Trump’s plans to axe US education department put marginalized students most at risk, experts warn

13 hours ago 3

For many students of color, access to an equitable education is dependent on the initiatives and programs provided by the Department of Education. Among its various functions, the department provides targeted funding for low-income students, collects data on educational outcomes and investigates potential bias – essential functions that help underserved students. But such services stand to be disrupted or ended entirely as Donald Trump plans to dismantle the department during his second tenure.

In addition to nominating for education secretary the former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who served on Connecticut’s state board of education for one year and has no other notable education experience, Trump has pledged to “[close] up” the department and “return” education rights to the states. Though Trump alone cannot eliminate the federal agency, as such an act requires congressional approval beyond a simple majority, experts have warned that any type of overhaul could disrupt the department’s critical roles, especially for marginalized students.

The education department dates back to 1867; the agency was founded to collect data on schools as states crafted their education systems (Congress abolished the department a year later, fearing federal overreach). In 1980, under former president Jimmy Carter, the department was reconceived as an executive agency with the purpose of ensuring equal education access in primary, secondary and higher education across all states. Historically, the department has overseen the implementation of federal civil rights laws in local school districts, such as the desegregation of schools following the supreme court’s Brown v Board of Education decision.

Now, the department coordinates “certain services that states receive, protections, and accountability mechanisms”, said Will Del Pilar, senior vice-president of EdTrust, an education non-profit. The department also “sets priorities” and can use funding incentives to encourage school districts to work around an issue. “[If] teacher diversity is a focus, [the department] can leverage federal dollars to create a competition for folks to apply for dollars to improve the diverse educator pipeline,” he added.

Investigating civil rights violations is a critical function of the department, carried out by their Office of Civil Rights (OCR). In 2023, OCR received a record 19,201 complaints, according to the department’s annual report, with 45% of complaints relating to sex discrimination. Amid an onslaught of legislation targeting transgender youth last year, the OCR fielded several complaints from LGBTQ+ students against their school districts.

Eighteen percent of complaints dealt with race and national origin discrimination, including bullying and racist harassment from school officials. In one high-profile example, the OCR investigated the Jefferson county school district, Kentucky’s largest public school district, and found that Black students were punished more often and more severely than white students. As a result, the district is mandated to amend their disciplinary policies by March 2025.

Following an OCR investigation, the department can force a school to make changes by threatening schools in violation of civil rights. “Funding and enforcement go hand-in-hand,” said Rachel Pereira, a fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute. “The threat of violating civil rights law is that you will lose federal funding.” Absent these checks, schools would have less incentive to comply with the law.

Statistics from the department’s civil rights data collection not only provide insight into potential education disparities, including discipline rates by race, but they also determine what funding a school district is eligible for. Title I and Title III initiatives, which provide funding for high-poverty schools and English learners, respectively, are both dependent on enrollment statistics.

Eliminating the department all together is an unlikely outcome, experts argue, especially as many of the offices within the department are themselves enshrined into federal law. Prominent Republicans, including former president Ronald Reagan, have attempted to eliminate the department, all to no avail.

But the Trump administration could change key guidance within the department, including how it investigates civil rights complaints to “reshape civil rights enforcement towards their ideological purposes”. said Pereira. Trump previously promised to task the department with investigating “anti-white” civil rights violations, which could include targeting race discrimination investigations, Pereira warned. While the Biden administration attempted to expand Title IX, a federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination to include transgender students, Trump is expected to rework Title IX guidance to be “very explicitly anti-trans”, she added.

“I really worry about school districts who comply in advance, rather than resisting what are clearly out of bound changes to the regulations,” said Pereira.

Under Trump, the department could be underfunded or further understaffed, and offices such as OCR already struggle to investigate an increasing number of complaints. Disenfranchised students, including students of color and those with disabilities, who rely on Title I funding, would be affected as Trump could make further cuts to the underfunded program. “About 90% of school funding comes from local and state sources, but 10% comes from the federal government,” said Pereira. “That 10% is oriented towards poor communities, communities that are disproportionately of color, [where if] that money were to go away overnight, those schools would be in a very difficult position.”

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Critical data on education inequities will likely not be collected and publicized under Trump’s education department, said Sarah Hinger, the deputy director of the ACLU racial justice program, which could slow the disbursement of resources and funding for marginalized students.“If schools are not doing a good job of collecting that information, of reviewing that information, and the federal government is not doing a good job of ensuring that the public is able to review that information, then there’s a real lag in being able to respond to the needs of students, of ensuring that they even get the federal funding they’re entitled to.”

Trump’s education department plans come as he and other Republicans are attempting to control classroom curriculum and further ban attempts to learn about race, sexuality and more within public schools, with students of color caught in the middle of ongoing drastic changes.

“While they seek to reduce or eliminate [the department] at the same time, they are directly seeking to insert the federal government in reviewing and determining appropriate curriculum content for students and programming run by schools,” said Hinger. “We’re really seeing a whole flip of the idea of the federal government’s role in education.”

Read more of the Guardian’s Trump coverage