The U.S. School Nutrition Association (SNA) said it continues to support the Trump administration's rule of giving schools flexibility regarding milk, whole grains, and low sodium, even though nutrition groups have sued the rule.

“The SNA commends the USDA's efforts to maintain stringent standards that benefit students, while addressing the long-standing challenges of students choosing and consuming healthy school meals,” said Gay Anderson, President SNA, representing school nutrition directors and school product companies.

Earlier, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the Chesapeake Institute for Local Sustainable Food and Agriculture, a business called Healthy School Food Maryland, filed a lawsuit against the USDA in the United States District Court for Maryland County.

The Center for Science and the Chesapeake Institute said in a lawsuit that by loosening school feeding rules introduced by the Healthy Children Act 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture illegally departed from an explicit Congressional directive defining school nutrition requirements based on nutrition science, and instead, relied on unacceptable by law unreasonable factors, such as taste preferences of students for less healthy food and the desire of some schools for operational "flexibility".

The Department of Agriculture was also unable to explain or even acknowledge that its actions constitute a fundamental change in the interpretation of the fundamental laws, as a result of which the USDA has taken food standards from the guidelines, and the Ministry has not provided an adequately reasoned explanation for changing existing standards. The Center for Science in the Public Interest also reported that a state coalition led by New York challenged the same rule in the Southern District of New York on April 4.