MAGA attacks on the U.S. Department of Education

Get the Point!

Is the United States Department of Education (DOE) in danger of being dismantled during Donald Trump's next term?

To let the once and future president tell the tale, the 44 year old agency's days are numbered:

“One other thing I'll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C., and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states." President-elect Trump, November 12, 2024

Now, those of us who endured Trump's first term already know that he has a penchant for promising things that he will fail to deliver—lest we forget his 2017 immigration promise, "I'm going to build a wall on our Southern border—and have Mexico pay for it!" Well, when Trump left office in 2021, there was no wall—and Mexico had not provided any funds for its development or construction to the United States! 

Similarly, it is quite possible that Trump 2.0 will begin next January and end in 2029 with the Department of Education still going about its business as usual. If you're nodding your head in agreement but wondering, "what is the Department's business, Hobbs," do know that it is NOT some liberal bastion that's indoctrinating students with "woke" ideology, Critical Race Theory, or telling schools which teachers to hire or which books to read—all the while forcing transgender acceptance the way that Trump and his MAGA minions consistently (and falsely) claim that it does on the campaign trails and through their media mouthpieces at Fox, Newsmax, and National Review!

Rather, since its inception after President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act in 1979, DOE's primary role has been to collect critical data on student/school performances; disburse billions of dollars in federal student loans and institutional grants; disburse Title I funds for impoverished students and those struggling with disabilities; investigate claims of educational discrimination!

That's pretty much it!

So, if that's the scope of DOE's focus, why the unrelenting attacks on the agency by conservative politicians and think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation via its much maligned manifesto, Project 2025, which promises to abolish the agency and send its functions to the individual states?

The very simple answer to this question is money, money, MONEY, as in, who will have access to federal funding and who will have access to higher educational levels which, ostensibly, provide greater access to money and power! 

To be clear, conservatives were hostile to DOE long before the MAGA movement arose last decade; President Ronald Reagan actually promised to abolish the agency only months after his predecessor, President Carter, had added it to his Cabinet in 1980. In the 40 years since, every Republican presidential aspirant or eventual president has, at some point, promised to abolish or restructure DOE, to little avail. 

What has availed on the state levels during this time has been a focus on chipping away at free public education on the pre-K to 12th grade levels by redistributing tax funds to private, parochial, and charter schools! This push has been bolstered on the federal level by measures such as the No Child Left Behind Act, legislation signed by Republican President George W. Bush that on the surface creates base line academic standards that are tracked by the states but when peering deeper, mainly served to bolster the wallets of educational testing companies, textbook makers, and yes, private/parochial/charter schools!

President Bush, upon signing the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, enhanced the billion dollar standardized testing industry that became indispensable due to the acts tenets…

The "deeper" level mentioned in the prior paragraph has become even more sinister during the MAGA age, as the historical line between church and state per the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is being steadily erased in favor of so-called Christian conservatives who want Bible based creationism taught as science alongside the Big Bang theory; want the Ten Commandments taught alongside secular legal principles such as Hammurabi's Code and the Constitution; wish to white-wash (no pun intended) European colonial exploitation of Africa, Asia, the Americas—and all of the attendant horrors of slavery, Manifest Destiny, and Capitalist exploitation of working class and abjectly poor people!

Thus, my lack of surprise that in Mr. Trump's first major policy speech since defeating Vice President Kamala Harris on November 5th, that he reiterated his desire to eliminate DOE—while announcing his desire to attack public and private universities which in his wild solipsism, claims that they discriminate against white people through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, affirmative action, and similar initiatives that were designed to remedy over 200 years of systemic white supremacy!

The problem with Trump's pronouncement is that much of what he seeks to accomplish with regards to weaponizing alleged white “reverse discrimination” grievances flows from, you guessed it, the data analysis and civil rights functions of DOE! Meaning, he would make his stated goal of avenging anti-white discrimination—however fallacious—even harder to establish by dismantling the very system that provides the information needed to file lawsuits and administrative actions to strip tax exemption status from the universities that he deems contrary to his ideological whims!

Such is why I believe that DOE will not be abolished because while the Senate is safely in Republican control for at least the next two years, the jury is still out on whether the House of Representatives will be controlled by Democrats and if it is, the likelihood that Congress passes a DOE abolition Act for Trump to sign becomes far less likely before the mid-terms!

And yet, Trump very well could still accomplish his plans to disrupt how funds for poor and disabled students of all races are delivered via Title I, while tasking DOE's legal arm to begin filing lawsuits against universities to revoke tax exempt status for the same, a move that could cause massive job losses and college closures across the country should funding freeze up! 

To be crystal clear, the aforementioned threats have already had a chilling effect on higher education in MAGA Red States where K-12 schools are banning books and telling half truths about American history through textbooks that meet the reconfigured state “standards,” while state universities have eliminated diversity departments, diversity measures, and are strongly hinting at desires to eliminate programs or close state funded HBCU's altogether!

Both private and publicly funded HBCU’s find themselves under increasing attacks from MAGA ideologues who are hostile to institutions that do not adhere to conservative doctrinal dogma…

Such moves threaten to widen the already pronounced gap between the well informed and the willfully ignorant—while also threatening to cause even greater economic despair due to an adult labor pool that is (and will remain) ill prepared to perform job tasks that require higher levels of education. 

Stay tuned...