A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration cannot force organizations receiving federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with an executive order against “educating” children about “radical gender ideology.”
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., appointed by former President Obama, ruled that the July directive from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the original congressional intent of the grant.
Howell said that HHS imposed binding requirements on grant recipients but gave no indication that those requirements were “the product of rational decision making and analysis of the evidence.”
Instead, Howell wrote, the agency “relied on apparently irrelevant ideological factors, and did not justify the change in its position.”
The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program funds various organizations across the country that are working on evidence-based methods to prevent teen pregnancy.
The ruling marked a victory for Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, Iowa and New York, which had filed a lawsuit to try to block implementation of the change, but it would apply to all organizations receiving grants.
HHS declined to comment on the decision.
In a statement on the notice of funding availability issued in July, HHS said the mission of the pregnancy prevention program is not to “promote harmful ideologies, risky sexual activity for minors, or other content outside the scope of the program.”
In the guidance, HHS said grant recipients must ensure that curricula in their teen pregnancy programs “reflect the immutable biological reality of sex, not radical gender ideology, and do not promote anti-American ideologies such as discriminatory equality ideology.”
The lawsuit claimed that groups, which had already been approved for grants, could not use any funding without certifying compliance with the policy, saying they would be required to change their programming in a way that would make it ineffective.
Judge Howell agreed and said that HHS “appears to have made this decision based solely on ideological and political preferences born out of thin air.”
HHS presented no evidence of how it decided to enforce the policy, Howell wrote, and the policy itself was vague on compliance, yet binding.
He said that HHS “seems motivated entirely by political concerns, devoid of any thoughtful process or analysis, and unaware of the statutory emphasis on evidence-based programming.”
In its announcement of the change, HHS cited diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and a series of executive orders signed by President Trump aimed at rolling back recognition of LGBTQ+ individuals.
Howell ruled, “Such ideological considerations are irrelevant to the statutory program established by Congress, which targets effective, evidence-based programming.”
