Judicial leftists are continuing to do all they can to obstruct the Trump administration, with a federal judge in California recently fighting to keep stale Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy alive on the West Coast.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick granted a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from attaching anti-DEI conditions to federal grants for eleven local governments in the region. According to Orrick, “What defendants seek to do likely violates the Constitution (separation of powers and Spending Clause) and the Administrative Procedures Act.” He did not comment on the constitutionality of entrenched DEI bureaucracy or affirmative action.
Unsurprisingly, a cursory look at Judge Orrick’s history reveals that far from being a dedicated Constitutional scholar, he is a committed liberal apparatchik. In a similar move in 2025, he ruled that the Trump administration could not cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities. Prior to that, he commented on the lack of black or Latino lawyers arguing a class-action lawsuit case, going on to request a confidential demographic report asking for the race and sexual orientation of the lawyers who were involved.
In arguing for his injunction, Orrick claimed that the Trump administration’s anti-DEI requirements were irrelevant to the purpose of the affected federal grant programs. The grants covered in the ruling fund programs including police training and anti-terrorism initiatives. Given the sheer volume of lies and propaganda DEI bureaucrats have spewed about policing, race relations, and the demographics of terrorism in the last decade, it makes perfect sense to ensure federal tax dollars are not wasted toward keeping those views alive.
The Trump administration has long recognized that you cannot combat an aggressive, entrenched Left with vague appeals to fairness. Blue cities aren’t going to change their most destructive policies based on polite reasoning, but they may very well do so with the right amount of financial pressure. With luck, this latest ruling will eventually be an overturned hiccup in the fight to eradicate DEI’s remnants.
