Victor Ortega UNITED STATES – The President’s office rescinded a memorandum to the Office of Budget and Management calling for a federal fund freeze a day after a federal judge blocked the directive.
This comes as one of the many measures President Donald Trump’s administration is doing to address what it calls the “advance of Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies.”
KVAQ-TV spoke with Clyde Barrow, UTRGV political science professor, to learn more about this plan.
“What this [Office of Managment and Budget] directive does is it [strikes] every agency in the federal government to freeze spending on any [type] of direct grants to individuals that in any way involve so-called DEI Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs,” Barrow said.
The OMB directive issued on Jan. 27, sought to review federal assistance programs to identify policies that aligned with recent executive orders signed by the president.
The freeze would not have affected financial assistance for individuals such as social security and food stamps.
The document did not detail how the freeze would have affected federal financial assistance provided to individuals through an intermediary such as a university or a nonprofit organization.
U.S. District Judge Loren L. Alikhan blocked the policy last Tuesday before it took effect.
“A federal court in Washington overturned that OMB directive at least temporarily to give time to sort through exactly what this directive means or decide if it’s even constitutional,” Barrow said.
The National Science Foundation instructed a halt on spending for research grant recipients last Wednesday while the details of the policy were being assessed.
“I saw today there was a directive that came out from [the National Science Foundation] instructing grant recipients to freeze their spending until they can review what’s going on in that area,” Barrow said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated via X that the rescission was not on the federal loan freeze but rather on the OMB memo.
Trump’s executive orders on federal funding remain in full effect.
