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Trump Wants to Erase the History He Doesn’t Like, But Historians Are Pushing Back

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2025 //
11

Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post wrote about the efforts by the Trump administration to rewrite American history. Trump wants “patriotic history,” in which evil things never happened and non-white people and women were seldom noticed. In other words, he wants to control historical memory, sanitize it, and restore history as it was taught when he was in school about 65 years ago (1960), before the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and other actions that changed what historians know and teach.

Dvorak writes:

A section of Arlington National Cemetery’s website highlighting African American military heroes is gone.

Maj. Lisa Jaster was the first woman to graduate from Army Ranger school. But that fact has been scrubbed from the U.S. Army Reserve [usar.army.mil] and Department of Defense websites. [search.usa.gov]

The participation of transgender and queer protesters during the LGBTQ+ uprising at New York’s Stonewall Inn was deleted from the National Park Service’s website [nps.gov] about the federal monument.

And the Smithsonian museum in Washington, which attracts millions of visitors who enter free each year, will be instructed by Vice President JD Vance to remove “improper ideology.”

In a series of executive orders, President Donald Trump is reshaping the way America’s history is presented in places that people around the world visit.

In one order, he declared that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts “undermine our national unity,” and more pointedly, that highlighting the country’s most difficult chapters diminishes pride in America and produces “a sense of national shame.”

The president’s orders have left historians scrambling to collect and preserve aspects of the public record, as stories of Black, Brown, female or LGBTQ+ Americans are blanched from some public spaces. In some cases, the historical mentions initially removed have been replaced, but are more difficult to find online.

That rationale has galvanized historians to rebuke the idea that glossing over the nation’s traumas — instead of grappling with them — will foster pride, rather than shame.

Focusing on the shame, they say, misses a key point: Contending with the uglier parts of U.S. history is necessary for an honest and inclusive telling of the American story. Americans can feel pride in the nation’s accomplishments while acknowledging that some of the shameful actions in the past reverberate today.

“The past has no duty to our feelings,” said Chandra Manning, a history professor at Georgetown University.

“History does not exist to sing us lullabies or shower us with accolades. The past has no obligations to us at all,” Manning said. “We, however, do have an obligation to the past, and that is to strive to understand it in all its complexity, as experienced by all who lived through it, not just a select few.”

That is not to say that the uncomfortable weight of difficult truths isn’t a valid emotion.

Postwar Germans were so crushed by the burden of their people’s past, from the horrors of the Nazi regime to the protection of war criminals in the decades after the war, that they have a lengthy word for processing it: vergangenheitsbewältigung, which means the “work of coping with the past.” It has informed huge swaths of German literature and film and has shaped the physical way European cities create memorials and museums.

America’s version of vergangenheitsbewältigung can be found across the cultural landscape. From films to books to classrooms and museums, Americans are learning more details about slavery in the South, the way racism has affected everything from baseball to health care, and how sexism shaped the military.

Trump, however, looks at the U.S. version of vergangenheitsbewältigung differently.
“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” said the executive order targeting museums, called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

That is what “fosters a sense of national shame,” he says in his order.

Historians take exception to that. “I would argue that it’s actually weird to feel shame about what people in the past did,” Georgetown history professor Katherine Benton-Cohen said.
“As I like to tell my students, ‘I’m not talking about you. We will not use ‘we’ when we refer to Americans in the past, because it wasn’t us and we don’t have to feel responsible for their actions. You can divest yourself of this feeling,’” she said.

Germans also have a phrase for enabling a critical look at their nation’s past: die Gnade der spät-geborenen, “the grace of being born too late” to be held responsible for the horror of the Nazi years.

Benton-Cohen said she honed her approach to this during her first teaching job in the Deep South in 2003, when she emphasized the generational gap between her students and the history they were studying.

“They could speak freely of the past — even the recent past, like the 1950s and 1960s, because they weren’t there,” she said. “They were free to make their own conclusions. It was exciting, and it worked. Many told me it was the first time they had learned the history of the 1960s because their high schools — both public and private — had skipped it to avoid controversy. We did fine.”

Trump hasn’t limited his attempt to control how history is presented in museums or memorials. Among the first executive orders he issued was “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” Another one sought to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion in the nation’s workplaces, classrooms and museums. His version of American history tracks with how it was taught decades ago, before academics began bringing more diverse voices and viewpoints into their scholarship.

Maurice Jackson, a history professor at Georgetown University who specializes in jazz and Black history, said Black Americans have fought hard to tell their full story.

Black history was first published as “The Journal of Negro History” in 1916, in a townhouse in Washington when academic Carter G. Woodson began searching for the full story of his roots. A decade later, he introduced “Negro History Week” to schools across the United States, a history lesson that was widely cheered by White teachers and students alongside Black Americans who finally felt seen.

“Black history is America’s history,” Jackson said. And leaving the specifics of the Black experience out because it makes some people ashamed gives an incomplete picture of our nation, he said.

After Trump issued his executive orders, federal workers scrambled to interpret and obey them, which in some cases led to historical milestones being removed, or covered up and then replaced.

Federal workers removed a commemoration of the Tuskegee Airmen from the Pentagon website, then restored it. They taped butcher paper over the National Cryptologic Museum’s display honoring women and people of color, then uncovered the display.

Mentions of Harriet Tubman in a National Park Service display about the Underground Railroad were removed, then put back. The story of legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson’s military career was deleted from the Department of Defense website, then restored several days later.

Women known as WASPs risked their lives in military service — training and test pilots during World War II for a nation that didn’t allow them to open a bank account — is no longer a prominent part of the Pentagon’s digital story.

George Washington University historian Angela Zimmerman calls all the activity. which happened with a few keystrokes and in a matter of days, the digital equivalent of “Nazi book burnings.”

In response, historians — some professional, some amateur — are scrambling to preserve information before it is erased and forgotten.

The Organization of American Historians created the Records at Risk Data Collection Initiative, which is a callout for content that is in danger of being obliterated

This joins the decades-long work of preserving information by the Internet Archive, a California nonprofit started in 1996 that also runs the Wayback Machine, which stores digital records.

Craig Campbell, a digital map specialist in Seattle, replicated and stored the U.S. Geological Service’s entire historical catalogue. His work was crowdfunded by supporters.

“Historical maps are critical for a huge range of industries ranging from environmental science, conservation, real estate, urban planning, and even oil and gas exploration,” said Campbell, whose mapping company is called Pastmaps. “Losing access to the data and these maps not only destroys our ability to access and learn from history, but limits our ability to build upon it in so many ways as a country.”

After astronomer Rose Ferreira’s profile was scrubbed from, then returned, to NASA’s website, she posted about it on social media. In response, an online reader created a blog, Women in STEM, to preserve stories such as Ferreira’s.

“Programs that memorialize painful truths help ensure past wrongs are never revived to harm again,” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nevada), said on X, noting that presidents are elected to “run our government — not rewrite our history.”

Authoritarian leaders have long made the whitewashing of history a tool in their regimes. Joseph Stalin expunged rivals from historic photographs. Adolf Hitler purged museums of modernist art and works created by Jewish artists, which he labeled “degenerate.” Museums in Mao Zedong’s China glorified his ideology.

While this may be unfamiliar to Americans, Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman says that in the scope of human history, “these are precedented times.”

It’s not yet clear what the real-world effect of Trump’s Smithsonian order will be or exactly how it will be carried out. Who will determine what exhibits cause shame and need to be removed? What will the criteria be? Will exhibits that discuss slavery, for instance, be eliminated or altered?

“Our nation is an ongoing experiment,” says Manning, the Georgetown history professor, who has written books about the Civil War. “And what helps us do that now in 2024 compared to 1776 is that we do have a shared past.

“Every single human culture depends upon, grows out of, and is shaped by its past,” she said. “It is the past that has shaped all of us, it is our past that contains the bonds that can really hold us together.”

It’s what makes the study — and threat to — American history unique among nations. Benton-Cohen said that is what she sees happen with her students.

“The American striving to realize the democratic faith and all the difficulties it entailed and challenges overcome should inspire pride, not shame,” she said. “If you feel shame, as the kids would say, that’s a ‘you’ problem. That’s why I still fly the flag at my house; I’m not afraid of the American past, I’m alive with the possibilities — of finding common cause, of fighting for equality, of appreciating our shared humanity, of upholding our freedoms.”

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Ignorance, Justice, Lies, Propaganda, Racism, Resistance, Trump

Dr. Azar Nafisi, Celebrated Author, Will Speak at Wellesley College on April 15. Save the Date!

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2025 //
2

Dr. Azar Nafisi, author of the mega-bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, will speak at Wellesley College on April 15 at Wellesley College at 4 p.m. in the Jewett Arts Center. Admission is free.

Please mark the date on your calendar. She is speaking in a lecture series that I endowed several years ago. The lecture will be available eventually on the archive website of the College.

The book, which was a sensation upon its publication for its depiction of life under the mullahs, has recently been made into a film.

This review of the film was published by The Atlantic and written by Arash Azizi. At present, the film can be seen only at film festivals.

He wrote:

The past few years may well be remembered as the nadir of Iranian-Israeli relations, and the first occasion when the two countries attacked each other directly. But they were also a golden period for Iranian-Israeli collaboration in cinema. In 2023, Tatami was the first-ever film to be co-directed by an Israeli (Guy Nattiv) and an Iranian (Zar Amir). And in 2024 came Reading Lolita in Tehran, directed by Eran Riklis, who is Israeli, and adapted from a book by an Iranian author, with an almost entirely Iranian cast. The film premiered at the Rome Film Fest last year and is now starting to tour the United States.

Anyone old enough to remember cultural life at the beginning of this century will know the book. Azar Nafisi’s memoir came out in 2003, spent 36 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and quickly developed a cult following. A reviewer for The Nation confessed to missing a dental appointment, a business lunch, and a deadline just because she couldn’t put the book aside.

Literary scholars—Nafisi is an English professor—are not known for their page-turning thrillers. But Nafisi’s story and prose are captivating. She’d gone to Iran shortly after the 1979 revolution in the hope of putting her American education to use by teaching English at a university. Instead, she was hounded out of the classroom by authorities hostile to Western literature. She wound up holding clandestine seminars for young women in her living room, delving into the masterpieces that the Islamic Republic forbade: the Vladimir Nabokov novel that gives the memoir its name, alongside the works of Henry James and Jane Austen, as well as one of Nafisi’s favorites, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Nafisi brings these classics into dialogue with the real-life stories of young Iranians in the heady decades following the 1979 revolution. Her book isn’t just about reading and teaching literature under a repressive regime, but about how literature in and of itself could serve as an antidote to all that the regime stood for.

Despite its global fame and translation into 32 languages, Reading Lolita in Tehran was never turned into a film before now, mostly because Nafisi didn’t like the proposals she’d received. Then, seven years ago, Riklis came around, as he recounted to a New York audience on January 13, after a special screening of the film. The Israeli director managed to convince Nafisi of his vision—and then to secure the funding, assemble a suitable Iranian cast, and settle on Rome as the shooting location, given that Tehran was not an option.

When the book was initially released in 2003, the American zeitgeist, shaped by 9/11 and the Bush administration’s global War on Terror, was rife with debates about the representations of Muslim women and life in the Middle East. Nafisi’s was one of several popular memoirs by Iranian women published during this period, including Firoozeh Dumas’s Funny in Farsi (2003) and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis series (2000–03). And perhaps inevitably, given its success, Nafisi’s book became the subject of political scrutiny, much of it bearing little relation to the book’s content. Although Nafisi opposed the Iraq War, some critics lumped her in with neoconservatives because she portrayed the travails of Iranians under an anti-American regime. One scholar even proclaimed that he saw no difference between her and American soldiers convicted of abusing prisoners in Iraq.

More than 20 years later, Riklis’s loyal adaptation has opponents just as the book did, and even more so because of the nationality of its director. In Tehran, the regime media have denounced the film as furnishing a “pretext for attacking Iran” and called its Iranian actors “traitors working with Zionists.” One outlet claimed that the film peddled a “violent, anti-culture, anti-art, and anti-human view of Iran and Iranians.”

The idea that Reading Lolita in Tehran is anti-Iranian because of its portrayal of the Islamic Republic, and of the life of women under its rule, was always patently ridiculous. The claim bears up particularly poorly in 2024, two years after women-centered protests rocked Iran under the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom.” What Nafisi does best, and the reason her work has endured, is precisely to refuse cartoonish portrayals and basic morality plays.

In Riklis, known for his empathetic depiction of Israelis and Palestinians in films such as Lemon Tree and Dancing Arabs, her book finds an able interpreter who has stayed true to its ethos. The film isn’t neutral. It vividly tells the story of how puritanical Islamist goons attacked universities in the early years after 1979, imposed mandatory veiling on women, and banned books they didn’t like. But neither is it a simple story of scary Islamists versus heroic women resisters.

The film captures the atmosphere of Iran in the 1980s and ’90s remarkably well for having been shot in Italy and directed by an Israeli who has never set foot in the country. The dialogue is mostly in Persian, a language Riklis doesn’t speak; he was able to pull this off with the help of a carefully chosen cast of diasporic Iranians. Golshifteh Farahani, perhaps the best-known Iranian actor outside the country, is at her height as Nafisi, whom she plays as confident but humane, by turns brazen and vulnerable.

The young women of the clandestine class include Sanaz (Zar Amir), who has survived imprisonment and torture; Mahshid (Bahar Beihaghi, in one of the film’s most delightful performances), who, unlike most of her classmates, wore the Islamic veil even before the revolution and defends an ideal of modesty as virtue; and Azin (Lara Wolf), whose multiple divorces make her an object of fascination to the less experienced students, but who turns out to be suffering from domestic abuse.

In Nafisi’s apartment, the students are far from the prying eyes of the regime and also of men (even the professor’s husband is barred from their meetings). They construct for themselves, in that all-female room, a little literary republic that survives the years of war and revolution. In one memorable scene, Nafisi has the students practice a Jane Austen–era dance as part of their study of Pride and Prejudice, drawing parallels between the stifling rules of courtship in Victorian England and those of some contemporary families in Iran.

The film also ventures beyond that cloistered space. Bahri (Reza Diako), a devout 1979 revolutionary, is nevertheless an avid student in Nafisi’s class at the university before it is shut down. Despite their diametrically opposed politics, Nafisi and Bahri form a bond. Early in the story, she tells him his essay on Huckleberry Finn is the best she’s ever received from a student, even in America. The two reconnect when Bahri returns from the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88, having lost an arm. He has used his family connections to the regime to obtain a surprise gift for his old professor: two tickets to The Sacrifice, by Andrei Tarkovsky, showing at the Tehran film festival. The connection between Nafisi and Bahri is presented with complexity and without sentimentality, neither papering over political differences nor caricaturing Bahri as a generic revolutionary.

In this way, both film and book avoid didacticism. And in doing so, they demonstrate exactly the point Nafisi explores with her students, which is the power of literature to stir empathy across seemingly unbridgeable divides. When the group discusses The Great Gatsby, Nafisi insists on understanding the forbidden love that Daisy Buchanan, the married socialite, has for Jay Gatsby as a true human feeling, not a symbol of Western perfidy, as some of her more revolutionary students claim it to be. The latter advocate banning the book. Nafisi organizes a mock trial for the novel in her class, with students divided into teams for and against.

Nafisi calls on students on both sides of the political divide to treat each other with humanity. When she catches some in her class expressing glee at the wartime deaths of pro-regime peers, she enjoins them not to become like their oppressors. And she is no dogmatic opponent of Islam, only of religiously inspired repressive government: At one point Nafisi tells Bahri, “My grandmother was the most devout Muslim I knew. She never missed a prayer. But she wore her scarf because she was devout, not because she was a symbol.” (I am not the only critic with a Muslim background who found this line powerful.)

The point here isn’t just to repeat the liberal platitude that “the problem isn’t with Islam but with its repressive enforcement.” Rather, Nafisi is rejecting the revolutionaries’ tendency to treat all that surrounds them as a field of symbols. People are worth more than that, she tells them and us, as though echoing the Kantian dictum to treat one another “as an end, never merely as a means.”

This message about the humane power of literature makes Reading Lolita in Tehran a work of art rather than an exercise in sloganeering. And the fact that now, more than two decades after the book’s release, and at a time of regional tension, an Israeli filmmaker has worked with Iranians to adapt Nafisi’s book to the screen gives the film a special power.

The audience at the screening I attended, at a Jewish community center on the Upper West Side, included American Jews, Israelis, and Iranians. What we had in common was the experience of being gripped by a story about the capacity of literature to reveal us to one another as ends rather than as means. The setup might sound mawkish. But I recommend avoiding the temptation of cynicism and embracing the film as truly one for these times.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arash Azizi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His new book, What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom, was published in January 2024.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Courage, Creativity, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Freedom, Funding, Gender, Injustice, International, Media

Vermont: State Commissioner Backtracks on Complying with Federal Demand to Cancel DEI in Schools

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2025 //
8

Vermont, a traditionally liberal state, has a moderate (non-MAGA) Republican governor, Phil Scott, and a Democratic-controlled legislature. Governor Scott appointed Zoie Saunders as Education Secretary. When the U.S. Department of Education recently directed every state to certify that it had banned DEI programs (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs, Saunders asked the state’s districts to comply. Instead, she faced a widespread revolt by the state’s education organizations, and she issued a new directive, revoking her earlier request for compliance.

Ethan Weinstein of the VtDigger reported:

But just three days later, after initially defending and clarifying the decision in the face of public backlash, Education Secretary Zoie Saunders backtracked late Monday afternoon, informing superintendents the state would instead send a single statewide certification. 

“To be clear, the Agency of Education and the Attorney General’s Office continue to support diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in our schools. Our communication on Friday was intended to make you aware of the directive from the U.S. Department of Education regarding Title VI,” Saunders wrote Monday afternoon, “and to reinforce that diversity, equity, and inclusion practices are lawful and supported in Vermont. In no way, did AOE direct schools to ban DEI.”

So why all the confusion? 

On Friday, Saunders told school district leaders they had 10 days to submit their certification, but also said the agency believed certification required only that districts “reaffirm … compliance with existing law.”

That communication came in response to President Donald Trump and his administration, who have threatened to withhold funding to public schools that fail to comply with the expansive directive. 

A letter dated April 3 from the U.S. Department of Education said noncompliance with the diversity programming ban could result in schools losing a crucial stream of money meant to support economically disadvantaged students, known as Title I, among other sources of federal dollars. The letter cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in schools based on “race, color or national origin,” and also cited a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court Case against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that restricted affirmative action. 

Saunders, in the letter to district leaders, wrote that the federal restriction includes “policies or programs under any name that treat students differently based on race, engage in racial stereotyping, or create hostile environments for students of particular races.”

Programs highlighting specific cultures or heritages “would not in and of themselves” violate federal regulations, the letter said. “We do not view this Certification to be announcing any new interpretation of Title VI,” Saunders wrote, adding that the agency’s “initial legal review” determined the federal letter only required the state to “reaffirm our compliance with existing law.”

But guidance from the federal education department cited by Saunders seems to restrict a variety of practices, arguing that school districts have “veil(ed) discriminatory policies” under initiatives like diversity programming, “social-emotional learning” and “culturally responsive” teaching. 

Following news of the agency’s letter to districts, Saunders released an initial public statement around 3 p.m. on Monday saying the federal demands would not require Vermont’s schools to change practices. And in that communication, Vermont’s top education official gave no indication the agency would alter its request for districts to confirm their compliance with Trump’s directive.

“The political rhetoric around this federal directive is designed to create outrage in our communities, confusion in our schools, and self-censorship in our policy making. But we are not going to allow the chaos to control how we feel, or how we respond,” Saunders said in the statement. “Our priority is to protect Vermont’s values, preserve essential federal funding, and support schools in creating positive school environments free from the type of bullying and manipulation we see in our national politics today.” 

In the same press release, Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark said Vermont was in compliance with federal law.

“We will continue to protect Vermonters against any unlawful actions by the federal government,” Clark said.

One neighboring state, meanwhile, took a different tack. Soon after the Trump administration sent states last week’s letter, New York announced it would not comply. 

Vermont and other states’ responses to the federal government are due April 14, and the state agency said last week that its response was supposed to include school districts’ “compliance issues” and “the Agency’s proposed enforcement plans” for those districts. 

Before Saunders, in consultation with Clark, decided to rescind the state’s request for districts’ certifications, the Agency of Education’s actions drew criticism from the public education community. 

Representatives from the Vermont School Boards Association, Vermont Principals’ Association, Vermont Superintendents Association and Vermont-NEA, the state teachers’ union, met with state leaders Monday. They later penned a letter to Saunders and Clark calling Vermont’s approach to the federal directive “not workable.”

“Expecting individual superintendents to certify compliance based on a cover letter (that they have not yet seen) that clarifies the legal boundaries of their certification will lead to a patchwork of responses that could put Vermont and local school districts at risk,” the organizations wrote. 

The coalition urged Vermont to follow New York’s lead and reject the certification process. That strong approach, they wrote, “would also send a powerful message to students and families across the state.”

Hours later, the Agency of Education appeared to heed their advice. In her late afternoon message to superintendents, Saunders wrote that “AOE has received feedback throughout the day regarding the need for clarity on the intent of the certification and the state’s specific response.”

“We understand that many in the community are concerned because of the political rhetoric surrounding DEI,” she added. 

News of Saunders’ initial Friday letter spread quickly on social media over the weekend. Already, plans for a Wednesday protest had circulated online.  

At least one district, Winooski, said it wouldn’t comply with the certification.

“I notified the Secretary that I will not be signing anything,” Wilmer Chavarria, the district’s superintendent, wrote in an email to staff shared with VTDigger. “I also requested that the state grow some courage and stop complying so quickly and without hesitation to the politically-driven threats of the executive.”

Winooski’s school board will address the compliance certification at a regularly scheduled board meeting Wednesday, according to Chavarria’s message. 

In Vermont, ethnic studies have been a larger part of the education landscape since the passage of Act 1 in 2019. The law, which the Legislature approved unanimously and Gov. Phil Scott signed, required public schools to incorporate ethnic studies into their curricula. The legislation charged a panel with making suggestions for better including the history and contributions of underrepresented groups in Vermont’s classrooms.

Correction: A previous version of this story attributed a quote directly to Charity Clark that was in fact a statement released by the Vermont Agency of Education and Vermont Attorney General’s Office.

Following a federal directive that schools ban “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion-related programs, the Vermont Agency of Education last Friday asked school districts to submit compliance certifications. 

Our nonprofit newsroom depends on community support — not corporate owners or investors — to keep investigative reporting strong in Vermont. If you value independent journalism that holds power to account, please make a donation today.

Neal Goswami, Acting Editor-in-Chief, VTDigger

Ethan Weinstein

VTDigger’s state government and politics reporter. More by Ethan Weinstein

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Trump, U.S. Department of Education, Vermont

Trump Administration Threatens to Cancel Funding to Public Schools with DEI

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2025 //
13

Michael C. Bender reports in The New York Times that the Trump administration is threatening to cancel funding from schools that refuse to eliminate programs or courses that teach DEI. The administration has turned civil rights enforcement upside down and inside out. For decades, civil rights law meant protection of racial minorities and women, who were often targets of discrimination, exclusion, or unfair treatment. This administration worries most about the rights of white students.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon clearly doesn’t know that federal law prohibits any federal official from interfering with or trying to influence curriculum.

“20 USC 1232a: Prohibition against Federal control of education. Text contains those laws in effect on April 2, 2025

§1232a. Prohibition against Federal control of education

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, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, or to require the assignment or transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance.

What Secretary McMahon proposes is illegal.

Bender writes:

The Trump administration threatened on Thursday to withhold federal funding from public schools unless state education officials verified the elimination of all programs that it said unfairly promoted diversity, equity and inclusion.

In a memo sent to top public education officials across the country, the Education Department said that funding for schools with high percentages of low-income students, known as Title I funding, was at risk pending compliance with the administration’s directive.

The memo included a certification letter that state and local school officials must sign and return to the department within 10 days, even as the administration has struggled to define which programs would violate its interpretation of civil rights laws. The move is the latest in a series of Education Department directives aimed at carrying out President Trump’s political agenda in the nation’s schools.

At her confirmation hearing in February, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said schools should be allowed to celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But she was more circumspect when asked whether classes that focused on Black history ran afoul of Mr. Trump’s agenda and should be banned.

“I’m not quite certain,” Ms. McMahon said, “and I’d like to look into it further.”

More recently, the Education Department said that an “assessment of school policies and programs depends on the facts and circumstances of each case.”

Programs aimed at recognizing historical events and contributions and promoting awareness would not violate the law “so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination,” the department wrote.

“However, schools must consider whether any school programming discourages members of all races from attending, either by excluding or discouraging students of a particular race or races, or by creating hostile environments based on race for students who do participate,” the Education Department said.

It also noted that the Justice Department could sue for breach of contract if it found that federal funds were spent while violating civil rights laws.

The federal government accounts for about 8 percent of local school funding, but the amounts vary widely. In Mississippi, for example, about 23 percent of school funding comes from federal sources, while just 7 percent of school funding in New York comes from Washington, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant education secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. “When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal anti-discrimination requirements.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Injustice, Racism, Trump, Tyranny

Audrey Watters: The Dangerous Politics of Ed-Tech

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2025 //
2

Audrey Watters is a veteran blogger who has written about Ed-tech for many years, including a book about the history of Ed-tech, Teaching Machines: A History of Personalized Learning. Ed-tech concerns all of us so you might consider following her blog.

This entry describes an upcoming conference where ASU and Global Silicon Valley bring together Ed-tech entrepreneurs to coo over the lucrative markets just around the corner.

She begins:

The Secretary of Education Linda McMahon will speak at the ASU+GSV Summit next month.

The conference makes no mention in its blurb promoting the Secretary’s appearance of what happened last week: President Trump’s executive order to dismantle her department. There’s no mention of any of the other actions that this administration has taken since January to undermine public education: defunding federal programs, firing federal employees, suing colleges, withholding funding, undermining civil rights initiatives, slashing university research, targeting trans students and athletes, arresting and deporting foreign students and professors. No mention at all of any controversy or crisis. Just this: “Guided by our North Star of unity, the ASU+GSV Summit brings together leaders shaping the future of learning and work—because when all voices are heard, innovation thrives to improve education and access for ALL.”

And that, my friends, is some bullshit.

The ASU+GSV Summit, held every year since 2010, is one of the go-to events of the year for entrepreneurs and investors, a gathering place for those seeking to reform (read: privatize) education. The only “unity” I’ve witnessed at the event – both in person and from afar – has been in the conformity of its attendees to a neoliberal vision for a technological future of individualized achievement…

Indeed, it’s quite telling that many who work in and with education technology seem awfully amped about what’s going on – the cooing about the possibility of more technology now that the Department of Education is being gutted, not to mention, of course, the non-stop narratives about the inevitability, the promise of AI in schools – impossible not read as a threat alongside DOGE’s plans to “unleash AI” across the public sphere. All this should underscore that education technology is an industry, a field that appears quite comfortable with its complicity in this autocratic move away from democracy and towards fascism.

“Not me!” perhaps you’re spluttering. “That’s not what I think.” “That’s not how I use technology.” “That’s not what my school is doing.” “That’s not the product we’re building.” But I’m not sure how long people can keep saying this when ideology, when evidence, when procurement not just points but pushes in another direction. 

It’s akin to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s description of the enigma of “racism without racists“: funny how we have woken up in techno-fascism without anyone being techno-fascist.

See, ASU+GSV isn’t some weird outlier. It is ed-tech. And the most powerful voices in ed-tech have, for some time now, called for the end of public education, the end of teachers’ unions, the end of local school boards, the end of democracy. 

This isn’t some recent or radical takeover of ed-tech either – folks, the fascist phone-call is coming from inside the building. It’s been ringing off the hook for decades now.

In the second portion of this post, Watters describes two new Ed-tech startups inspired by Elon Musk. She relates the new Ed-tech ventures and AI enthusiasm to the rebirth of eugenics and the resurgence of white supremacy and racism. Some of the Ed-tech gurus reject democracy altogether.

You should read the piece in its entirety. I found it on the web, read it for free, then subscribed.

Categories Curriculum, Disruption, Education Industry, Fake, For-Profit, Fraud, Teaching, Technology

ALERT! Teachers College Faculty Opposes Trump Attacks on Higher Education and DEI

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2025 //
4

The following statement was drafted and signed by faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The Trump administration is cynically using the pretext of “fighting anti-Semitism” to attack universities and control them. It has withheld $400 million from Columbia University and demanded changes to its curriculum and other policies.

This is outrageous. It is fascistic. It is an attack on academic freedom. Columbia University is a private university, one of the best in the nation. It should rebuff this repellent effort to strip it of its independence and academic freedom.

A Statement by Teachers College, Columbia University Faculty

The Attack on American Education, from our Perspective as Teachers College Faculty

March 19, 2025

We are a group of Teachers College faculty with expertise in the areas of education, health, and psychology. We write in response to the attacks by the federal government on Columbia University, and education. Teachers College is an independent institution, with its own charter, president, board of trustees, and regulations, yet we are also affiliated with Columbia University and are thus deeply affected by the current moment. We emphasize that this statement is not an official response by Teachers College, and represents only the views of its authors.  

As researchers and teachers, we share with our colleagues in higher education a deep concern about the many ways that higher education is under threat at this moment. But as scholars at a graduate school of education, whose work covers the lifespan, from infants to elders, we have a distinct perspective. We see the attack on Columbia as part of a larger offensive by the Trump administration and the Republican party against education at all levels. An attack on academic freedom and the First Amendment is taking place on multiple fronts, all of which impact the basic human activity of learning in all of its forms and meanings. 

Efforts to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, erase curricular content that speaks to our nation’s true and difficult past and its ongoing inequities, and intrude into the processes by which educational institutions from local school districts to universities make decisions on what and how to teach: all are connected to a desire to stifle critical thinking and prevent us from actively participating in our democracy. The intention of the Trump administration is clear. By gutting important systems of education, they can shape our thoughts and words, creating a new generation without the skills required to actively participate in our democracy and push back against oppression.

 At Columbia University specifically, the Trump administration has cancelled over $400 million in research and intervention funding and is threatening further action unless the university caves to a series of demands that would radically transform the institution and undermine its fundamental role in a democracy, as our colleagues in the Columbia chapter of the AAUP detail in this letter. Such actions also violate the constitutional law and the substance and process of TItle VI, as detailed by several of our colleagues in the Columbia Law School.

The broad strategies of the administration’s attack on higher education were outlined earlier in Project 2025, but the particular tactics have been shaped by both world and local events since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli war on Gaza that followed and continues. The accusation that Columbia is unable and unwilling to protect its Jewish students is being used to strip it of funding, especially for research in its medical school, as well as other areas of the institution. Several funded projects in education, health, and psychology at Teachers College have already been cancelled, affecting research and programs ranging from higher education access, graduate training for much-needed school psychologists, social services  for students, and more.

We recognize that Columbia, like many institutions, has much ongoing work to do to ensure campus is a place that can foster and support everyone’s learning, by actively addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of discrimination and hatred. Yet the disproportionate response to anti-war protest on our campus must be acknowledged. We take note of the “Palestine exception,” which blocks discourse by treating Palestine and Palestinians as topics beyond First Amendment and academic freedom protections. Such a pattern has barred necessary speech and difficult dialogues on our campuses, causing division and fear amongst students, staff, and faculty members. To be sure, maintaining space for anti-war protest and other forms of political dissent within a community needs to be done with sensitivity and care, alongside respect for the rights of students to challenge one another and express ideas, including deeply controversial ones.

While this week’s education news has been dominated by Columbia, previous weeks focused on the K-12 landscape. Developments included the appointment of a Secretary of Education with no education expertise, unable even to correctly identify the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) – one of our nation’s largest pieces of federal education and civil rights legislation, which she is charged by Congress to administer. The administration laid off half of the Department of Education’s workforce. The firings have all but shuttered the more than 150 year old National Center for Education Statistics, on which countless areas of education research, including “The Nation’s Report Card” via the National Assessment of Educational Progress and studies that focus on measuring equity, rely. These are the staffpeople who ensure that Congressionally-approved funds for Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (for children living in poverty), the IDEA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for disabled students, and federal financial aid to higher education make their way to their intended students, families, and communities. Major staff reductions at the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights intentionally impede this division from ensuring equitable treatment of children in our nation’s schools. 

As in higher education, the Trump administration not only seeks to usurp the Congressional power of the purse but does so in the name of false and misleading representations of the state of our educational institutions. Whatever claims to the contrary, American public education is governed chiefly by state constitutions and local school districts. They decide what students learn, how teachers teach, and how student success is measured. When, for example, executive orders seek to disregard that law and tradition, we applaud leaders who, like Maine Governor Janet Mills, respond with “See you in court!”.

As experts on teaching and learning, we know that the most profound moments of learning are usually uncomfortable, as they may lead people to question taken-for-granted assumptions about themselves and the society they inhabit. The goal of good teaching is not to eliminate that discomfort, but to give it a productive use. The barrage of Executive Orders, threats to the Department of Education, and mandates such as the March 13 letter are aimed at restricting discourse and generating fear in teachers and students, especially those most vulnerable: non-US citizens, racially or ethnically minoritized populations, gender and sexually diverse and expansive people, and disabled people. Teaching and learning are much more difficult when one is afraid, and pedagogy can easily turn to rote memorization and repetition in order to avoid controversy.

While the White House accuses elementary and secondary schools as well as higher education of indoctrinating students, against the evidence, what we see is an attack on the capacity for criticism — paving the way for authoritarianism and fascism. The idea that directing criticism at the US or its geopolitical allies is un-American runs counter to much of the history of this nation. As James Baldwin once stated, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” It is extremely hard, if not impossible, for people of any age to do the difficult work of learning, of understanding multiple perspectives on an issue, of offering counterpoints to commonly assumed views, when people are scared of losing their livelihoods and/or their visas, being arrested or deported, or being deemed enemies of the state by the highest office in the land.

As educators and researchers concerned with justice and equity, we cannot stay silent.  What becomes of the University if it succumbs to the demands of a political party or leader and cedes its rights of free speech, free expression, and free inquiry? What becomes of research if its pursuit of truth is shaped by what faculty are not allowed to say, and the topics they cannot investigate? What becomes of our students if they are only permitted to think, speak, and be in ways that follow the political winds? 

We call on university leaders, on our campus and beyond, to use all of the tools at their disposal, including collective efforts across the sector and litigation, to stand for academic freedom, and for First Amendment rights of free speech, inquiry, and debate, and thus to stand for our democracy.

And we pledge, as faculty members in an institution of higher education, to recognize that the challenges facing us are not unique to our institution or to higher education. They are shared challenges that at this moment link us to all those devoted to education and to learning at all stages across the life span. We celebrate the efforts such as the suit filed by the National Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union to stop Trump administration efforts to curtail diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. We must find ways to work with one another for our students, our communities, and our still-developing democracy. 

Daniel Friedrich, PhD, Associate Professor of Curriculum, Department of Curriculum and Teaching

Ansley Erickson, PhD, Associate Professor of History and Education Policy, Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis

Melanie Brewster, PhD, Professor of Counseling Psychology, Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology

Ezekiel Dixon-Román, PhD, Professor of Critical Race, Media, and Educational Studies Director, Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study. 

Kay James, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience & Education, Department of Biobehavioral Sciences

Additional signatures, added at 6pm daily. 

Anonymous (11)

Jennifer Lena, PhD, Associate Professor of Arts Administration, Department of Arts and Humanities

Brandon Velez, PhD, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology, Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology

Luis A. Huerta, PhD, Professor of Education and Public Policy; Chair, Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis

James Borland, PhD, Professor of Education, Department of Curriculum and Teaching

Nathan Holbert, PhD, Associate Professor of Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design

Sonali Rajan, EdD, Professor of Health Promotion and Education, Department of Health Studies and Applied Educational Psychology

Carolyn Riehl, PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology and Education Policy 

Beth Rubin, PhD, Professor of Education, Department of Arts & Humanities

Lucy Calkins, PhD, Robinson Professor of Children’s Literature, Department of Curriculum & Teaching

Gita Steiner-Khamsi, PhD, William H. Kilpatrick Professor of Comparative Education, Department of International and Comparative Education

Mark Anthony Gooden, PhD, Christian Johnson Endeavor Professor of Education Leadership, Department of Organization & Leadership

Sandra Schmidt, PhD, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education, Department of Arts & Humanities  

Haeny Yoon, PhD, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education, Department of Curriculum and Teaching

Judith Scott-Clayton, PhD, Professor of Economics & Education, Department of Education Policy & Social Analysis

Alex Eble, PhD, Associate Professor of Economics & Education, Department of Education Policy & Social Analysis

Prerna Arora, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, Department of Health Studies & Applied Educational Psychology

Megan Laverty, PhD, Professor of Philosophy and Education, Department of Arts and Humanities 

Ioana Literat, PhD, Associate Professor of Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design, Department of Math, Science, and Technology

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Ph.D, Professor of English Education, Department of Arts and Humanities

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Higher Education, Lies, Trump

Talking Points Memo: Trump Bullies Columbia University

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2025 //
1

David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo writes about the Trump administration’s bullying of Columbia University. Under the guise of fighting “anti-Semitism,” Trump has singled out Columbia for extreme punishment. Not only has he frozen $400 million in federal funds for research, he is now threatening Columbia unless it removes certain international studies from its curriculum. Trump has no authority to do this. Columbia is sure to sue and should prevail. This is Trump’s basic authoritarianism showing and portent of worse to come. He wants the nation to bow to his whims and bigotry, and only the courts have stood in his way.

Kurtz writes:

If you still harbored any doubt that President Trump’s ongoing attack on Columbia University – a private institution – is drawn straight from the authoritarian playbook, then the latest development should be clarifying.

The Trump administration – specifically the Department of Education, HHS, and GSA – sent a letter yesterday to Columbia attempting to extortan array of concessions in how the university is run before it may consider restoring some $400 million in frozen federal funding.

Imposing an arbitrary March 20 deadline, the Trump administration demanded that Columbia complete a laundry list of internal restructurings, policy changes, and submissions to federal authority. Among the most alarming demands: put the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department in what it calls “academic receivership” for at least five years.

If Columbia complies by the deadline, then and only then will the Trump administration “open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms” at the university. If it’s not clear, it sure should be: Even if Columbia submits to this extortion letter, it doesn’t get federal funding restored. It merely sets itself up for a later round of bullying, exorbitant demands, and more extortion.

The extortion letter came the same day DHS agents executed search warrants at the residences of two Columbia students. “According to the sources, it was part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on individuals it has described as espousing the views of Hamas and threatening the safety of Jewish students,” ABC News reported.

This all transpired as Columbia graduate and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil remained in federal detention as the Trump administration attempts to deport him even though he’s a legal permanent resident. His lawyers amended their filings as they obtained new information about his detainment. In an interview with NPR, a top DHS official could not articulate what wrongdoing Khalil was being accused of.

Meanwhile, The Atlantic reported that the Trump administration had targeted at least one other person at the same time as Khalil:

It turns out Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified a second individual to be deported, and included that person alongside Khalil in a March 7 letter to the Department of Homeland Security. Both were identified in the letter as legal permanent residents, The Atlantic has learned. …

The officials did not disclose the name of the second green-card holder, and did not know whether the person is a current or former Columbia student, or had been singled out for some other reason. The person has not been arrested yet, the U.S. official said.

The Trump administration’s bullying of a private university is being done under the guise of rooting out antisemitism. But the real authoritarian move here is to bring higher education under the thumb of the president. Columbia’s not the only example, but it’s the most extreme.

“So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education,” the Harvard student newspaper editorialized.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Higher Education, Trump

John Thompson: We Must Revive Civics Education

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2025 //
9

John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reviews a book about how to teach civics in this era.

He writes:

Lindsey Cormack’s How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It) “offers an engaging and practical approach to discussing political issues and the inner workings of the U.S. government with children.” And guess what? How to Raise a Citizen doesn’t dump the entire challenge on schools and educators, as was the norm for corporate school reformers! She presents “a tool for parents, educators, and anyone eager to fill this gap.”

Cormack explains that, “Nationwide assessments reveal that civic knowledge hasn’t improved since 1998, and “Scores on Advanced Placement government tests are consistently among the lowest across all AP offerings.”

Cormack pushes back on the 21st century test-driven, competition-driven ideology which demanded that individual teachers must be accountable for data-driven, supposedly transformative change.  How to Raise a Citizen calls for mindsets which the Billionaires Boys Club insisted were “excuses” made by teachers with “low expectations.” She writes that “we need parents to play a key role, and to support integrating civics into every grade, starting early and building on concepts just like we do with other subjects.” Cormack challenges society to:

Imagine if parents took on this role by discussing government and politics at the dinner table, encouraging their children to ask questions and showing them how to get involved in community and local government activities.

Cormack then explains, “We need parents to play a key role, and to support integrating civics into every grade, starting early and building on concepts just like we do with other subjects.”

Both parents and educators should first focus on young children, helping them build a “vocabulary and awareness of governmental structures.” Then they should help middle schoolers and high schoolers to “handle broader concepts and ideas” so they “can and do engage in community involvement.”

By high school, there should be a team effort for “turning theory into action.” Cormack explains, “Experts agree that a high-quality civic education requires ‘action civics,’ in which students learn by doing rather than just reading. Simulations of elections, legislative hearings and courtroom activities are examples of active learning shown to be impactful and memorable.”

A resource to enhance history and civics programs explores national, state, and local elections and offers diffe…

I am struck by three points that Cormack makes. First, the adults should guide efforts where the goal is deep learning about the political process, not politicizing lessons by guiding outcomes favored by one political group or another.

Secondly, this reprioritization of active learning “has to happen day in and day out, during presidential election years and all others.” Committing to this, we can raise a generation of informed, active citizens ready to take on the challenges of our democracy.

Thirdly, she makes a case for hopefulness.

How to Raise a Citizen reminds me about the ways my high school students and I taught each other how to actively participate in our democracy. My principal knew that I would refuse to follow vertically aligned curriculum pacing guides which teachers were supposed to obey so that we would “all be on the same page” regarding the teach-to-the-test schedule.  Our class’ schedule for teaching state “Standards,” as opposed to standardized tests, was different whenever there was a presidential or mid-term election, or when state or local politics took over the headlines, or when extreme events, like the Murrah Building bombing, 9/11, or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred.    

I would “horizontally” align our civics and/or history lessons in terms of what was being taught in other classes, and events in the community. For instance, when English classes started reading Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, I would teach about Ellison’s experiences growing up in Oklahoma City, such as the cruel joke that was played on him that inspired the famous “Battle Royal” scene.

Our inner city students’ reading levels ranged from 2nd grade to college levels. We would use graphs, photos, audio and film clips, and other interventions to help all of them comprehend challenging concepts. Above all, they saw high-level instruction as a sign of respect, and responded by learning how to learn in a holistic and meaningful way.  

The students were especially insightful when guest lecturers visited, and during field trips to places like art museums, “Deep Deuce,” where Ellison grew up, and the state Capitol. This was especially true when a veteran of the Sit-In movement joined us in repeated trips to the Capitol. Legislators were always enthralled by the students’ wisdom.  

When teaching abortion rights, I would reveal to my students, who mostly held anti-abortion beliefs, that I had been a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, but everyone was free to their own opinion. I told them that I preferred the role of a teacher and referring to students as “pro-life,” as opposed to calling them “anti-choice,” which had been my job as a lobbyist.

Students frequently were more conservative than me regarding social issues, and some would come to class a day after a stimulating discussion, and pass on responses made by their parents or grandparents when they discussed our lessons from the previous day. One even brought his preacher to class, resulting in a diverse and meaningful conversation.  And since I taught with the door open, parents walking down the hall would come in and join the discussions.

For instance, one father overheard our lesson on the Tulsa Massacre, which then was called the “Tulsa Race Riot.” He asked the class what name the massacre should be given, and then shifted gears and taught a lesson about anti-Jewish Pogroms. The kids figured out what he meant and shouted, “The Tulsa Pogrom!”

The next day, he came back and gave us a photo of Malcolm X shaking Martin Luther King’s hand, and taught a lesson on the Booker T. Washington to Malcolm X tradition and the W.E.B. DuBois to Martin Luther King tradition. (Clara Luper, the leader of the nation’s longest lasting Sit-In movement, did almost the same thing in another class; the students were thrilled when she challenged me by saying the Malcolm X tradition deserved respect but I shouldn’t give it respect equal to the MLK tradition.)

And that brings me to Cormack’s third basic point, bringing hope that schools, families, and communities can come together and nurture a commitment to civics education, and a 21st century democracy. A few years ago, I would have seen her optimism as a self-evident truth. Now, I worry that our failures to teach civics and history have helped undermine our society’s commitment political institutions. But, I try to focus on cross-generational and cross-cultural conversations. Cormack’s book, and memories of my students’ successes, restore my hope that we can push back against systemic challenges, and, as she emailed me, “build pathways for students and schools to thrive.”

Categories Civics, Curriculum, Education Reform, Ethics, Teaching

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on the “Final Mission”

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2025 //
9

Former entertainment entrepreneur Linda McMahon is now U.S. Secretary of Education. She released her first statement, reiterating Trump’s attacks on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” as well as “gender ideology” (I.e. recognizing the existence of ONLY the male-female binary and not recognizing those who are LGBT, such as Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who is openly gay).

McMahon’s views are closely aligned with those of Moms for Liberty. Check out the website of the America First Policy Forum, where McMahon was chair of the board.

This statement was released by the department’s press office.

SPEECH

Secretary McMahon: Our Department’s Final Mission

MARCH 3, 2025

Secretary Linda McMahon

When I took the oath of office as Secretary of Education, I accepted responsibility for overseeing the U.S. Department of Education and those who work here. But more importantly, I took responsibility for supporting over 100 million American children and college students who are counting on their education to create opportunity and prepare them for a rewarding career. 

I want to do right by both. 

As you are all aware, President Trump nominated me to take the lead on one of his most momentous campaign promises to families. My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children. As a mother and grandmother, I know there is nobody more qualified than a parent to make educational decisions for their children. I also started my career studying to be a teacher, and as a Connecticut Board of Education member and college trustee, I have long held that teaching is the most noble of professions. As a businesswoman, I know the power of education to prepare workers for fulfilling careers. 

American education can be the greatest in the world. It ought not to be corrupted by political ideologies, special interests, and unjust discrimination. Parents, teachers, and students alike deserve better. 

After President Trump’s inauguration last month, he steadily signed a slate of executive orders to keep his promises: combatting critical race theory, DEI, gender ideology, discrimination in admissions, promoting school choice for every child, and restoring patriotic education and civics. He has also been focused on eliminating waste, red tape, and harmful programs in the federal government. The Department of Education’s role in this new era of accountability is to restore the rightful role of state oversight in education and to end the overreach from Washington. 

This restoration will profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations here at the Department. In coming months, we will partner with Congress and other federal agencies to determine the best path forward to fulfill the expectations of the President and the American people. We will eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy so that our colleges, K-12 schools, students, and teachers can innovate and thrive. 

This review of our programs is long overdue. The Department of Education is not working as intended. Since its establishment in 1980, taxpayers have entrusted the department with over $1 trillion, yet student outcomes have consistently languished. Millions of young Americans are trapped in failing schools, subjected to radical anti-American ideology, or saddled with college debt for a degree that has not provided a meaningful return on their investment. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves after just a few years—and citing red tape as one of their primary reasons. 

The reality of our education system is stark, and the American people have elected President Trump to make significant changes in Washington. Our job is to respect the will of the American people and the President they elected, who has tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education—a momentous final mission—quickly and responsibly. 

As I’ve learned many times throughout my career, disruption leads to innovation and gets results. We must start thinking about our final mission at the department as an overhaul—a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great. Changing the status quo can be daunting. But every staff member of this Department should be enthusiastic about any change that will benefit students. 

True change does not happen overnight—especially the historic overhaul of a federal agency. Over the coming months, as we work hard to carry out the President’s directives, we will focus on a positive vision for what American education can be. 

These are our convictions: 

  1. Parents are the primary decision makers in their children’s education. 
  2. Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history—not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology. 
  3. Postsecondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs. 

Removing red tape and bureaucratic barriers will empower parents to make the best educational choices for their children. An effective transfer of educational oversight to the states will mean more autonomy for local communities. Teachers, too, will benefit from less micromanagement in the classroom—enabling them to get back to basics. 

I hope each of you will embrace this vision going forward and use these convictions as a guide for conscientious and pragmatic action. The elimination of bureaucracy should free us, not limit us, in our pursuit of these goals. I want to invite all employees to join us in this historic final mission on behalf of all students, with the same dedication and excellence that you have brought to your careers as public servants. 

This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students. I hope you will join me in ensuring that when our final mission is complete, we will all be able to say that we left American education freer, stronger, and with more hope for the future.

Sincerely,

Linda McMahon
Secretary of Education

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Censorship, Civil Rights, Curriculum, Education Industry, Equity, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, Gender, Home Schooling, Ignorance, Innovation, Privatization, Racism, Religion, Segregation, Teachers, Vouchers

Ed Department Backs Down on Some Extreme DEI Bans

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2025 //
6

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.

Categories Censorship, Curriculum, Extremism, Race, Racism, Trump, U.S. Department of Education
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