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Story by Carolyn Jones and Mikhail Zinshteyn. This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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California and 19 other states plus Washington D.C. pushed back yesterday against the Trump administration’s gutting of the Department of Education, saying the impact would be catastrophic for millions of K-12 and college students – especially students who are low-income or are in special education.

In a lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other Democratic attorneys general said President Donald Trump had no authority to dismantle the department, which was established by Congress in 1979. They’re asking a judge to require the federal government to bring back the 1,300 workers who were laid off this week.

“What’s so troubling here is that the reduction in force is so severe and so extreme that it incapacitates the department from performing statutory functions,” Bonta said during a press conference this morning. “Only Congress can make such drastic changes. Not the agency. Not the president.”The suit alleges that the Trump administration violated the U.S. Constitution and didn’t follow legal procedures.

Earlier in the week, under Trump’s directive, the department reduced its staff by about half, laying off about 1,300 and accepting buyouts from nearly 600 employees, following through on Trump’s promise to gut federal education programs. Republicans have long said they want to get rid of the Department of Education entirely and shift its responsibilities to other federal departments as a way to cut back on bureaucracy and save money.

The layoffs are one of several Trump moves to reshape schools. In recent weeks, he’s cracked down on schools that protect transgender students and promote diversity initiatives. He also removed federal guidance that keeps immigration agents off school campuses.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the education cuts would make the department more efficient and wouldn’t affect funding for special education, student loans or high-poverty schools. But she also said “all divisions within the Department are impacted by the reduction, with some divisions requiring significant reorganization to better serve students, parents, educators, and taxpayers.”

Lack of transparency

So far, the cuts seemed focused on data collection and research, although it’s unclear how extensively other divisions have been affected. In addition to special education and funding for high-poverty schools and student loans, the department enforces civil rights laws on campuses, runs early childhood and bilingual education programs, and gives out grants to help homeless students and support career and technical education, among other initiatives.

The lack of transparency in the cuts is “troubling,” said UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller.

“We don’t know whether those fired have been running programs for disabled kids, aid for low-income schools, or reducing college debt,” Fuller said. “McMahon claims they are not cutting these programs. But is anybody at the wheel, ensuring funds flow to states?”

Even if the cuts are limited to research and data collection, the impact is devastating, said Joe Bishop, who runs the Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA. Researchers study education initiatives to see what’s working, what isn’t, which students need extra help and how effective schools are generally.

“The cuts … are a direct threat to the intellectual infrastructure established by Congress to ensure there are systems in place to examine student learning and school system health across the United States,” Bishop said. “These ‘efficiency’ cuts are creating new costs that will burden the lives of students and families for generations.”

California’s K-12 schools last year received $10.7 billion from the federal government, about 9% of its overall K-12 budget. It paid for things like tutoring, after-school programs, meals and services for students enrolled in special education.

Colleges also affected, suit says

Colleges and their students would be affected by the department’s layoffs, too, the suit argued.More than 800,000 California college students received federal Pell grants in 2021-22, which are worth as much as $7,400 annually and are crucial for making a degree affordable for students. The state’s students got more than $3.5 billion in Pell grant dollars in 2021-22. Federal college loans are also often the only way a student can pay for the costs of earning a degree. Hundreds of thousands of Californians receive those, too.“Abolishing the department would accomplish the opposite of the administration’s stated goals and instead lead to costly inefficiencies and a lack of accountability,” said Jessie Ryan, president of the California-based advocacy and research group Campaign for College Opportunity.

The suit listed numerous higher education programs created by Congress that the Department of Education administers. With massive staff cuts, the suit stresses that financial aid may not arrive on time to students and the campuses they attend, which would be an instance of “functionally eliminating the availability of financial aid,” the suit said.The agency oversees $120 billion annually in low-interest student loans, grants and work-study programs for 13 million students.The suit argues that even if the money for these programs remains on the books, the programs “cannot operate” without Department of Education staff. “Students at state universities do not know whether their federal student aid packages will be timely processed and made available before the Fall 2025 semester begins,” the suit said.The attorneys general also presented examples of how the flow of federal education funds has been hampered ever since the department announced its mass layoffs on March 11. The department’s system for disbursing federal funds to states became unavailable on March 12. When some users tried the listed backup website, they got an alert that said “Due to severe staffing restraints, you can expect delays in connecting to a live help desk agent.”

Many public university systems would face “an existential threat” if students don’t receive their federal grant aid on time, the suit stated.The suit also stresses that the oversight and compliance duties of the department may be compromised due to the layoffs. For example, the School Eligibility and Oversight Services Group helps to ensure that campuses receiving federal financial aid money are following rules governing the disbursal of those funds. The department’s layoffs have “effectively eliminated” that division, the suit said.

Bonta and the other Democratic attorneys general who filed the lawsuit have filed seven others against the Trump administration. They said they’d continue suing whenever they believe Trump has broken the law or acted beyond his authority.

Also, on Thursday, a San Francisco judge sided with the attorneys general on one of their previous lawsuits related to Trump’s federal workforce reduction. The judge ordered the federal government to rehire thousands of workers who were let go from six agencies.

The Arcata school district is cutting at least eight jobs next school year, including at least one full-time elementary school teacher, as part of an effort to reign in a $1.1 million budget deficit.

School district board members voted on Monday to eliminate positions district-wide. Funding for several of them (much of it COVID-related) has lapsed. Arcata Elementary School is also dealing with lower enrollment rates than in previous years; about 60 fewer students are enrolled there now than are normally enrolled historically.

Costs for special education have also increased, said Arcata’s superintendent Luke Biesecker in an email to the Outpost. More students needed specialized help, or a more intense degree of assistance coming out of the pandemic, though Biesecker thinks they may be returning to pre-pandemic levels. 

Besides Arcata’s elementary school losing a teacher, the board also decided to stop funding positions for one full-time education specialist, a part-time teacher, a family services coordinator, and four aide positions. Some of these jobs aren’t currently staffed, and some of them aren’t needed next year.

Cutting these positions will save the district about $360,000 total.

These layoffs may not be permanent, however; Beisecker said there was a chance the district might get some state grants and some federal funding might come through, although he’s not counting on it. If it does, it will fund a school psychologist position.

“Although the reductions listed above are painful, we continue to have amazing educators and programming,” Beisecker wrote in an email to the Outpost. He also highlighted the small class sizes at AES and the paraprofessional support they all get. 

Some parents aren’t happy about the changes. 

“These cuts will all directly impact the quality of education that the children get,” said a parent in a letter to the Outpost. “They are proposing cutting only the people who actually work with children.”

He pointed out that many administrative staff made over $100,000 a year, yet their salaries weren’t being reduced.

“I understand that hard choices need to be made in the budget if incomes can’t cover costs - but it is completely unreasonable that there are zero cuts or salary reductions to the district staff,” the parent wrote. “Asking the educators and support staff to bear 100% of the cuts goes against the mission of the schools and district. Everyone thinks *their* job is the most important, but it’s frankly embarrassing that the superintendent would even be willing to say out loud that his office is more important than all the people directly responsible for helping children.” [The Outpost would like to clarify that Beisecker did not literally say he was more important than other district staff.] 

Read Monday’s Arcata School District Board meeting agenda here.

Update, 3/18

A previous version of this article stated the budget deficit was $1.3 million and that eight people were losing their jobs. In fact, several of those jobs aren’t currently being staffed, and some are temporary. The Outpost regrets the errors.

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This morning, a federal judge from here in Northern California ordered the federal government to immediately rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees who were recently fired by the Trump administration, including dozens here in Humboldt County.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the administration’s justification as a “sham” aimed at avoiding statutory requirements.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. 

Kate Howard, a wildlife biologist and soil conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office in Eureka, was among the workers laid off last month. She’d been in her position for nine years but was deemed “probationary” because, until two months ago, half of her salary was supplied by a conservation nonprofit via a contribution agreement with the federal government.

Reached this morning she said she’d heard the news and was waiting to hear official guidance from her agency.

Another recently fired local federal worker reached by the Outpost said she needed to get approval from her supervisor and her union before commenting on the record but described the development as “super exciting news.”

The preliminary injunction Judge Alsup issued this morning requires the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury to rehire its terminated employees. However, Alsup also told attorneys representing the employee unions who challenged the legality of the firings that “reduction in force” orders being issued at several agencies are legal and can go forward.

Click here for links to numerous documents in the court docket for this case. More coverage on the rulings can be found in national outlets, such as Politico, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today.

PREVIOUSLY:

•  You Will Soon Have a Chance to Own One of Eight Horses and Burros That Once Roamed Free Across America’s Public Lands, Making Nuisances of Themselves

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Press release from the Bureau of Land Management:

The Bureau of Land Management is cancelling a wild horse and burro adoption event that had been set for Saturday, March 15 in Ferndale. Forecast winter weather with snow potential at high elevations is posing safety concerns for transporting animals more than 250 miles from corrals near Susanville to Ferndale.

Future northern California adoption events will be announced. Additionally, horses and burros are available year-round at the BLM Litchfield Corrals.

 Humboldt County Drug Task Force press release:

On March 12th, 2025, Agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF) served a search warrant on Robert Glenn Adam Ellis (age 34), and his residence located in the 100 block of Carroll Road in Loleta. During the months of February and March, the HCDTF received information that Ellis was selling narcotics out of his residence and was in possession of firearms. 

Upon HCDTF’s arrival at Ellis’s residence, he was detained at the front door without incident. During the search of Ellis’s residence, Agents located over one pound of methamphetamine, approximately 100 fentanyl pills, ½ ounce of heroin, ½ ounce of cocaine, two digital scales, packaging materials, one pistol, and one AR15 rifle. The AR15 rifle located had a pistol grip with a collapsible stock as well as no serial number. Agents also located $4,200 in U.S. Currency.

At the conclusion of the search warrant, Ellis was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility and booked on the following charges:

• HS11370.1(A)            Possession of a controlled substance while armed
• PC29800(A)(1)          Felon in possession of a firearm 
• PC24610                      Possession of a non-serialized firearm 
• PC30605(A)                Possession of an assault weapon
• PC12022(C)               Armed with a firearm in the commission of a felony 
• HS11378                     Possession of methamphetamine for sales
• HS11351                     Possession of fentanyl for sales 

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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AI can get rid of racist restrictions in housing covenants and help people access government benefits, or it can deny people health care or a mortgage because of their race. That’s why, last month, for the third year in a row, Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan of San Ramon proposed a bill to protect people from automated discrimination and AI that makes consequential decisions with the power to change a person’s life.

If passed, Assembly Bill 1018 will require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used and to notify people before AI makes decisions about employment, education, housing, health care, finance, criminal sentencing, and access to government services. It would also give people the right to opt-out of AI use and appeal a decision made by an AI model.

This year, California lawmakers like Bauer-Kahan are surging forward with 30 bills to regulate how AI impacts individuals and society, and some of the most high profile efforts are ones that the lawmakers attempted last year only to see them vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom or fail to pass.

In addition to the bill that guards against automated discrimination, lawmakers will again consider other legislation to protect society from AI, including a bill that requires a human driver in commercial vehicles and a new version of a measure to previously intended compel companies to better examine whether AI can cause harm.

The new wave of proposals follows a batch of more than 20 AI laws Newsom signed last year, but they are moving forward in a very different political environment.

Last year, the Biden administration supported measures to protect people from bias and discrimination and major companies signed pledges to responsibly develop AI, but today the White House under President Donald Trump opposes regulation and companies including Google are rolling back their own responsible AI rules. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded a Biden executive order intended to protect people and society from AI.

That dissonance could ultimately help the California lawmakers who want more AI protections. In a world of rapid-fire White House executive orders and chaotic, AI-driven decisionmaking by DOGE, there’s going to be more appetite for state lawmakers to regulate AI, said Stephan Aguilar, associate director of the Center for Generative AI and Society at the University of Southern California.

“I think California in particular is in position to say, ‘Okay we need mitigants in place now that folks are coming in with a wrecking ball,’” he said.

Bills will need to get through Newsom, who last year vetoed bills intended to protect people from self-driving trucks and weaponized robots and set standards for AI contracts signed by state agencies. Most notably, Newsom vetoed what was billed as the single-most comprehensive effort to regulate AI by compelling testing of AI models to determine whether they would likely lead to mass death, endanger public infrastructure, or enable severe cyberattacks.

Newsom vetoed the self-driving trucks and AI testing bills in part on the grounds that the bills could hinder innovation. He then created an AI working group to balance innovation with guardrails. That group should release recommendations about how to strike that balance in the coming weeks.

Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who carried the prominent AI bill, reintroduced a version of that proposal last month. Compared to last year, the bill is scaled back to protections for AI whistleblowers and establishment of a state cloud to enable research in the public interest. A former OpenAI employee who witnessed violation of internal safety policy told CalMatters that whistleblower protections are needed to keep society safe.

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

Bauer-Kahan was the first state lawmaker to propose legislation that contains the AI Bill of Rights, a set of principles that the Biden administration and tech justice researchers called foundational to protecting people’s rights in the age of AI including the right to live free from discrimination, the right to know when AI makes important decisions about your life, and the right to know when an automated system is being used. It didn’t become law, but roughly a dozen states have passed or are considering similar bills, according to Consumer Reports.

In a press conference to reintroduce her bill, Bauer-Kahan said the Trump administration’s stance on AI regulation changes “the dynamic for the states.”

“It is on us more,” she said, pointing to his repeal of an executive order influenced by the AI Bill of Rights and the stall of the AI Civil Rights Act in Congress.

The tale of two administrations in Paris

Dueling perspectives on how the U.S and the rest of the world should regulate AI were on display earlier this month in Paris at a summit attended by CEOs and heads of state.

In comments at a private “working dinner” hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, alongside people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, AI Bill of Rights author and former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Alondra Nelson urged business and government leaders to discard misconceptions about AI like that its purpose is scale and efficiency. AI can accelerate growth, but its purpose is to serve humanity.

“It is not inevitable that AI will lead to great public benefits,” she said in remarks at the event. “We can create systems that expand opportunity rather than concentrate power. We can build technology that strengthens democracy rather than undermines it.”

By contrast, Vice President J.D. Vance at the same event said the United States will fight what he called excessive AI regulation. The U.S. refused to sign an international declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy.”

The Trump administration’s position that regulation is a threat to AI innovation mirrors the talking points of major companies such as Google, Meta, and OpenAI that lobbied against regulation last year.

Debate about whether to regulate AI comes at a time when Elon Musk, President Trump, and a small group of technologists seek to build and use AI within numerous federal agencies to improve efficiency and save money.

Those efforts risk cutting benefits to people who depend on them. A report released in late 2024 by California-based nonprofit TechTonic Justice found that AI influences government services for tens of millions of low-income Americans, often cutting benefits they’re entitled to and making opportunities harder to access.

The majority of global venture capital investment and lots of talent and major companies are in the Bay Area, so California has more to gain or lose in regulatory debates than anywhere else in the world, said Matt Regan, a vice president for Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for more than 300 companies including tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The Bay Area Council hasn’t taken a position on bills proposed in this session, but last year opposed Wiener’s AI testing proposal and the anti-discrimination bill proposed by Bauer-Kahan.

Regan said California regulators have proposed “over engineered protections and audits” that make the technology functionally useless and hamper businesses. The business group Chamber of Progress estimates that compliance with anti-discrimination bills in California, Colorado, and Virginia, could cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.

The political landscape has moved toward the center since California lawmakers proposed AI bills a year ago, which is why he thinks Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas urged his colleagues to focus on pocketbook issues. Due to those shifts, he thinks that in order for bills to avoid a veto like the kind that killed Wiener’s measure, Regan said lawmakers must draft bills that reach a “goldilocks zone,” balancing consumer protections with buy-in from business leaders. The forthcoming report from the working group convened by Gov. Newsom may offer tips on how to reach a goldilocks zone between making AI useful and punishing bad actors for abusing the technology.

AI regulation with teeth

A 2024 Carnegie California report found that a majority of Californians support an international agreement on AI standards as a way to protect human rights. But virtually every international agreement signed by tech companies is voluntary or has no legally-binding bite, said David Evan Harris in a presentation at an AI governance symposium held by UC Berkeley earlier this month.

That’s why he encourages civil society groups who want to make change to speak with California lawmakers. Harris is on the advisory board member at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, a group that cosponsored laws to protect people from deepfakes that is getting challenged in court by Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter. Previously he was part of responsible AI and civic integrity teams at Meta.

Last year he testified about AI 11 times in the California Legislature, and while he describes California as among the only places in the world where AI regulation is legally binding, he saw a frustrating pattern repeat itself: Lawmakers introduce AI bills, they get assigned to committees, and then “the bills get revised and completely rewritten by the tech companies.”

A prime example of this, he said, comes from a bill that attempted to fine social media companies for harming children. When it was introduced it had bipartisan support, but tech companies opposed the bill, and it got weakened then shelved in a committee hearing.

“The tech companies depend on nobody watching that happen,” he said.

Lili Gangas is chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland that focuses on issues at the intersection of equity and technology, and follows policy developments in California and Congress. Given our current political environment and the elimination of AI protections by the White House, Gangas thinks there may be more support for passage of anti-discrimination bills in California and public support for such protections may be on the rise. Still, she worries that it may be difficult to pass AI regulation because of stepped-up lobbying in Sacramento by tech companies that set a record last year.

She also questions whether politicians with ambitions for higher office will put implementation ahead of drafting legislation that’s intended to bolster their careers. If lawmakers can overcome those challenges and keep costs low, she believes California can lead the way despite failures to do so by Congress and the Trump administration.

“I think that [rescinded executive order and failure to pass a law in Congress] makes it even more important now at the California level,” she said. “We can hold the line, center civil rights protections, and give the attorney general and individuals the opportunity to take action.”

States often pressure the federal government to protect people and their civil rights from emerging technology, said Alex Ault, policy counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The racial justice nonprofit endorsed the Eliminating Bias in Algorithmic Systems Act in 2023 and AI Civil Rights Act in 2024 in Congress, two bills with similar principles to the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the anti-discrimination bill proposed in California.

A Carnegie California poll of 1,500 people released last fall named artificial intelligence one of six major issues facing Californians alongside climate change and infectious disease. Half of respondents said they’re worried or pessimistic about AI and 35% percent say they’re optimistic or excited.

“It would behoove state legislatures who are looking at what’s happening federally to say ‘Okay, what do we have control over?” Ault said. “How do we protect people’s rights?’”

Unlike Wiener, Bauer-Kahan did not water down her vision for AI regulation. As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, she’s one of the most powerful regulators of technology in the California Legislature, but last year the bill faced opposition by tech companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI as well as business interests in other industries like hospital administrators, real estate agents, and hotel owners. After getting amended to focus on employment only, Bauer-Kahan chose to hold the bill.

“While we had the votes for passage, getting the policy right is priority one,” she said in a statement last year. “This remains a critical issue and one I refuse to let California get wrong.”

Cindee Ann Grace appeared in this dimension on June 8, 1954. She lived in many places in California and had a challenging childhood with her parents divorcing when she was a teenager. She also had a debilitating illness around this time which spurred her to listen to her body/mind/spirit and this helped her healing.

With that experience, she became interested in holistic medicine and ultimately moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1978 and pursued a Doctor of Naturopathy degree. She set up practice there and saw hundreds of patients as well as taught natural healing classes to both the public and medical professionals. Cindee became interested in Nature-based spirituality and got a massage therapy license which all contributed to her holistic healing practice. She added to her offerings Solstice and Equinox ceremonies as well.

A woman of many talents, Cindee was an accomplished singer, musician and songwriter, using her talents to spread the word of peace and connection to nature. She produced several CDs of her original songs with she and her friends providing the music. She was seen often at progressive, women’s, LGBTQ and anti-racism rallys, offering her music to provide hope and joy to the crowds.

Cindee developed other physical conditions that started to affect her ability to work and do many things that she loved. But that didn’t stop her! She ended up moving to Eureka in the early 2000s, at this point disabled and living in a little efficiency apartment. She then wrote her opus which is a handbook of holistic healing for people with PTSD and Dissociative Identity, which she self-published. It is an accumulation of all of her healing wisdom gleaned over the years working with patients and herself. She made the book available to all regardless of ability to pay, which she did for all of her offerings.

Around this time, Cindee took classes in Buddhist mindfulness practice and ultimately offered community meditation classes as well as private music and singing lessons.

Political activism was of utmost importance for her. It wouldn’t be unusual to see her at the Eureka courthouse demonstrating for peace or Black Lives Matter. In her later years she was unable to go out so she continued to do what she could from home.

In the face of so many barriers, Cindee was able to blossom as an artist, professional health practitioner, and activist and still had a biting sense of humor. All of her creative endeavors were sprinkled with her wit. She was a real warrior for peace and equality. She could be feisty, for sure, and was always willing to look at her part in anything that might come up.

Cindee spent the last three years in long -term care, the last two in Fortuna. She was well cared for and in the best of situations, living in that environment is at the least, challenging. Yet with her honed spirituality, advocacy skills, sense of humor and a few good friends, she was able to ride that experience with incredible equanimity.

Cindee died peacefully on Tuesday, March 4. She is survived by her two beloved friends, Kym Hansen and Lynn Kerman. We feel so fortunate to have known Cindee and we fully trust she is continuing with “Peace and Shenanigans” wherever she is now. Happy trails, beloved friend.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Cindee Grace’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.