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TRUMP ORDERS SCHOOLS TO ADOPT ‘PATRIOTIC EDUCATION’ IN THE
CLASSROOM  
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Zach Montague and Erica L. Green
January 29, 2025
New York Times
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_ One of the orders, titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12
Schooling,” sought to withhold funding from any schools that teach
that the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise
discriminatory.” _

Republicans have targeted universities over pro-Palestinian
demonstrations that occurred on college campuses., Bing Guan for The
New York Times

 

President Trump signed several executive orders on Wednesday aimed at
reshaping American schools, including restricting how racism is taught
in classrooms, curbing antisemitism and allowing taxpayer dollars to
fund private schools.

The orders are designed to advance the Trump administration’s goal
of shaking up the nation’s education system, which Mr. Trump has
long derided as fostering left-leaning ideologies.

One of the orders, titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12
Schooling
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sought to withhold funding from any schools that teach that the United
States is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise
discriminatory.” It directed agencies to produce an “ending
indoctrination strategy” that would focus on uprooting instruction
about transgender issues, “white privilege” or “unconscious
bias” in schools, and to “prioritize federal resources, consistent
with applicable law, to promote patriotic education.”

Another laid the foundations to deport international students accused
of “antisemitic harassment and violence” in connection to protests
over the war in Gaza, part of a wider crackdown on what the
administration has deemed antisemitic speech.

And a third directed agencies to search for grants and discretionary
programs that could be repurposed for use by states to fund voucher
programs. Such programs allocate public funds to families to pay for
children's education at home or at private and religious schools.

The orders on Wednesday unleashed the Education Department to enforce
penalties against schools that stray from the themes of “patriotic
education
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that Mr. Trump has said should be the underpinning of American history
classes. And they appeared designed to send schools scrambling to
check course catalogs for any content that could invite the government
to rescind federal funds.

The order related to antisemitism was broad and enlisted many federal
agencies in an effort to identify and punish demonstrators who caused
disruptions amid nationwide protests against Israel and the war in
Gaza — a group that could include students involved in campus
protests.

It directed the State Department, Education Department and Homeland
Security Department to guide colleges to “report activities by alien
students and staff” that could be considered antisemitic, so that
they could be investigated or deported.

Conservative lawmakers have urged universities to crack down on
demonstrations against Israel. A report
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by House Republicans in December floated the idea of deporting
international students who it said expressed support for Hamas, whose
attack on Israelis in October 2023 ignited more than a year of war.

The order cited existing law, under which the government is authorized
to deport a person on a visa who “endorses or espouses terrorist
activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity
or support a terrorist organization,” which the report said should
include expressing sympathy for Hamas.

Under the Biden administration, the Education Department investigated
dozens of colleges and public school districts
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complaints of antisemitism or anti-Arab and anti-Muslim
discrimination. The department consistently sided with complainants,
directing colleges to take a firmer stance against antisemitism and
other forms of harassment or intimidation on campus.

Legal scholars and civil rights groups have regularly warned that
federal investigations into schools over antisemitism can have a
chilling effect on protected speech. But a growing number of
universities, including N.Y.U. and Harvard, have changed their
policies to try to respond to criticism and curb protests. Among other
policies, some have adopted a definition of antisemitism that
considers some criticisms of Israel
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such as calling its formation a “racist endeavor” — to be
antisemitic.

“It’s just crystal clear that they’re targeting people based on
their viewpoint and their speech supporting Palestinian rights,”
Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney with the group Palestine
Legal, said Wednesday after the order was released. “And they’re
trying to drag all federal departments into it.”

The second order on Wednesday directed the Education Department to end
what it said were efforts in American schools to compel children “to
adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their
skin color and other immutable characteristics.” It also condemned
classroom instruction that it said had led children 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 further warned that K-12 schools that defy the order could
face investigation by the Education Department and ultimately a loss
of federal funding.

The order also revived an effort to rewrite history syllabuses
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Mr. Trump pursued during his first term. The effort, known as
the 1776 Commission
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is a road map created by a group of right-wing Trump allies meant to
challenge how slavery
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taught and portray left-wing social and political movements as
subversive. The order reinstated the commission and directed the
Education Department to fund it to the extent that was legal.

The bulk of federal funding to public school districts comes through
the Title I program, which provides grants that help prop up
high-poverty and rural schools in areas with weaker tax bases. That
funding is set by Congress, and using it to enforce the president’s
orders could present an uphill and possibly unwinnable battle.

But the Department also provides a slew of discretionary grants aimed
at helping low-income students and minority groups, as well as
students with disabilities. Many of those programs are currently
under review by the agency
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determine whether they defy Mr. Trump’s executive order to rid the
government of “diversity, equity and inclusion” and other efforts.

Mr. Trump’s orders showed how he plans to leverage the education
agency’s Office for Civil Rights, which has wide-ranging power to
enforce the nation’s civil rights laws, as he seeks to empower his
conservative base. The office is charged with enforcing some of the
nation’s bedrock civil rights laws, and can withhold federal money
from schools that don’t comply with the administration’s
interpretation of them.

In the first week of Mr. Trump’s new term, the Education Department
has been among the most vocal among federal agencies about its support
of his plans to eradicate programs seen as “radical” and
“wasteful.”

The department has sent a series of releases touting
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comply with an earlier order to purge efforts to increase diversity,
racial equity in hiring and accessibility across the government. Among
other moves to, as it said, “end discrimination based on race and
the use of harmful race stereotypes,” it took steps toward firing
staff and identified 200 websites that it would take down.

And in an extraordinary step, the Education Department announced that
the Office for Civil Rights had dismissed pending complaints people
had filed to the office over efforts to ban books about race and
gender. The office — which under Mr. Trump’s previous
administration
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its stated mission to be an apolitical “a neutral
fact-finder”— announced last week that it had ended what it
called “Biden book ban hoax.”
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The moves have been applauded by right-leaning groups. Nicole Neily,
founder and president of Parents Defending Education, called the
executive order a “vindication” of parents concerned about the way
racism is taught about in schools, and a “tremendous first step in
rooting out this poison from the American education system.”

The group had filed several complaints to the office under the
previous administration alleging that schools’ diversity programs
violated federal civil rights laws.

An array of organizations slammed the president’s order on classroom
instruction on Wednesday, saying that it promotes distorted views of
history and condemns practices that do not reflect the reality facing
public students.

James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical
Association, said the executive order misrepresented how American
history and civics are being taught. The group’s recent survey of
educators “found little evidence that teachers are doing any of the
things that are being banned in this executive order,” he said.

In a statement on Wednesday, Lambda Legal, an L.G.B.T.Q. legal
advocacy organization, described the promotion of patriotic education
as “whitewashing the chapters of our nation’s documented history
related to race, gender, sexism, homophobia and related injustices.”

Mr. Trump’s third order on Wednesday directed agencies, in their
review of discretionary spending, to find ways to allocate more
federal funds to “expand education freedom” through voucher
programs.

The order cited a National Assessment of Educational Progress
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also released on Wednesday, as evidence that public schools are
failing students and that the government should fund alternative
options. The report found that students’ proficiency in reading had
floundered.

“Too many children do not thrive in their assigned, government-run
K-12 school,” the order stated.

Expanding school choice programs has been a key conservative education
policy for years, and was a main priority of Mr. Trump’s first
education secretary
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Betsy DeVos.

Many states already have policies in place allowing families to
home-school their children or enroll them in private or religious
institutions using public funds. Proponents say the programs allow
parents to find the education options that are best for their children
and to opt out of public schools that haven’t served them well.

Critics blame the programs for hurting the public school system and
diverting badly needed funding to schools that are rarely required to
meet state performance standards
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often produce poor student achievement
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“Instead of stealing taxpayer money to fund private schools, we
should focus on public schools,” said Rebecca Pringle, the president
of the National Education Association, a teachers’ union.

_Zach Montague is a reporter for the New York Times covering the U.S.
Department of Education, the White House and federal courts.  Erica
L. Green is a White House correspondent for the New York Times._

_Anemona Hartocollis and Dana Goldstein contributed reporting from
New York._

* Patriotic Education
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* Public Education
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* Donald Trump
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