- Trump’s administration has launched dozens of investigations into K-12 and higher education institutions.
- Trump said schools can meet his political demands or risk losing billions of dollars in federal funding.
- The demands are likely to result in an increased number of legal challenges.
President Donald Trump is revealing his education playbook — and it’s shaping up to be an unprecedented battle with America’s schools.
Since taking office, Trump has been clear that he wants schools to align their political ideologies with his own. Days after his inauguration, he signed executive orders to remove “woke” ideology from classrooms and expand the use of school vouchers. Both of these orders directed the education secretary to prepare guidance but did not yet require schools to comply.
But now, dozens of investigations into both K-12 and higher education institutions are making those orders more real, with Trump stating that targeted schools can either accept his demands or lose their funding.
On the K-12 side, Trump’s administration has sent letters to school districts that it said have violated Title IX — a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education — through policies intended to accomodate transgender students that the administration describes as “requiring girls in the school to share their locker room with a boy,” according to one letter.
On the higher education side, dozens of schools have received letters from the administration accusing them of violating the Civil Rights Act through DEI initiatives, like allowing scholarships and network opportunities for minority students.
Funding is on the line across the board, and while both Democratic and Republican administrations have launched civil rights investigations into the country's schools, R. Shep Melnick, a professor of American politics at Boston College, told Business Insider that Trump's actions are at a much larger scale.
"These types of gigantic threats are really quite new," Melnick said. "We have no precedent for this, and I think it's well beyond anything in the words or the intention of a statute," he added.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI. Craig Trainor, the department's acting assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a February 14 "Dear Colleague" letter that both K-12 and higher education institutions that incorporate DEI will be flagged for "discriminatory practices" subject to investigations and potential funding freezes.
"Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding," the letter said.
School sports vs. federal funding
Trump's administration has so far launched dozens of investigations into school districts over DEI programming, transgender student policies, and antisemitism.
One of the most drastic escalations has taken shape in Maine. What started as a public dispute between Maine's governor and Trump over the state allowing transgender athletes to play in women's school sports has turned into a major threat from the administration to cut off all of the state's federal funding for its schools.
Trump's administration said that unless Maine complied with the executive order to restrict transgender students from women's sports, it would freeze the state's federal education funding. According to the Maine Principals' Association, there are only two transgender athletes competing in girls' high school sports statewide this year.
A federal court has already blocked the Trump administration from cutting school lunch funding over Maine's transgender policies. On Wednesday, Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a lawsuit against Maine to get the state to "stop what they're doing."
Maine's Gov. Janet Mills has vowed to continue fighting the administration.
"This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law," Mills said in a statement.
Other school districts have been subject to similar investigations. The Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation received letters from the Trump administration stating that they would be investigated for "allowing male athletes to compete in women's sports and use women's intimate facilities."
Similarly, the Oregon School Activities Association is under investigation over its policy that allows students to participate in sports or activities using their preferred gender identity while "providing a fair and safe environment for all students."
What's next for US schools
Melnick said that both former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden made frequent use of investigations through the Department of Education to achieve their goals. For example, the Biden administration opened over 100 new investigations in its first few weeks into racial and gender discrimination, and it was something Republicans criticized at the time.
"What is remarkable is, despite all that Republicans have criticized, they have taken those initiatives and exploded them," Melnick said. "I think this is all lawless."
As for the ongoing investigations, Melnick said that it's not unusual for an administration to conduct compliance reviews, which ensure schools are complying with civil rights laws. What's unusual here is the nature and extent of Trump's investigations; while reviews can drag out for years, Trump's administration is acting quickly.
Higher education institutions have faced similar threats from the administration, with Trump freezing billions of dollars in federal funding at schools, including Harvard, for refusing to meet the administration's demands, one of which was conducting an "audit" of students and faculty to determine their ideological views.
Forty-five other colleges, including Arizona State University, the University of Utah, and the University of Rhode Island, are under investigation over accusations they violated the Civil Rights Act by partnering with "The Ph.D Project," which provides networking and career opportunities for business students from underrepresented backgrounds.
"We encourage open debate on campuses and different points of view, that's what education is about," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. "But we're not going to have civil rights trampled on."
Melnick said he expects the investigations to continue, and the question is how much schools choose to comply.
"My sense is that the amount of litigation is going to increase because I think that the administration is going to lose a lot of these court suits, and the more they lose, the more other schools will be encouraged to fight rather than to comply," Melnick said.
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