On January 29, Trump signed two executive orders about schools: one was intended to turn federal funding into block grants to states to expand school choice, the other was intended to suspend federal funding to public schools unless they ended “radical indoctrination” about race and gender.

The administration wanted to stop all teaching about racism and sexuality. Their allies claimed that teaching about racism was racist and discriminatory. Trump’s executive order said that the schools should teach a “patriotic education,” by which it meant suppress difficult facts about our history and our society.

At the time, it was clear that the “indoctrination” order violated federal law, which explicitly bans any federal interference in curriculum. The federal law PL 103-227 General Education Provisions Act, Section 438 [20 USC-1232a] says: “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, [or] administration…of any educational institution…or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published materials…”

That section of the law is titled PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

On February 21, a federal district court in Maryland overturned the order on free speech grounds.

Usually the administration ignores adverse court orders, appeals, and keeps going.

But this time the Department of Education took a step back. It just issued a statement watering down Trump’s angry and illegal executive order.

Laura Meckler of The Washington Post reported:

The Education Department is retreating from some of the most incendiary suggestions it made last month in a sweeping directive threatening to pull federal funding from any college or K-12 school district that considers race in hiring, programming, scholarships and virtually every other aspect of student and campus life.

A new question-and-answer document, posted online late Friday, clearly states that by law the federal government cannot dictate curriculum. It also notes that cultural celebrations and events celebrating Black History Month are legally permitted as long as they are open to people of all races.

It also narrows the definition of which types of diversity, equity and inclusion programs might draw scrutiny. The new directive adheres more closely to traditional court doctrines and interpretation of civil rights law, experts said Saturday.

“I see it as a significant retrenchment back towards more established case law,” said Ray Li, an attorney who worked on these issues in the Office for Civil Rights during the Biden administration. “It reads as if written by someone different.”

“A lot of the most unsupported claims made” in the original letter, he said, “have been walked back.”

The original guidance suggested, for instance, that teaching that the United States was built upon “systemic and structural racism” would be unlawful. A lawsuit challenging the directive questioned how any school could teach a complete history without including examples of systemic racism such as slavery, Jim Crow segregation laws and the incarceration camps Japanese Americans were sent to during World War II.

“It’s certainly better supported by law and more neutral in tone” than the original letter, agreed Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education, a lobbying group for colleges and universities.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have signaled an eagerness to investigate school districts and colleges that are out of step with conservative legal theories and his priorities regarding how schools handle questions of race and gender.