The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) is suing the Trump administration for cancelling the funding for the Digital Equity Act. The Digital Equity Act was created by the same IIJA legislation that created the BEAD grants. The Digital Equity Act included programs to help States expand digital literacy and address barriers to accessing the internet.

The lawsuit alleges that President Trump violated the separation of powers by killing a program that had explicitly been approved and funded by Congress. The lawsuit claims that shutting down the federal program “far exceeds the constitutional authority of the Executive Branch.” NDIA is asking the court for a declaratory judgment that would reinstitute the program. NDIA was one of the many organizations that had been awarded funding from the first round of grants from the program in late 2024.

There were huge delays in deploying the funding from the Digital Equity Act, which must be laid at the feet of NTIA. The State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program was established to give money to States to distribute through grants. The stated goal of this grant program was to promote the achievement of digital equity, support digital inclusion activities, and build capacity for efforts by States relating to the adoption of broadband. The Act allocated $1.44 billion to the States for this program, with awards to be made each year from 2022 through 2026. The NTIA was extremely slow in getting this program running and in 2024 announced $840 million in funding to States to cover grants that were intended to cover the funding from 2022 through 2024.

The other major grant program was the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program, which was administered directly by NTIA. The budget for this grant program from IIJA was $1.25 billion, with $250 million per year to be awarded from 2022 until 2026. Congress liked the program so much that they added an additional $250 million in 2024. NTIA was also slow in launching this program and finally announced the first Notice of Funding Opportunity for grants in 2024.

If NTIA had followed the requirements and timeline specified by Congress, over half of the funding would have been spent by 2024. Instead, because of the inexplicable delays, the White House killed all of the grants announced in 2024, and none of this funding has ever been used.

This is not the first lawsuit that asks that the federal government fulfill funding for programs approved by Congress but killed by the current administration. For example, twenty States filed a lawsuit in June asking the courts to reinstate a wide range of grant programs. The NDIA suit is unique in that it’s the first suit that directly names President Trump as one of the defendants.

There was a lot of speculation when the Digital Equity Act was killed that it was part of an effort by DOGE to kill any federal program related to diversity and equity (DEI). While the title of the program includes the word equity, digital equity has never had any goal of addressing issues related to age, sex, or gender. Digital equity has been used in the context that the U.S. economy will be improved if more people know how to take advantage of computers and broadband. The only slight nod to any social goal in the Act was that 5% of the funding was carved out for Tribes.

The future of the funding is now in the hands of the courts. It is also seeming more likely that there will be similar suits if NTIA decides not to award the non-deployment funds from the BEAD program to States. That funding was intended for States to tackle non-infrastructure programs related to broadband.