On Wednesday, January 29, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to end “radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling.” With his latest executive order, Trump seeks to promote “patriotic” education and cut federal funding from schools pushing “indoctrination” influenced by “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.” More specifically, discriminatory equity ideology is defined as the belief that “the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.” To move his executive order forward, Trump has enlisted the secretaries of Education and Defense to create a plan for ending “indoctrination in K-12 education” within 90 days.
“In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight,” the executive order states. “Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination. In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics. In other instances, young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed. These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion, and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly says the executive order “will deliver and restore safety and security for American women.” However, others feel it will do great damage to the American education system.
“Forcing schools to teach a skewed and fictitious version of history that denies our nation’s past injustices compounds the lawlessness of this order,” Nicholas Hite of Lambda Legal said. “Bans on using the correct restrooms threaten the safety and health of transgender and nonbinary youth. Denying the opportunity to participate in school sports programs with their classmates deprives them of the many opportunities and developmental benefits all agree come from joining in team sports.”
“It’s fear-based, non-factual information, and I would call it propaganda,” Education Trust Senior Vice President Wil Del Pilar said. “There is no evidence that students are being taught to question their sexuality in schools. There is no evidence that our American education system is full of maniacs.”
