For many students of color, access to an equitable education depends on the Department of Education’s initiatives and programs. Among its various functions, the department provides targeted funding for low-income students, collects data on educational outcomes, and investigates potential biases – essential functions that help underserved students. But such services are likely to be disrupted or ended entirely as Donald Trump plans to dismantle the department during his second term.
In addition to the appointment as Secretary of Education of former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who served for a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education and has no other significant teaching experience, Trump has promised “[close] to establish the department and return educational rights to the states. While Trump alone cannot eliminate the federal agency, as such a law would require congressional approval beyond a simple majority, experts have warned that any overhaul could disrupt the department’s crucial role, especially for marginalized students.
The education department dates back to 1867; the agency was created to collect data on schools as states formed their education systems (Congress abolished the department a year later, fearing federal overreach). In 1980, under former President Jimmy Carter, the department was reconceived as an executive agency with the goal of ensuring equal access to primary, secondary, and higher education in all states. Historically, the department has overseen the implementation of federal civil rights laws in local school districts, such as the desegregation of schools following the Supreme Court’s Brown v Board of Education decision.
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Now the department “coordinates certain services that states receive, protections and accountability mechanisms,” said Will Del Pilar, senior vice president of EdTrust, an education nonprofit. The department also sets “priorities” and can use financial incentives to encourage school districts to work around a problem. “[If] diversity among teachers is central, [the department] can use federal dollars to create a competition for people to apply for dollars to improve the diverse education pipeline,” he added.
Investigating civil rights violations is a critical function of the department, carried out by their Office of Civil Rights (OCR). According to the department’s annual report, OCR received a record 19,201 complaints in 2023, with 45% of complaints alleging sex discrimination. Amid a flurry of legislation targeting transgender youth last year, the OCR resolved several complaints from LGBTQ+ students against their school districts.
Eighteen percent of the complaints alleged discrimination based on race and national origin, including bullying and racial harassment by school officials. In one high-profile example, the OCR examined the Jefferson County School District, Kentucky’s largest public school district, and found that black students were punished more often and more severely than white students. As a result, the district is mandated to update its discipline policy by March 2025.
I’m really concerned about school districts complying with this [with Trump’s changes] in advance
Rachel Pereira, fellow at the Brookings Institution
After an OCR investigation, the department can force a school to make changes by threatening schools that violate civil rights. “Funding and enforcement go hand in hand,” said Rachel Pereira, a fellow at the Brookings Institute’s Brown Center on Education Policy. “The threat of violating civil rights law is losing federal funding.” Without these controls, schools would have less incentive to comply with the law.
Statistics from the department’s civil rights data collection not only provide insight into potential educational disparities, including discipline rates by race, but also determine what funding a school district qualifies for. Title I and Title III initiatives, which provide funding to high-poverty schools and English learners, respectively, both rely on enrollment statistics.
Eliminating the department entirely is an unlikely outcome, experts say, especially since many of the offices within the department itself are codified in federal law. Prominent Republicans, including former President Ronald Reagan, have tried to eliminate the department, but to no avail.
But the Trump administration could change key guidelines within the department, including how it investigates civil rights complaints, to “reform civil rights enforcement toward their ideological purposes.” Pereira said. Trump previously promised to charge the department with investigating “anti-white” civil rights violations, including potentially targeted investigations into racial discrimination, Pereira warned. As the Biden administration sought to extend Title IX, a federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender students, Trump is expected to rework Title IX guidelines to be “very explicitly anti-trans,” he added them to it.
“I’m really concerned about school districts that are compliant upfront, rather than resisting regulatory changes that are clearly out of line,” Pereira said.
Under Trump, the department could be underfunded or even more understaffed, and offices like OCR are already struggling to investigate an increasing number of complaints. Disenfranchised students, including students of color and people with disabilities, who rely on Title I funding would be affected if Trump were able to make further cuts to the underfunded program. “About 90% of school funding comes from local and state sources, but 10% comes from the federal government,” Pereira says. “That 10% is targeted at poor communities, communities that are disproportionately people of color, [where if] If the money were to disappear overnight, those schools would be in a very difficult position.”
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Crucial data on education inequality is unlikely to be collected and published under Trump’s Education Department, says Sarah Hinger, deputy director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, which could delay the disbursement of resources and funding for marginalized students. if it’s doing a good job of collecting that information, assessing that information, and the federal government isn’t doing a good job of making sure the public can view that information, then there’s a real delay in being able to respond to needs of students, to ensure they even receive the federal funding they are entitled to.”
Trump’s education department plans come as he and other Republicans try to take control of classroom curriculum and further ban efforts to teach about race, sexuality and more in public schools, leaving students of color in the middle constant drastic changes.
“As they try to reduce or eliminate [the department] At the same time, they are seeking to directly involve the federal government in assessing and determining appropriate curriculum content for students and school programming,” Hinger said. “We’re really seeing a sea change in the idea of the federal government’s role in education.”
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