Judge Mockingly Halts Trump’s Attempt to Reduce VAWA Funding

On Friday, a federal judge in Rhode Island stopped the Trump administration from making the release of domestic violence prevention funds dependent on adherence to President Donald Trump’s initiative to eliminate what he calls “gender ideology.”

Earlier this year, the 45th and 47th president implemented Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This order demanded that federal agencies cease funding activities that promote gender ideology.

Following the order, the U.S. Department of Justice, overseen by Attorney General Pam Bondi, issued several policy directives to implement the order’s aims. By May, the Office on Violence Against Women, which is part of the DOJ, revised its grant funding guidelines under the Violence Against Woman Act (VAWA), identifying certain “out-of-scope activities” that would not receive funding – specifically, those that “inculcate or promote gender ideology” as outlined by Trump’s directive.

In June, nonprofit organizations, spearheaded by the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, filed a lawsuit against Bondi and other officials, requesting a halt to these funding restrictions.

Recently, in a 27-page opinion memorandum, Senior U.S. District Judge William E. Smith, appointed by George W. Bush, approved a pause on these funding changes, citing the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the law regulating the conduct of government agencies and departments.

In a wry summary, the judge balances equities and interests.

“On the one hand, if the Court does not grant preliminary relief, then the Coalitions will face real and immediate irreparable harm from the challenged conditions, conditions which the Court has already concluded likely violate the APA,” Smith notes. “This could result in the disruption of important and, in some cases, lifesaving services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. On the other hand, if the Court grants preliminary relief, then the Office will simply have to consider grant applications and award funding as it normally does.”

The government insisted the dispute was contractual in nature to argue the litigation is governed by the obscure Tucker Act of 1887.

Under this law, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction to rule on “any claim” against the federal government that relies “upon any express or implied contract with the United States.”

The judge quickly dispensed with this line of defense – and stressed how little attention needed to be paid to the DOJ’s argument here.

“The Court need not spend much time on this argument,” the order goes on. “Like many other courts that have considered similar arguments, the Court finds that the Tucker Act does not cover challenges to grant funding conditions. Importantly, the Coalitions do not challenge conditions, terms, or agency action related to grants that the Office has previously awarded them; they object to the challenged conditions only to the extent that they are or will be placed upon grants for which they seek to apply. Accordingly, the Coalitions’ claims are not ‘founded…upon any express or implied contract with the United States.'”

Relevant to the plaintiff’s claims – and the ultimate form of relief granted in the case – the court concluded “the challenged conditions run afoul of the prohibition against arbitrary and capricious agency action.”

“Without agreeing to the challenged conditions, the Coalitions are effectively barred from applying for and receiving funds which they are legally entitled to seek,” the order continues. “And the challenged conditions will potentially change the lawful scope of activities permitted with grant funds, lead to the termination of grant awards, and require the Coalitions to ‘subject themselves to potential criminal and civil liability under the False Claims Act.’ Accordingly, the Court sides with courts that have found that agency placement of new conditions on grant funding amounts to final agency action.”

The APA’s “arbitrary and capricious” standard is a term of art – and a phrase which has leapt from the statute into popular culture writ large. In context, the term describes government actions that go too far while simultaneously eschewing formal, mandatory, processes.

“The Court understands that this matter arises on an expedited basis, and perhaps a fuller administrative record will disclose more of the Office’s decisionmaking process,” the judge explains. “But on the present record, the Court can only conclude that the Office engaged in a wholly under-reasoned and arbitrary process. The Office provides, as the only basis for its decision, a single declaration by an Office supervisory official.”