For a number of years, the U.S. Department of Education has been one of the major targets of conservative Republicans, who make no bones about the fact that their ultimate goal is no less than the complete termination of the department. Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies have unleashed multiple attacks against the DOE that may end up achieving Republicans’ goal.
The DOE was founded in 1979 by Congress, under the aegis of former president Jimmy Carter, and has been foundational in establishing educational standards and promoting nondiscrimination guidelines for schools and colleges to protect marginalized students such as LGBTQ+ kids, girls and other marginalized students.
On Jan. 31, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced H.R.899 —“To terminate the Department of Education.” It was referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
While this bill works its way through the legislative process, the Trump administration has basically declared war against the DOE, as it has on many government agencies since the inauguration.
Over the past few weeks, Trump and his allies have taken several steps to cripple the DOE in preparation for its eventual dismantling, particularly its work to protect civil rights. Almost immediately upon taking office, the Trump administration took control of the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the primary federal resource for marginalized students and teachers to redress discriminatory practices and policies of schools, immediately reversing its position on a number of crucial issues.
For instance, DOE’s new regime announced that OCR was dismissing 11 complaints and six allegations related to book bans, saying it was ending “Biden’s book ban hoax.” OCR also announced that it had rescinded guidance about book bans and would no longer employ a book ban coordinator, a position created by former president Joe Biden. The OCR administration dismissed 17 cases that investigated whether removing books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and characters of color contributed to a hostile environment for marginalized students.
Also, Trump has not overlooked the DOE in the raft of executive orders he has unleashed since Day 1. Most notably, on Jan. 29, Trump signed an order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which basically, among other things, negates Title IX protections.
The goal of this particularly dangerous order is made clear in one of its opening paragraphs: “In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight. Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination. In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics. In other instances, young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed. These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.”
The order is a wide-ranging hodge-podge of conservative ideologies that run counter to longstanding DOE guidelines. The section on definitions, for instance, defines discriminatory positions, policies and guidelines schools will be expected to adopt. “Discriminatory equity ideology” is to be avoided; that is, any educational approach conservatives feel denigrates white people, or might make white kids feel bad or uncomfortable. “Patriotic education” is to be pursued; that is, as the order says, teaching a history that presents “a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.”
The order takes special aim at trans people, the right-wing’s demon du jour, by instructing that anything leading to “social transition” is to be avoided. The order defines “social transition” as “the process of adopting a ‘gender identity’ or ‘gender marker’ that differs from a person’s sex. This process can include psychological or psychiatric counseling or treatment by a school counselor or other provider; modifying a person’s name (e.g., ‘Jane’ to ‘James’) or pronouns (e.g., ‘him’ to ‘her’); calling a child ‘nonbinary’; use of intimate facilities and accommodations such as bathrooms or locker rooms specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex; and participating in school athletic competitions or other extracurricular activities specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex.”
It only took days for the order’s impact on Title IX to be made apparent. On Feb. 5, Trump released another executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” which forbids trans girls and women from participating in girls’ and women’s sports in schools, on pain of losing federal funding (which most likely would be much diminished or vanish altogether should DOE be terminated).
Playing into this, Trump’s DOE sent a memo to the nation’s schools, colleges and universities notifying them that, henceforward, the OCR would enforce only Title IX guidelines from 2020 — which do not include LGBTQ+ people as a protected class, nor recognize issues relating to sexual orientation or gender identity as civil rights issues.
As of this writing, an executive order formally calling for the termination of the DOE has not been released. However, in regard to such an order, there would be a question of its legality — a question that is being raised regarding many of the barrage of executive orders spewing from the White House. According to legal experts, Trump does not have the authority to summarily terminate the DOE (as he does not have the authority to summarily fire civil servants as he has been doing willy-nilly). The DOE was created by Congress by legislative action, and has been funded by Congress through similar action. According to Constitutional scholars, only Congress can terminate the DOE, through legislation.
Which brings us back to Thomas Massie and H.R. 899.
Thomas Massie is a conservative Republican from Kentucky who has served in the House since 2012. He’s been a bit of an outlier among conservative Republicans, holding off endorsing Trump until mere days before the election. He has also been one of the few Republicans who has voiced criticisms of some of Trump’s Cabinet appointments, though he has so far voted for confirmation in every instance.
Massie’s animus towards the DOE pre-dates Trump, having previously introduced bills to terminate the department. Those previous attempts went nowhere, but now, with MAGA in the majority of both Houses, Massie may well accomplish his goal.
However, Donald Trump’s partner-in-crime Elon Musk’s assaults on DOE and other governmental agencies is starting to receive pushback from Democrats in Congress. On Feb. 6, nearly 100 House and Senate Democrats sent a letter to the acting Education secretary demanding transparency on Trump’s — and Musk’s — efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
That same day, a group of over a dozen Democratic Congresspeople visited the DOE for personal meetings with whoever is running things there (presumably members of Musk’s DOGE team, though exactly who has been indeterminate) the issues. But the legislators were barred from entry, locked out of the building, with Homeland Security troops posted inside to stop any of the elected officials from potentially exercising their constitutionally mandated oversight authority.
It has not been determined who ordered the lockout. It has also not been determined what further steps Congressional Democrats may take to defend the DOE.