In his broadest attempt yet to directly influence what schools teach, President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued an executive order mandating that administration officials develop plans to eliminate federal funds for schools that he says indoctrinate kids based on “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.”
The order also reinstates Trump’s 1776 Commission, which the president created in his first term to promote “patriotic education,” but was disbanded in the Biden administration.
The order was one of two affecting K-12 schools issued Wednesday; another that the president signed presses federal agencies to expand school choice options, allowing taxpayer funds to be used for private education.
The order concerning indoctrination in schools follows pledges Trump made on the campaign trail to end federal funding for schools teaching “critical race theory"—an academic theory that some conservatives have used to describe teaching on race and racism. The executive order cites a number of unfounded claims Trump has made in recent years alleging that schools are taking part in widespread ideological indoctrination of students and that they’re forcing students to question their gender identity.
The executive order directs the secretaries of education, defense, and health and human services to work with the U.S. attorney general on an “ending indoctrination strategy” by examining funding streams and penning a plan that eliminates funding for schools that have any K-12 curriculum, instruction, or program that “directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology.”
Funds that support teacher education, certification, licensing, and training are also included in the measure.
The order asserts that schools teach students to “adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics” and are “made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed.”
It asks the agency heads to outline their processes for rescinding federal funds to schools that “directly or indirectly” support students’ gender transitions—including referring to students by names or pronouns that may differ from their sex assigned at birth and not informing their parents. That issue has been the subject of heated debate in school board meetings and state legislatures in the past several years and is also being litigated in various courts.
It also directs the attorney general to work with state and local district attorneys to prosecute K-12 teachers and school officials who “unlawfully facilitat[e] the social transition of a minor student.”
Trump’s early actions affecting schools have been far-reaching
Trump has been laying the groundwork in the opening days of his second term to put his stamp on the nation’s schools, despite the federal government’s traditionally limited influence over them. The federal government typically supplies less than 10 percent of public school funding nationwide, and it is prohibited from dictating what schools teach.
But Trump has harnessed the federal education bureaucracy in the first days of his second term to enact his agenda, signing earlier executive orders that target federal diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as protections for LGBTQ+ students.
The latest executive order drew immediate pushback from activists.
“This order is a thinly veiled attempt to suppress any teaching about race or racism,” said Trey Walk, a researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch, an organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. “Students have a right to learn about how discrimination can be entrenched in law and society. If the United States denies young people this knowledge it has little hope of eradicating racism.”
Republicans have sought to restrict classroom discussions of ‘divisive topics’
Critical race theory, an academic concept that is more than 40 years old, has been at the center of bills in state legislatures for the last four years, with the framework often being conflated with all diversity and inclusion efforts, and any mention of race in the classroom. Critics argue it leads to negative dynamics, such as a focus on group identity over universal, shared traits; divides people into “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups; and urges intolerance—all themes Trump echoed in his executive order.
While Trump and other Republicans have charged consistently that schools are using critical race theory to indoctrinate students to believe the United States is a racist nation, there’s little evidence such indoctrination is happening on a wide scale.
An EdWeek Research Center Survey found in 2021 that just 8 percent of teachers said they had taught or even discussed critical race theory with their K-12 students. A study released this month found that high school students confirm that most schools aren’t teaching a one-sided portrayal of the nation’s politics and history, but that their teachers still grapple with discussing controversial topics in class. And a sweeping report last year from the American Historical Association found teachers mostly said they try to develop students’ historical thinking skills—teaching them how to think, not what to think.
The 1776 Commission is Trump’s answer to what he’s considered misleading teaching about race and racism in America’s history and present, particularly after widespread protests and unrest about racial injustice in 2020.
When Trump announced the commission that year, he directed its members to produce a report on “the core principles of America’s founding” within one year. Its culminating report argued that the rise of identity politics, and a nefarious “bitterness” about the country’s founding and its seminal events, have distorted perceptions about the nation. It stayed away from imposing demands on what schools taught, however. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden revoked the order forming the commission.
Trump has taken aim at DEI and protections for LGBTQ+ students
Just a few weeks into his second term, Trump and his administration have rolled out numerous orders that have reverberated in schools—taking particular aim at how agencies grapple with race and gender, using purse strings as the cudgel.
Through one order, Trump ended diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Education followed suit by placing career staffers leading such programming on paid administrative leave, ending all related training, and removing hundreds of resources from the website.
The department’s office for civil rights quickly took up the president’s vision in enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws: officials there dismissed complaints about book challenges, and eliminated a position the Biden administration created that helped school districts navigate such challenges.
In a break from precedent, the department also announced it had opened a civil rights investigation of a gender-neutral bathroom at a Denver high school, aligning with Trump’s order that defined sex as “male and female” and rolled back the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations that expanded the law’s protections to cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Typically, the department’s office for civil rights announces when it has completed an investigation into a claim, not when it opens a new probe.
Earlier this week, the Office of Management and Budget also announced it would freeze federal funds to make sure agencies aligned with Trump’s vision and orders, asking departments, in part, if the dollars supported DEI or “gender ideology.”
