President Trump’s federal campaign against DEI just ran into another courtroom wall.

Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick has granted a preliminary injunction blocking three federal departments from enforcing a group of anti-DEI and immigration-related grant conditions against 11 cities and counties in California and Oregon.

The ruling reaches money used for policing, firefighter staffing, anti-terror programs, flood protection, wildfire preparation, human-trafficking investigations and services for crime victims.

It is a genuine setback for the administration. It is also narrower than some of the first headlines make it sound.

California judge deals major blow to Trump's war against DEI on the West Coast https://t.co/5Y9vTAkoTc

— New York Post (@nypost) July 12, 2026

The 68-page order was filed Thursday in City of Fresno, et al. v. Markwayne Mullin, et al.

The plaintiffs are Fresno, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Santa Cruz, Stockton, Beaverton, Corvallis and Hillsboro, along with Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara counties.

Those governments regularly receive grants from the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior. The administration sought to require compliance with conditions tied to President Trump’s executive orders on immigration, DEI and anti-discrimination.

Orrick concluded that the challenged conditions likely violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, the Spending Clause and the Administrative Procedure Act because they were added to programs Congress had already created for specific public-safety and emergency purposes.

In the judge’s view, the executive branch was trying to place ideological strings on grants that either had no connection to the programs Congress funded or directly conflicted with their statutory purpose.

The order immediately bars the agencies from imposing the challenged conditions on the 11 plaintiffs, refusing to process their applications because of those conditions or forcing them to make the disputed certifications. Any such conditions already inserted into covered grant agreements must be treated as void while the injunction remains in force.

That is a meaningful loss for the administration. But Orrick did not erase President Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders nationwide, strike down every federal grant condition or permanently decide the case.

The injunction applies to the named local governments, their subrecipients and the grant programs they identified as programs they receive or intend to seek. It expressly excludes Interior Department funding for Santa Cruz because the city could not show an immediate application or injury involving those grants.

Courthouse News Service reported that Orrick had signaled during a June hearing that he was inclined to block at least part of the administration’s policy. The cities argued that the new terms put them in an impossible position: accept federal money with conditions they considered unlawful, or surrender funding for services their residents already depend upon.

The court accepted that argument. Orrick found the plaintiffs faced both constitutional injury and serious budget uncertainty if they were forced to make that choice while the lawsuit continued.

The administration countered that an injunction could force agencies to distribute funds they might never recover and would interfere with the executive branch’s ability to carry out its priorities.

Orrick rejected that balance. He reasoned that Congress had already appropriated much of the money through detailed statutes and that the public interest favored keeping critical infrastructure, emergency response, victim assistance and public-safety programs operating.

The list attached to the order shows just how broad the practical impact could be.

Fresno identified federal money for police de-escalation training, officer mental-health programs, firefighter staffing and drought resilience. San Diego County identified a human-trafficking task-force grant, while Los Angeles County listed crime-victim services and a program addressing untested sexual-assault kits.

Santa Barbara County listed funding for disaster recovery, homeland security, prosecution programs and services for human-trafficking victims. Other cities identified bulletproof-vest money, flood mitigation, community policing and emergency-management grants.

The New York Post noted that the challenged grant terms did more than address DEI. Some also pressed local governments to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and certify compliance with executive orders governing federal grants.

That mixture matters because Orrick’s ruling focused on who has authority to control federal spending. Congress writes the grant programs and their purposes; the court found the executive branch likely could not bolt unrelated conditions onto that money after the fact.

The ruling therefore does not declare that every effort to eliminate race-based preferences is unlawful. It says these particular agencies likely crossed a constitutional and statutory line in the way they tried to enforce the policy through congressionally approved grants.

The preliminary injunction will remain in place while the lawsuit proceeds unless a higher court intervenes. Orrick ordered the parties to propose a schedule by July 31 and set a case-management conference for August 4.

The administration’s position remains clear.

President Trump’s executive order ending federal DEI programs and preferencing directed agencies to terminate DEI offices, equity plans, equity-related grants and DEI requirements for employees, contractors and grantees to the maximum extent permitted by law.

A separate order restored merit-based standards and directed federal civil-rights enforcement against illegal discrimination carried out under the label of DEI. The White House has consistently described the effort as a return to equal treatment rather than a retreat from civil rights.

Orrick’s decision does not wipe away either policy. For now, it limits one of the tools the administration was using to carry them out.

And the political fight is still moving in the opposite direction in several states:

DEI bans are winning! Americans just scored two major victories in higher education as North Carolina and Kansas join Florida in passing some of the strongest anti-DEI laws in the country.

— Accuracy In Media (@AccuracyInMedia) July 11, 2026

The Justice Department can ask the Ninth Circuit to pause or reverse Orrick’s order, and the government may ultimately win on appeal or at final judgment.

For the moment, however, 11 West Coast governments can pursue the covered federal grants without signing the disputed anti-DEI and immigration certifications.

That is a major courtroom loss for President Trump’s administration, even if the larger war over DEI is nowhere close to finished.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.