Trump and the DOE

February 24th, 2025

Roshan Shivnani

With Trump entering the US presidency, he issued an onslaught of executive orders to lay out his campaign’s plans on day one. However, in the midst of orders passed one that has gone under the radar is his preparation of an order to eliminate the Department of Education. The department has an integral role in US education at large with the department's elementary and secondary programs annually serving nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students while the department's programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 12 million postsecondary students. That importance is what makes unpacking Trump's vision to abolish the department and its implications so important.

As a background, it’s imperative to note the origins of the DOE, which was established by an act of Congress. This distinction is critical because it means the US president through executive order or any unilateral action can’t eliminate the department outright. This hasn’t deterred Trump from taking action though. Rather than trying to obtain congressional approval, he’s simply shifted to other executive orders he hopes can functionally undermine the DOE. For instance, the administration’s series of executive orders and agency memos have eliminated all federal government diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) practices, froze all disbursements of federal funding (excluding formula-funded programs), expanded school choice, and ended “racial indoctrination in K–12 schooling.”

These executive orders, while not outright tearing the Department of Education, have allowed Trump to move forward to what his vision of US education looks like. In fact, The U.S. The Department of Education has already removed hundreds of documents from its website related to diversity and equity initiatives and suspended at least 50 staffers. In addition, Civil rights staffers are now enforcing 2020 Title IX rules, which don’t offer explicit protections for transgender students who saw the protection just before Trump took office. Whether for better or worse, Trump’s executive orders haven’t just begun reshaping education but outlined how powerful unilateral powers of the president can be and how they can functionally allow the president to undertake federally impactful action.