In late November, the leader of a Native American Head Start program on a reservation in Western Washington State opened an email from the federal government to see that her annual application for funding had been denied.

The government shutdown had already delayed the much-needed funds by weeks, threatening a closure of her center, which serves toddlers and preschoolers in a tribe of less than 1,000. And now, a week after the government had re-opened, her application had been “flagged for containing language that is not allowable under current federal guidance.”

The culprit? Two trainings for teachers — one focused on inclusionary practices for kids with autism and the other on tools to support young children as they process trauma. Integral to both — and also part of the rejection — an acknowledgment that Native American children would receive priority enrollment in her Head Start classrooms and programming, as federal policy stipulates.

“But we’re supposed to do those things,” the education director, who asked not to be identified because she fears retribution from the Trump administration, told The 74. “So for them to pull them? I’m just — I’m not understanding.”

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Ultimately, although she deeply believed the training sessions and prioritizing indigenous children were inherent to her center’s success and part of its stated mission, she wiped the offending language. Her updated grant was almost immediately approved.

Until last week such existential calculations were being forced on Head Start programs across the country by the Trump’s administration 2025 executive order banning practices involving diversity, equity and inclusion. On Tuesday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction temporarily halting the administration’s anti-DEI edict.

“This is a huge victory for kids!” Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Head Start & Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, said in a statement. “When a Head Start program has their funding withheld because of their efforts to provide effective education to children with autism, serve tribal members on a reservation, or treat all families with respect, it is an attack on the fundamental promise of the Head Start program.”

The federal early education and support program for low-income families turned 60 last year, a milestone that coincided with perhaps its most challenging and chaotic year. In 2025, the Trump administration  froze — then quickly unfroze, then delayed — grant funding, shuttered five regional offices and fired scores of employees. And during the government shutdown, roughly 10,000 kids across 22 programs lost access to services.

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The administration also took aim at Head Start’s statutory purpose of better preparing young children in poverty for school by forbidding providers from overtly addressing issues of race, gender or disability, experts said. The banned word list for grant applications included “disabilities,” “underprivileged” and “Native American.”

The Washington State Native American Head Start director said on reservations “just about every one of our children have been touched by trauma” that relates to their race and the painful history of indigenous people in the U.S.

“If we don’t know how to work with kids where things are being triggered,” she added, “then how are we going to move forward and have the best education for these kids so they are not shutting down all the time?”

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Thrilled but cautious

The Jan. 6 injunction was part of a lawsuit filed in April 2025 against Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. and other officials, alleging that the administration was attempting to illegally dismantle Head Start, which serves roughly 700,000 children and families a year.

Roughly 80% of Head Start’s funding comes from HHS and it has long been a stated goal of the right wing to eliminate the program.

The ruling means that for the duration of the ongoing case, the administration can’t enforce the DEI ban nor can it punish Head Start providers for including DEI-related language in their applications or practices in their programs. The judge also ruled the administration cannot fire any employees at the Office of Head Start, though the sweeping layoffs that have already occurred stand.

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Back in September, the same judge granted a temporary injunction halting the administration from banning undocumented preschoolers and other groups of immigrant children from enrolling in Head Start programs.

In a mandated announcement Friday afternoon, the federal Office of Head Start acknowledged the court’s ruling, saying, certain actions against “DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) … may not be implemented or enforced” for the time being, though they didn’t provide any guidance for providers who were forced to remove training and programming in past applications.

The Office of Head Start and HHS did not immediately reply to a request for comment on whether further guidance was forthcoming.

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The Washington grantee expressed cautious optimism in response to the ruling, paired with significant anxiety about what comes next. Her approved application is a binding contract, she said, and since it does not include the trauma and autism trainings or prioritization of native kids, she fears she’ll be deemed out of compliance and forced to pay back the money if she proceeds in that direction anyway.

She said she could try to re-submit an updated application that includes the previously banned words, but “that would be calling attention to us, and I really am afraid of the retaliation,” especially given the non-permanent nature of  the injunction.

“Whenever you put ‘temporary’ on something, I’m always cautious,” she added. “Yes, if things come out I feel like there will be support and it’ll take care of this, but you can’t be certain of that in this political climate.”

It’s possible the Trump administration could appeal the injunction and it’s not clear how long it will take the underlying case to work its way through the courts.

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In the meantime, Ryan, executive director of Washington’s Head Start Association, emphasized that the Trump administration “can’t enforce a contract that is going against the law.” But, he acknowledged, “what that means on the ground is different, because there’s so much fear of retaliation.”

“I’m getting a sense that people will move with a lot of caution at first here to see what happens,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re going to want to make wholesale changes right out of the gate.”

Linda Morris, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and one of the attorneys who filed the suit,  said that while this ruling “doesn’t undo those harms that the administration already inflicted,” it’s still “a huge win for families and it’s a huge win for Head Start providers.”

“We’re thrilled with the decision,” said Morris.

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The initial DEI ban, she said, had put Head Start providers in “an impossible bind,” since they were being required to remove programming and words from their grant applications that were required by the statutory text of the Head Start Act.

They were “in constant fear of being forced to comply with an unlawful directive and potentially be out of step with their mission and their obligations under the Head Start Act or,” she said, “they risk being punished and losing their funding and even being forced to close.”

‘If it weren’t real life, it would be hilarious’

Morris and her ACLU colleagues first filed the lawsuit last spring on behalf of a number of state Head Start Associations as well as parent organizations. Initially, the complaint challenged the mass layoffs and restructuring of the federal Office of Head Start as well as the DEI ban, alleging all were causing irreparable harm.

In July, they updated the complaint following the Trump administration’s unprecedented move to exclude families from Head Start based on immigration status.

The complaint was again updated after the executive director of a Head Start agency in Wisconsin had her Jan. 1 grant application returned with instructions to remove 19 words and phrases, including “institutional,” “historically,” “equity,” “belong” and “pregnant people.” Later that morning, the Office of Head Start followed up with a “complete least of (nearly 200) words” banned from Head Start applications.

In response, senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) issued a Dec. 18 letter to RFK Jr. expressing “outrage.”

“The chaos you are creating is already jeopardizing services for nearly 700,000 young children across this country,” they wrote, adding that “the ambiguous policy was not accompanied by clarification on what the Administration considers ‘DEI,’ and Head Start programs were left with no meaningful guidance on compliance.”

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Ultimately, the Wisconsin provider updated her application to fit this new criteria, but, she wrote in a court record, “compliance is challenging because many of the words on the list are integral to Head Start programming requirements.” The grant application itself, she noted, “already includes some of these prohibited words in pre-populated text … and application questions specifically request responses that include these words.”

“This has put me in an impossible situation,” she continued.

Jennie Mauer, the executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, said this grantee was one of three in her state serving roughly 860 young children to have their applications returned this month because of the DEI ban. Another was accused of non-compliance for writing that they would make an effort to “utilize small businesses, minority businesses, and women-owned businesses.”

“If it weren’t real life, it would be hilarious,” said Mauer. “There are things that are in the form like, ‘Tell us how you’re going to serve children with disabilities,’ but then you can’t say the word ‘disability.’ How do you wrap your head around that?

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It’s infuriating. I’m just wringing my hands over here.”

The latest ruling, she said, “doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is better, but it means that these worst-case scenarios aren’t going to come to fruition,” at least not immediately.

And while she’s hopeful the government will comply with the judge’s order, damage has  been done to Head Start communities, she said, leaving program leaders, providers and families worried.

“You feel like we’re in this sort of Cold War environment where people are afraid,” she said. “You shouldn’t be afraid of your government.”

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