Attorney General Raoul Supports Legal Challenge To Federal Grant Cuts That Threaten Access To Higher Education
Illinois AG joins 21 states to fight cuts to federal TRIO education grants.
CHICAGO – Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 22 state attorneys general, filed two amicus briefs supporting the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE) in two lawsuits challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s recent decisions to cut off funding for long-standing federal TRIO programs that increase access to higher education for low-income, first-generation, disabled and underrepresented students.
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“Ensuring students from all backgrounds have a chance to achieve success through higher education benefits our communities and our state’s economy,” Raoul said. “Unlawfully discontinuing these grants would harm our institutions of higher education and make it more difficult for students to reach their full potential.”
The amicus briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, support the COE’s lawsuits seeking to stop the discontinuation of many active TRIO grants and the denial of new Student Support Services grants, both of which the Department of Education justified as part of the administration's targeting of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives.
The two complaints filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia address separate but related actions. One challenges the Department of Education’s failure to continue dozens of ongoing TRIO grants that were funded through 2026. The other contests the denial of new applications for Student Support Services, a TRIO grant that helps disadvantaged students stay in college, succeed and graduate. The Department of Education rejected these applications after retroactively applying new anti-diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies even though applications were submitted under 2024 guidance from the prior administration, which required applicants to describe how their programs would address equity and accessibility.
The lawsuits assert that the Department of Education’s actions violate multiple provisions of the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as congressional intent in maintaining TRIO programs for nearly six decades. In the briefs, Raoul and the attorneys general underscore that the sudden loss of federal funding for these programs will have severe and long-term consequences for students, colleges and state economies.
Attorney General Raoul is joined in filing the amicus briefs by the attorneys general of Nevada, Massachusetts, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
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