A federal judge is placing restrictions on President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, but allowing parts of the president’s orders to stay in place. Judge John Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an injunction Monday, putting a temporary hold on parts of three of the president’s executive orders targeting federal funding for “illegal DEI” and “gender ideology” programs. A group of LGBT-oriented non-government organizations (NGOs) led by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation had sued to block the Trump administration from enforcing its DEI- and gender ideology-centered agenda.

Tigar determined that, of the nine provisions that the NGOs challenged, the LGBT groups only had legal standing to challenge four: a provision requiring NGOs and other entities to certify that their programs do not violate federal anti-discrimination laws, a provision requiring the termination of all “equity-related grants or contracts,” and a pair of provisions which together ordered federal agencies to end funding for programs that promote “gender ideology.” The Obama-appointed judge concluded that the NGOs “demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits” in challenging the latter three funding-related provisions, arguing that they “violate [the NGOs’] rights under the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, and the Separation of Powers.”

“These three funding provisions reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and recognizing the existence of transgender individuals,” Tigar wrote. He added, “These provisions seek to strip funding from programs that serve historically disenfranchised populations in direct contravention of several statutes under which Plaintiffs receive funding.” However, the judge determined that the LGBT NGOs did not present strong arguments against the Trump administration’s requirement that organizations certify compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws. Tigar wrote that the LGBT NGOs “have not shown at this juncture that the provision goes beyond targeting DEI programs that violate federal antidiscrimination law.”

At the crux of his injunction is Tigar’s argument that the president’s executive orders are so “vague … that all federal grantees and contractors are left to wonder what activities or expression they can engage in without risking the funding on which they depend.” He wrote, “While the Executive requires some degree of freedom to implement its political agenda, it is still bound by the Constitution.” The judge added, “And even in the context of federal subsidies, it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Ilya Shapiro, the Manhattan Institute’s director of Constitutional Studies, explained, “All Americans have the right to promote DEI, gender ideology, and lots of other things that many of their fellow citizens find abhorrent, but they don’t have the right to have the government fund that speech. That’s why President Trump issued his anti-DEI executive orders.” He continued, “Indeed, if the government were to fund programs that treat people differently based on race or gender identity, it would be violating the Constitution.” Shapiro clarified, “So either the judge here was wrong in saying that the executive orders violated plaintiffs’ speech rights or the plaintiffs are misrepresenting what they’re doing. But at least the order only affects the plaintiffs themselves rather than applying nationwide, which is the right way to treat such fact-specific cases.”

American Civil Rights Project Executive Director Dan Morenoff told TWS that he expects Tigar’s injunction to be overturned on appeal. “The most obvious basis for appeal would be the very real doubt that the court has any jurisdiction over these matters whatsoever. Congress assigned exclusive jurisdiction over all federal contract actions to the Court of Federal Claims,” he explained, questioning whether “a court in California has any right to hear, much less grant, an injunction against the termination of those same contracts.” Morenoff further noted that the president’s executive orders instruct administration officers to take action “as allowed by law.” “It’s hard to imagine … how a court can validly enjoin agencies from following a presidential instruction to act ‘as allowed by law,” Morenoff quipped. He explained:

“The court argues taking the order at its word would render ‘judicial review … a meaningless exercise, precluding resolution of the critical legal issues and leading the court into an intellectual cul-de-sac.’ That contention doesn’t hold water, wrongly equating delaying review until there is a violation (and channeling that review to the court Congress chose to adjudicate it) with denying judicial review of such an action. This seems like one where — should they ever reach the merits — a higher court will intervene.”

While many district court judges have imposed sweeping universal injunctions against Trump administration directives and actions, Tigar specifically allowed the majority of challenged Trump provisions to stand, including a directive barring transgender-identifying biological men from accessing women’s spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms, in addition to the White House directive requiring certification that organizations receiving federal funding are not engaged in violating federal anti-discrimination laws.

Tigar’s own treatment of federal anti-discrimination laws comes on the heels of a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision last week ruling that members of demographic majorities can, in fact, be discriminated against. The case centered on a straight, white woman, Marlean Ames, whose LGBT-identifying boss passed her over for a promotion, instead promoting another LGBT-identifying employee who had not even applied for the promotion. While lower courts had argued that Ames did not meet the threshold requirement to file a discrimination complaint since she was not a member of a minority group, the Supreme Court leveled the playing field.

Nonetheless, Tigar’s is simply the latest in a series of court orders and injunctions besieging the Trump administration. Federal judges have recently imposed restrictions on the president’s efforts to defund gender transition procedures for federal prisoners, downsize the Department of Education, deport foreign students and foreign terrorist-affiliates, and implement tariffs, although an appellate court reversed a lower court’s decision on tariffs.