Jay Blitzman is a retired Massachusetts juvenile court justice and a volunteer with Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
Our public education system is under attack. On March 20, after only seven weeks in office and without input or approval from Congress, President Trump issued an executive order instructing the Secretary of Education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and give the states sole responsibility for educating our nation’s children.”
The U.S. Congress created the Department of Education in 1979, and its leader, the Secretary of Education, is a member of the President’s cabinet. By directing changes that compromise the department’s ability to function, Trump’s March 20 order attempts to circumvent the requirement that only Congress may approve the department’s closure. This move takes a page from the Project 2025 playbook, which calls for the department’s elimination.
At the same time, and without any apparent recognition of the irony, the administration has directed school districts to radically limit what our children learn, threatening to withhold funds from public schools if they fail to verify that they have eliminated all programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. This transforms Project 2025’s goal of obliterating any mention of diversity, equity, or inclusion from federal policy.
On April 3, a department memo sent to public education officials across the country indicated that failure to comply would result in loss of the funds provided to schools under Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a move that would hit hardest those schools with high percentages of students of color or from low-income families. The administration has also rolled back school discipline guidelines announced by President Obama, which included recommendations to promote nondiscriminatory practices and training- another harmful move given that over two-thirds of students suspended, expelled and arrested in public schools are Black and brown.
Why This Matters
Gutting the Department of Education’s workforce harms families: When resources and support for public education at the local level are wildly uneven and often discriminatory, federal support can help level the playing field. The Education Department can help ensure that students can access classes and programs that might not otherwise be available. Eliminating the department would ensure that, in a land of equality, some students have the resources they need to succeed while others do not.
Planned changes limit parents’ access and civil rights enforcement: The administration also plans to relocate the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and has closed OCR offices nationwide. This means that parents seeking federal review of school district decisions regarding their children’s individual education and accommodation plans would need DOJ support for their claims, an unlikely result, as DOJ has already made clear that its role is to zealously defend the President’s agenda.