If you’ve attended a professional show or musical recently, chances are you’ve seen virtual set design in action. This approach to stage production has gained so much traction it’s now a staple in the industry. After gaining momentum in professional theater, it has made its way into collegiate performing arts programs and is now emerging in K-12 productions as well.
Virtual set design offers a modern alternative to traditional physical stage sets, using technology and software to create immersive backdrops and environments. This approach unlocks endless creative possibilities for schools while also providing practical advantages.
Here, I’ll delve into three key benefits: increasing student engagement and participation, improving efficiency and flexibility in productions, and expanding educational opportunities.
Increasing student engagement and participation
Incorporating virtual set design into productions gets students excited about learning new skills while enhancing the storytelling of a show. When I first joined Churchill High School in Livonia, Michigan as the performing arts manager, the first show we did was Shrek the Musical, and I knew it would require an elaborate set. While students usually work together to paint the various backdrops that bring the show to life, I wanted to introduce them to collaborating on virtual set design.
We set up Epson projectors on the fly rail and used them to project images as the show’s backdrops. Positioned at a short angle, the projectors avoided any shadowing on stage. To create a seamless image with both projectors, we utilized edge-blending and projection mapping techniques using just a Mac® laptop and QLab software. Throughout the performance, the projectors transformed the stage with a dozen dynamic backdrops, shifting from a swamp to a castle to a dungeon.
Students were amazed by the technology and very excited to learn how to integrate it into the set design process. Their enthusiasm created a real buzz around the production, and the community’s feedback on the final results were overwhelmingly positive.
Improving efficiency and flexibility
During Shrek the Musical, there were immediate benefits that made it so much easier to put together a show. To start, we saved money by eliminating the need to build multiple physical sets. While we were cutting costs on lumber and materials, we were also solving design challenges and expanding what was possible on stage.
This approach also saved us valuable time. Preparing the sets in the weeks leading up to the show was faster, and transitions during performances became seamless. Instead of moving bulky scenery between scenes or acts, the stage crew simply switched out projected images making it much more efficient.
We saw even more advantages in our spring production of She Kills Monsters. Some battle scenes called for 20 or 30 actors to be on stage at once, which would have been difficult to manage with a traditional set. By using virtual production, we broke the stage up with different panels spaced apart and projected designs, creating more space for performers. We were able to save physical space, as well as create a design that helped with stage blocking and made it easier for students to find their spots.
Since using virtual sets, our productions have become smoother, more efficient, and more creative.
Expanding educational opportunities
Beyond the practical benefits, virtual set design also creates valuable learning opportunities for students. Students involved in productions gain exposure to industry-level technology and learn about careers in the arts, audio, and video technology fields. Introducing students to these opportunities before graduating high school can really help prepare them for future success.
Additionally, in our school’s technical theater courses, students are learning lessons on virtual design and gaining hands-on experiences. As they are learning about potential career paths, they are developing collaboration skills and building transferable skills that directly connect to college and career readiness.
Looking ahead with virtual set design
Whether students are interested in graphic design, sound engineering, or visual technology, virtual production brings countless opportunities to them to explore. It allows them to experiment with tools and concepts that connect directly to potential college majors or future careers.
For schools, incorporating virtual production into high school theater offers more than just impressive shows. It provides a cost-effective, flexible, and innovative approach to storytelling. It is a powerful tool that benefits productions, enriches student learning, and prepares the next generation of artists and innovators.
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In 2023, Texas became one of the first red states to institute a sweeping ban on diversity, equity and inclusion in public colleges and universities.
Following pro-Palestinian protests and a police crackdown on an encampment at the University of Texas at Austin in 2024, the Texas Legislature this year passed another law restricting free speech on public campuses, including banning all expressive activities from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.
The Legislature also this year passed a wide-ranging bill that allows public college and university presidents to take over faculty senates and councils, prohibits faculty elected to those bodies from serving more than two years in a row, and creates an “ombudsman” position that can threaten universities’ funding if they don’t follow that law or the DEI ban.
The lead author listed on all three laws is Sen. Brandon Creighton, chair of the Texas Senate education committee. Having overhauled higher ed statewide, he’s about to get the chance to further his vision at one large university system: On Thursday, the Texas Tech University System plans to name Creighton the “sole finalist” for the system chancellor and chief executive officer job.
His hiring by the system’s Board of Regents—whose members are appointed by the governor with confirmation from the Senate—marks another example of a Republican politician in a large red state, namely Texas and Florida, being installed as a higher ed leader. The trend reflects an evolution in how Republicans are influencing public universities, from passing laws to directly leading institutions and systems. For universities, having a former member of the Legislature in the presidency can help with lobbying lawmakers, but it could also threaten academic freedom and risk alienating faculty.
Creighton wasn’t the only, or even the highest-ranking, politician considered for the position, which historically pays more than $1 million a year. As The Texas Tribuneearlier reported, Rep. Jodey Arrington, chair of the U.S. House Budget Committee and shepherd of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which affected higher ed nationwide, was also in the running. Unlike Creighton, Arrington has worked in higher ed—specifically as a vice chancellor and chancellor’s chief of staff in the Texas Tech system. Arrington, who didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview, issued a statement Sunday congratulating Creighton.
Faculty leaders offered a muted response to Creighton’s impending appointment. Neither the president of the Faculty Senate at the main Texas Tech campus, the president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors nor the state AAUP conference publicly denounced Creighton. In an emailed statement, the state conference said, “We have concerns about the future of academic freedom and shared governance in the Texas Tech University System given the positions Sen. Creighton has taken in the legislature.”
“We hope that Texas Tech’s strong tradition of shared governance and academic freedom continues so that Texas Tech can thrive,” the statement said.
Cody Campbell, the system board chair, said Creighton is “a fantastic fit with our culture and is clearly the best person for the job.” He added that he likes the higher ed legislation Creighton has passed. (Creighton was also lead author of a new law that lets universities pay athletes directly.)
“He shares the values of the Texas Tech University System,” Campbell said. Both the system and the wider community of Lubbock, where the main Texas Tech campus is located, are “conservative,” he said.
“We do not subscribe to the ideas around DEI and are supportive of a merit-based culture,” Campbell said, adding that Creighton is well positioned to continue the system’s growth in research, enrollment and academic standing.
For Creighton, the job could come with a big payout. Retiring Texas Tech system chancellor Tedd L. Mitchell made $1.3 million in 2023, ranking him the 12th-highest-paid public university leader in the country, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s database. The system didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s open records request for Mitchell’s current contract in time for this article’s publication, and Campbell told Inside Higher Ed Creighton’s pay is “yet to be determined.”
“The contract or the compensation were never part of the discussion with any of the candidates,” Campbell said.
Creighton didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview or answer written questions. But he appeared to accept the position in a post on X.
“Over the past six years, no university system in Texas has taken more bold steps forward,” he wrote. “Serving as Chairman of the Senate Education Committee and the Budget Subcommittee has been the honor of a lifetime—especially to help deliver that success for Texas Tech and its regional universities. I feel very blessed to have been considered for the role of Chancellor. There is no greater purpose I would consider than working to make generational changes that transform the lives of young Texans for decades to come.”
Cowing Faculty Senates
Campbell said he doesn’t recall whether Creighton and Arrington initially expressed interest in the position to the board or whether the board reached out to them. Dustin Womble, the board’s vice chair, declined to comment. Campbell said the board “actively recruited” some candidates.
“There wasn’t really a formal application process, necessarily,” he said. But dozens of candidates across the country expressed interest in the “high-paying position” leading a large system, he said.
The system says it has more than 60,000 students across five institutions and 20 locations, including one in San José, Costa Rica. The five institutions are Texas Tech (which has multiple campuses), Texas Tech Health Sciences Center (which also has multiple campuses), the separate Texas Tech Health Sciences Center El Paso, Angelo State University and Midwestern State University.
Asked about Creighton’s lack of higher ed work experience, Campbell said that wasn’t unusual for system chancellors, contrasting the position with those of the presidents who lead individual institutions on a day-to-day basis.
“Our past chancellor was a medical doctor, the chancellor before him was a state senator, the chancellor before him was a former U.S. congressman and a state politician; we’ve had businessmen in that position, we’ve had all different types of people,” Campbell said.
Aside from serving in the Senate for a decade and the state House for seven years before that, Creighton is an attorney.
Andrew Martin, the tenured art professor who leads the Texas Tech University main campus’s AAUP chapter, noted that “our chapter has actively opposed some of the legislation that Sen. Creighton has authored.”
“Our hope now is that Sen. Creighton, in apparently assuming the role of chancellor, will spend time learning more about the campuses in the TTU System and will meet as many students, faculty [and] administrators on our campuses as possible to see how these institutions actually operate day in and day out,” Martin said. “I’m not sure how clear that’s been from his perspective as a lawyer and legislator.”
Martin—who stressed that he was speaking for himself and colleagues he’s spoken to, but not on behalf of his university—said the AAUP is concerned with maintaining academic freedom for faculty and students, upholding tenure protections, and preserving the faculty’s role in determining curriculum, conducting research and exercising shared governance.
When the Legislature passed Senate Bill 37—the Creighton legislation that, among other things, upended faculty senates—Creighton issued a news release saying, “Faculty Senates will no longer control our campuses.” He said his legislation “takes on politically charged academic programs and ensures students graduate with degrees of value, not degrees rooted in activism and political indoctrination.”
Among other things, SB 37 requires university presidents to choose who leads faculty senates. Ryan Cassidy, a tenured associate librarian, was elected to lead the Texas Tech University main campus’s Faculty Senate before SB 37 took effect, and the institution’s president has allowed him to stay in that role.
Asked about Creighton being named chancellor, Cassidy said, “I haven’t really had time to reflect on it.”
Creighton’s bio on the Legislature’s website touts his conservative values outside of higher ed, too. “He has relentlessly hammered excessive taxation, pursued ‘loser pays’ tort reform, passed drug testing for unemployment benefits, stood up for Texas’ 10th Amendment rights and effectively blocked Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion,” the bio says.
Martin said Texas Tech aspires to become a member of the Association of American Universities, a prestigious group of top research universities, of which UT Austin and Texas A&M University are already members. That would be hard if faculty are “marginalized,” he said.
“You can’t get there without the huge investment of faculty,” he said.
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The Trump administration is tapping agencies other than the U.S. Department of Education to implement its agenda in colleges and K-12 schools, sometimes circumventing typical rulemaking procedures that would allow districts months to give feedback on and prepare for policy changes before they roll out.
The use of other agencies to set or enforce education policy marks a significant shift from typical K-12 policymaking, some education policy experts say.
“This is a paradigm shift on the part of how the federal government articulates and connects some of these tools to their education priorities,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University. “So I think going forward, we might be seeing broader use of this wider range of policy tools in the area of education policy changes.”
This month, for example, a policy change from the U.S. Department of Energy could take effect that would undo some students’ protections related to sex discrimination under Title IX, disability discrimination under Section 504 and racial discrimination under Title VI.
The changes would only apply to colleges receiving Energy Department funds, as opposed to public institutions nationwide — which would have been the case had the rules come from the Education Department. The Energy Department provides over $2.5 billion in research funding to more than 300 colleges annually. The agency also distributed just over $160 million to 28 schools in fiscal year 2025, according to department spokesperson Ben Dietderich.
As a result of the quietly proposed policy changes, colleges receiving Energy Department grants would no longer, among other things:
Be required to facilitate noncontact sports team tryouts for women if there is no equivalent women’s team. For example, if a college had a men’s baseball team but no women’s softball team, women would no longer be guaranteed the opportunity to try out for a spot on the men’s baseball team.
Be permitted to proactively “overcome the effects of conditions that resulted in limited participation therein by persons of a particular sex.” This would remove protections that allow schools to have gender-conscious after-school or college programs to provide women and girls opportunities they have historically been denied, such as in STEM fields and technical training, according to Shiwali Patel, senior director of Safe and Inclusive Schools at National Women’s Law Center and a Title IX attorney.
Be required to prevent systemic racial discrimination that may result from seemingly neutral policies, as a result of the department rescinding guardrails protecting against policies that cause a “disparate impact” on underserved students. Disparate impact investigations have previously addressed issues such as Black students being disciplined at higher rates than students of other races.
The agency issued the policy changes through a process called direct final rulemaking, which allows it to issue a rule without going through the rulemaking process twice to incorporate changes based on public feedback and publish a final version. The expedited process is usually used for noncontroversial changes and when an agency does not expect significant pushback.
The rules are to take effect July 15 as long as no “significant adverse comments” were received by June 16. Dietderich did not respond as to whether the agency received significant adverse comments.
However, a review of some publicly available comments show that the direct final rules — posted May 16 — have been controversial, with multiple civil rights organizations explicitly telling the Energy Department they are submitting “significant, adverse” comments for its review.
Other agencies launch civil rights investigations and enforcement
The Energy Department situation isn’t the first time the Trump administration has deployed agencies other than the Education Department to set or enforce education policy. In fact, the administration has used the departments of Justice, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services over the past few months to investigate sex and race discrimination at schools and enforce compliance.
The administration notably used these agencies in an unprecedented investigation into the Maine Department of Education, spurred by a public disagreement between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, over the state’s athletic policy allowing transgender athletes on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
That dispute kicked off a string of Title IX investigations by several federal agencies that provide funds to Maine.
They included a four-day probe launched by HHS. And because HHS rather than the Education Department conducted the probe, it didn’t have to follow the standards spelled out in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights case processing manual. That manual ensures the Education Department conducts investigations according to certain timelines, for example, allowing up to 90 calendar days for negotiations to take place and 10 days for schools or states to sign onto a resolution agreement.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture froze funds to some of the state’s schools over the Maine Department of Education’s alleged Title IX violations.
“USDA, alongside other federal agencies, will continue to pause and, where appropriate, terminate categories of education programming in Maine if these Title IX violations are not resolved to the satisfaction of the Federal Government,” said an April 2 letter from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to Mills.
A court order eventually overturned the USDA funding freeze as part of an agreement struck in May between Maine and the USDA.
These Title IX enforcement actions through HHS, USDA and the Education Department culminated in the Trump administration referring the cases to the Department of Justice, which announced a civil lawsuit against Maine over Title IX compliance in April.
Since then, the administration has used these agencies to initiate and enforce other investigations into schools and states — including over antisemitism under Title VI — in states like California and Minnesota.
Sonja Trainor, executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, acknowledged that federal agencies have been setting and enforcing education policy outside of formal legal channels for many years.
But “what’s different now is the speed with which policy priorities are materializing into funding terminations and direct enforcement,” Trainor said in an email. “Of particular concern, of course, is funding and the prospect of being sued from many possible angles when policy shifts quickly.”
Wong said the Energy Department policy changes potentially taking effect could serve as a test case, as the Maine case did for civil rights investigations.
That means if the Energy Department’s changes went uncontested by districts concerning significant adverse effects, and thus go through in about 60 days as is usual for direct final rules, other agencies will also try setting education policy this way, Wong said.
“Basically every single school, in practically every single school district, has some grants from one of the many agencies in the federal government,” said Wong.
So while the immediate impact of the Energy Department changes would be limited to those that receive its funding, ultimately many more schools could be affected.
Policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion and Title IX are particularly susceptible here, said Wong. “I think there’s a whole bunch of standards that the current secretary of education is redefining, and so these other agencies are likely to provide a vehicle to kind of challenge the practice in the local school systems.”
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The Trump administration is tapping agencies other than the U.S. Department of Education to implement its agenda in schools, sometimes circumventing typical rulemaking procedures that would allow districts months to give feedback on and prepare for policy changes before they roll out.
The use of other agencies to set or enforce education policy marks a significant shift from typical K-12 policymaking, some education policy experts say.
“This is a paradigm shift on the part of how the federal government articulates and connects some of these tools to their education priorities,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University. “So I think going forward, we might be seeing broader use of this wider range of policy tools in the area of education policy changes.”
This month, for example, a policy change from the U.S. Department of Energy could take effect that would undo some students’ protections related to sex discrimination under Title IX, disability discrimination under Section 504 and racial discrimination under Title VI.
The changes would only apply to schools receiving Energy Department funds, as opposed to public schools nationwide — which would have been the case had the rules come from the Education Department. The Energy Department distributed just over $160 million to 28 schools in fiscal year 2025, according to department spokesperson Ben Dietderich. The agency also provides over $2.5 billion annually to more than 300 colleges and universities to fund research.
As a result of the quietly proposed policy changes schools receiving Energy Department grants would no longer, among other things:
Be required to facilitate noncontact sports team tryouts for girls if there is no equivalent girls’ team. For example, if a school had a boys’ baseball team but no girls’ softball team, girls would no longer be guaranteed the opportunity to try out for a spot on the boys’ baseball team.
Be permitted to proactively “overcome the effects of conditions that resulted in limited participation therein by persons of a particular sex.” This would remove protections that allow schools to have gender-conscious after-school or college programs to provide women and girls opportunities they have historically been denied, such as in STEM fields and technical training, according to Shiwali Patel, senior director of Safe and Inclusive Schools at National Women’s Law Center and a Title IX attorney.
Be required to prevent systemic racial discrimination that may result from seemingly neutral policies, as a result of the department rescinding guardrails protecting against policies that cause a “disparate impact” on underserved students. Disparate impact investigations have previously addressed issues such as Black students being disciplined at higher rates than students of other races.
The policy changes were issued through a process called direct final rulemaking, which allows an agency to issue a rule without going through the rulemaking process twice to incorporate changes based on public feedback and publish a final version. The expedited process is usually used for noncontroversial changes and when an agency does not expect significant pushback.
The rules are to take effect July 15 as long as no “significant adverse comments” were received by June 16. Dietderich did not respond as to whether the agency received significant adverse comments.
However, a review of some publicly available comments show that the direct final rules — posted May 16 — have been controversial, with multiple civil rights organizations explicitly telling the Energy Department they are submitting “significant, adverse” comments for its review.
Other agencies launch civil rights investigations and enforcement
The Energy Department situation isn’t the first time the Trump administration has deployed agencies beyond the Education Department to set or enforce education policy. In fact, the administration has used the departments of Justice, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services over the past few months to investigate sex and race discrimination at schools and enforce compliance.
The administration notably used these agencies in an unprecedented investigation into the Maine Department of Education, spurred by a public disagreement between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, over the state’s athletic policy allowing transgender athletes on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
That dispute kicked off a string of Title IX investigations by several federal agencies that provide funds to Maine.
They included a four-day probe launched by HHS. And because HHS rather than the Education Department conducted the probe, it didn’t have to follow the standards spelled out in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights case processing manual. That manual ensures the Education Department conducts investigations according to certain timelines, for example, allowing up to 90 calendar days for negotiations to take place and 10 days for schools or states to sign onto a resolution agreement.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture froze funds to some of the state’s schools over the Maine Department of Education’s alleged Title IX violations.
“USDA, alongside other federal agencies, will continue to pause and, where appropriate, terminate categories of education programming in Maine if these Title IX violations are not resolved to the satisfaction of the Federal Government,” said an April 2 letter from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to Mills.
A court order eventually overturned the USDA funding freeze as part of an agreement struck in May between Maine and the USDA.
These Title IX enforcement actions through HHS, USDA and the Education Department culminated in the Trump administration referring the cases to the Department of Justice, which announced a civil lawsuit against Maine over Title IX compliance in April.
Since then, the administration has used these agencies to initiate and enforce other investigations into schools and states — including over antisemitism under Title VI, — in states like California and Minnesota.
Sonja Trainor, executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, acknowledged that federal agencies have been setting and enforcing education policy outside of formal legal channels for many years.
But “what’s different now is the speed with which policy priorities are materializing into funding terminations and direct enforcement,” Trainor said in an email. “Of particular concern, of course, is funding and the prospect of being sued from many possible angles when policy shifts quickly.”
Wong said the Energy Department policy changes potentially taking effect next week could serve as a test case, as the Maine case did for civil rights investigations.
That means if the Energy Department’s changes went uncontested by districts concerning significant adverse effects, and thus go through in about 60 days as is usual for direct final rules, other agencies will also try setting education policy this way, Wong said.
“Basically every single school, in practically every single school district, has some grants from one of the many agencies in the federal government,” said Wong.
So while the immediate impact of the Energy Department changes would be limited to those that receive its funding, ultimately many more schools could be affected.
Policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion and Title IX are particularly susceptible here, said Wong. “I think there’s a whole bunch of standards that the current secretary of education is redefining, and so these other agencies are likely to provide a vehicle to kind of challenge the practice in the local school systems.”‘
American higher education stands at a critical juncture following the emergence of reports that the Department of Justice is seeking a consent decree with Columbia University. While Columbia’s acting president responded by stating, “We would reject any agreement that would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution,” the very possibility of such a decree signals a new chapter in the relationship between colleges and universities and the federal government. Even the proposition of a consent decree sets a dangerous precedent for American higher education, one that erodes institutional autonomy and the independence of governing boards.
At a time when our colleges and universities are navigating political crosswinds, social unrest and increasing scrutiny, the integrity of board governance has never mattered more. Independent governing boards are not symbolic structures—they are foundational to higher education’s ability to serve the public good, safeguard academic freedom and maintain mission-centered leadership through both crisis and calm.
The concern is not whether institutions should comply with the law. Of course they should. The question is whether legal settlements or government actions should be allowed to intrude on the role of boards, setting terms that weaken governance authority or sideline trustees from their fiduciary duties.
What should trustees at other colleges and universities do if faced with similar pressure to agree—without legal adjudication—to external controls that appear to compromise governance independence?
First, they must reaffirm their fiduciary duties—not just as a formality, but as a framework for bold, mission-driven leadership. Boards must remain grounded in their legal and ethical obligations: duty of care, duty of loyalty and duty of obedience to the institution’s mission. In the face of political pressure, these aren’t abstract ideals—they are anchors.
Second, boards must seek independent legal and governance counsel early in any negotiation process. The interests of compliance and governance are not always aligned. Trustees must understand the distinction between politics, policies and law and be prepared to assert their responsibilities.
Third, if presented with a consent decree or settlement that overreaches, trustees should insist on clear, limited and transparent terms—not vague provisions that allow for creeping oversight or ambiguous veto powers. A board that relinquishes its authority may be trying to protect its institution in the moment, but in doing so it places the long-term health of not only its own institution but the entire educational sector at risk.
Finally, boards must speak—together. We need a collective stance among governing boards, higher education associations and institutional leaders that reasserts the value of independent governance in a democratic society. The erosion of board autonomy doesn’t just threaten governance structures—it jeopardizes the trust, freedom, credibility and sustainability of our institutions.
This is a defining moment. If we allow undue influences—whether government agencies, political appointees, donors, alumni or others—to dictate the terms of campus governance, we risk undoing the foundation of American higher education. Trustees must act independently—with clarity, courage and an unwavering commitment to their institutions’ missions and values.
The future of higher education depends on it.
Ross Mugler is the board chair and acting president and CEO of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
Born in 1983 in the southern neighborhoods of Santiago, Chile, Francisco Tapia Salinas—better known as Papas Fritas—emerged as an influential figure in contemporary art despite having limited formal training. Tapia’s unconventional path led him to become an internationally recognized artist, but it was his provocative 2014 performance piece, Ad Augusta per Augusta (“To the Elevated by the Difficult”), that catapulted him to fame and solidified his place in the global art scene.
The title of the work was a direct reference to the motto of the now-defunct University del Mar, a private institution that had been shut down by Chile’s Ministry of Education. As the university’s closure left hundreds of students with substantial debt but no degree, Tapia was moved to take action. In an audacious statement of solidarity, he planned to “destroy the promissory notes and IOUs” that had burdened these students, who were trapped by years of financial obligations despite not completing their education.
On the day of the performance, Papas Fritas and a group of students seized the campus and stole documents worth over 500 million Chilean pesos (roughly equivalent to millions of dollars in student debt). The artist then set the documents on fire, offering the ashes as a powerful visual symbol of resistance and a rejection of the deeply privatized educational system. Tapia’s act of defiance was followed by his self-reporting to the authorities.
In a poignant five-minute video shared widely, Tapia declared, “It’s over, it’s finished. You don’t have to pay another peso of your student loan debt. We have to lose our fear, our fear of being thought of as criminals because we’re poor. I am just like you, living a shitty life, and I live it day by day — this is my act of love for you.” His words resonated deeply, especially among the university’s students, who were legally able to disavow their debts as a result of his intervention.
The minimal legal consequences Tapia faced in light of local legislation underscored the paradox of a system that prioritizes privatization over the well-being of its citizens. His artistic intervention, which boldly confronted both the educational establishment and Chile’s deeply entrenched financial inequities, has since been hailed as an iconic piece of contemporary Chilean art.
Ad Augusta per Augusta remains a testament to Tapia’s unflinching commitment to social justice, and his work continues to provoke discussions on the intersection of art, activism, and the privatization of education in Latin America.
Addressing the audience at the British Council’s East Asia Education Week 2025, held in Hong Kong, Xiang Weng, visa outreach officer for South China/ West China/ Hong Kong and Macau Visa, British Consulate – General Guangzhou, described a “new concept” which would see agent advisory groups set up to enhance collaboration.
“One of our colleagues from Vietnam set up what we call our Agent Advisory Groups and tested the concept there. Now, we plan to expand it across the rest of East Asia,” said Weng.
“By having these advisory groups, UKVI can build a much stronger connection with agents, gain valuable local intelligence, and share insights with our Home Office colleagues. This will help us introduce and improve our visa services across the region.”
Though UKVI didn’t confirm plans to introduce agent advisory groups in the broader East Asian region to The PIE News, it noted that it continually works with overseas stakeholders, including the British Council, to support prospective students by addressing their questions about the UK visa system.
Over the years, Vietnam has played a pioneering role in the UK’s efforts to increase transparency among agents in East Asia.
By having these advisory groups, the UKVI can build a much stronger connection with agents, gain valuable local intelligence, and share insights with our Home Office colleagues.
Xiang Weng, British Consulate-General Guangzhou
Just last year, over 130 education advisers in Vietnam earned the prestigious “I am a UK-certified counsellor” badge, as part of the Agent Quality Framework, showcasing their expertise and deep understanding of the UK as a study destination.
According to Weng, the concept’s success in Vietnam can be emulated in the broader East Asian region.
Though visa approval remains high in East Asia, students still fall victims to common mistakes, she explained.
“Some students forget to provide a TB (tuberculosis) certificate or evidence of finances which can impact their applications,” stated Weng.
“In countries like Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, China, and Hong Kong, when applying for a student visa, you only need to submit your passport and TB certificate. That’s it. You don’t even need to apply for IELTS or provide evidence of finances.”
Though visas challenges have not proved to be a major barrier for UK universities accessing the East Asian student market, intra-regional mobility and price concerns are leading to fluctuations in demand for UK education, as reported by The PIE News.
According to Daniel Zheng, managing director, HOPE International Education, safety concerns and career prospects have also become key factors influencing student choices in East Asia, particularly in China.
To tackle these challenges, UK universities are increasingly turning to in-house employability services and other affordability options for international students.
“In terms of affordability, many UK universities, including ours, have in-house employability service teams. Their role is to enhance students’ employability and expand their career opportunities after graduation,” stated Scarlett Peng-Zang, East Asia regional head, University of Nottingham.
“So I believe that there’s something everyone is working on regarding addressing the economic uncertainty. I found lots of UK universities offer alternative payment options to improve affordability. So is the same for Nottingham University.”
As rankings of East Asian universities rise and the countries set mammoth targets for international students, agencies are also looking inward for recruitment opportunities, expanding beyond the UK.
“In the past six months, my colleagues and I have traveled to Singapore and Malaysia three times, visiting UK university campuses like Southampton and Nottingham, as well as boarding schools like Epsom College,” stated Zheng.
“This indicates that there is significant interest – not just from us, but also from our partners and institutions – in the Malaysian market, particularly from China.”
These changing trends come at a time when UK institutions are under pressure to measure the return on investment of their agents, according to Fraser Deas, director, client success, Grok Global.
“We are noticing that UK institutions are under pressure to measure the ROI of their agents. How can we work with them, along with in-country staff, to ensure that agencies provide evidence that these partnerships are going well? There’s important work to be done in that sense,” stated Deas.
“I think there is a genuinely good understanding in the sector of the difference between in-country staff and agents. The role of a third party should be to facilitate that relationship without interfering, but it remains very important.”
Agents and universities having a direct relationship has also become important for UK-East Asia relations, with organisations like BUILA demonstrating how agents can be compliant with the UK National Code of Ethical Practice as the Agent Quality Framework comes in focus.
As per Dave Few, Associate Director, Jackstudy Abroad, while education agents are already performing well, there is a concern about maintaining quality as more agencies enter the market, particularly through aggregators.
“In my unbiased perspective, I think agents are already doing a fantastic job. The key factor is the quality of information – ensuring that as the barrier for entry for new agencies lowers through aggregators, the quality remains consistent,” stated Few.
“Whether that means requiring a year of training from the very beginning or another measure, the priority should always be keeping the student at the heart of the conversation, not revenue.”
NORMAN, Okla. — Sometimes, Jakob Topper teaches his Christian faith to his 6-year-old daughter using children’s Bible stories illustrated with teddy bears. Other days, he might use her kid-friendly Bible featuring Precious Moments figures as characters. One thing he knows for sure: The King James version is not on the reading list, given some of its adult themes of sexual assault and incest.
As a parent and a Baptist pastor, Topper opposes Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction’s mandate to put a King James Version Bible in every grade 5–12 classroom. The father of three is also not keen on the state’s newly proposed social studies standards that would require biblical lessons starting in first grade.
“I want the Bible taught to my daughter, and I want to be the one who chooses how that’s done,” said Topper, who also has a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old and is pastor of NorthHaven Church in Norman, a university town. “If we’re talking about parental choice, that’s my choice. I don’t want it to be farmed out to anyone else.”
Norman, a central Oklahoman city of about 130,000, is an epicenter of resistance to the Bible mandate that the state superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, announced last June. Opposition here has come from pastors, religion professors, students, parents, teachers, school board members and the school district superintendent, among others. The prevailing philosophy among Norman residents, who are predominantly Christian, is that they do not want the state — and namely, Walters — mandating how children should be taught scriptures. They want their children to learn from holy books at home or in church.
Pastor Jakob Topper, of NorthHaven Church, says he prefers to teach his children about the Bible rather than placing that responsibility on teachers. Credit: Mike Simmons for The Hechinger Report
Many residents see Walters’s pitch as a play for national attention, given his abundance of social media posts praising Donald Trump, who campaigned on returning prayer to schools and as president has established a White House Faith Office and a task force to root out “anti-Christian bias.” In September, Walters proposed spending $3 million to buy 55,000 copies of the Bible that has been endorsed by the president and for which he receives royalties. More recently, Walters — who in February clashed with his state’s governor for proposing that public schools track students’ immigration statuses — made media lists as a possible candidate for Trump’s education secretary. He was not picked.
But beyond Walter’s national aspirations, the Bible mandate also seems like an attempt at one-upmanship, with other states angling to infuse Christianity into public schools. Louisiana, for instance, is in a court battle over its push for Ten Commandments posters in schools. Texas fought off Democratic opposition to approve an optional Bible-infused curriculum and financial incentives for school districts that use the materials. A slew of states have passed or promoted similar measures, including ones allowing chaplains to act as counselors in schools. Unsurprisingly, Walters, too, has advocated for displaying the Ten Commandments in every classroom and also has backed the conversion of a private virtual Catholic school into a charter school; the Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments on the case on April 30.
It goes without saying that Walters’s crusade is multifaceted. But fundamentally, all of his efforts amount to teaching the Bible “in inappropriate ways in public schools,” said Amanda Tyler, author of “How to End Christian Nationalism” and executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a Washington, DC–based organization of attorneys, ministers, and others who advocate for religious freedom. “He’s saying you can’t be a good American citizen if you don’t understand the Bible,” she added. “It’s this merger of American and Christian identities, the idea that only Christians are true Americans.”
On March 10, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dealt a blow to Walters’s plans: It issued a temporary stay prohibiting the state’s department of education from purchasing 55,000 Bibles with certain characteristics and from buying Bible-infused lessons and material for elementary schools.
The stay stems from a lawsuit led by Americans United for Separation of Church and State on behalf of 32 plaintiffs, including parents, clergy, students and teachers. The group, which is suing Walters, claims the Bible mandate violated the state’s prohibition against using state funds for religious purposes and the state’s own statutes allowing local district control over curriculum.
As of now, until the court issues a final ruling, its decision marks a victory in Americans United’s attempt to stop Walters, said Alex Luchenitser, the organization’s associate legal director: “It protects the separation of church and state. It protects the religious freedom of students.” Speaking about the court’s stay, Walters, through spokeswoman Grace Kim, said in a statement: “The Bible has been a cornerstone of our nation’s history and education for generations. We will continue fighting to ensure students have access to this foundational text in the classroom.”
Oklahoma Supreme Court, pictured in the state Capitol building, in March issued a stay that would prohibit the state education department from purchasing Bibles and Bible-infused lessons for elementary students. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/ Associated Press
Meanwhile, Walters was also sued separately last summer by a parent in Locust Grove who contended the mandate violated the state and federal constitutions. The state education department has denied the claims of both suits and contended in legal briefs that using the Bible for its secular value does not violate the state’s constitution.
Walters’s mandate has also sparked concern because of the proposed social studies standards that followed. The standards, which were initially released in December and would require legislative approval, mention the Bible and its historical impact more than 40 times. Several of the standards attempt to erroneously frame the Bible, and specifically the Ten Commandments, as the foundation of American law. Biblical scholars from the University of Oklahoma and elsewhere believe these standards promote the long-standing trope of Christian nationalism, which is premised in part on the false idea that the nation’s founding documents stemmed from the Bible. (The founders were Bible readers, but not necessarily fans of the same versions or holy texts in general. In fact, Thomas Jefferson cut up pages of the Bible to remove mention of miracles or the supernatural.)
For example, Walters’s standards would require students in first grade to learn about David and Goliath, as well as Moses and the Ten Commandments, because the standards cite them as influences on the American colonists and others. Second graders would be asked to “identify stories from Christianity that influenced the American colonists, Founders, and culture, including the teachings of Jesus the Nazareth (e.g. the ‘Golden Rule,’ the Sermon on the Mount).”
“These new standards,” said a news release from the state department of education, “reflect what the people of Oklahoma — and all across America — have long been demanding of their public schools: a return to education curricula that upholds pro-family, pro-American values.” (Walters’s press office, despite repeated requests, did not make the state superintendent available for an interview.)
Critics in Oklahoma and elsewhere see Walters’s Bible mandate as part of a broader Christian nationalist movement. “I think Oklahoma is the test case for the nation,” said Dawn Brockman,a Norman school board member.
Walters, though, has been steadfast in his belief that the mandate is legal and critical for the education of Oklahomans. In the fall, after Americans United sued, Walters wrote on X: “The simple fact is that understanding how the Bible has impacted our nation, in its proper historical and literary context, was the norm in America until the 1960s and its removal has coincided with a precipitous decline in American schools.”
But nothing is simple about the history of the Bible in America’s schools. When public schools started to open in the 1800s, some required regular Bible readings. From the beginning, that practice was controversial: Schools typically favored the King James Version, pitting Protestants against Catholics, and riots over school Bible readings broke out from the 1840s into the 1870s, said Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. By 1930, 36 states allowed Bible reading to be a requirement or an option, but another dozen banned such activities.
A few decades later, a Pennsylvania family sued their school district for heeding the state’s 1949 law requiring the reading of 10 Bible verses and the recitation of prayers at the start of each school day. In 1963, just a year after a similar opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that requiring in-school Bible readings and prayers was unconstitutional. After those rulings, daily teaching from the Bible, for the most part, was halted, Chancey said, but backlash continued, with critics charging that removing prayer and Bible readings from schools had led to a decline in the morality of schoolchildren.
In subsequent decades, the Supreme Court ruled against clergy-led prayer and prayer over the loudspeakers at football games in several school-related cases. But in a seeming reversal, in 2022, the high court ruled in favor of allowing a football coach to conduct midfield, postgame prayers, shifting the legal landscape. The majority’s opinion on the football coach’s prayer has prompted politicians and states to further test the limits of the separation of church and state. In February, lawmakers in Idaho and Texas even proposed measures to allow daily Bible readings in public schools again.
Darcy Pippins, who teaches Spanish at Norman High School, said she doesn’t feel qualified to teach about the Bible. Credit: Mike Simmons for The Hechinger Report
In Norman, many teachers reacted to news of the Bible mandate with concern and fear. Spanish teacher Darcy Pippins,who is in her 27th year at Norman High, said she sometimes teaches about Catholicism because it is the religion of the Spanish-speaking world. But putting a Bible in every classroom and teaching from it is different. “I just don’t feel comfortable,” said Pippins, also a parent. “I’m not qualified to teach and to incorporate the Bible into what I teach.’’
Other teachers, said Brockman, the school board member, worried about professional repercussions were they not to follow the mandate, given that Walters had already targeted at least one Norman teacher in the past for objecting to bans on particular books.
Nick Migliorino, the public school system’s superintendent since 2017, was the first superintendent in the state to publicly oppose the Bible mandate. When asked about it in a July interview with a local paper, he responded: “I’m just going to cut to the chase on that. Norman Public Schools is not going to have Bibles in our classrooms, and we are not going to require our teachers to teach from the Bible.”
Other superintendents followed, and by late July, at least 17 school district leaders said they had no plans to change curriculum in response to the Bible mandate, according to a report by StateImpact Oklahoma.
In an interview at his district’s headquarters, Migliorino emphasized that his school system already teaches how different religions affect history. Bibles, he noted, are accessible to students through the library. Migliorino added that the state superintendent had no authority to make school districts follow the mandate and that it would result in pushing Christianity on students.
“It’s a captive audience, and that is not our role to push things onto kids,” he said. “Our role is to educate them and to create thinkers.”
Oklahoma already has a 2010 measure allowing school districts to offer elective Bible classes and to give students the latitude to pick the biblical text they prefer to use. But unlike Walters’s mandate, it allows for different biblical perspectives, said Alan Levenson, chair of Judaic history at the University of Oklahoma and a biblical scholar. Even still, there has never been widespread interest in a Bible elective in Norman, said Jane Purcell, the school system’s social studies coordinator. Nor was there much interest in such a class when she taught in Florida. Since 2006, at least a dozen states have passed laws promoting elective Bible classes.
This may be, in part, because educators worry about potential issues with teaching Bible courses, said Purcell: “It’s very easy for it to appear to be proselytizing.”
Walters, for his part, has not taken any of this pushback in stride. At a July 31 state board of education meeting, he lashed out against “rogue administrators” who opposed him, saying of the left: “They might be offended by it, but they cannot rewrite our history and lie to our kids.”
After the public schools superintendent publicly rejected Walters’s mandate, community members and teachers in Norman expressed relief. Meg Moulton, a realtor and mother of three, came to a July board meeting to thank the superintendent in person. “I’m a Christian mama,” she said. “I love teaching my kids about God. I love going to church.”
But, she added, “Ryan Walters’s mandate makes it so that teachers and students who may not be Christians…[or] who may believe something different, are going to be essentially forced to learn something that they may not believe in.”
Students and others I met with at a popular Norman coffee shop said they were concerned about how Walters’s mandate could affect religious minorities, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. “What Ryan Walters is trying to push goes in line with a lot of trends of kind of pushing back against LGBTQ,” said Isandro Moreno,a 17-year-old senior at Norman High.
Phoebe Risch, a 17-year-old senior at Norman North, the town’s other public high school, said Walters’s mandate was part of what motivated her to restart her high school’s Young Democrats club and recruit roughly 30 members. Risch, already upset about her state’s readiness to ban abortion following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, fears that requiring Bible-based instruction could lead to the promotion of the idea that women are submissive. “As a young woman, the implications of implementing religion into our schools is a little scary,” she said, “especially because Oklahoma is already a very conservative state.”
Among the half dozen teens attending a confirmation class in December at Oklahoma City Reform temple B’nai Israel, most opposed the mandate, except for one. She said she supported it as long as the classroom teacher was careful and encouraged critical thinking.
One teen recounted tearily how, during class the previous week, a friend had drawn a swastika on her paper as a taunt. “Stuff like that is so normalized,” she said. “It’s antisemitism. If that’s so normalized, normalizing Christianity further, it’s just worse.”
Imad Enchassi, an imam who oversees an Oklahoma City mosque and also chairs the Islamic Studies department at Oklahoma City University, said he worries that Superintendent Ryan Walter’s policies will further isolate Muslim children. Credit: Mike Simmons for The Hechinger Report
Imad Enchassi, an imam who oversees an Oklahoma City mosque and serves as chair of Islamic studies at Oklahoma City University, echoed similar fears for the Muslim community. “We’re already experiencing Islamophobia. Muslim kids who wear the headscarf already have been told they’re going to hell because they don’t believe in the Bible or they don’t believe in Jesus,” he said. “When curriculum mandates one religion over the other, that will further isolate our children.”
Some Oklahomans, though, do support the mandate. And at one of the state board of education meetings where Walters touted it, three residents expressed support for the idea — during public comment — as did at least one board member. That board member said he thought biblical literacy was important, while other supporters see the Bible mandate as a way to instill morality in the public schools. Ann Jayne,a 62-year-old resident of Edmond, about 15 miles north of Oklahoma City, makes a point of letting Walters know on his Facebook page that she’s praying for him, because she believes public schools need to instill Christian values. “I think we need church in the state,” she said. “I don’t see a problem with God being back in the school. Nobody is forcing them to become a Christian.”
Since last summer, Walters’s efforts to push Christianity have only become bolder. In mid-November, he announced the opening of the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism, which would, among other things, investigate alleged abuses against religious freedom and patriotic displays. Two days later, he announced that he was sending 500 Bibles to Advanced Placement government classes. He also emailed superintendents around the state with the order to show their students a one-minute-and-24-second video announcing the religious liberty office and praying for newly elected President Trump.
At a Christmas parade in Norman in early December, some residents called the video embarrassing, with many superintendents, including Norman’s, having declined to show it. However, while many residents seem to abhor the Bible mandate, they do not agree on how religion should be handled in public life. Despite some religious diversity and some liberal leanings common in a university town, Norman skews religiously conservative. That dichotomy means many residents see the Bible as so sacrosanct that they don’t want it taught in schools, yet they see no problem with other Christian-oriented school activities.
In some cases, residents like school board member Brockman, who is also a former teacher and lawyer with training on the First Amendment, have objected to school promotion of the religious aspects of Christmas. When she was a teacher at one of Norman’s two high schools, she asked to stop the playing of overtly religious Christmas songs in the halls during passing periods. She saw it as a “gentle reminder that the Supreme Court says we need to remain neutral on religion.” Her wish was granted. “They took it down with some consternation and played the Grinch in my honor.”
Residents have also quibbled over what to call the parade featuring Santa each December. Should it be called the Norman holiday or Christmas parade? It’s now known as the Norman Christmas Holiday Parade. In early December, the city’s mix of liberal and conservative influences shone through the glitz during the parade. The Knights of Columbus float had a sign that said “Merry CHRISTmas.” Norman’s Pride organization participated, with its human angels wearing wings lit up in rainbow colors.
Tracey Langford, watching the parade from the back of her SUV, was dressed in a red stocking cap and a red sweatshirt that read “Santa, define good,” a jab at the fact that she is a lawyer who cares about legal definitions. To her, the Bible mandate is a clear violation of separation of church and state.“Every home here has a Bible…. We don’t need to spend a dollar to get a Bible in every classroom,” said Langford, a lawyer at the University of Oklahoma and a parent of a first grader in Norman schools and a 15-year-old in a private school.
Traci Jones, a parent of both a Norman sixth grader and fifth grader, likewise asked, “Who’s supposed to be teaching these kids the Bible? Is it just a random person? What if it’s an atheist or someone who has totally different beliefs than me?” As a nondenominational Christian, she added, “I think it’s wack to ask these poor teachers to teach that.”
What happens next may ultimately be decided in a courtroom. There is no sign yet when final opinions may be issued in either lawsuit.
State lawmakers at recent appropriation hearings said they were worried about the directive’s constitutionality, and in fact, in March, the Senate Appropriations’ Education Subcommittee said it did not consider Walters’s $3 million request to purchase Bibles. The next day Walters announced he was launching a national campaign with a country singer to get Bibles donated to Oklahoma schools. (The legislature gets the final word on the Bible purchases, a line item in the education budget, and the standards, which the state board of education approved in late February.) Meanwhile, the fate of religion’s place in public schools on a national level likely will rest with the Supreme Court, with various lawsuits against state measures promoting Christianity making their way through the court system.
A Ten Commandments monument that sat on Oklahoma State Capitol grounds until the state Supreme Court ruled its presence violated the separation of church and state. It now is at the headquarters of a conservative lobbying group. Credit: Linda K. Wertheimer for The Hechinger Report
In Norman, Jakob Topper, Kyle Tubbs and other Baptist pastors I met with at the headquarters of a statewide Baptist church organization were increasingly aghast at Walters’s mixing of religion and politics. Rick Anthony, pastor of Grace Fellowship, a Baptist church, centered his November 17 sermon on such concerns. “Almost comically, we’ve heard this week about a video made that was ordered to be shown to all children in the public schools and then sent to their parents,” he said. “Our question is…where are our voices as our political leaders cozy up to faith leaders, all the while destroying our faith institutions?”
Kaily Tubbs, Tubbs’s wife and a fifth grade teacher in Norman schools, said the mandate conflicts with her personal belief on how faith should be handled in schools. She spoke also as a mother of a kindergartener and a third grader, both in Norman schools. “Our faith is really important to us,” she said. “I don’t want it to be used as a prop in a classroom.”
Topper said that at his church, the majority of his congregation believes in separation of church and state. He said he is aware of the religious diversity that exists in his town, too, and has both Muslim and Jewish neighbors. Like Anthony, he spoke with his congregation about Walters’s mandate, though in an informal weeknight meeting at his church, rather than as part of a formal sermon. “I wish,” he said, “that Jesus was left out of schools and left for the religious realm.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
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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 foundsupport 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.”
A high-security “safe room” has been set up for Jewish students at a top Sydney university after some reported feeling at risk due to anti-Semitism on campus, prompting Jewish leaders to say it should “shock us all” when young people “feel they need a sanctuary to escape” from hate.
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