Updated: Linda McMahon’s confirmation hearing has concluded. Read EdWeek’s coverage.
Linda McMahon will take the hot seat before U.S. senators Thursday at 10 a.m., as scrutiny grows over how President Donald Trump’s administration has aggressively moved to downsize the department she’s been nominated to lead.
McMahon, Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of education, will appear before the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Thursday morning as the U.S. Department of Education has already seen robust staffing and priority changes under the new administration, even in the absence of permanent leadership.
More than 75 staff members are on administrative leave due to mostly tenuous connections to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Staff from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team have reportedly been probing the department’s financial information, and earlier this week they slashed nearly $900 million in contracts for long-term research, surveys, and more. Last week, Democratic lawmakers were barred from entering the building.
Meanwhile, Trump has already sought to leave his mark on schools by threatening federal funds if schools don’t bar transgender girls from athletics, or if they teach about race and racism in a way he considers “radical indoctrination.”
Last week, Trump said he wants McMahon “to put herself out of a job.”
Pending the Senate’s confirmation, McMahon would come into the top education job with a thin resume on education but an extensive business background. Though she once aspired to be a French teacher, McMahon went on to be a business mogul instead: She co-founded World Wrestling Entertainment, a company worth billions, with her husband. She later served for roughly a year on the state school board in Connecticut before she resigned to pursue an unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid.
“I’m not an educator but what you will have from me is my commitment of open-mindedness, my commitment, my passion to education, and I will do everything I can to bring sides together from the community, from the public, from business leaders, and hopefully, from legislators to make our education the best it can be,” she told Connecticut lawmakers during her 2009 confirmation hearing to serve on the state school board.
As a supporter of Trump’s presidential campaigns, she served in his first administration as the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration before stepping down in 2019 to lead the America First Action PAC in support of Trump’s 2020 reelection bid. She has more recently served as chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, which was created to propel Trump’s public policy agenda after his 2020 loss, and as co-chair of Trump’s transition team.
Supporters have said her business acumen could serve her well in an agency with a roughly $80 billion budget that oversees more than $1 trillion in student loans.
McMahon’s nomination hasn’t proven to be among Trump’s most controversial, but it has been attracting more scrutiny as the administration has started downsizing the Education Department.
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, those who spoke at rallies held by the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions alongside Democratic lawmakers and other advocacy organizations sharply criticized the administration’s approach. A lawsuit against the department, led by the American Federation of Teachers and two other unions, was filed this week over privacy concerns spurred by access to data granted to Musk’s DOGE staff.
“Certainly the Trump administration has been moving extremely quickly, and it is unusual to make really big policy decisions and actions without having permanent leadership in place,” Clare McCann, managing director of policy and operations at American University’s Postsecondary Equity and Economics Research Center, said in an interview earlier this week. “Linda McMahon will certainly be under scrutiny for actions that have already been taken.”
