Tag: Order

Draft order outlines plan to close Education Dept.

A draft executive order obtained Thursday by Inside Higher Ed directs the newly confirmed education secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps” to return authority over education to the states and facilitate closure of the Department of Education “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

If signed, the order—which has been rumored for weeks but is not yet official—would be the first step in carrying out the president’s controversial campaign promise to abolish the 45-year-old department, which he believes is unconstitutional and has grown too large.

Several media outlets reported Wednesday night that Trump would sign the order as soon as Thursday, but shortly after the news circulated, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X, “President Trump is NOT signing an Executive Order on the Department of Education today” and called the reports “fake news.”

Still, the reports set off a wave of comments from advocates and analysts. Liberals warned that shutting down the Education Department would be devastating for families and students, while conservatives backed Trump’s plan and said the draft order was key to cleaning up the agency.

McMahon, who took office Monday and will spearhead the closure effort, is supportive of overhauling the agency. She told department staff earlier this week to prepare for a “momentous final mission” to eliminate “bureaucratic bloat” and return education to the states.

Although vague, the secretary’s memo and the draft executive order give policy experts some idea of what could come next.

At the very least, they expect to see a major reduction in staff and a diminished federal role in education; some of that work is already underway. The agency has slashed millions in contracts and grants as well as fired dozens of employees. A larger reduction in force is also in the works, fueling concerns among department staff.

“There is probably not going to be anything in [the order] that isn’t already happening, largely,” said Kelly McManus, vice president of higher education at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic group. “The secretary’s final mission was clear … so I’m not particularly worked up about the EO specifically, because I don’t think it’s going to fundamentally change that.”

Abolishing the department would require an act of Congress, which McManus said the draft order appears to acknowledge. She and other experts say any effort to close the department will be lengthy and complicated.

“This is not a flip-on, flip-off situation here,” she said. “Practically, there will have to be a process … You cannot shut the doors tomorrow and be done.”

The 416-word draft order gives little detail as to what the “steps” of dismantling the department are or what would happen to certain congressionally mandated programs such as the Pell Grant, the student loan system or the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. However, the document does say that any funds allocated by the department should comply with federal law, including Trump’s previous orders on diversity, equity and inclusion and transgender athletes—both of which have been caught up in court.

Neither Trump nor McMahon has so far offered any plan outlining how closing the department would work, though some conservative plans recommend moving the Office for Federal Student Aid to the Treasury and sending the Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department.

More than 4,000 people currently work for the department, which was created in 1979 and now has a $80 billion discretionary budget. Each year, the agency issues about $100 billion in student loans and doles out more than $30 billion in Pell Grants.

Shutting down the department isn’t popular with voters, recent surveys have found. One recent opinion poll found that 61 percent of all respondents “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed the idea of eliminating the department. Another showed that up to 72 percent either opposed the plan or weren’t sure how they felt. That number was 49 percent among Republicans.

Minimizing a D.C. ‘Footprint’

Trump has signaled for months, if not years, that he wants to shut down the Education Department, and many analysts have already taken a position on the issue.

To Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, nothing about the draft was a surprise. Like McManus, he noted that much of what the order directs McMahon to do is already underway.

Brickman expects the next steps will focus on finding new and “better” ways to maintain the department’s core functions as required under law with “less funding, less staff and possibly in conjunction with other agencies.”

“I don’t think anybody’s talking about cutting major programs,” he said, referencing financial aid services like the Pell Grant and disability protection acts like IDEA. “So the question will be, what is required under law? What can Congress change? And how can the department streamline things to minimize the footprint in D.C.?”

Shutting down the Education Department likely would be disruptive for colleges and students, advocates say.

J. David Ake/Getty Images

McManus stressed that it will be important to protect these core functions, especially the ones related to higher ed, saying it doesn’t make sense to send them back to the states.

“What is most important is that those core statutory functions have the people, capacity and expertise to be able to do effective oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent,” she said. “We are significantly less concerned about where those people sit, as long as there is the ability to safeguard taxpayer investments and to make sure that programs that are statutorily required and that have had long bipartisan support, like Pell Grants, are being effectively implemented.”

In Brickman’s view, some of the department’s regulatory operations, like analyzing and creating reports on grant or contract applicants and managing third-party accreditors, are simply “make-work.” By hiring hundreds of staff members to execute these tasks, he said, the department pulls tax dollars from local governments and then forces those same communities to spend more writing grant proposals to get it back.

“There’s just a lot of work and churn that evidence shows does not lead to improved student outcomes,” he said.

But when asked what the Trump administration has done to convince stakeholders he not only intends to tear down the department but also build it back up again, Brickman didn’t directly answer the question. Instead, he referenced actions of the Biden administration.

“The Biden administration broke the entire Federal Student Aid system on purpose … They were trying to illegally turn the trillion-plus-dollar portfolio from a loan program into a grant program,” he said. “That is not what the Trump administration is doing. The Trump administration has tried to improve these programs and make them actually work again.”

Although what Biden did was “unfortunate,” Brickman said, it also creates an opportunity.

“This mess isn’t being created; it’s being responded to,” he said. “I hope institutions that may be predisposed to oppose anything coming from the Trump administration will welcome this as the end of a failed experiment that just put more restrictions on teaching and learning.”

Democrats Push Back

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers, student advocacy groups, civil rights organizations and left-leaning think tanks warn that Trump has no intention of rebuilding, only dismantling. The American Federation of Teachers, a key higher ed union, said the order is a government attempt to “abdicate its responsibility to all children, students and working families.”

Randi Weingarten, the union’s president, recognized in a statement Wednesday night that there are certainly ways the department could be more efficient, but she implied that’s not Trump’s goal.

“No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that,” she said. “But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities, in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires.”

Senate Democrats criticized the pending executive order to abolish the Department of Education as a press conference Thursday.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, blasted the Trump administration’s plans at a press conference Thursday. She said that Trump and his unelected government efficiency czar Elon Musk “don’t know what it’s like to count on their local public school having the resources to get their kids a great education … And they don’t care to learn why. They want to break the department, break our government, and enrich themselves.”

To the American Association of University Professors, “dismantling the Department of Education would hasten us into a new dark age.”

Former Biden under secretary James Kvaal told Inside Higher Ed that the draft order should dispel any notion that Trump is not trying to shut down the department. But at the same time, he said, the GOP administration’s approach to doing so has been “schizophrenic” and “inconsistent.”

“It can’t be true that students of color and with disabilities will have their civil rights protected, but also the federal government is not going to be involved in those decisions,” he said.

But at the same time, Kvaal and others note that, ultimately, the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to actually close the Department of Education, making full abolishment more complicated than the president suggests.

Shuttering the agency would require 60 votes in the Senate as well as a majority in the House, as the department’s existence is written into statute. And with a 53-seat majority in the Senate, Republicans don’t currently have the votes unless some Democrats back the plan.

“[The Republicans] don’t have the votes to close the department, and they already plan to enforce their plans on DEI, so it’s not clear what the EO adds to that,” Kvaal said. “It’ll get sorted out in the courts.”

Katherine Knott and Liam Knox contributed to this report.

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March 6, 2025
Trump reportedly set to order dismantling of Education Dept.

This story will be updated.

President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to close the agency, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets reported.

The president’s order—scheduled to be signed at 2 p.m. in the Oval Office—is the first step in carrying out his controversial campaign promise to abolish the 45-year-old department. A draft of the order provided to Inside Higher Ed criticizes the department for spending “more than $1 trillion without producing virtually any improvement in student reading and mathematics scores.” Trump’s press secretary called reports about the order “fake news.”

Education advocates have already shown staunch opposition to the executive action. The American Federation of Teachers, a key higher ed union, was one of the first groups to pipe up when the news broke Wednesday evening, calling the order a government attempt to “abdicate its responsibility to all children, students and working families.”

“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed,” union president Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that. But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities, in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires.”

The president and his allies have promoted the idea of dismantling the agency since the early days of his 2024 campaign, saying the department has grown too big and interferes in matters best left to local and state authorities. They also argue the agency’s existence violates the Constitution (because the document doesn’t mention education) and is a prime example of federal bloat and excess.

Read More on Trump’s Plans to Break Up the Department

Such an order has been rumored for weeks, and higher education officials have been nervously waiting for the shoe to drop since McMahon was confirmed by the Senate Monday afternoon. But the secretary backed plans to break up or diminish the department at her confirmation last month, and shortly after taking office, she wrote to agency staff about their “momentous final mission,” which includes overhauling the agency and eliminating “bureaucratic bloat.” She never did directly use the words “dismantle” or “abolish” but pledged to “send education back to the states.”

“As I’ve learned many times throughout my career, disruption leads to innovation and gets results,” she wrote. “We must start thinking about our final mission at the department as an overhaul—a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great.”

Eliminating the Education Department and sending key programs such as the Office for Civil Rights to other agencies was a key part of the conservative blueprint Project 2025’s plans to reshape education policy in America. But recent public opinion polls have found support for keeping the agency.

One survey conducted by the progressive think tank Data for Progress, on behalf of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a left-wing advocacy group, showed that 61 percent of all respondents “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed the idea of eliminating the department. Another poll from Morning Consult, a data-driven insights company, showed that a large chunk of voters—41 percent—actually want to increase funding to the department.

The order doesn’t mean the department will close tomorrow or even this month, as it calls for the secretary to create a plan to wind down operations. McMahon also told senators during her confirmation that only Congress can shut down the agency altogether.

Higher Ed Officials Brace for Impact

As talks about the department’s demise ramped up in recent weeks, lawmakers, student advocacy groups, civil rights organizations and left-leaning think tanks warned how destructive dismantling the department could be.

Democrats in the House started pushing back on the idea as early as Feb. 10, when they walked directly up to the department’s front doors and demanded a meeting with then–acting education secretary Denise Carter. Denied entry, they argued the department’s existence is key to supporting students with disabilities and making higher education accessible to all.

That same week, several key senators wrote a letter to the department outlining their “serious concerns” about its actions.

“We will not stand by and allow the impact that dismantling the Department of Education would have on the nation’s students, parents, borrowers, educators, and communities,” the lawmakers wrote.

Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, put out a statement expressing similar concerns for students of color just minutes after McMahon was confirmed. The NAACP played a key role in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools, and has been a longtime advocate for equality and opportunity in education. He said that protecting the Department of Education is critical, since the agency not only funds public schools, but “enforces essential civil rights laws.”

“This is an agency we cannot afford to dismantle,” he said.

On Tuesday morning, EdTrust, a nonprofit policy and advocacy group, said America has reached “a dangerous turning point for public education.”

“Simply put: If we are truly to reach America’s ‘Golden Age,’ we need to build a better, stronger Department of Education, not tear it down altogether,” the organization wrote in a statement.

Kevin Carey, vice president of education at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said in a statement that eliminating the department is a “deeply unpopular idea,” citing the organization’s own new polling data.

The survey found that over all only 26 percent of adults support the department’s closure. And though the Trump administration says it is carrying out the will of the people who elected him to office, barely half of Republicans want closure. Even fewer members of the GOP support the specific consequences of shuttering the department, like moving federal financial aid to an agency with no experience overseeing the program.

“This is all part of the standard authoritarian playbook for would-be dictators engaged in tearing down democratic institutions,” Carey wrote. Dismantling the department would be “a nihilistic act of civic vandalism, carried out by ideological zealots.”

Gathering Congressional Support

But Carey and others also note that, ultimately, the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to actually close the Department of Education, making full abolishment more complicated than the president suggests.

Shuttering the agency would require 60 votes in the Senate as well as a majority in the House, as the department’s existence is written into statute. And with a 53-seat majority in the Senate, Republicans don’t currently have the votes unless some Democrats back the plan.

Still, Trump has continued to promote the concept, and red states across the country have backed it. Although the president has not disclosed specific details on how he would try to overcome the political and legal hurdles, higher education policy experts predict he’s likely to leave the skeleton of the department standing while gutting the agency of everything but its statutorily protected duties.

Conservative groups, most notably the Heritage Foundation, have suggested redistributing responsibilities by moving programs to other agencies. For example, the federal student loan system could be moved to the Treasury, and the Office for Civil Rights could be moved to the Department of Justice.

Critics of the idea say that such proposals need more specifics that spell out how exactly the plan would work, what programs would stay, which ones would go away and what agencies would take over the department’s responsibilities.

However, higher ed policy experts from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, say getting rid of the department is “a good idea.” They describe the department as “unconstitutional,” given education is mentioned nowhere in the specific, enumerated powers given to the federal government, and call it “ineffective,” “incompetent,” “expensive” and “unnecessary.”

The founding fathers chose to exclude dominion over education from the Constitution “because education was believed best left in the hands of parents and civil society—the families and communities closest to the children—and certainly not in a distant national government,” Neal McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom, wrote in a policy handbook. “Nearly 60 years of experience with major and, until very recently, constantly expanding federal meddling in K-12 education have proved them right.”

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March 6, 2025
‘Inaccurate and misleading’: Democrat AGs push back against Trump’s DEI executive order
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Dive Brief:
- Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility best practices are not illegal, said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Illinois AG Kwame Raoul, in a multi-state DEIA at work guidance.
- In the Feb. 13 letter, the AGs said the federal government lacks the power to issue executive orders that prohibit “otherwise lawful activities in the private sector or mandates the wholesale removal of these policies and practices within private organizations, including those that receive federal contracts and grants.”
- The AGs of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont joined in issuing the guidance.
Dive Insight:

The letter came as a response to constituent concerns about the continued viability of DEIA, the AGs said, mainly in light of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

The primary EO in question, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” includes a directive that “order[s] all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”

The executive order alleges that colleges, along with other organizations, have “adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called … ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.’”

Campbell and Raoul said the order “conflates unlawful preferences in hiring and promotion with sound and lawful best practices for promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workforce.”

It’s “inaccurate and misleading,” they said. On Feb. 21, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction, partially blocking Trump’s executive order targeting the public and private sectors.

While the judge did not prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from proceeding with its investigation of private-sector DEI programs, Judge Adam Abelson held that the plaintiffs would likely succeed with their First and Fifth amendment claims, as well as claims alleging violations of the separation of powers clause.

Prior to the most recent guidance, Democrat attorney generals have made it their priority to speak up about DEI: Last summer, the AGs defended the American Bar Association’s diversity requirements for law schools.

More recently, the Democrat AGs said that the U.S. is “on the brink of dictatorship” due to Trump’s executive orders challenging the scope of the Constitution.

A key takeaway for HR? “Properly developed and implemented initiatives aimed at ensuring that diverse perspectives are included in the workplace help prevent unlawful discrimination,” the AGs said.
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February 27, 2025
A West Virginia HBCU reviews programs after anti-DEI order

West Virginia State University has been tasked with reviewing its programs and practices after the state’s governor issued an executive order against diversity, equity and inclusion. While other public institutions in the state have to do the same, West Virginia State University is in a somewhat unique position: It’s a public, historically Black institution with a predominantly white student body. The university serves all, but diversity and inclusion are part of its founding mission.

Higher ed experts say that while few public HBCUs are openly discussing the issue, West Virginia State isn’t the only such institution that’s undergoing this kind of review process as DEI bans proliferate. Some argue that subjecting HBCUs to these reviews is counterintuitive in light of their historic mission, raising questions about how such institutions will fare in the current state and federal policy landscape.

West Virginia State launched its review after Governor Patrick Morrisey last month banned state institutions from using “state funds, property, or resources” to “grant or support DEI staff positions, procedures or programs.” He also prohibited mandating DEI statements or any training or programming that “promotes or encourages the granting of preferences based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an advocacy organization for free speech rights, castigated the executive order as overly broad and warned it could limit what’s taught in West Virginia classrooms.

The executive order also required “all cabinet secretaries and department heads under the authority of the Governor” to complete a report within 30 days, identifying any positions, procedures or programs based in “theories of DEI.”

In response, West Virginia State University, along with other public universities in the state, submitted a letter outlining diversity-related positions, programs and activities, said Ericke Cage, the university’s president.

“If there are concerns raised by the governor’s office … then we need to work to negotiate possible resolutions,” Cage said, though he expects it won’t come to that.

In the letter, the university’s general counsel, Alice R. Faucett, argued that a comprehensive review found no evidence the university engages in or supports “preferential treatment” based on DEI principles.

At the same time, the response readily acknowledged the university’s history and mission as an HBCU.

“All procedural practices and programs at WVSU are designed to foster an inclusive and equitable environment,” Faucett wrote. They also “promote fairness and equal access while ensuring no group receives preferential treatment. The University remains dedicated to serving all members of the community, particularly those who have been historically marginalized, as part of its longstanding mission.”

The letter highlighted some practices and policies that reflect the university’s “commitment to diversity, inclusion and compliance with state directives.” They included annual Title IX trainings, services for sexual assault survivors, campus presentations on human rights law and email messages recognizing Black History Month, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Women’s History Month and other observances.

Faucett’s response also noted that the university receives some federal grants and privately funded scholarships with “DEI components,” without offering further detail.

Felecia Commodore, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said other public universities have taken a similar approach to DEI bans, arguing to state lawmakers that “there’s nothing to reorganize, because we’re not doing what you’re saying.”

‘Baked Into Who We Are’

Though such DEI reviews might seem fraught for an HBCU, Cage believes the university is likely to come out unscathed—and it may even fare better under the governor’s scrutiny than its non-HBCU counterparts. He noted that West Virginia State doesn’t have a DEI office or specific DEI personnel, a detail also highlighted in the university’s response document.

“When it comes to diversity and inclusiveness, that’s really baked into who we are as an institution as part of our DNA,” Cage said. “At our very core, we are all about being a highly inclusive institution where any student, regardless of their background, can come and get a good-quality education.”

He also emphasized that WVSU’s student population is majority white. University data from fall 2024 shows white students made up about 72 percent of the roughly 3,200 enrollees, while Black students composed about 10 percent, making it hard to argue the HBCU favors one racial group over another. Nationwide, non-Black students made up 24 percent of enrollment at HBCUs in 2020, compared to 15 percent in 1976, a trend that’s sparked discussion within some of these institutions about how to preserve HBCUs’ legacy while attracting and serving an increasingly broad range of students.

Commodore pointed out that, in fact, “HBCUs were some of the only institutions that never had race-based admissions.” HBCUs were founded after the abolition of slavery to educate Black Americans at a time when such students weren’t welcome at other higher education institutions.

For a while, non-Black students “chose not to go to them, but [HBCUs] have been inclusive since their inception,” she said. “If the aim of these reviews of DEI is to ensure that institutions are not discriminating because of race or gender or sex, to ensure that people are not being prioritized or excluded … actually, HBCUs were the model for that.”

Given that history, Cage theorized HBCUs may not be heavily affected by DEI bans for the same reasons he’s hopeful for his own institution: Diversity and inclusion are intrinsic to how these institutions operate, not housed in a particular office or center. At the same time, they serve all students. Non-HBCUs, on the other hand, have made changes over the years, building up supports and services for students of color, which are now at risk.

For “predominantly white institutions [that] have not traditionally or historically had that focus on inclusivity, I think it will be a challenge,” Cage said. “It is important for institutions to be welcoming, to provide support systems for diverse students,” and DEI programs were intended to make sure students from underrepresented backgrounds “felt that they were part of the university community.”

Some non-HBCUs in the state are scrambling to make changes to comply with the executive order. The state flagship, West Virginia University, just a few hours away from WVSU, reported in late January that it would shut down its Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in response to the executive order, a move the governor celebrated as a “win.”

“This is just the beginning of our effort to root out DEI,” Morrisey said in a video announcement about the division’s demise. “That’s going to happen more and more in the weeks and months ahead.”

Concerns Remain

Shaun Harper, University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California and an opinion contributor to Inside Higher Ed, said it’s become “incredibly pervasive” for public HBCUs to have to conduct reviews of their DEI work as state-level DEI bans spread—even if many HBCU leaders aren’t discussing the issue publicly.

And such reviews are extra burdensome for HBCUs, he argued.

“If a predominantly white institution gets that same request, it’s likely a lot easier for them to list their culture centers, their Office of Multicultural Affairs, perhaps the office of the chief diversity officer,” said Harper, who also serves as USC’s Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. For HBCUs, it’s “impossible, in fact, to catalog everything that would otherwise qualify in any other context as DEI” because most have majority-Black student populations and gear their programming and services toward their student bodies.

“It’s really onerous for presidents and their cabinet members and others on their campuses to even attempt to complete this exercise,” Harper added. “It requires enormous sums of their time.”

Harper doesn’t believe state lawmakers are gunning for HBCUs with anti-DEI bans; it’s more likely they thought very little about how hard it would be for them to list their diversity efforts, he said. Nonetheless, the bans make some public HBCU leaders fear for their state funding if they don’t comply, or if their DEI reviews fail to appease state lawmakers when many don’t have funding to spare.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said part of the challenge with many DEI bans is their “vagueness” and the “chaos” that can create for higher ed institutions.

The wording of some laws and executive orders calls into question, what can an HBCU do “to acknowledge, teach, celebrate, promote, its roots?” she said. “Is celebrating a national holiday”—like Martin Luther King Jr. Day—“is that acceptable?”

Cage said he hasn’t ruled out that some of WVSU’s programs could be at risk—including federal grants with DEI components or privately funded scholarships for students from certain racial backgrounds or geographic areas—as a result either of the governor’s executive order or President Donald Trump’s efforts to root out federal funding for DEI.

“If those privately funded scholarships are put in jeopardy, or if federal grants are eliminated, there will be a direct impact on our ability to support our students or to advance research and innovation on our campus,” he said. “Our students come to us with a thirst for knowledge, but they also come to us with not a lot of financial resources. I can’t tell you where we would come up with the resources to fill that gap.”

While the university is reviewing its academic programs as well, Cage said any changes to curricula or academic programming would fly in the face of the university’s accreditation standards, which require a commitment to academic freedom.

“When it comes to academic freedom and integrity, those are things that we really need to hold the line on,” he said.

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February 17, 2025
Trump Signs Executive Order to Ban Transgender Student-Athletes from Participation in Women’s Sports

by CUPA-HR | February 11, 2025

On February 5, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” The order aims to bar transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports by directing agencies to withdraw federal funding from schools that refuse to comply with the order.

The EO claims that, in recent years, educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports, which the Trump administration believes denies women and girls equal opportunity to participate in competitive sports, thus violating Title IX. As a result, the EO sets policy to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” and to “oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly.”

With respect to the specific actions ordered, the EO directs the secretary of education to ensure compliance with the court order to vacate the Biden administration’s Title IX rule and to take other actions to ensure that the 2024 regulations do not have effect. It also directs the secretary to take action to “protect all-female athletic opportunities” by setting forth regulations and policy guidance that clearly specifies and clarifies “that women’s sports are reserved for women.”

Notably, the EO further directs all federal agencies to review grants to educational programs and to rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with policy set forth in the EO. Institutions with grant programs deemed to be noncompliant with this order could, therefore, risk losing federal funding for that program.

The EO also seeks quick enforcement by federal agencies. The EO orders the Department of Education to prioritize Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions and athletic associations that “deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events.” The Department of Justice is also tasked with providing resources to relevant agencies to ensure “expeditious enforcement” of the policy set forth in the EO.

Finally, the EO directs the assistant to the president for domestic policy to convene both major athletic organizations and state attorneys general to promote policies consistent with Title IX and identify best practices in enforcing equal opportunities for women to participate in sports.

On February 6, the NCAA updated its policy regarding transgender student-athlete participation in response to the EO. According to the NCAA, the new policy limits competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth, but it allows student-athletes assigned male at birth to practice with women’s teams and receive benefits while practicing with them. For men’s sports, student-athletes may participate in practice and competition regardless of their sex assigned at birth or their gender identity, assuming all other eligibility requirements are met.

Institutions should review their policies and practices in light of the EO and the NCAA’s policy change. CUPA-HR will continue to monitor for Title IX updates and keep members apprised of new enforcement under the Trump administration.

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February 11, 2025
Trump signs order banning trans athletes in women’s sports

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday banning transgender women from participating in women’s sports.

“The war on women’s sports is over,” he said. “With my action this afternoon, we are putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding.”

The executive order, signed on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, declares that it’s “the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” Under the order, the assistant to the president for domestic policy will bring together representatives of “major athletic organizations and governing bodies, and female athletes harmed by such policies, to promote policies that are fair and safe, in the best interests of female athletes.”

The president’s latest action builds on the GOP’s broader campaign to remove all recognition of transgender individuals from state and federal programs. On his first day in office, Trump signed a separate executive action declaring that there are only two sexes and banning federal funding for any program related to “gender ideology.” And House Republicans have passed a bill that would unilaterally ban trans women from competing in women’s sports. In nearly half of the country, trans women are banned from playing women’s sports at the K-12 or higher education level, but the order would take those bans nationwide.

Additionally, the order calls on the education secretary to prioritize “Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions (including athletic associations composed of or governed by such institutions) that deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women’s category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.” (Federally funded K-12 public schools and colleges are required to comply with Title IX, which bars discrimination based on sex in educational settings.)

Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, told Congress recently that out of the more than 500,000 college athletes, fewer than 10 were transgender. The NCAA released a statement Wednesday that said, “The NCAA Board of Governors is reviewing the executive order and will take necessary steps to align NCAA policy in the coming days, subject to further guidance from the administration.”

As Trump spoke Wednesday, girls and women—including former University of Kentucky swimmer and anti-trans advocate Riley Gaines—stood behind him, often clapping in support.

After thanking them, the president turned back to face the rest of the East Room audience. He acknowledged the federal lawmakers, state attorneys general and governors in attendance, describing them as “friends of women’s sports.”

“My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter women,” he said. “It’s going to end and nobody’s gonna be able to do a damn thing about it because when I speak [I] speak with authority.” (Trump was referring to an Olympic gold medal–winning Algerian boxer whom some accused of being transgender; the boxer has publicly said she was born a woman.)

Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that trans students do not pose a threat in sports and deserve the same opportunities as their peers.

“The far-right’s disturbing obsession with controlling the bodies, hearts, and minds of our country’s youth harms all students,” Graves said.

Education secretary nominee Linda McMahon attended the ceremony, though her confirmation hearing for the office has yet to be scheduled. In the meantime, the department is being led by a collection of acting officials and appointees, including Deputy General Counsel Candice Jackson, who described the president’s order as “a demonstration of common sense.”

“The President affirmed that this administration will protect female athletes from the danger of competing against and the indignity of sharing private spaces with someone of the opposite sex,” Jackson said in a news release. “The Department of Education stands proudly with President Trump’s action as we prioritize Title IX enforcement against educational institutions that refuse to give female athletes the Title IX protections they deserve.”

Other Republican lawmakers praised the order Wednesday, arguing it would ensure women and girls won’t be pushed to the sidelines.

But Representative Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia and ranking member on the House education committee, was quick to oppose the order, calling it “yet another overreach by this administration” and saying its lack of clarity will further complicate what should be addressed by sports associations.

“Rather than address the real, urgent issues that students and families are facing every day, this administration continues to target vulnerable students—specifically transgender girls and women—with a shameless attempt to bully them,” he said in a statement. “They are willing to use the most vulnerable Americans as pawns in a political game.”

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February 5, 2025
Trump Signs Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism on Campus

by CUPA-HR | February 5, 2025

On January 29, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.” The order directs certain federal agencies to use appropriate legal tools to “prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”

Background

The new EO directly connects to and expands upon Trump’s EO 13899, “Combating Anti-Semitism,” that was signed in December 2019. The 2019 EO tasks federal departments and agencies charged with enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to use the law to investigate potential cases of discrimination against Jewish individuals where such action does not run contrary to rights protected under other federal laws.

The Biden administration did not rescind EO 13899, and they pursued regulations at the Department of Education to amend Title VI for cases involving discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. The proposed rule, which was not published during the Biden administration but was most recently included in the Fall 2024 Regulatory Agenda, indicated that the regulations were in part in response to EO 13899.

2025 Executive Order

The new EO states that it reaffirms EO 13899 and “directs additional measures to advance the policy thereof in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.” It takes direct aim at institutions of higher education, stating that the attacks resulted in “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence … especially in our schools and on our campuses.”

In response to these claims, the EO directs all federal agencies to submit a report within 60 days of the order that identifies “all civil and criminal authorities or actions within the jurisdiction of that agency, beyond those already implemented under Executive Order 13899, that might be used to curb or combat anti-Semitism.” Notably, the order directs these agency reports to include “an inventory and analysis of all pending administrative complaints … against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil rights violations related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023, campus anti-Semitism.”

The EO provides additional requirements for the reports submitted by the U.S. attorney general and the secretary of education. Specifically, the order directs the attorney general’s report to include “an inventory and analysis of all court cases against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil rights violations related to or arising from” antisemitism that potentially occurred after the October 2023 attacks. The attorney general is also required to indicate whether they intend to or have taken any action with respect to the cases at institutions of higher education. Moreover, the secretary of education is tasked with submitting additional inventory and analysis of Title VI complaints related to antisemitism that were filed to the Office for Civil Rights after the October 7 attacks.

Finally, the EO directs the secretaries of state, education and homeland security to report recommendations to familiarize “institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds” and to ensure “that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”

Next Steps

As explained above, the EO directs agencies to promulgate reports for the president within the next 60 days. Additional information and guidance are needed from relevant agencies to determine next steps for institutions of higher education. CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of additional updates related to Title VI enforcement and public policy related to antisemitism on campus.

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February 5, 2025
After Trump DEI order, MSU cancels Lunar New Year event

A college within Michigan State University canceled a lunch celebrating the Lunar New Year in part because of President Trump’s recent executive orders cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal government and elsewhere, the news site Bridge Michigan reported Thursday.

The order, signed last week, doesn’t define DEI but calls on federal agencies to “combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” Colleges with endowments valued at $1 billion or more could be investigated for potentially violating the order, under the White House directive. Michigan State has a $4.4 billion endowment.

A handful of colleges have taken down or reworked websites related to DEI since the order, while others have called off events. For instance, a conference at Rutgers University about registered apprenticeships and historically Black colleges and universities was canceled last week following the order. (Rutgers officials say calling off the conference wasn’t a university decision. Rather, it was canceled because the organizers, a group outside the university, received a stop work order from the Department of Labor.)

Michigan State administrators told Bridge Michigan they canceled the lunch, which was scheduled for Jan. 29 and has been held four times before, after Chinese students “expressed concern about an event tied to one racial group.”

The College of Communications Arts and Science was set to host the event. Lauren Gaines, the college’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion director, wrote in an email obtained by Bridge Michigan and the State News student paper that the cancellation was in response to concerns related to Trump’s immigration and DEI executive orders.

“These actions have prompted feelings of uncertainty and hesitation about gathering for events that highlight cultural traditions and communities,” Gaines wrote. “We feel it is important to honor those concerns with sensitivity and care.”

Heidi Hennink-Kaminski, the college’s dean, wrote in a follow-up email obtained by the news outlets that the decision was not “a statement of policy, but rather as an appropriate on-the-ground response given a very short decision window.”

Michigan State officials did not respond to a request for comment by press time but confirmed after publication that staff at the college canceled the event, adding that other Lunar New Year events continue.

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January 31, 2025
FIRE statement on reports of forthcoming executive order on student visas and campus protests

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order today threatening action against international students in the United States for their involvement in campus protests related to Israel and Hamas.

Per reports, President Trump promises to “quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” and to deport students who joined “pro-jihadist protests.”

The revocation of student visas should not be used to punish and filter out ideas disfavored by the federal government. The strength of our nation’s system of higher education derives from the exchange of the widest range of views, even unpopular or dissenting ones.

Students who commit crimes — including vandalism, threats, or violence — must face consequences, and those consequences may include the loss of a visa. But if today’s executive order reaches beyond illegal activity to instead punish students for protest or expression otherwise protected by the First Amendment, it must be withdrawn.

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January 29, 2025
Trump Signs Executive Order on Enforcement of Immigration Laws, Potentially Leading to Increased Worksite Enforcement Action
by CUPA-HR | January 29, 2025

Along with several immigration-related executive orders and actions issued on Inauguration Day, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The EO sets several directives for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to enforce immigration law against immigrants without permanent legal status in the U.S. and could implicate employers the government deems as “facilitating” the presence of such individuals.

Sections 4 and 5 of the EO establish civil and criminal enforcement priorities for relevant federal agencies. Specifically, the EO directs the secretary of Homeland Security to enable ICE and USCIS to set priorities for their agencies that would ensure successful enforcement of final orders of removal. Additionally, Section 8 of the EO directs increased enforcement action in the form of civil fines and penalties. The EO directs the secretary of Homeland Security to ensure assessment and collection of all fines and penalties from individuals unlawfully present in the U.S. and, notably, those who facilitate such individuals’ presence in the U.S.

Depending on how the agencies respond to this order, these three sections of the EO could lead to an uptick in worksite enforcement action. As a result of this EO, agencies could take increased enforcement action for employment-related immigration law, which could lead to agency actions such as Form I-9 audits and potential investigations and worksite visits related to immigration compliance. Employers who are not in compliance with federal immigration laws could be considered as entities that potentially “facilitate” the presence of immigrants without permanent legal status, which could lead to significant fines and other penalties for the employers.

Next Steps for HR Leaders

CUPA-HR has always worked to help you ensure that your institution’s Form I-9 processes are in compliance with federal requirements, and we’ve partnered with USCIS for many years to provide periodic guidance, support and resources. We also understand that it is sometimes a challenge to ensure total compliance for large, sprawling campuses and that some of you have employees at worksites across your state, the country and the globe. Through speeches and actions like this executive order, the Trump administration has made it clear that they intend to focus enforcement efforts on immigrants without permanent legal status and businesses employing them. As noted above, it is possible that there could be I-9 audits and site visits to ensure compliance. Penalties for noncompliance could include very large fines and loss of federal funding.

In light of this EO, it is vital for institutions to review their compliance with immigration laws regarding employment eligibility and work authorization. There are several questions HR leaders should ask themselves when reviewing compliance:

If you were notified tomorrow that your institution’s Form I-9 records were going to be audited in the coming weeks, where would your institution be most vulnerable?

What actions do you need to take today to address any potential vulnerabilities?

Do your presidents, provosts and other campus leaders understand and appreciate the magnitude of this potential challenge?

What changes do you need to make to your institution’s hiring and onboarding practices now to ensure compliance moving forward?

CUPA-HR will continue to monitor for any additional updates related to the Form I-9 and other hiring processes related to work authorization. If you need additional guidance or resources, please review the CUPA-HR I-9/E-Verify Toolkit.

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January 29, 2025