Pay attention to the Dept of Education.
President Donald Trump has directed the federal government to begin a campaign to monitor and influence K-12 curriculum — a move that former Education Department staff describe as unprecedented interference into the country’s education system with the purpose of targeting marginalized groups, particularly transgender students.
In an executive order signed Wednesday, Trump instructed the secretary of education, secretary of defense and secretary of health and human services to work with the attorney general to enforce “patriotic education” and eliminate federal funding for schools promoting “indoctrination” based on “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
These and other terms used in the order echo attempts by Republicans in red states to restrict teaching critical race theory, Black history, intersectionality and social justice, and to ban classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. For example, “discriminatory equity ideology” is defined within the order as, among other things, the belief that “the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.”
President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department and, in the short term, dismantling it from within, according to three people briefed on its contents.
The draft order acknowledges that only Congress can shut down the department and instead directs the agency to begin to diminish itself, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal issues.
That work is underway already. The new administration has been trying to reduce the workforce by putting scores of employees on administrative leave and pressuring staff to voluntarily quit.
And roughly 20 people with Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” known as DOGE, have begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff, according to three people familiar with the situation and records obtained by The Washington Post.
At least some DOGE staffers have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, the people said, including a financial aid dataset that contains the personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program.
The DOGE probe, which began last week, is a prelude to a more dramatic effort to make good on one of Trump’s campaign promises: eliminating the Education Department altogether.
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The order is expected to direct the Education Department to develop a legislative plan to present to Congress. But it also will instruct the department to come up with a plan to diminish its staff and functions.
It was unclear how detailed the order will be, but people briefed and others who follow the Education Department closely said they expect the agency will try to move various functions to other federal departments. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a second Trump term, detailed where different pieces of the department might land if it were closed.
For instance, Project 2025 recommended that the student loan program move to the Treasury Department and civil rights enforcement shift to the Justice Department.
But even those moves would require congressional action, experts said. The 1979 law that established the department specifies that the agency “shall” include many of its major responsibilities, including an Office for Civil Rights and an Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.
A separate statute, the Higher Education Act, specifies that the federal student aid office be housed in the Education Department. There has been some bipartisan interest in moving some of these functions out of the department in the past, but it’s unclear if Democrats would go along in this environment.
Trump and his team probably understand they will not be successful in tearing the Education Department to pieces by executive order, said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank. But he said the move will please Trump’s base and test the limits of presidential power.
“What will be interesting is if he orders parts of the department to be moved to other agencies, in violation of the statutes,” Petrilli said. “Then that’ll be a test, and we’ll see what happens in the courts.”
Already, the National Student Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group, is exploring legal challenges to any effort to dismantle the agency.
“Effectively shutting down the Department of Education through Executive Order or mass firings is a recipe for chaos that will disrupt the lives of students across the country,” said Aaron Ament, a former Obama administration official who is president of the group. “Trying to do so without Congress is not only shortsighted but illegal and unconstitutional.”
Still, Petrilli pointed to the ongoing saga at USAID, which Trump — working through Musk — effectively closed and merged with the State Department over the weekend.
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Closing the department has been an off-and-on Republican goal since it was created in 1979. During his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to “return” responsibility for education to the states, a misleading sentiment echoed by many other GOP candidates. (States and school districts, not the federal government, operate public schools.)
The department administers federal grant programs, including the $18.4 billion Title I program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 schools, as well as the $15.5 billion program that helps cover the cost of education for students with disabilities. The department also oversees the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program and sets rules for what colleges must do to participate.
And the agency is charged with enforcing civil rights laws that bar discrimination in federally funded schools on the basis of race, sex and other factors. Executive orders signed after Trump took office suggest the department will use its authority to deny federal funding to schools that teach certain things about race and gender. Another executive order banning transgender girls and women from competing on women’s sports teams is expected as soon as this week.
Americans have mixed and partisan views of the Education Department, according to a 2024 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. It found that 44 percent had favorable views of the agency and 45 percent had unfavorable views. But among Republicans and those who lean Republican, 64 percent viewed the agency unfavorably, compared with 26 percent of Democrats and those who lean Democratic.
A lawsuit filed Monday against the University of California launched a new salvo in the assault on affirmative action, accusing one of the country’s largest public university systems of illegal racial discrimination in admissions.
The complaint, filed in federal district court in California, alleges that the universities unfairly give admissions preference to Black and Hispanic applicants in violation of antidiscrimination laws.
The plaintiff, a group called Students Against Racial Discrimination representing White and Asian would-be applicants, seeks to force a change in the admissions practices and ensure compliance with federal antidiscrimination law and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, according to the lawsuit. If successful, the lawsuit would stop the schools from considering or asking about race during the admissions process.
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“Since the consideration of race in admissions was banned in California in 1996, the University of California has adjusted its admissions practices to comply with the law,” the spokesman said in an email Monday. “UC undergraduate admissions applications collect students’ race and ethnicity for statistical purposes only and they are not used for admission.”
“More lawsuits are coming,” said Jonathan Mitchell, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Universities continue to defy the law by using race and sex preferences in student admissions and faculty hiring. We will keep suing them until they adopt colorblind admissions and rid themselves of every last vestige of these odious and discriminatory practices.”
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