Yesterday, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and co-counsel Lambda Legal filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in National Urban League v. Trump, a federal lawsuit challenging three executive orders by President Trump banning diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility and erasing transgender people from public life.
The motion asks the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to stop the Trump Administration from implementing and enforcing the executive orders until their legal claims are resolved.
In National Urban League v. Trump filed on February 19, the plaintiffs National Urban League, National Fair Housing Alliance, and AIDS Foundation of Chicago allege that the administration is violating the organizations’ rights to free speech and due process and is engaging in intentional discrimination by issuing and enforcing the anti-equity and anti-gender orders.
If the court takes swift action on the request for relief, the organizations can safely continue serving the communities most in need of their services without fear of losing federal funds or abandoning their organizational missions.
A copy of the motion filed is available here.
You can learn more about NUL v. Trump here.
You can read the full NUL v. Trump brief here.
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Equal Protection Initiative is aimed at fully realizing the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal protection under law by safeguarding, expanding, and deepening efforts to remove and remediate barriers to opportunity for Black people. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
In 2020, Lambda Legal, representing Diversity Center and other mission-driven non-profits that serve the LGBTQ community, sued the Trump Administration, challenging a similar executive order that prohibited federal contractors and grantees from conducting workplace diversity trainings or engaging in grant-funded work that explicitly acknowledges and confronts the existence of structural racism and sexism in our society. The case was successful in enjoining the executive order nationwide.
