A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to remake Head Start, ordering it to stop purging words it associates with diversity, equity, and inclusion from grant applications and barring it from laying off any more federal employees in the Office of Head Start.
The order came this week in a lawsuit filed in April against Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials. The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of illegally dismantling Head Start by shutting down federal Head Start offices and laying off half the staff. It also challenges the administration’s attempts to bar children who are in the United States illegally from Head Start programs and to ban language they view as suggestive of DEI.
The plaintiff organizations representing Head Start providers and parents said in a court filing last month that officials told a Head Start director in Wisconsin to axe the terms “race,” “belonging,” and “pregnant people” from her grant application. They later sent a list with nearly 200 words the department discouraged her from using in her application, including “Black,” “Native American,” “disability,” and “women.”
A Health and Human Services spokesperson said he could not comment on the judge’s order.
Head Start, founded six decades ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, is an early education and family support program that serves hundreds of thousands of children who come from low-income households, foster homes, or homelessness. It is federally funded but operated by nonprofits, schools, and local governments.
Joel Ryan, who heads the Washington State Head Start & Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, said the order halts an attack on Head Start centers.
“When a Head Start program has their funding withheld because of their efforts to provide effective education to children with autism, serve tribal members on a reservation, or treat all families with respect, it is an attack on the fundamental promise of the Head Start program,” Ryan said.
The directive on the forbidden words raised confusion for Head Start directors, who must describe how they will use the money in grant applications and are required by law to provide demographic information about the families they serve. A director in Washington state said in a court filing the guidance led her to cancel staff training on how to support children with autism and children with trauma.
The order from U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez of Seattle, published Monday, bars Health and Human Services from cutting any more employees and from punishing Head Start providers if they use the prohibited language.
