New Hampshire’s largest teachers union is challenging the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal funding from schools that participate in diversity, equity and inclusion programming.

The National Education Association and its New Hampshire chapter sued the Department of Education in federal court on Wednesday alleging that the threat violated teachers’ due process and free speech rights.

“We’re urging the court to block the Department of Education from enforcing this harmful and vague directive and protect students from politically motivated attacks that stifle speech and erase critical lessons,” Becky Pringle, the president of the union, wrote in a statement.

The lawsuit is at least the second filed nationally by a teachers union to challenge the February directive, which informed schools that engage in “overt [or] covert racial discrimination” that they would lose funding. It is the first filed in a New Hampshire court.

“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a letter on Feb. 14.

The union questioned what exactly the directive barred and included descriptions of six members whose work could conceivably be affected.

The members listed ranged from an eighth-grade social studies teacher whose curriculum covers the Civil War to a middle school counselor whose work involves “creating a school culture that fosters safe and positive identity development.”

The New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association represents 17,000 members and is one of two unions with a presence in the state. The other, the American Federation of Teachers, was responsible for the first lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s threat.

The NEA complaint alleges the directive violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, which lays out a process for imposing legal obligations.

The union is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Teachers are already reporting being afraid to teach for fear of having their teaching deemed unlawful, and that deprives Granite State students of the complete education that they deserve,” Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, wrote in a statement.

A spokesperson at the U.S. Department of Education declined to comment on the lawsuit.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the case had not yet been assigned to a federal court judge.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.