Recent Executive Orders and Actions Impacting Education

During the initial months of his new administration, President Donald Trump issued a number of executive orders that impact education.

Consider consulting local legal counsel regarding how these actions affect your institution:

April 23

Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth

• Establishes multi-agency task force to encourage artificial intelligence (AI) literacy and proficiency by integrating AI into K-12 education, offering comprehensive training for teachers and developing early exposure to AI concepts
• Directs task force to create public-private partnerships to provide AI resources
• Directs Department of Education (ED) to prioritize AI teacher training programs within the next 120 days through discretionary grant programs

Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies

• Directs Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Attorney General, to issue new guidance to local and state educational agencies regarding their obligations not to engage in racial discrimination under Title VI, including in school discipline
• Empowers ED to enforce “appropriate action” against states and school districts that don’t comply with Title VI protections in school discipline practices
• Requests submission of multi-agency report assessing the status of “discriminatory-equity-ideology-based school discipline and behavior modification techniques” in public schools.

White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

• Creates executive initiative and President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs within ED
• Aims to increase partnerships between HBCUs, the federal government, private-sector employers, educational associations, and others to increase the capacity of HBCUs to provide the highest-quality education to an increasing number of students

Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education

• Directs Secretary of Education to hold higher education accreditors accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition
• Mandates the Secretary to realign accreditation with “student-oriented” principles as further detailed in Fact Sheet: President Donald Trump Reforms Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education
• Empowers Secretary and Attorney General to investigate and take action to terminate unlawful discrimination by institutions of higher education, including law schools and medical schools

Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities

• Tasks Secretary of Education with taking “appropriate steps” to require universities to more specifically disclose details about foreign funding
• Directs Secretary and Attorney General to work with other agencies to conduct audits and investigations and ensure compliance with laws concerning disclosure of foreign funding, including Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. A bill amending the Act is pending before the Senate.
• Advises institutions that federal grant funds shall not be provided in cases of noncompliance with appliable foreign funding disclosure requirements

March 20

Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities

• Directs the Secretary of Education to take all necessary steps — to the extent permitted by law — to facilitate the ED’s closure
• Declares the return of authority over education to the states and local communities
• Requires the allocation of any ED funds to be subject to “rigorous compliance” with administration policy, including requiring any program or activity receiving federal funds to “terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology”

Feb. 5

Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports

• Declares federal policy of opposition to male competitive participation in women’s sports and recission of all funds from educational programs that deprive females of fair athletic opportunities, incorporating Executive Order 14168’s definition of gender
• Directs Secretary of Education to ensure the 2024 Title IX regulations don’t take effect, implement regulations clearly specifying women’s sports are reserved for women, and affirmatively protect all-female athletic opportunities and locker rooms
• Prioritizes Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions that require female students to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males
• Orders all executive departments and agencies to review grants to educational programs and rescind funding to noncompliant programs
• Rescinds support for and participation in international sports programs who permit “trans-identifying” athletes to compete in female sports

Jan. 29

Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling

• Directs multiple agencies to cease federal funding or support for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology”
• Defines “discriminatory equity ideology” as an ideology that treats people as members of preferred or disfavored groups and minimizes agent, merit, and capability
• Reestablishes the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission “to promote patriotic education”

Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families

• Orders Secretary of Education to issue guidance on how states can use federal funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives
• Directs agencies to review their discretionary grant programs and recommend how to use them to expand educational alternatives to governmental entities
• Seeks evaluation of any available mechanisms for military-connected families and children eligible to attend Bureau of Indian Education schools to use federal funds to attend schools of their choice

Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism

• Reaffirms previously issued Executive Order 13899, which found that students faced antisemitic harassment at educational institutions
• Directs all departments and agencies to identify civil and criminal authorities or actions within their jurisdictions that might be used to combat antisemitism
• Seeks analysis by Attorney General of all court cases involving institutions of higher education alleging civil rights violations related to post-Oct. 7, 2023, campus incidents
• Similarly requests an analysis of all Title VI complaints related to antisemitism against K-12 educational institutions from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR)

Jan. 28

Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation

• Establishes U.S. policy not to fund, promote, or support the “so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another”
• Directs heads of agencies or departments that provide research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, to immediately take steps to ensure recipients of these funds end provision of these procedures
• Requires Department of Health and Human Services to use all available methods to increase quality of data to guide practices for “improving health of minors with gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion”

Jan. 27

Restoring America’s Fighting Force

• Orders review of U.S. military academies’ leadership, instructors, and curriculum to eliminate any diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and initiatives
• Prohibits educational institutions operated by the Department of Defense or the U.S. armed forces from promoting certain concepts, including that America’s “founding documents are racist or sexist” or gender exists beyond male and female

Jan. 21

Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity

• Requires federally funded educational institutions to terminate any race- or gender-based diversity programs that could be in violation of federal civil rights laws
• Directs federal agencies to identify higher education institutions with endowments exceeding $1 billion whose diversity policies violated civil rights laws
• Directs Attorney General to issue guidance for federal funding recipients regarding compliance with the 2023 Supreme Court decision that struck down race-based affirmative action policies in admission

Jan. 20

Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions

• Terminates programs focused on advancing educational opportunities for Hispanic, Native American, and Black students
• Reduces efforts supporting tribal colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions

Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government

• Declares government recognition of only two sexes — male and female — based on reproductive cells
• Directs federal agencies to use this definition to enforce Title IX and other laws, specifying “sex” doesn’t include the “concept of gender identity”
• Bars federal funds from being used to “promote gender ideology”
• Directs Attorney General to issue guidance and assist agencies in protecting sex-based distinctions

Hiring Freeze

• Prohibits hiring or creation of new civilian positions in all executive departments and agencies, including ED
• Requests plan to reduce size of federal workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition

More From UE

Federal Agency Actions Impacting Education

Additional Resources

Akin Gump: Executive Order Tracker