Education was not specifically mentioned by President Donald Trump when he released a slew of divisive executive orders that repealed racial equity laws and civil rights protections. However, he did set the tone for the next four years for leaders in education policy and schools.
This includes eliminating diversity in the selection of teachers, allowing immigration agents to raid public schools, providing no government protection for pupils who identify as LGBTQ+, and allowing districts that restrict or ban books from teaching Black history to go unopposed.
Trump revoked nearly 80 of the Biden administration’s executive orders and signed scores of his own within hours of taking the oath of office. While some of these executive orders will probably be contested in court and overturned, many of them have already gone into effect. However, the overall impact indicated a clear departure from the education policies of former President Joe Biden’s administration.
For instance, the Education Department nearly immediately took a number of actions to remove its Biden-era DEI programs and practices after Trump signed the order titled Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.
The executive order states that unlawful DEI and DEIA programs not only contravene the letter and spirit of our long-standing federal civil rights legislation. By denying, discrediting, and undermining the traditional American principles of diligence, excellence, and individual success in favor of an illegal, divisive, and poisonous identity-based spoils system, they also threaten our national unity.
According to USA Today, the Education Department placed staff members in charge of spearheading DEI efforts on paid administrative leave almost immediately, but it did not specify the number of suspended personnel. Department officials also terminated contracts worth millions of dollars for DEI services and training, according to the article.
According to USA Today, the Department of Education named around a dozen new political appointees for key leadership roles, including several who previously worked for Trump’s choice for education secretary, Linda McMahon, when she was the head of the conservative think tank America First Policy Institute.
The possible effects on education could include teaching American history with truthful depictions of slavery and Jim Crow laws, or districts no longer feeling the need to hire Black instructors.
The Biden administration’s efforts to challenge school districts that restrict or ban books are likewise undone by ending DEI initiatives in public schools.
According to a DOE press statement, the directive withdrew instruction that removing books may violate civil rights legislation and dismissed 11 formal complaints against book bans in local districts when it was signed. Six other pending cases were also dismissed by OCR.
Reversed Protection for LGBTQ+ Students
Trump formally said that he will only acknowledge male and female sexes in another executive order, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.
According to the directive, my administration will uphold women’s rights and freedom of conscience by utilizing precise and unambiguous language and policies that acknowledge that men are naturally male and women are biologically female.
After a protracted battle by parents to have schools refer to their children using their preferred pronouns and names, the ruling essentially nullifies Biden-era safeguards for transgender students in grades K–12. Local schools still have the choice to honor students’ desires, but if they choose not to, parents are no longer protected by the Education Department, and if they disregard Trump’s order, they risk losing federal funds.
According to Education Week, the executive order instructs the U.S. attorney general to advise government agencies that sexual orientation and gender identity cases are no longer covered by civil rights laws that forbid sex-based discrimination, such as Title IX, the federal law that forbids gender discrimination at schools receiving federal funding.
The action probably won’t have much of an impact on the increase in calls to LGBTQ+ adolescent crisis centers that has been connected to Trump’s election.The CEO of the LGBTQ+ suicide prevention and crisis intervention group The Trevor Project, Jaymes Black, stated in a statement that the executive order was not unexpected and that these steps are not new for many groups.
We are fortunate to be sitting on the shoulders of leaders who have endured generations of hardship and uncertainty, he remarked.
Immigration Officials Can Make Arrest at Schools
When performing enforcement tasks like making arrests, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents had to enter sensitive areas, including as places of worship, hospitals, and schools, until Trump took office again. However, the 13-year internal policy that prevented pupils from being pulled from of their classrooms out of fear of deportation for themselves or their parents was revoked by the Trump administration.
Some parents in places like Chicago and Los Angeles have chosen to keep their kids home from school, Chalkbeat writer Kalyn Belsha told NPR. On the other hand, the schools themselves have made preparations in case ICE officials show up at their doors.
They’re getting ready for the likelihood that while families are dropping off their kids or even waiting at their bus stop, anything might be going on outside the school, she said. If an agent did knock on the door and said, “I would like to come in possibly to talk to a staff member, a parent, or a child,” what would they do?
She described to the network a Chicago incident in which federal investigators arrived at a school and requested permission to speak with an 11-year-old who had uploaded an anti-Trump video to TikTok. The school was perplexed and responded, “No, you cannot come in,” when the agents claimed to be from the Department of Homeland Security.
The officers revealed out to be Secret Service agents, and as they lacked the necessary documentation to question the youngster, the school triggered procedures to protect the student and sent the agents away. However, Belsha told NPR that things could have easily gone the other way.
Even if it isn’t an ICE agent, she added, “I think that’s the kind of example where [Trump’s removal of sensitive location protections] creates all kinds of chaos for these schools and for the school communities.”
