Judge strikes anti-DEI and immigration conditions on police hiring grants for three cities

A federal judge in Chicago has ruled for three cities that challenged conditions the Justice Department attached to police hiring grants. On Oct. 30, Judge Jorge L. Alonso of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied the department's motion for summary judgment and granted the cities' motion. Bloomberg Law reported on Nov. 2 that the judge found the anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) conditions and the immigration conditions unconstitutional.

The case is City of Chicago, City of Saint Paul and City of Santa Monica v. U.S. Department of Justice, No. 25-cv-13863. It centers on grants from the department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, known as COPS. The ruling matters for a reason beyond one grant program. The anti-DEI condition at issue asks recipients to certify, under the threat of False Claims Act liability, that they run no programs that break civil rights law. The Justice Department says that is a reminder to obey existing law. The cities say it goes further.

One limit on this report: we could not read the Oct. 30 order itself. The docket entry says the court ruled "for the reasons stated herein," and Bloomberg Law describes the order as brief and says Alonso adhered to the reasoning of his earlier preliminary injunction. This article therefore draws on the docket, the January preliminary injunction opinion, and the parties' public statements.

What the grants are and what the department added

COPS hiring grants pay part of the cost of putting officers on the street. Chicago says it has received the grant since 2009. The city's November 2025 press release said this year's $6.25 million award would support about 50 new hires. Saint Paul's award was for a downtown homelessness initiative, according to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse's case summary. Congress set aside $417 million for the COPS Office in March 2025, the same summary says.

In October 2025 the department approved awards for both cities, with new conditions. According to the January opinion, the conditions fell into four groups:

• Immigration. The cities had to comply with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, which concerns sharing information about citizenship and immigration status with federal authorities.
• Anti-DEI. The cities had to certify that they "do not operate any programs (including any such programs having components relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion) that violate any applicable Federal civil rights or nondiscrimination laws." The certification is made under the threat of False Claims Act liability.
• Executive orders. The cities had to comply with all presidential memoranda and executive orders.
• Funding restrictions. Grant money could not go to schools that require COVID-19 vaccination, to "gender ideology," to DEI or environmental justice programs, or in cases of failure to protect monuments.

Why the certification matters

The False Claims Act is the main reason the anti-DEI condition drew a lawsuit. The Deputy Attorney General's memo calls the Act the department's "primary weapon against government fraud, waste, and abuse" and says liability "results in treble damages and significant penalties." A city that signs the certification and later faces an allegation that one of its programs broke civil rights law could face that exposure. The cities argued that the phrase "components relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion" left them guessing which programs the department might later call unlawful.

The immigration condition worked differently. Both Chicago and Saint Paul have local laws that keep city employees from taking part in federal civil immigration enforcement, according to the Clearinghouse summary. The cities argued that the condition under 8 U.S.C. § 1373 intrudes on their power to set local policy, in violation of the Tenth Amendment, and asked for a declaration that the statute itself is unconstitutional. Bloomberg Law's report on the Oct. 30 order refers to the conditions as "anti-sanctuary" and anti-DEI requirements.

The cities' case

Chicago, Saint Paul and, later, Santa Monica argued that the conditions were unlawful on several grounds. They said only Congress can attach conditions to federal funds. They said the conditions went beyond what the COPS statute allows and broke the Spending Clause because they were vague and unrelated to the purpose of the grants. They also said the department failed to explain its decision, which the Administrative Procedure Act requires. Santa Monica joined in March 2026, arguing that it was in the same position. Alonso wrote in a March 19 minute entry that the city was "similarly situated" to the other two and extended the injunction to it.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said when the suit was filed: "Chicago will not be intimidated into abandoning our values or compromising our safety." The city's release said the conditions "were not authorized by Congress and effectively hold community policing funds hostage to the administration's political agenda." Corporation Counsel Mary B. Richardson-Lowry said Congress "appropriated these funds to strengthen community policing by enhancing cooperation between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve."

The department's case

The Justice Department describes its anti-DEI conditions as an application of existing civil rights law. Its May 19, 2025 memo creating the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative said the False Claims Act "is implicated whenever federal-funding recipients or contractors certify compliance with civil rights laws while knowingly engaging in racist preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities, including through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that assign benefits or burdens on race, ethnicity, or national origin."

The memo also said: "The federal government should not subsidize unlawful discrimination." It added that the department "strongly encourages" private whistleblower suits under the Act. In court, as the judge summarized it in January, the department argued that the condition "makes plain that [grant] recipients cannot violate federal anti-discrimination law." We did not find a department statement on the Oct. 30 ruling or on whether it will appeal.

What the court said in January

Alonso granted a preliminary injunction on Jan. 15 and entered the order on Feb. 3. His opinion found the cities likely to succeed on three points.

First, the conditions exceeded the department's authority under the COPS statute. The statute lists 24 purposes for grants, and one provision requires applicants to describe efforts to seek, recruit and hire minorities and women. Second, under the Spending Clause, the conditions were not reasonably related to the grant's purpose and were ambiguous. The opinion also addressed the cities' claims under the Administrative Procedure Act.

On the anti-DEI condition, the judge adopted the reasoning of the court in City of Seattle v. Trump that the condition "does not simply require that grant recipients comply with federal antidiscrimination laws." He called the executive-order condition "impermissibly ambiguous." The cities said they had long relied on COPS: according to the opinion, Chicago has received more than $212 million since 2009, funding 515 officers, and Saint Paul more than $7 million since 2010.

1. Nov. 12, 2025Chicago and Saint Paul sue
2. Jan. 15, 2026Judge Alonso grants a preliminary injunction
3. Feb. 3, 2026Preliminary injunction order entered
4. Mar. 10, 2026Santa Monica joins the case
5. Mar. 25, 2026Second preliminary injunction covers Santa Monica
6. Jun. 5, 2026Justice Department moves for summary judgment
7. Jul. 20, 2026Cities file their cross-motion
8. Oct. 30, 2026Court denies the department's motion and grants the cities'
9. Nov. 13, 2026Deadline for a proposed implementing order and status report

Source: Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse docket

Next steps: an implementing order and a status report

The Oct. 30 order said the court will enter a separate order carrying out the ruling. The cities' lawyers must submit a proposed order, after consulting the department's lawyers, and the parties must file a joint status report on next steps by Nov. 13. The department can appeal to the Seventh Circuit. The docket we reviewed shows no notice of appeal, and the court has not yet entered the implementing order.

How this fits with other rulings

Courts have reached different results on DEI conditions, partly because the wording of each condition differs. In the Maryland contractor case, Judge Adam Abelson read an executive order's ban on "racially discriminatory DEI activities" narrowly, as a ban on intentional discrimination that federal law already forbids; see our report on the contractor DEI order ruling. The Fourth Circuit had earlier upheld a requirement that contractors certify compliance with antidiscrimination law. The grant condition in Chicago is worded differently. It refers to programs "having components relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion," and Alonso, following the Seattle ruling, read it as reaching beyond a plain compliance certification.

The same fault line shows up in education. The Department of Education's new accreditation rule, covered in our accreditation rule report, bars accreditors from enforcing what the department calls illegal DEI requirements. In admissions, a federal judge dismissed the Justice Department's suit for Harvard's applicant data, as we reported in the Harvard Title VI case. And the Supreme Court recently heard a Title VII case on when an employer may defend a race-conscious decision, which we covered in our Younge argument report.

For the cities, the practical effect is that the conditions cannot be enforced against them in the grant. For other local governments, a district court ruling binds only the parties. Other cities and counties that took COPS grants with the same terms would need their own relief, or an appeal that produces a wider ruling. That is where the Seventh Circuit, if the department appeals, would matter most.

What remains unknown is how much of the department's enforcement approach depends on the certification language. The department's memo treats the False Claims Act as its main tool against recipients that certify compliance while, in its view, running unlawful programs. The cities argue that a certification phrased this way gives the department room to decide after the fact which programs it dislikes. The full text of the Oct. 30 reasoning, once it can be read, will show which of the cities' arguments the court relied on.

Differing perspectives

Should the Justice Department be able to attach DEI and immigration conditions to police hiring grants?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Keep the conditions

  Who holds it: The Justice Department, through its Deputy Attorney General's Civil Rights Fraud Initiative

  Justice Department officials say the False Claims Act applies whenever recipients of federal funds certify compliance with civil rights laws while knowingly engaging in preferences, programs or activities, including DEI programs, that assign benefits or burdens by race, ethnicity or national origin. They say the federal government should not subsidize unlawful discrimination. They point to Supreme Court language that eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it, and they encourage private whistleblower suits under the Act as a way to enforce those obligations.

  In their words: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Deputy Attorney General ↗

• Strike the conditions

  Who holds it: The cities of Chicago, Saint Paul and Santa Monica

  The cities argue that Congress, not the executive branch, decides what conditions attach to federal funds, and that the Justice Department had no authority to add these to community policing grants. They say the conditions on DEI programs, immigration cooperation and executive orders were not authorized by Congress and put police hiring money at stake over unrelated policy goals. Chicago's mayor says the city will not be intimidated into abandoning its values or compromising its safety, and the city's lawyers say Congress meant the money to strengthen community policing.

  In their words: City of Chicago, Mayor's Press Office ↗