The Trump administration’s latest victim in a wholesale attempt to slash federal departments is the Department of Education (DE). On March 20, 2025, Donald Trump announced the signing of an executive order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities.” Despite the positive and inspirational title, its reality is bleak: dismantling the entire Department of Education, which has existed for almost half a century. Like other executive orders in his second term, the order has come under scrutiny and legal action. The order writes that “the experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars — and the unaccountable bureaucracy those programs and dollars support — has plainly failed our children, our teachers, and our families.” It continues, criticizing that the amount of money spent increases while test scores hit historical lows. Nowhere in the order did it mention that the country experienced a worldwide pandemic, setting education back in many countries across the world. Is the answer to bettering our test scores truly cutting resources for America’s children and young adults?
In his executive order, Trump also emphasized that “any program or activity receiving Federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or similar terms…” This rollback on educational access will harm some communities more disproportionately than others. As a first-generation college student, which over half of the undergraduate population in the United States is, I have had my fair struggles navigating higher education, but federal resources – FAFSA, grants, informational websites, etc. – ameliorated the difficulties I faced. One of the most life-changing, beneficial and academically rewarding experiences I’ve had can potentially be labeled as an ‘illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion program’ simply because it aimed to help students who came from historically underrepresented communities overcome barriers common in the legal field. The future of programs like these is in jeopardy and poses a significant danger to educational equity – which should not be a taboo word, as it merely means equal access to the same opportunities.
Attacking the Department of Education is a disastrous, yet unsurprising, low blow coming from the new administration. This executive order is in line with the administration’s goal of reducing waste and putting an end to bureaucracy, which unsettlingly echoes two values of the Three-anti Campaign in China under dictator Mao Zedong: anti-waste and anti-bureaucratism. In fact, a March 14, 2025 Fact Sheet published by The White House wrote, “ELIMINATING WASTE AND REDUCING GOVERNMENT OVERREACH: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order continuing the reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” using the typical language of ‘draining the swamp’ and mentioning the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk. The Three-anti Campaign empowered those in power to silence dissent. Under our current administration, if one considers those who dissent ‘wasteful’ and ‘overreaching,’ governmental agencies can now directly silence their voice and consolidate power. Thus, not only is education compromised, but democracy as well.
As a student, educator, higher education administrator or merely as a citizen, it’s easy to feel powerless or stripped of your agency. Alas, there is hope. Education is protection, and your mind is something nobody will ever be able to take away from you. The executive order is only around 650 words. Read it. And then read it again. Staying informed is the best line of defense against falling victim to propaganda, as well as preventing others from doing the same. Education may not be enough alone to create civic engagement and relieve electorate apathy, but it is the first step. At a time when misinformation thrives and those in power depend on voters being left in the dark and either uninformed or misinformed, the one thing we can place our faith in is educating ourselves and those around us. Attacks on education and thinking only prove the necessity for armoring ourselves with education and the truth.
-MFB
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