

The coalition argues that the funding freeze violates federal funding statutes and regulations authorizing these critical programs and appropriating funds for them, violates federal statutes governing the federal budgeting process, including the Antideficiency Act and Impoundment Control Act, and violates the constitutional separation of powers doctrine and the Presentment Clause. Specifically, the coalition is seeking for declaratory and injunctive relief.

This funding freeze has immediately thrown into chaos plans for the upcoming academic year. Local education agencies have approved budgets, developed staffing plans, and signed contracts to provide vital educational services under these grants. Now, as a result of the Trump administration’s actions, states find themselves without sufficient funding for these commitments, just weeks before the start of the 2025-2026 school year. Essential summer school and afterschool programs, which provide childcare to working parents of school age children, are already being impacted. The abrupt freeze is also wreaking havoc on key teacher training programs as well as programs that make school more accessible to children with special learning needs, such as English learners.

With no rhyme or reason, the Trump Administration abruptly froze billions of dollars in education funding just weeks before the start of the school year. In doing so, it has threatened the existence of programs that provide critical after school and summer learning opportunities, that teach English to students, and that provide educational technology to our classrooms. Taken together with his other attacks on education, President Trump seems comfortable risking the academic success of a generation to further his own misguided political agenda. But as with so many of his other actions, this funding freeze is blatantly illegal, and we’re confident the court will agree. Attorney General Rob Bonta