Facing Two Adverse Judicial Decisions Trump Administration Rescinds Federal Funding Freeze Memo
Overview
What a whirlwind the past three days have been! On Monday evening the new Trump Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued M-25-13 a “Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies” entitled, “Temporary Pause on Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs.” The memo directed all “Federal agencies to identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements.”
The memo went on to state that in order to complete this identification and review process, Federal agencies would be required to “temporarily pause all activities relate to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the
green new deal.”
CSPEN immediately contacted individuals on Capitol Hill and within the Department of Education to determine whether of not the directive impacted students access to Title IV and other government funding and were informed that
CSPEN shared this information with the community in yesterday’s series of emails on the subject which included the original M-25-13 memo and additional guidance provided as a follow up from OMB.
After our emails, it was announced that judge Lorn AliKhan issued a stay prohibiting implementation of the guidance in the memo for six days – until 5:30 PM on February 3rd – in order to provide the courts more time to consider the impact of such a sweeping freeze on federal expenditures.
This morning, in response to the court’s decision, the OMB issued a two sentence update rescinding M-25-13.
And earlier this afternoon, despite the recission announcement from OMB, a second judge has stated his intent to also place a hold on the directive. His concerns are focused on contradictions in the White House’s guidance between yesterday’s additional information and the original release of the memo on Monday.
What’s Next
CSPEN continues to monitor this situation and will share even more on this, and many more actions taking place at a rapid pace here in Washington. For example, did you know that the House Committee on Education and Workforce has announced that it will hold a hearing entitled, “The State of American Education” next Wednesday, February 5 and Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) issued a statement in support of President Trump’s Executive Orders related to education policy.
Chairman Walberg is quoted as saying:
“President Trump is keeping his promise to protect our students, hold schools accountable, fight campus antisemitism, and empower parents to be stewards of their children’s education. This is a much-needed change from the previous administration, which put politics over students for the past four years.
We are finally putting our students first.”
