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HHS's Office of Head Start instructed a grantee to strip nearly 200 words, including 'disability' and 'tribal,' from funding applications

On November 19, 2025, HHS's Office of Head Start sent a Wisconsin Head Start program director two emails instructing her to remove specific words from a funding application and then providing a list of nearly 200 words and phrases "to limit or avoid," including "disability," "women," "Black," "Native American," and "tribal." The list surfaced publicly in December 2025 through a declaration filed in an ongoing multi-state lawsuit against HHS and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several of the banned terms describe categories the Head Start Act itself requires programs to serve and report on, including disability status and Tribal consultation. A federal judge temporarily blocked the practice on January 7, 2026.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On November 19, 2025, the Office of Head Start returned a Wisconsin Head Start program's federal funding renewal application with instructions to remove particular words, then followed up the same day with a list of nearly 200 words and phrases titled "Words to limit or avoid in government documents." The list -- which the program's director, identified in court filings by the pseudonym Mary Roe, submitted as part of a declaration in an ongoing lawsuit -- included "accessible," "belonging," "Black," "disability," "female," "minority," "trauma," "tribal," and "women." It followed a March 2025 email the Office of Head Start had sent to all grant recipients saying it would no longer approve funding requests for activities that "promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives."

The list surfaced publicly when it was filed on December 5, 2025 in a lawsuit brought by Head Start programs and advocacy groups in Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin, and Illinois against HHS and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Several of the banned terms describe categories the Head Start Act itself requires programs to address: the statute requires describing how programs will address the needs of pregnant women, providing disability-related services, and consulting Tribal governments in administering Head Start programs serving American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Ruth Friedman, who led the federal Office of Child Care under President Biden, said grantees were "self-selecting out of" legally required activities "because of fear and direction they're getting from the Office of Head Start." A Washington state program director said in a court filing that the guidance led her to cancel staff training on supporting children with autism and children who have experienced trauma. HHS told NPR it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Updates

2026-01-07 — Federal judge temporarily blocked the word restrictions [3, 4]

A federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring HHS from continuing to purge DEI-associated words from Head Start grant applications and from carrying out further layoffs in the Office of Head Start, in the same lawsuit that surfaced the banned-word list. ACLU Women's Rights Project attorney Jennesa Calvo-Friedman, counsel for the plaintiffs, said the language ban "really is contrary to what the Head Start providers are required to do under federal law, under the Head Start Act." An HHS spokesperson said the agency could not comment on the order.

Why we recorded this

Congress wrote the Head Start Act to require specific services and reporting for disabled children, Tribal communities, and other named groups; an agency cannot make compliance with that statute impossible by forbidding grantees from naming the very populations the law requires them to serve. Instructing a program to strip "disability" and "tribal" from a funding application aimed at describing disability services and Tribal consultation does not merely discourage a phrase -- it makes truthful compliance with the underlying statute a liability. This archive records the guidance because an agency using informal, largely unwritten instructions to individual grantees to override a congressional mandate is exactly the kind of statutory evasion that cannot be seen or challenged until it surfaces in litigation, as it did here.

Sources

  1. Head Start centers told to avoid 'disability,' 'women' and more in funding requests — NPR investigative accessed September 5, 2026
  2. Federal Government Bars Head Start From Using 'Disability,' 'Women,' 'Black,' and 'Tribal' in Grant Applications — Equal Justice Initiative investigative accessed September 5, 2026
  3. Judge blocks HHS from purging DEI terms from Head Start grant applications — The Associated Press (via CT Mirror) secondary accessed September 5, 2026
  4. Head Start can still use words like 'race' and 'women' for federal funding, judge says — The 19th investigative accessed September 5, 2026

See also