On Wednesday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., sharply criticized the Trump administration while ordering the “immediate” reinstatement of a grant that the Department of Education had eliminated earlier this year. This grant is vital to supporting desegregation efforts in the Southern United States.

“Given the historical context of race in America and the Southern Education Fund’s commitment since the Civil War, the decision to terminate its grants over ‘DEI’ concerns is truly astonishing,” stated U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman in a detailed 37-page opinion.

The Bill Clinton appointee ruled in favor of granting a preliminary injunction for the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), which sued the Trump administration after it abruptly terminated the group’s Equity Assistance Center program grant on Feb. 13 through executive orders. Friedman directed the government to reinstate the grant and reimburse SEF “for all outstanding expenses” after determining that the DOE’s termination “likely violated federal law,” according to a Thursday press release from SEF.

“The Court finds that SEF has sufficiently demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable harm because the defendants’ actions threaten the livelihoods of SEF’s employees, its professional reputation, and the very existence of its programs,” Friedman said.

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The EAC grant, according to SEF officials, enables the foundation to operate its Equity Assistance Center-South (EAC-South) program, which provides technical assistance to public school districts and state agencies across 11 Southern states, supporting their compliance with federal civil rights laws. The program is part of a network of Equity Assistance Centers, formerly known as Desegregation Assistance Centers, that was originally established to aid school systems in dismantling racial segregation.

“Today, 70 years later, there are still 132 open federal school desegregation cases,” Friedman said. “An overwhelming 130 of those cases are concentrated in states located in the South.”

Friedman cited the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education in his ruling, in which the Supreme Court held that racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional and ordered its elimination “with all deliberate speed.” He said the decision to dump the EAC-South grant “contravenes the very principle of ‘deliberate speed”” mandated by the high court. Friedman quoted the court’s ruling in the case directly, noting how “Brown never contemplated that the concept of ‘deliberate speed’ would countenance indefinite delay in elimination of racial barriers in schools.”