The Trump administration has initiated a controversial directive ordering providers of the federally funded Head Start early childhood program to eliminate a broad set of terms from their grant applications. This move, which targets words associated with diversity and inclusion, is causing significant upheaval and has already triggered a major legal challenge.
List of Banned Words and Immediate Impact
According to an Associated Press report, the Department of Health and Human Services provided at least one Head Start director in Wisconsin with a list of nearly 200 discouraged terms. This list includes fundamental identifiers such as "Black," "Native American," "disability," "women," "race," "belonging," and "pregnant people." The director was instructed to remove these words from a pending grant application.
This guidance is part of the administration's wider push to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives across federal programs. Officials view the listed vocabulary as intrinsically linked to DEI efforts they have pledged to eliminate.
The directive is having a tangible chilling effect. Ruth Friedman, former head of the Office of Child Care under President Joe Biden, told AP that providers are now preemptively dropping activities mandated by law due to fear of losing crucial funding. "Grantees are sort of self-selecting out of those activities beforehand because of fear and direction they're getting from the Office of Head Start," Friedman stated.
Legal Challenge and Conflict with Federal Law
The issue has now moved to the courts. In April, parent groups and Head Start associations from Washington, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials.
The plaintiffs argue that the administration is illegally undermining the Head Start program by enforcing changes that directly conflict with the Head Start Act. This law explicitly requires programs to collect and report demographic data on the families they serve. Complying with this mandate becomes nearly impossible if providers are discouraged from using words like "Black," "disability," or "socioeconomic." The standard grant application itself asks for estimates of pregnant women and children with disabilities—terms now flagged as problematic.
"This has put me in an impossible situation," the unnamed Wisconsin Head Start director wrote in a court filing. She explained that including the legally required language could risk funding, while omitting it could lead to penalties for violating federal law.
Specific Harm to Tribal and Disability Services
The lawsuit details severe consequences for specialized services. One Head Start program on a Native American reservation in Washington state was told to cut "all Diversity and Inclusion-related activities." As a result, the center cancelled staff training focused on supporting autistic children and those affected by trauma.
Furthermore, officials instructed the program director that she could no longer prioritize tribal members for enrollment, despite the Head Start Act granting explicit permission to do so. Notably, the word "Tribal" appears on the administration's list of discouraged terms.
Advocates see this as a deliberate attempt to weaken the program's core mission. Jennesa Calvo-Friedman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union representing the plaintiffs, said, "They don't believe these public programs should actually be open to serving all communities." She described the word bans as a tactic to erode statutory requirements.
This is not an isolated incident but fits a pattern of pressure on Head Start. Shortly after Trump returned to office, his budget chief attempted to freeze all federal grants to review potential DEI links. While Head Start was not officially included and the freeze was reversed, providers experienced funding delays that forced some centers to close temporarily. The Government Accountability Office later found these delays violated the Impoundment Control Act.
Head Start, launched in 1965, is a vital early childhood program providing education, health, nutrition, and family support to low-income children from birth to age five. It relies almost entirely on federal funding to serve infants, toddlers, young children, and families experiencing homelessness or foster care.
