Require First Amendment assurances on federal grant applications

Not started

Printed page 357 11. Department of Education

“Protect the First Amendment. The President should issue an executive order requiring grant applications (SF-424 series) to contain assurances that the applicant will uphold the First Amendment in funded programs and work.”

What has happened

Aug 7, 2025 Not started
No executive order requires SF-424 grant applications to carry a First Amendment assurance. Executive Order 14332 is the window's order on grant applications and it goes the other way on this point: it tells agencies to review funding opportunity announcements "and related forms to ensure that they include only such requirements as are necessary for an adequate evaluation of the application", and the conditions it does prescribe for discretionary awards concern racial preferences, the sex binary, illegal immigration, indirect cost rates and Gold Standard Science — not the First Amendment. The Department of Education's own SF-424 supplemental information collection was renewed in 2026 as "an extension without change of a currently approved information collection request".
- Executive Order 14332 — Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking, §§3–4
  Primary Executive branch Aug 7, 2025
- Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request; U.S. Department of Education Supplemental Information for the SF-424 Form (extension without change)
  Primary Executive branch Feb 27, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

A search of all the federal records we keep and search for “SF-424” and “SF 424” found two records, both the ED supplemental information collection (FR 2026-03982, 2026-02-27; FR 2026-08436, 2026-04-30), neither adding an assurance. A search of presidential documents in the Federal Register for “first amendment” found no order about grant application assurances. The 2025-08-28 presidential memorandum “Use of Appropriated Funds for Illegal Lobbying and Partisan Political Activity by Federal Grantees” restricts grantee speech-adjacent activity rather than requiring an assurance.
EO 14332 grant-process sweep (2026-09-29). This item already cites EO 14332 as having moved the other way (its §3(a)(iv) trims application requirements rather than adding an assurance). Nothing to add. Status unchanged.

Action: issue
Object: Executive order on SF-424 grant application First Amendment assurances
ID: 902