WASHINGTON >> The Supreme Court on Friday let the Trump administration temporarily suspend $65 million in teacher-training grants that the government contends would promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, an early victory for the administration in front of the justices.

The court’s order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications.

The decision was 5-4, with five of the court’s conservatives — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh — in the majority. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the court’s three liberal justices in dissent.

The order came in response to one of a series of emergency requests by the Trump administration asking the justices to intervene and overturn lower court rulings that have temporarily blocked parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The grants at issue in the case helped place teachers in poor and rural areas and aimed to recruit a diverse workforce reflecting the communities it served.

In February, the Education Department sent grant recipients boilerplate form letters ending the funding, saying the programs “fail to serve the best interests of the United States” by taking account of factors other than “merit, fairness and excellence,” and by allowing waste and fraud.

Eight states, including California and New York, sued to stop the cuts, arguing that they would undermine both urban and rural school districts, requiring them to hire “long-term substitutes, teachers with emergency credentials and unlicensed teachers on waivers.”

Judge Myong J. Joun of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts temporarily ordered the grants to remain available while he considered the lawsuit. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Boston, rejected a request from the Trump administration to undo Joun’s order, saying the government’s arguments were based on “speculation and hyperbole.”

In temporarily blocking the cancellation of the grants, Joun said that he sought to maintain the status quo. He wrote that if he failed to do so, “dozens of programs upon which public schools, public universities, students, teachers and faculty rely will be gutted.” On the other hand, he reasoned, if he did pause the Trump administration action, the groups would merely continue to receive funds that had been appropriated by Congress.

In its brief order, the court said that the challengers had “not refuted” the Trump administration’s claim that “it is unlikely to recover the grant funds once they are disbursed.” By contrast, the order stated, “the government compellingly argues that respondents would not suffer irreparable harm” while the grants are paused. The court said it had relied on statements by the challengers that “they have the financial wherewithal to keep their programs running.”

In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, countered that allowing the grants to be terminated would “inflict significant harm on grantees — a fact that the government barely contests.”

She added: “Worse still, the government does not even deign to defend the lawfulness of its actions.”

In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the teacher training efforts would be harmed by the court’s action.