Trump is waging an ideological war on K-12 education as well

Attacks on higher education are occurring almost daily. The Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal research funding at elite universities, deported international students with little or no due process, questioned the tax-exempt status of Harvard and accused dozens of institutions of tolerating antisemitism, among other aggressive actions.

The breathtaking scope of this assault has obscured a parallel campaign being waged by the administration against K-12 public schools throughout the country, much of it previewed in the 2024 Republican Party platform.

The Department of Education acknowledges that education “is primarily a state and local responsibility.” Yet even as the Trump administration insists it is “sending education back to the states where it so rightly belongs” and justifies trying to close the federal Department of Education on that basis, it is using civil rights laws and executive orders to force dramatic changes in state education policies.

This practice was previously employed, albeit more judiciously and far less punitively, by Democrats — and excoriated by Republicans. Where Democrats used civil rights laws to protect minorities, women and people with disabilities, the Trump administration is using them to drive a broad, highly partisan and divisive agenda.

Advancing — some might say inventing — an extreme interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs, the Trump administration has demanded that all states eliminate “illegal DEI practices” in public schools or lose billions in funding for low-income students. Legislatures in at least 27 red states had already passed or proposed bans on DEI practices, but more than a dozen mostly Democratic states have refused to comply. One federal judge has already ruled that Trump’s order fails to define DEI adequately, unduly restricts free speech and exceeds the president’s authority.

The administration also threatened to eliminate federal funding for Maine’s public schools after the state’s governor rejected an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in girls’ sports. Although only two transgender athletes compete on Maine girls' school teams, the Department of Agriculture has withheld funds for school lunches, and the Department of Education has declared it will terminate all of the $249 million in federal funding Maine currently receives.

After a federal judge temporarily blocked the cuts, the Trump administration filed its own lawsuit, accusing Maine of violating Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination. The administration has threatened similar cuts to California’s funding because of that state’s policies on transgender students and parental rights.

Although federal law gives states and localities exclusive control over school curricula and academic standards, Trump’s executive order on “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Education” declares that schools should “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand” instead of indoctrinating “children in radical, anti-American ideologies,” compelling them “to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics,” or encouraging them to “question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed.”

The order will have a chilling effect on school curricula, including assigned readings, presentations by instructors and classroom discussions. It bars federal funding for schools that promote “gender ideology,” by diverging from the administration’s view that there are only two sexes, male and female, or “discriminatory equity ideology,” by teaching concepts such as white privilege or unconscious bias. The order also prohibits teaching that “the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.”

Noting that a dozen states “have enacted universal K-12 scholarship programs,” another Trump executive order directs federal agencies to identify grants and discretionary programs that could be used to help families pay for home schooling or private or religious schools.

Yet another executive order prohibits the use of federal funds to support schools that require a COVID-19 vaccination as a condition for attending class in person. Few if any schools still require such vaccinations, but the message to blue states is crystal clear.

Trump’s most recent executive orders seek to promote AI-related instruction and prohibit consideration of racial disparities in school disciplinary policies.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Trump administration wants to allow localities and parents to determine whether to ban books. Despite more than 10,000 instances of school book bans last year alone, the Department of Education has indicated it will no longer “second guess” such decisions. Dismissing 17 complaints that book bans violated students’ civil rights, the department declared an end to “Biden’s book ban hoax.”

Schools run by the Department of Defense have already removed books addressing race or gender identity, including classics such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Kite Runner,” prompting a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Trump’s reactionary educational agenda, pursued despite conservatives’ long-held opposition to federal control over local schools, will leave the next generation of Americans far less equipped to make their way in the real world, where facts matter and ideas are contested.

Consistency, of course, is not the hobgoblin of Trump’s mind. When it comes to abortion, for example, his view is that “many states will be different ... At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”

Conservatives who are now content to ignore the will of the people on state education policy would do well to remember that what goes around, comes around.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. David Wippman is emeritus president of Hamilton College.