President Donald Trump signed a trio of executive orders on education Wednesday seeking to control how schools teach about race and gender, direct more tax dollars to private schools, and deport pro-Palestinian protesters.
The flurry of action aims to make good on a raft of Trump’s campaign promises but also tests the limits of presidential power. In each case, Trump is pushing to use the levers of government - sometimes in unprecedented ways - to force American school districts, colleges and students to align with his point of view.
Supporters welcomed the moves as a healthy counter to schools that they allege have been indoctrinating young people with liberal ideas. Opponents responded by charging Trump with indoctrination in the opposite direction, and some predicted legal challenges.
The White House cast its executive order on teaching as an effort to end indoctrination in American education. It threatened to pull federal funding from schools that teach about “gender ideology” - the idea that one’s gender identity can differ from their biological sex at birth, or “discriminatory equity ideology,” a label the order attaches to a range of ideas around systemic racism.
The Biden administration sought to push schools in the opposite direction, promoting diversity and equity initiatives and directing schools to respect transgender students’ rights, but it never tried to condition federal funding on what was taught in classrooms. The Education Department during Trump’s first term also did not try to dictate curriculum, with then-Secretary Betsy DeVos arguing that the curriculum should be decided at the local level.
Wednesday’s order directs the education secretary to provide a plan to end “indoctrination” in schools within 90 days, specifying that the secretary should tie federal funds to whether schools teach in a way the Trump administration approves. But discerning which schools and teachers run afoul of the new Trump rubric may be challenging.
“Whether the federal government can influence curriculum in this way is a completely open question,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies education history. “If they were actually able to compel school districts to alter their curriculum, that would be the first time the federal government had done that. Ever.”
The school choice order aims to boost the growing voucher movement, possibly in unprecedented ways. For instance, it directs the Education Department to issue guidance to states as to how they can divert federal funding to voucher programs, which give families tax dollars to pay for private school or home schooling.
The third order is directed at universities where pro-Palestinian protests broke out last year. Described as a way to combat antisemitism, it threatens to revoke student visas of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
Some, if not all, of these orders will be challenging to implement and require difficult judgment calls. Which lessons qualify as critical race theory, and how often must they be taught to jeopardize federal funding? Who will determine who is a sympathizer of Hamas and who is simply identifying with the plight of ordinary Palestinians?
Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the conservative parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty and a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, was optimistic about the impact of the executive orders.
“President Trump is putting parents back in the driver’s seat when it comes to every facet of their children’s lives,” she said.
But Rick Hess, a senior fellow studying education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said the details will matter.
“Executive orders can either be largely public relations documents, or they can have real and substantial impact on how government works,” he said. “And we won’t know for weeks or months how it’s going to play out.”
Rooting out ‘indoctrination’ in schools
For the past several years, Republicans including Trump have attacked schools for teaching about race and attempted to reverse policies and lessons that recognize and respect transgender students. The new order seeks to use federal civil rights laws to force schools to come into compliance with conservative views on both subjects.
Federal law allows the Education Department to withhold funds from any school that discriminates based on race or sex. In a strikingly different ideological posture, Trump and his allies argue that lessons about systemic racism amount to discrimination, because they presume certain things about people based on race, such as that White Americans enjoy certain privileges based on their race. And they say that giving rights to transgender students, especially transgender girls and women, discriminates against cisgender girls and women by forcing them to share spaces and sports teams.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights investigates complaints on a case-by-case basis. Schools found to have discriminated against students or staff based on race, sex or other factors are often pressured to enter into settlements - which can include policy changes, monitoring and promises to do better - or face the loss of federal funds.
It was unclear whether the Trump administration would take this approach or whether it would try additional enforcement strategies.
The 47th president may lack the authority to do what he’s promising, said Zimmerman, the University of Pennsylvania professor. He pointed out that the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in 2015, forbids the federal government from mandating or incentivizing states to adopt or use any particular set of academic standards.
Trump’s attempt at federal intervention in curriculum follows several years of state legislation and policymaking over the teaching of race and gender, with both conservative and liberal states taking action. Since 2017, a Washington Post analysis found, nearly 40 states have adopted more than 110 measures or rules related to curriculums.
The order also says the attorney general must coordinate with state attorneys general to “file appropriate actions” against K-12 teachers and school employees who sexually exploit minors, practice medicine without a license or otherwise “unlawfully [facilitate] the social transition of a minor student.” This part of the order takes aim at how schools deal with transgender students who wish to change their names and pronouns at school.
The executive order is in line with the conservative state policies but conflicts with rules around teaching and the treatment of LGBTQ students in many blue states.
More tax dollars for private schools
To direct more tax money to private schools, the order on school choice cited the dismal student performance reported in the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also released Wednesday.
“When our public education system fails such a large segment of society, it hinders our national competitiveness and devastates families and communities,” the order said.
Depending on the implementation, this executive order could be expansive. It orders the Education Department to consider school choice policies in awarding grants to schools. It directs the Pentagon to look for ways to let military families use public money for private schools for their children.
And it suggests that the administration will look for ways to let states use federal dollars from formula grants for private school vouchers. The biggest formula grant program is the $16.5 billion Title I program, which aids high-poverty schools.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the plan is “likely illegal” as well as a “direct attack on all that parents and families hold dear.”
“This order hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators,” she said in a statement.
Taking action against protesters
The order on campus protesters threatened to deport pro-Palestinian protesters in what would be a rare case of applying an ideological agenda to visa decisions.
The order doesn’t explicitly say the government will immediately revoke visas but calls on federal agencies to familiarize colleges with the grounds for revocation so schools can monitor and report students and faculty for investigation or deportation.
Trump had promised during his campaign to crack down on the protests that erupted on many campuses after the Israel-Gaza war began in 2023. Those demonstrations led to debates over the lines between free speech and student safety, with some arguing that protesters have the right to speak out and others contending that some of the messages and actions were antisemitic and threatening to Jewish students. This academic year, protests have been far less disruptive on many campuses, but in some places pro-Hamas messages have intensified.
Some experts questioned whether the administration has the power to deport people based on their views, and suggested speech by those students would be protected by the First Amendment.
Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney and legislative adviser at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said the Constitution protects everyone in the United States, including foreign citizens studying at American universities.
“Government lawyers have already considered at length whether proposals to remove people from the country based on their political speech are constitutional, and their answer is almost certainly no,” she said. “They’re right. Deporting noncitizens on the basis of their political speech would be unconstitutional.”
And some students reacted with dismay.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University, said it was racist to stereotype pro-Palestinian protesters as terrorists, deeming the executive order “a blatant act of state-sponsored intimidation, aimed at silencing dissent and suppressing free expression on campuses.” The measure, he said, not only undermines fundamental rights to free speech and assembly, but sets a dangerous precedent in which peaceful protest is countered with severe consequences.
International students can lose their visas if they are convicted of a crime or fail to maintain their course load due to an extended suspension, but not for past or current beliefs or statements that are lawful, according to the Immigration and Nationality Act.
However, the law also says foreign nationals who are associated with or endorse terrorist groups could lose their visas. A group of Republican state attorneys general used that argument to urge the Biden administration to revoke student visas in the early days of the pro-Palestinian protests. Congressional Republicans also introduced legislation with the same aim and legal basis last year.
The order also called on every federal executive department and agency leader to, within 60 days, report to the White House on all criminal and civil actions available for fighting antisemitism.
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Cleve R. Wootson Jr. contributed to this report.