Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence et al v. Blanche et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
RHODE ISLAND COALITION
AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, et
al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
TODD BLANCHE, et al.
Defendants.
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C.A. No. 25-cv-279-MRD-AEM
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Melissa R. DuBose, United States District Judge.
Before the Court are Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment and
Defendants’ Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. ECF Nos. 71, 72. For the
following reasons, the Court grants in part and denies in part Plaintiffs’ Motion for
Summary Judgment and grants in part and denies in part Defendants’ Cross-Motion
for Summary Judgment.
I. BACKGROUND
The Court assumes the reader’s familiarity with the background events
underlying this dispute and the legal groundwork that the Court laid out in both its
August 8, 2025 Memorandum and Order and its April 17, 2026 Memorandum and
Order.	
See ECF Nos. 34 at 1-9; 63 at 1-4. This civil action involves a challenge
brought by twenty-five non-profit organizations against the U.S. Department of
Justice (“DOJ”) and various individuals and offices within this agency seeking to
invalidate a list of conditions (the “Conditions”) that the Office on Violence against
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Women (“OVW”) and the Office of Justice Programs (“OJB”) attempted to impose on
grant programs authorized by the Violence Against Women Act (“VAWA”). Through
VAWA, Congress has tasked the DOJ with administering these grant programs,
which involves ensuring that qualified grantees receive funding and that the funds
themselves are used in accordance with VAWA’s mandates.
At earlier stages of this case, this Court twice granted preliminary injunctive
relief to Plaintiffs. Specifically, the Court found that—in their attempt to impose
these new conditions—Defendants likely engaged in arbitrary and capricious action
in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”).	
See ECF Nos. 34, 63. In
addition to announcing new conditions, Plaintiffs also claim that Defendants have
attempted to seek concessions from potential grantees that would provide Defendants
with a lesser burden in any future attempt to prosecute Plaintiffs for violating the
False Claims Act (“FCA”) if Defendants determined that Plaintiffs’ use of the awarded
funds violated the conditions to which Plaintiffs agreed. ECF No. 71-1 at 13-14. With
respect to the Conditions themselves, Plaintiffs seek to invalidate the Conditions
imposed on OWV and OJP grant programs that forbid the use of VAWA grant funding
for the following conduct:
• Promoting or facilitating programs the engage in illegal diversity,
equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) initiatives.
• Promoting or advancing ideas on gender ideology that, pursuant to
Executive Order, the current Administration disfavors.
• Promoting or encouraging the violation of federal immigration law
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• Employing the use of programs that discourage collaboration with law
enforcement
• Providing initiatives that prioritize noncitizens receiving supportive
services over United States citizens.
• Advancing activities or programs in contravention of Executive Orders
• Engaging in activities that emphasize the systemic social justice
components of domestic violence or sexual assault rather than their
portrayal as violations of criminal law
• Engaging in awareness campaigns that “do not lead to tangible
improvements in prevention, victim safety, or offender accountability[.]”
• Serving individuals who are either “removable aliens” or “unlawfully
present in the United States[.]”
See ECF No. 36-3 at 212, 222; ECF No. 69-3 at 82.
With respect to the invalidity of these Conditions, Plaintiffs contend that
Defendants’ issuance of them: (1) violates the APA because they exceed Defendants’
statutory authority; (2) violate the APA because Defendants engaged in arbitrary and
capricious action in imposing these conditions; (3) violate the APA as contrary to the
Constitution; (4) violate the Constitution’s establishment of separation of powers, the
Spending Clause, the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment; and (6)
constitutes ultra vires executive conduct.
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After the Court enjoined the imposition of these Conditions, the parties filed
cross motions for summary judgment seeking to either invalidate or uphold the
Conditions. ECF Nos. 71, 72. The motions are now ripe for this Court’s disposition.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Courts will grant a litigant’s motion for summary judgment when a genuine
dispute of material fact does not exist, and the moving party demonstrates their
entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.
Viscito v. Nat’l Plan. Corp., 34 F.4th 78,
83 (1st Cir. 2022). When parties elect to file cross-motions for summary judgment,
the court reviews each motion separately and will respectively draw both facts and
inferences in favor of the non-moving party.	
Scottsdale Ins. v. United Rentals (N.
Am.), Inc., 977 F.3d 69, 72 (1st Cir. 2020).
Notwithstanding this procedural configuration, courts apply an alternative
framework on summary judgment in the context of an APA claim. In the APA
context, summary judgment provides courts with the ability to engage in a more
fulsome review of the merits underlying an alleged APA violation.	
See Bos.
Redevelopment Auth. v. Nat’l Park Serv., 838 F.3d 42, 47 (1st Cir. 2016). As a result,
the court will not engage in the familiar task of identifying factual disputes but will
instead review the administrative record in order to reach a conclusion on whether
the relevant agency’s actions violated the APA.
Id.
III. DISCUSSION
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A. Threshold Issues
Aside from the merits of Plaintiffs’ APA and constitutional claims, Defendants
contend Plaintiffs lack the ability to seek review of Defendants’ imposition of the
Conditions. As with their opposition to preliminary injunctive relief, Defendants
again argue that (1) Plaintiffs lack standing to contest the application of some of the
Conditions; (2) Defendants’ decision to impose these conditions on the grants
themselves does not qualify as a “final agency action” that would permit this Court’s
review under the APA; and (3) Defendants possess a level of discretion to impose
these Conditions and that the Court therefore lacks the ability to review them. ECF
No. 72 at 32-36.
However, Defendants have failed to identify any intervening changes to either
the underling facts supporting these arguments or the law itself that would permit
the Court to revisit its earlier decision concluding that it may properly evaluate
Plaintiffs’ claims.
See ECF No. 34 at 11-17; ECF No. 63 at 5-8. As a result, the Court
relies on the rationale that it laid out in its prior decision in rejecting Defendants’
same positions on summary judgment.
B. The Merits
The Court’s review of the record and the parties’ arguments reveal that
Defendants’ issuance of the Conditions violated the APA. Specifically, Defendants’
lackluster—and at times nonexistent— explanation of their decision to impose the
Conditions on the grantees demonstrates that they have violated the APA’s
prohibition on engaging in arbitrary and capricious agency action.
See 5 U.S.C. § 706.
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The Court further determines that, given this finding, it need not determine whether
Defendants have also violated other aspects of the APA, federal law, or the
Constitution.
See Campanale & Sons, Inc. v. Evans, 311 F.3d 109, 121 n.15 (1st Cir.
2022) (declining to engage review in a complete review of all claims after reversing a
district court’s conclusion on one aspect of the APA). The Court will therefore limit
its analysis accordingly.
As with their arguments in support of preliminary injunctive relief, Plaintiffs
contend that Defendants have engaged in an incomplete and nonexistent explanation
supporting the issuance of these Conditions. ECF No. 71-1 at 43-53; ECF No. 74 at
15-16. In order to withstand scrutiny in this context of the APA, Defendants must
demonstrate the specific facts used to support the decision-making process that they
undertook and an agency’s failure to come forward with this information provides
support for a Court’s conclusion that the agency engaged in arbitrary and capricious
action.
See Ohio v. EPA, 603 U.S. 279, 292 (2024). Moreover, Defendants must show
that they took reasonable actions when they considered whether to impose these
Conditions and they must also offer a reasonable explanation that justifies their
decision to do so.
Id.
Additionally, Courts will determine that agencies have engaged in arbitrary
and capricious behavior when they determine that the agency has “entirely failed to
consider an important aspect of the problem.”
See Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of U.S.,
Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 46 (1983). Finally, and most
crucially to this matter, “[i]t is a bedrock principle of administrative law that a court
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reviewing agency action may consider only the agency’s explanation given at the time
the relevant decision was made, as opposed to its post hoc rationale.”
Melone v. Coit,
100 F.4th 21, 31 (1st Cir. 2024) (citing
SEC v. Cenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 87-88
(1943)).
Here, the record reveals that Defendants failed to engage in a reasonable
manner when implementing the changed conditions of these grant programs.
Specifically, with the exception of the proposed conditions dictating how grantees
must conform to the Administration’s views on gender ideology and immigration
enforcement, the record demonstrates that Defendants have failed to provide any
analysis explaining the process underling their decision-making or the way that the
Conditions would impact the grantees seeking this funding.
See ECF No. 36-3 at 63-
64. That failure compels the Court to set aside these conditions as arbitrary and
capricious.
Melone, 100 F.4th at 31.
With respect to Defendants’ contemporaneous rationale regarding their
imposition of the immigration and gender-ideology related conditions, the Court
determines that Defendants failed to substantively engage with the ways in which a
whole host of externalities could arise in the context of complying with these
conditions.	
See Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n, 463 U.S. at 29, 43, 46. As a result, the
Court determines that Defendants engaged in arbitrary and capricious agency action
when they attempted to impose these conditions and that this deficiency requires the
Court to set them aside as violative of the APA.
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Defendants nevertheless resist this conclusion and contend that their
imposition of the conditions does not qualify as arbitrary and capricious agency
action.
See ECF No. 72 at 37-48; ECF No. 77 at 19-21. Specifically, Defendants
generally argue that: (1) the level of review they undertook before imposing the
conditions constituted a sufficient amount of time and effort on their behalf, and (2)
the conditions themselves did not create the level of confusion, upheaval, and
uncertainty that Plaintiffs claim took place. ECF No. 72 at 37-48. Notwithstanding
these arguments, the Court concludes that Defendants have failed to provide actual,
substantive, and contemporaneous support for the idea that they considered the
adverse impact of these conditions in a material manner and that—as the Court has
now had the opportunity to evaluate for the third time—Defendants’ attempt to
impose these Conditions on Plaintiffs served as a sweeping and chaotic overhaul of
the prior way in which Defendants required grantees to comply with these programs.
As a result, the Court determines that Defendants’ have failed to alter the Court’s
determination regarding Plaintiffs’ claim that they engaged in arbitrary and
capricious action.
D. Scope of Relief
Finally, Defendants again seek to limit the scope of Plaintiffs’ requested relief.
Specifically, Defendants have asked the Court to limit its remedy as narrowly as
possible. Here, the Court’s determination that Defendants violated the APA requires
it to set aside the challenged conditions writ large. A party-specific remedy would
prove both unnecessary and unworkable because it would result in some of these
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conditions still applying to grantees that have not joined this action but will still
compete with the Plaintiffs for the same discrete set of funds. As a result, the Court
sets aside Defendants’ decision to impose the conditions on these grants themselves
and pursuant to the remedies provided by the APA.
See 5 U.S.C. § 706 (directing the
court to set aside agency action found to be arbitrary and capricious without any
party-specific limitation).
Although the Court determines that setting aside these Conditions constitutes
the proper remedy, the Court declines to permanently enjoin Defendants from
imposing the Conditions under any circumstances in the future.	
See Monstanto Co.
v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139, 165-66 (2010) (“If a less drastic remedy (such
as partial or complete vacatur of [an agency’s decision … decision]) [is] sufficient to
redress respondent’s injury, no recourse to the additional and extraordinary relief of
an injunction [is] warranted.”). As such, to the extent that Plaintiffs’ seek this remedy
via their motion for summary judgment, their motion is denied.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, the Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART
Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment and GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN
PART Defendants’ Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF Nos. 71, 72. The
Court sets aside Defendants’ imposition of the Conditions as violative of the APA.
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IT IS SO ORDERED.
_________________________________
Melissa R. DuBose
United States District Judge
September 29, 2026
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