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March 20, 2025
The president plans to signal an govt order directing officers to take all “mandatory steps” to close down the division, however an entire closure would require an act of Congress.
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Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025.
(Mandel Ngan / Getty)
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President Trump plans to signal an govt order at present directing officers to close down the Division of Training, finishing up what as soon as was a pipe dream for the GOP however turned a central theme in his 2024 marketing campaign.
The order, which is sort of sure to be challenged in court docket, will direct Secretary of Training Linda McMahon to “take all mandatory steps to facilitate the closure of the Division of Training and return training authority to the states,” in keeping with an inside doc detailing the order and a White Home official. The whole closure of the division would require an act of Congress because it was established by statute in 1979—a truth McMahon has beforehand acknowledged.
The order can even element stipulations that “applications or actions receiving any remaining Division of Training funds won’t advance DEI or gender ideology,” in keeping with the Inner doc, which was labeled “pre-decisional.” As a part of its rationale for the transfer, the administration cited plummeting standardized check scores as proof that “federal authorities management of training has failed college students, mother and father, and academics.”
Present Concern
The Trump administration started weakening the division final week. On March 11, about 1,300 workers had been laid off, roughly half of the division’s workforce, The Nation beforehand reported. These workers had been irate about Trump’s choice and mentioned that his justification for the order—returning training to state management—is redundant.
“Training has already been managed on the state and native ranges,” one former worker informed The Nation. They had been granted anonymity for worry of jeopardizing their severance. “It’s arduous to know what the precise purpose is right here.” Presently, the division has no say over the curricula which might be utilized in faculties. As an alternative, states are sometimes those that take the lead on creating and implementing curricula.
One other worker mentioned the division “solely units coverage for the usage of a tiny proportion of federal funds and retains monitor of scholar efficiency on standardized assessments,” one other worker mentioned. “Nothing concerning the shutting down of the division has to do with saving cash or being environment friendly.”
Training teams are furious over the choice. The American Federation of Lecturers president Randi Weingarten had simply 4 phrases for Trump: “See you in court docket.”
Becky Pringle, the president of the Nationwide Training Affiliation, the biggest educators union in america, blasted the choice Wednesday evening, saying it “will damage all college students by sending class sizes hovering, chopping job coaching applications, making increased training costlier and out of attain for middle-class households, taking away special-education providers for college kids with disabilities, and gutting scholar civil rights protections.”
The administration has beforehand floated reassigning varied capabilities of the division to different federal companies. Venture 2025, a Republican playbook compiled by the conservative suppose tank The Heritage Basis, steered closing the division and transferring a few of its monetary support operations to the Treasury Division and the Workplace for Civil Rights to the Division of Justice
In seeing the experiences of the upcoming signing, two workers described their response as “heartbroken.”
“Closing the division harms college students and households,” one mentioned.
On the marketing campaign path, Trump repeatedly bashed the state of American training, saying that it had been taken over by “the unconventional left maniacs.” He has advocated for “pro-America training” and the creation of a credentialing physique that may “certify academics who embrace patriotic values.”
McMahon gave a preview of departmental reshuffling in an all-staff e-mail hours after she was sworn in because the division’s secretary in early March: “We are going to accomplice with Congress and different federal companies to find out the perfect path ahead to meet the expectations of the President and the American individuals.”
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With out a filibuster-proof majority within the Senate and with a fractious coalition within the Home, the prospect of passing a GOP-led invoice to wholly shutter the division stays unlikely. However many hard-line Trump allies within the Republican Get together have expressed help for the motion.
Widespread
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It’s unclear whether or not Speaker Mike Johnson or Senate majority chief John Thune, who’ve the final say on which payments are delivered to the ground of their respective chambers, help such congressional motion. However they’ve been Trump’s allies within the Capitol, uniting their caucuses to ship coverage wins for the brand new administration. Neither of their places of work responded to a request for remark.
However because the administration has eyed a phaseout of the division, it has ramped up its oversight capabilities. Investigations have been opened into increased training establishments over allegations of antisemitism, funding cuts have been threatened for faculties with race-conscious applications, and DEI is now anathema.
On March 7, the Training Division, alongside different federal companies, canceled $400 million in federal grants to Columbia College over what it calls “continued inaction within the face of persistent harassment of Jewish college students.” Columbia is now in negotiations with the federal authorities, which is trying to extract concessions from the college, together with instituting a masks ban on campus, including further protest restrictions, and inserting the division of Center East, South Asian, and African Research underneath “tutorial receivership,” which means it will now not be managed by school.
“Legit questions on our practices and progress could be requested, and we are going to reply them,” Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong mentioned in a Wednesday assertion. “However we are going to by no means compromise our values of pedagogical independence, our dedication to tutorial freedom, or our obligation to comply with the regulation.”
Universities have additionally paused hiring new workers, decreased the variety of PhD admits, and issued journey warnings for worldwide college students in latest weeks, citing an ever-changing federal panorama. As Trump has threatened further motion in opposition to these establishments, directors across the nation have been left questioning whether or not they’re subsequent.
Donald Trump’s merciless and chaotic second time period is simply getting began. In his first month again in workplace, Trump and his lackey Elon Musk (or is it the opposite manner round?) have confirmed that nothing is protected from sacrifice on the altar of unchecked energy and riches.
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Onward,
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Writer, The Nation
Owen Dahlkamp
Owen Dahlkamp is a 2024 Puffin scholar writing fellow for The Nation. He’s a journalist at Brown College, the place he’s pursuing a level in political science and cognitive neuroscience.
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