Governor Josh Shapiro of Abington Township announced on Monday, July 14 that his office is again suing President Donald Trump’s administration, this time over education funding.
The lawsuit, which includes 25 other states and the District of Columbia, challenges the Trump administration’s decision to withhold more than $6 billion in education funding.
According to a statement provided by Shapiro’s office, on Monday, June 30, the US Department of Education notified the Pennsylvania Department of Education that the delivery of about $230 million in federal funds would be delayed.
The funding “covers vital programs for Pennsylvania students and teachers like before and after school programming, teacher training and professional development, adult and family literacy programs and education for children from farming families across the Commonwealth,” the statement says.
“Every Pennsylvania child deserves the freedom to chart their own course and the opportunity to succeed,” said Shapiro in the statement. “Once again, the Trump Administration is trying to take away dollars that were committed to Pennsylvania – this time from our schools.. Today, I’m suing to force the Trump Administration to deliver the money our students and schools were promised and are owed – critical funds that school districts rely on to meet their budgets, train high-quality teachers, provide afterschool programs for kids, and so much more. Because if anyone tries to hurt students here in Pennsylvania, they’ll have to go through me.”
For a breakdown of frozen federal funding, you can click here.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Rhode Island against Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, and Trump and is co-led by California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Washington DC.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement last week that the programs had been “grossly misused by schools to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda” and that the freeze is “an ongoing programmatic review and no decisions have been made yet.”
The lawsuit is the latest of several brought by Shapiro against the Trump administration over frozen or revoked federal funding since January. A lawsuit filed by the governor in June accuses the Trump administration of terminating billions in already awarded funding to state and local governments, research institutions, universities and more.
Also in June, Shapiro sued the Trump administration in an effort to restore $13 million in funds for food banks and farmers that the U.S. Department of Agriculture eliminated earlier this year. In April, Shapiro jointly filed a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s cuts to AmeriCorps. In February, Shapiro filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funding.