BY: Erin Carson with special contribution by Owen Corey

With the second Trump administration officially taking off at the end of January, President Trump has signed more than 80 executive orders (EOs) as of March 3rd, the most in a president’s first 100 days in more than 40 years. Many of these EOs are either directly or indirectly related to the education system. We’ve pulled some of the more important ones:

• Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing (Jan. 20)
  • EO 14151 gives schools the choice of cutting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs or risking a freeze in their federal funding. The order begins by requiring identification of DEI measures established under the Biden administration, which are recognized by the Trump administration as illegal and immoral. Several government officials are called to coordinate the termination of DEI programs set up throughout the federal government, and a record is to be taken of all DEI-related items that are found.

• U.S. Department of Education Ends Biden’s Book Ban Hoax (Jan. 24)
  • In what is not an EO, but is still a federal action, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it dismissed the investigation of the 11 complaints submitted to it regarding book bans in American schools. The reporting party claimed the removal of the books created a hostile environment for students, but the books in question were removed for containing sexually explicit, age-inappropriate, or obscene content. The complaints had led to book ban investigations under the Biden administration, but the DOE’s OCR has since dismissed the complaints, and thus called off any investigations launched.

• Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation (Jan. 28)
  • EO 14187 is built to prevent children from falling prey to attempted gender-transitioning, by either chemical or surgical means. One directive it gives is to end reliance on ‘questionable’ science that promotes bodily mutilation as a solution to identity-based confusion experienced by children. As an alternative, it asks for a review of existing literature on the best practices in caring for affected children, and pushes for the quality of the data to be improved. Executive branch leaders overseeing the granting of research and education funds to medical institutions are asked to ensure those establishments end these transgender procedures as well. Federally-connected healthcare and insurance will be required to end coverage for these procedures performed on children as well, with a corresponding reduction in insurance premiums being featured in the legislation.

• Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families (Jan. 29)
  • EO 14191 is designed to support educational freedom, or school choice – the ability of parents to choose their children’s manner of education, such as through public schooling, homeschooling, or another method. The order cites startling statistics that reveal a lack of proficiency in core subjects such as reading and math among American students today, and acknowledges that public schools may not be the ideal medium of instruction for many children across the country. The Secretary of Education is to issue guidance to the States on how to use federal funds to support school choice initiatives, and educational freedom is to be encouraged through discretionary grant programs. Identification and giving of guidance to states receiving block grants to expand school choice is assigned. A review of methods through which military-related families and families of students qualifying for Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools can use federal funds for educational freedom is ordered as well.

• Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling (Jan. 29)
  • EO 14190 looks to ensure recipients of federal funds providing education are compliant with laws prohibiting discrimination and protecting parental rights. The order protects parents’ rights, demands the cessation of federal funding for schools engaging in discrimination and indoctrination, and calls for an Ending Indoctrination Strategy. The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission is reestablished, and measures of patriotic education are asked to be installed not only in schools, but other public capacities nationwide.

• Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports (Feb. 5)
  • EO 14201 focuses on ensuring that female sports remain strictly for female participants, and that they operate with standards founded on biological gender instead of mere identity. Basing the gender qualification on identity has allowed biological men into women’s sports, not only endangering women and girls across the country, but also humiliating them. In this effort to promote fairness and dignity, sports organizations are required to establish standards ensuring purely female participation in women’s sports. Retraction of participation in and support for sports programs that establish eligibility based on gender identity is also ordered. There is also a call for promotion before international organizations of biological female-only women’s sports. This order is a further attempt to enforce Title IX by truly dedicating women’s sports to women.

• Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission (Feb. 13)
  • EO 14212 effectively establishes a new commission to research potential causes for Americans’ decline in health, and promote healthy habits and possible solutions. This order specifically refers to America’s children, and calls for an appropriate response from the federal government to the escalating childhood chronic disease crisis. It requests an evaluation of current nutrition education initiatives and calls upon the Secretary of Education. 

• Keeping Education Accessible and Ending Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates in Schools (Feb. 15)
  • EO 14214 is designed to dissolve remaining requirements from schools forcing students to receive a COVID-19 vaccine before attending. Though it’s true most schools no longer have such rules, and that some states even have bans on them, there are still some institutions that require the vaccine, be they universities or grade schools. The goal with this order is to keep education accessible for students, and to not restrict their ability to learn based on the controversial vaccine, especially when children and young adults are less at-risk with COVID-19 than other populations.

• Title IX Reform, and the Department of Education Tells Schools to Change Sexual Misconduct Rules
  • A court ruling vacated the Title IX Final Rule enacted in 2024, and a letter sent from a Department of Education official to school leaders after the ruling declared that Title IX enforcement should once again be based on the 2020 Title IX Rule. The 2024 alteration attempted to expand the definition of “sex-based harassment” beyond a male-and-female basis to include harassment based on sex characteristics, stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy, and altered when a response was required. The Final Rule had been halted in 26 states, and several legal actions were filed to prevent the DoE from enforcing the Final Rule. The 2024 rules notably didn’t address transgender participation in sports. The recent court decision deemed the rules unconstitutional, exceeding the DOE’s authority under Title IX. It was also pointed out that the free speech rights of teachers and others were infringed upon, as everyone would now be required to use names and pronouns associated with a student’s claimed gender identity, at the risk of the other party also facing harassment claims. The reversions thus reverted to a simpler rule, and won’t trap others for referring to a student contrary to their proclaimed identity, intentionally or even unintentionally.

• Almost $1B Cut From Department of Education, and Probationary Employees at the DoE Have Begun Facing Firing
  • Office of Personnel Management officials have reportedly advised agency leaders to dismiss their probationary employees. Probationary workers will have typically been with the federal government for one or two years, when civil protections haven’t set in. A spokesperson for the OPM described the status as being a continuation of the job application, not a guarantee of continuous employment. Probationary positions can include longtime government employees recently hired or promoted to new positions, but sources state the terminations were primarily sent to probationary employees, and ones hired within the last year. Based on OPM data from May 2024, over 200,000 federal employees had been hired within the last year. The layoffs within the federal government have included the DoE, and multiple offices of the department have received firing notices.