President Donald Trump moved this week to hold colleges and universities accountable for anti-Semitism in the wake of protests against Israel’s actions in the Gaza war. In related actions targeting K12, he also signed executive orders to expand school vouchers and end what he calls “indoctrination” in instruction.
Trump’s higher ed order directs the Department of Education and other agencies to identify all civil and criminal powers to curb anti-Semitism on campus. It also calls for a review of all civil rights complaints “against or involving institutions of higher education related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023, campus anti-Semitism.”
The U.S. Attorney General’s office may then intervene in any related court cases, if necessary.
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“It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence,” the order declares.
Finally, the order requires the secretaries of state, education and homeland security to work together to guide colleges and universities to monitor “alien students and staff” and report any anti-Semitic activities. These students and staff could then be investigated and “removed,” the order says.
K12 executive orders would expand choice
In two other executive orders, Trump launched an effort to potentially reshape K12 education and other sectors of American society. One order directed the secretaries of education and labor to make “education freedom” a priority. He gave those agencies 90 days to develop a plan to use discretionary funding to expand school choice.
“More than a dozen states have enacted universal K-12 scholarship programs, allowing families—rather than the government—to choose the best educational setting for their children,” the order reads. “These states have highlighted the most promising avenue for education reform: educational choice for families and competition for residentially assigned, government-run public schools.”
The second order targets “subversive” and “anti-American” thinking and aims to eliminate federal funding for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
The order defines “discriminatory equity ideology” as instruction that would, among other things, label members of any race or gender as inherently racist or oppressive. It also contends that discussing ideas such as white privilege and unconscious bias could promote discrimination and undermine “national unity.”
“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,” the order states. “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.”
