Higher Education Litigation And Federal Policy: 2025 Year In Review

Key Takeaways:

• President Trump made higher education a focus of his second term, and his administration has targeted colleges and universities in various spaces, including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Title VI, Title IX, and immigration.
• With mixed success, higher education stakeholders brought challenges to executive orders and federal agency guidance and enforcement action.
• Private litigants also continued pursuing legal action against colleges and universities, with notable cases implicating a range of issues, from Title VI and Title IX to antitrust and the First Amendment.

The higher education sector was a focus in the courtroom and in the current administration's policies in 2025. Executive orders, agency guidance, enforcement actions, and other federal priority shifts have significantly changed the legal landscape for higher education institutions. In court, amidst the many legal challenges to these federal actions, private litigants also continue to challenge longstanding practices and procedures in higher education. Colleges and universities are now facing uncertainty (or, at a minimum, a call to adapt—quickly) in every aspect of their operations. This alert will provide a summary of what has happened in the courts and in the administration over the past year and where these various legal issues currently stand (providing an update to many of our previous alerts, e.g., here, here, and here).

This alert specifically reviews the following focus areas:

• Civil Rights and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ("DEI")
• Cuts to Federal Funding (including Title VI and Antisemitism)
• Title IX
• Immigration
• The Dismantling of the Department of Education
• The First Amendment
• Antitrust Class Actions

Civil Rights and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

DEI was a focus for both the second Trump administration and private litigants in 2025. Immediately after taking office, President Trump issued two executive orders targeting DEI, including one specifically addressing higher education institutions ("DEI Executive Order"). A few months later, on April 23, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order focused on higher education accreditors' use and application of DEI-related standards.

The Department of Education took several steps to effectuate these orders. First, its Office for Civil Rights ("OCR") issued a Dear Colleague Letter and a "Frequently Asked Questions" memorandum warning educational institutions of potential liability under Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause for race-conscious programs and policies. Then, in April, the Department published certification language requiring all state and local education agencies to certify their compliance with Title VI and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College ("SFFA") or risk losing funding and facing liability under contract law and the False Claims Act ("FCA").

Taking its cue from the Department of Education, the Department of Justice ("DOJ") soon after published a memorandum announcing the launch of its Civil Rights Fraud Initiative and directing DOJ lawyers to use the FCA against federal fund recipients that violate civil rights laws. The memorandum specifically focused on colleges and universities, providing examples of conduct that could give rise to FCA liability. On July 29, 2025, Attorney General Bondi followed up with another memorandum, framed as agency "guidance," explaining how the administration planned to apply federal antidiscrimination laws to DEI programs.

Extensive litigation followed. Multiple sets of plaintiffs challenged the executive orders themselves, although the orders currently continue to stand:

• National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education v. Trump (D. Md.): Groups representing higher education officials, university professors, and the city of Baltimore allege that the DEI Executive Orders violate various constitutional provisions. The district court granted a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the administration from enforcing key provisions of the Executive Orders terminating equity-related grants or contracts, but the Fourth Circuit stayed the injunction pending appeal. The district court denied the plaintiffs' motion to vacate the preliminary injunction, and the parties are now awaiting a decision from the Fourth Circuit following oral argument in September.
• National Urban League ("NUL") v. Trump (D.D.C.): NUL challenged the DEI Executive Orders and the executive order, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" (the "Gender Executive Order"), alleging that these orders and related agency actions violate the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment's equal protection clause. The district court denied the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, determining that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on their claims. The court noted that, in addition to issues related to plaintiffs' standing to sue, "[t]he government need not subsidize the exercise of constitutional rights to avoid infringing them" and "the Constitution does not provide a right to violate federal antidiscrimination law." The parties thereafter briefed defendants' motion to dismiss, which remains pending.

Parties challenging agency conduct have achieved more success, and the Department of Education is currently enjoined from enforcing its Dear Colleague Letter, FAQ memorandum, or certification requirement:

• American Federation of Teachers v. Department of Education (D. Md.): On August 14, 2025, the district court vacated the Department of Education's Dear Colleague Letter and certification requirement. The court held that both items were procedurally deficient because there was no notice-and-comment period, arbitrary and capricious because there was no well-reasoned explanation for guidance "that conflicts with its own regulations and existing case law," and unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Fifth Amendment because the term "DEI" can "mean very different things to different people." The court also found that the Letter was contrary to the First Amendment and exceeded the Department's statutory authority by "exercising control over the content of curriculum." The Department of Education has appealed the decision to the Fourth Circuit, where the case is now pending.
• Parallel cases remain pending in other jurisdictions. In State of New York v. Department of Education, nineteen states sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging the certification requirement as violative of the separation of powers and the Spending Clause. A trial in the case is scheduled for June 4, 2026. And, in National Education Association v. Department of Education, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the implementation of the Dear Colleague Letter, FAQ memorandum, and certification requirement, and the parties are now briefing summary judgment.

Admissions and Hiring

The Supreme Court held race-conscious admissions policies unlawful in SFFA over two years ago. Despite sweeping changes to admissions practices, and widespread reporting that overall student body diversity decreased in the admitted classes that immediately followed the decision, admissions practices—even those blessed by the Court in its decision—remain under close scrutiny.

On August 7, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order titled "Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions," directing the Secretary of Education to establish additional reporting requirements for higher education institutions related to their admissions programs. The order states that "the persistent lack of available data—paired with the rampant use of 'diversity statements' and other overt and hidden racial proxies—continues to raise concerns" about whether universities are considering race in admissions decisions. Shortly after the executive order was issued, Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, issued a memorandum announcing that the Department will begin "collect[ing] data disaggregated by race and sex relating to the applicant pool, admitted cohort, and enrolled cohort at the undergraduate level, and for specific graduate and professional programs."

Meanwhile, private litigant groups continue to challenge admissions practices in court. In early 2025, in Students Against Racial Discrimination v. The Regents of the University of California, an organization alleged that the University of California ("UC") system uses unlawful racial preferences in student admissions, discriminating in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants and against Asian American and white applicants, in violation of Title VI, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Equal Protection Clause, and California's Proposition 209. On December 16, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the organization's claims against the UC medical schools for lack of standing, dismissed claims arising under Section 1981 and the Equal Protection Clause, and dismissed claims against the Chancellors of the various UC schools. The court otherwise denied the motion to dismiss, however, determining the other claims were sufficiently pled. The case thus continues to be litigated.

Other Litigation Testing the Boundaries of DEI and Anti-DEI Policies

Before 2025, organizations were filing lawsuits to challenge a variety of other race-conscious policies and practices beyond admissions. This trend continued in 2025. One organization in particular, EPP, has filed over 60 legal actions against universities based on allegedly race- and sex-based programs.

Courts are grappling with these challenges to race-conscious programs and policies. They have thus far declined to find general DEI programming to be unlawful:

• De Piero v. Pa. State Univ. (E.D. Pa.): A white professor sued Penn State University for creating a hostile work environment through its campus-wide e-mails and DEI programming, which the professor alleged discussed antiracism, white supremacy, white privilege, and similar concepts. On March 6, 2025, the court dismissed the lawsuit finding that the conduct was neither severe nor persuasive enough to establish a hostile work environment because statements were "done in the context of scholarly discussions—whether it be at a professional development meeting, a campus-wide town hall, or a presentation from a guest lecturer" and "individuals ... repeatedly reminded [the plaintiff] that such discourse was 'not an attack' on him personally." The professor appealed to the Third Circuit, where the case has now been fully briefed.
• Diemert v. City of Seattle (W.D. Wash.): An employee of the City of Seattle brought suit alleging the City's Race and Social Justice Initiative and DEI programs created a hostile work environment. On February 10, 2025, the district court granted summary judgment for the City. The court explained that "D.E.I. and anti-discrimination trainings are not per se unlawful" and there was no evidence that the training "harassed him personally on account of his race." The court also determined that the plaintiff's equal protection claim based on affinity groups organized around racial and other identities failed because affinity groups "don't all operate alike, so it would be wrongheaded to declare that they all violate the Equal Protection Clause." The court specifically emphasized that the City's affinity groups did not endorse exclusionary practices. The plaintiff appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where the case has now been fully briefed and the parties await a decision.

Funding Cuts, Title VI, and Antisemitism

The Trump Administration's massive cuts to university funding consistently made headlines. The National Institute of Health ("NIH") and the Department of Energy ("DOE") announced that they would limit financial support for "indirect costs"—facilities and administration costs that are hard to attribute to individual projects—to 15% for all grants awarded by the agencies to all research institutions. Both agencies' policies were enjoined:

• Association of American Universities v. DOE (D. Mass.): On May 15, 2025, the court granted plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and enjoined DOE's 15% policy. After DOE filed an unopposed motion for entry of final judgment (to appeal the injunction), the court entered final judgment and DOE proceeded with its appeal to the First Circuit. The parties are currently briefing the appeal.
• Massachusetts v. NIH (D. Mass.): On March 5, 2025, the court granted plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and enjoined NIH's 15% policy. NIH, too, requested the court enter final judgment and, on April 4, 2025, the court did so. The parties fully briefed the appeal and the First Circuit heard oral argument on November 5, 2025. The First Circuit's decision remains pending.

The administration also took a more targeted approach, clawing back significant funding from specific universities purportedly due to violations of Title VI (based on allegations of antisemitism) and Title IX (based on schools' policies concerning transgender women athletes). Although many universities executed agreements with the administration to unfreeze funds or stave off further funding cuts, other universities and higher education stakeholders challenged these agency actions in court:

• American Association of University Professors v. Trump (N.D. Cal.): A set of plaintiffs, including the American Association of University Professors ("AAUP") and other higher education unions, brought claims against President Trump and other agency officials for cutting funding to the UC system in violation of the APA, Title VI, Title IX, the First Amendment, and other constitutional provisions. On November 14, 2025, the court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the administration from withholding federal funds from the UC system without complying with all federal procedural and substantive requirements governing the termination of such funds. The court concluded that, although "[r]ooting out antisemitism is undisputedly a laudable and important goal," the Trump administration "engaged in a concerted policy to use allegations of antisemitism to justify funding cancellations," when the actual intent was to "coerce universities into purging disfavored 'left' and 'woke' viewpoints from their campuses and replace them with views that the Administration favors."
• President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Department of Health and Human Services/American Association of University Professors v. DOJ (D. Mass.): Harvard and others sued after the administration froze and ultimately terminated nearly $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard. On September 3, 2025, the court permanently enjoined the administration from implementing or otherwise giving effect to these termination decisions because they amounted to an attempt "to pressure Harvard to accede to the government's demands in a way that squarely violates Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights and ignores the procedural requirements of Title VI and, to a certain extent, the [APA]." Defendants have appealed the district court's order.
• American Federation of Teachers v. U.S Department of Education (D. Md.): AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers ("AFT") sued the Trump administration for terminating $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University under Title VI while allegedly disregarding the statutory and regulatory requirements for terminating federal funding. On June 16, 2025, the court denied the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction and dismissed the case for lack of standing. Plaintiffs have appealed.

Title IX

The most prominent point of focus in Title IX litigation in 2025 was gender and athletics. Among President Trump's first executive orders was "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" (the "Women's Sports Order"), which interpreted Title IX to exclude transgender girls and women from sports and threatened to pull federal funds from schools allowing transgender athletes to play on girls' and women's sports teams. OCR also circulated a Dear Colleague Letter announcing its intent to enforce the first administration's reinstated 2020 Title IX rule and the Women's Sports Order in both K-12 schools and higher education, and the office later followed through on its warning.

Cases challenging these reduced protections for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals from discrimination in athletics are currently before the Supreme Court. On July 3, 2025, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases challenging the constitutionality of state statutes banning transgender women and girls from participating on women's and girls' sports teams. In West Virgina v. B.P.J., a middle school student brought a constitutional and Title IX challenge to the West Virginia law, and in Little v. Hecox, a Boise State University athlete brought a constitutional challenge to Idaho's statute. In both cases, the federal appellate court held that the state bans are unlawful. Oral argument is scheduled for January 13, 2026.

Litigants also brought new suits in 2025 on both sides of the issue:

• The Trump administration's Title IX interpretation was challenged in several court actions,¹ but these cases have progressed more slowly than other challenges to executive actions discussed in this alert, in part due to cases pending before the Supreme Court.
• In Estabrook v. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (D. Mass.), three former college swimmers sued the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the NCAA, and the Ivy League, alleging that these entities violated Title IX by allowing a transgender woman on the University of Pennsylvania's team to compete in the women's NCAA swim championship hosted at Harvard. On July 29, 2025, the court dismissed Harvard and the Ivy League from the lawsuit. It otherwise stayed the proceedings because a class action filed in 2024 pending in Georgia—Gaines v. NCAA (N.D. Ga.)—raises substantially overlapping issues. In September, the Gaines court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims against the universities but permitted the Title IX claims against the NCAA to proceed to discovery.

Immigration

As outlined in our previous post, within hours of his inauguration, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing agencies to enforce deportation orders, revoking Biden-era guidelines, and granting considerable discretion to the Secretary of Homeland Security to implement immigration law enforcement. A day after the Executive Order was published, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") Benjamine Huffman issued a directive rescinding the Biden Administration's guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") and Customs and Border Protection ("CBP") enforcement actions that provided additional protection for schools and universities. Since then, universities and colleges have seen international students targeted for visa revocations or deportation—many of whom were directly targeted for engaging in pro-Palestinian protests and otherwise protected political speech.

As with many other executive actions, legal challenges followed:

• American Association of University Professors v. Rubio (D. Mass.): Plaintiffs, including the national AAUP and school-specific chapters, brought suit alleging that selectively detaining and deporting noncitizen students and faculty who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and other expressive conduct violates those individuals' constitutional rights. On September 30, 2025, after a bench trial, the court concluded that the administration's policy violated the First Amendment's prohibition on viewpoint discrimination by targeting noncitizen students and faculty for their pro-Palestinian speech and violated the APA as contrary to constitutional rights, arbitrary and capricious, and without clear statutory authorization. The parties are now briefing the remedies for these violations, where plaintiffs seek vacatur of the policy and injunctive relief to prevent further implementation of the policy, among other measures such as notice, training, and transparency requirements.
• Denver Public Schools ("DPS") v. Noem (D. Colo.): DPS sued seeking a preliminary injunction of the DHS directive concerning immigration enforcement at schools. The court denied DPS's motion for a TRO and PI because it determined there was little practical difference between the Biden-era policy and the new policy—in the court's view, both provided significant discretion to ICE agents. DPS soon after voluntarily dropped its case, although it publicly stated that it would sue again "should circumstances change."
• Rümeysa Öztürk v. Trump (D. Mass.): Early in 2025, a graduate student at Tufts University filed a habeas corpus petition and a complaint after her visa was revoked, she was arrested and taken into custody by ICE agents, and her Student and Exchange Visitor Information System ("SEVIS") record was terminated. On May 9, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont (the court with jurisdiction over the habeas petition) held a bail hearing and ordered Ms. Öztürk's release from ICE custody pending resolution of her habeas petition and complaint. Then, on December 8, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts preliminarily enjoined the government's termination of Ms. Öztürk's SEVIS record. The court explained that the termination likely violated the APA because the government either terminated Ms. Öztürk's F-1 status through the SEVIS termination, which would have been unlawful, or the government did not terminate her F-1 status and thus her SEVIS termination was arbitrary and capricious. The case continues to be litigated.

The Dismantling of the Department of Education

In 2025, as promised, the Trump administration took a systematic approach towards dismantling the Department of Education. In March, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing the closure of the Department (the "Closure Order"), The Department announced a reduction in force ("RIF") to discharge approximately 50% of its workforce that included terminating many OCR employees and closing the majority of OCR offices across the nation, and President Trump announced certain programs would be transferred out of the Department. More recently, on November 18, 2025, the DOE announced six new interagency agreements with four agencies that will shift the administration of additional education programs to the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State.

Legal Challenges to the Department of Education Cuts

• State of New York v. McMahon/Somerville Public Schools v. Trump (D. Mass.): The District of Massachusetts consolidated State of New York, a suit brough by twenty states and the District of Columbia, and Somerville Public Schools, where the AFT, two Massachusetts school districts, and others likewise sued the administration, alleging that actions taken in March 2025 to dismantle the Department nullified the Department's statutorily mandated functions, and violated separation of powers and the Take Care Clause of the Constitution. On May 22, 2025, the court granted both sets of plaintiffs' motions for preliminary injunction and enjoined the RIF, the implementation of the Closure Order, and other conduct dismantling the agency. The defendants appealed the court's injunction.

On July 14, 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the injunction pending appeal (without providing any reasoning for its decision). Upon plaintiffs' request, the district court vacated the injunction to expedite the merits determinations in the cases. On November 25, 2025, the consolidated-plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, adding the recent action shifting the Department's programming to other agencies as additional violations of federal law.

• Victim Rights Law Center ("VRLC") v. U.S. Department of Education (D. Mass.): VRLC and student plaintiffs sued alleging that the RIF was unlawful because it crippled OCR's ability to investigate civil rights complaints. On June 18, 2025, the district court granted plaintiffs' preliminary injunction and, among other things, enjoined the RIF as to employees of OCR. Following the Supreme Court's stay in State of New York, the First Circuit issued a stay of the preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs are now seeking to dissolve the preliminary injunction and move forward toward a decision on the merits.
• NAACP v. United States (D. Md.): The NAACP, the NEA, public school parents, and others filed suit alleging that the administration's steps to "incapacitate the Department," which include the cancellation of $1.5 billion in grants and contracts and mass layoffs, are unconstitutional and violate Congress's directives. The lawsuit points to the Department's expansion of educational opportunities for students with disabilities through IDEA and its impact on closing equity gaps through federal student aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. On August 19, 2025, the court denied the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction largely due to the other cases challenging similar actions (e.g., State of New York) in which the Supreme Court had stayed preliminary injunctions. The parties are currently briefing defendants' motion to dismiss.

First Amendment

The First Amendment has been a tool that litigants have wielded with success in the courts this past year. As referenced previously in this alert, courts around the country have struck down executive actions because they violated the First Amendment. For example, in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, the district court held that the administration's immigration-related conduct "adopted ... in part intentionally to chill the speech of other would be pro-Palestine and anti-Isreal speakers, including Plaintiffs' noncitizen members" violated the First Amendment's prohibition on viewpoint discrimination. And in President and Fellows of Harvard College and American Association of University Professors v. Trump, district courts enjoined the government's termination of Harvard's and the UC system's funding, respectively, in part because the defendants violated the First Amendment by retaliating against the universities for exercising their First Amendment rights.

The First Amendment has also been an asset in other lawsuits involving university decisions on controversial topics:

• StandWithUs Ctr. for Legal Just. v. Massachusetts Inst. of Tech. ("MIT") (1st Cir.): Two MIT students and an organization alleged that MIT violated Title VI, among other laws, because MIT failed to address antisemitic harassment resulting from pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts disagreed and dismissed the lawsuit, and the First Circuit affirmed. The First Circuit explained that "most of the conduct about which plaintiffs complain is speech protected by the First Amendment, and ... Title VI [does not] require[e] a university to quash protected speech."
• Spectrum WT v. Wendler (N.D. Tex.): An LGBTQ+ student group filed suit against West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler, who cancelled a charity drag show planned by the student group, alleging violations of the First Amendment. The district court initially denied the group's motion to preliminarily enjoin university officials from canceling the drag show, but it eventually overturned the university-imposed ban following the Fifth Circuit's decision that the district court failed to recognize the drag show as expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.

Antitrust Class Actions

This past year, litigants have also used federal antitrust laws to challenge different aspects of higher education institutions' operations:

• D'Amico v. Consortium of Financing Higher Ed. ("COFHE") (D. Mass.): On August 8, 2025, current and former students filed a lawsuit against thirty-two universities, along with entities involved in the higher education admissions process (COFHE, Common App, and Scoir), under the Sherman Act. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants agree to not compete for students offered admission through early decision programs, driving all students' tuition prices higher. Motions to dismiss have been fully briefed and the parties are awaiting a decision.
• Hansen v. Northwestern Univ. (N.D. Ill.): In 2024, student representatives filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all those similarly situated against the College Board and forty universities alleging a violation of the Sherman Act. Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants engaged in concerted action to require financial information from noncustodial parents for non-federal financial aid applications, which allegedly increased costs to attend. On September 24, 2025, a federal court in Illinois dismissed the class-action antitrust lawsuit. The court concluded that it had no jurisdiction over non-Illinois university defendants and plaintiffs had not otherwise plausibly pled that defendants entered into an agreement.

* * *

In 2025, colleges and universities served as a repeated target and battleground for novel legal theories across a spectrum of issues. It was no surprise that higher education faced significant scrutiny last year, but the Trump administration made higher education a focus within hours of inauguration. The federal policies and enforcement actions that ensued asserted new, often expansive, interpretations of the law and embraced new mechanisms (e.g., grant terminations, the False Claims Act) to enforce the administration's policy goals and exert greater control over university policies. Private litigation also increased, as certain groups and institutions sought to challenge federal guidance and others brought lawsuits as private actions in line with the new federal guidance. Many of these legal challenges continue to make their way through the courts, and colleges and universities remain in a state of limbo waiting for these cases to resolve.

We expect 2026 to bring continued focus on many of the areas addressed in this alert, with this administration pursuing aggressive executive action and private litigants bringing more lawsuits in these spaces. For example, the administration's focus on the False Claims Act will likely mature into public lawsuits brought by DOJ's Civil Rights Fraud Initiative. We will provide further discussion of our expectations regarding 2026 enforcement as part of Foley Hoag's forthcoming 2026 White Collar Year in Preview Series, and we will provide updates as major suits addressed herein are decided. In the meantime, Foley Hoag's Education practice group remains ready to help all higher education stakeholders navigate and respond to this complex and continually shifting legal landscape.

Footnote

1. In Minnesota v. Trump (D. Minn.), Minnesota challenged the administration's Title IX investigation into its public school system based on the Women's Sports Order. In California v. Department of Justice (N.D. Cal.), California sued after receiving a letter from DOJ that demanded the state "certify in writing" that it would not implement a rule allowing students to participate in school sports based on students' gender identity. And in Tirrell v. Edelblut (D.N.H.), two transgender high school athletes who originally challenged a New Hampshire statute categorically barring transgender girls from school sports expanded their lawsuit to challenge Trump's Gender and Women's Sports Orders. None of these cases have had any decisions discussing the merits of the cases, and Tirrell has been stayed pending resolution of the two cases before the Supreme Court involving state statutes categorically barring transgender girls from school sports.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.