This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat
As President Donald Trump took office for a second time, he almost immediately used his executive power to roll back rights for transgender people and immigrants — actions likely to reverberate in American schools.
Trump’s 29-minute inaugural address described a nation in decline, where “the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.” He said his administration would reverse course and declared: “The golden age of America begins right now.”
That description of a faltering America extended to the nation’s schools.
“We have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves in many cases, to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them,” Trump said. “All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.”
Trump has pledged to rapidly reshape the federal government using executive orders. At a post-inauguration rally at the Capital One Arena, Trump signed nine executive orders — the first rescinding dozens of Biden-era executive orders that protected LGBTQ Americans and promoted opportunity for people of color. Trump tossed the pens he used to sign the orders to his cheering supporters before leaving the arena for the White House.
Back at the Oval Office, he signed additional orders changing the meaning of birthright citizenship to exclude the children of undocumented women, defining sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification,” suspending enforcement of the TikTok ban, and pardoning his supporters who tried to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump signed a total of 41 executive orders Monday evening.
The impact of those executive orders will depend in part on how the federal government enforces them and in part on how state and local leaders and advocates respond. Executive orders must have some basis in law, and past orders have been challenged successfully in court. Vague orders can prove difficult to enforce.
Trump used his inaugural address to say the federal government would recognize just two genders, male and female, as defined by a person’s biological sex assigned at birth. An executive order issued later Monday was titled, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.” It defines sex as describing unchanging physical characteristics and states that federal documents cannot use gender as a synonym for sex.
Under the order, laws that extend protections on the basis of sex cannot be interpreted in ways that include transgender people, and federal agencies must remove all documents that “promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.” Civil rights law will be interpreted to “ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex.”
The order also withholds federal funding from programs that recognize the existence of transgender people. It’s not clear how broadly such an order would be applied and how it might affect schools that respect transgender and non-binary students’ gender identities or use inclusive curriculums.
Trump made opposition to transgender rights and inclusion in public life a centerpiece of his campaign, alongside anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The move to define sex in ways hostile to transgender rights comes just after a federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX rules, which had made protections for transgender students more explicit. Changing the federal definition of sex could make it harder for transgender students to defend their rights or pursue civil rights complaints.
Trump also wants to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and repeatedly found by the courts to apply to all people born in the United States, with the exception of children born to foreign diplomats, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Trump did not mention this plan in his inaugural address, but one of the executive orders he signed Monday evening declares that the children born to undocumented mothers and to mothers with certain temporary immigration status will not be considered citizens of the United States unless their father is a citizen or legal resident. The order also directs officials to not issue documents such as passports or Social Security numbers to those children, starting 30 days from the time of the order.
This order is almost certain to be challenged in court.
Such an executive order would not, on its own, prevent children with immigrant parents and those who are themselves undocumented from attending public school. The 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe requires schools to educate all students in their communities, regardless of immigration status.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank closely tied to Trump, has called on states to challenge that decision. Earlier this month, Oklahoma ordered schools to start collecting information on the immigration status of families with children enrolled in public school, but a number of school districts immediately said they would not comply.
Executive orders touch on federal workforce, free speech, immigration
The first executive orders Trump signed rescinded 78 presidential actions by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, prevented issuing new federal regulations, and froze all federal hiring, with exceptions for the military, “until full control of the government is achieved.”
Among the Biden executive orders rescinded in Trump’s first official act Monday were orders guaranteeing LGBTQ students the right to an educational environment free of discrimination and an initiative to help colleges and universities that serve a large share of Hispanic students make better use of existing federal programs. The executive order also directs the heads of all federal agencies to root out programs that support diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.
He also ordered the federal workforce to work full time in the office, starting immediately, a move that could prove disruptive for employees who need to make changes to child care or elder care; withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, and ordered the restoration of free speech.
The free speech executive order appears aimed at stopping federal efforts to get social media companies to combat misinformation. It bars the use of federal resources to facilitate restrictions on speech. Conservatives have argued that federal protections for transgender students limit the free speech rights of teachers and classmates who don’t accept those students’ identities.
It was not immediately clear what implications the free speech order would have in a country divided over removing books from public school libraries and appropriate limits to on-campus protests.
In his inaugural address, Trump said he would declare a national emergency at the southern border and reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy that prevents asylum seekers from entering the United States to have their claims heard. Within minutes of the speech, migrants who had pending appointments at the border got messages that those appointments had been canceled.
Many executive orders are expected to facilitate enhanced immigration enforcement. Around the country, schools are sharing messages of support with families who could be caught up in enforcement actions and encouraging parents to make sure their children’s emergency contacts are up to date in case caregivers are detained. Some school systems are also clarifying how they will respond if immigration agents seek entrance to their buildings, with many saying they will consult their attorneys and only allow agents with signed judicial warrants to enter their schools.
Current policy limits immigration enforcement near schools, but media reports in December suggested Trump may rescind the “sensitive locations” policy.
The president also promised to “end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease-free.”
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to withhold funds from schools that require students to be vaccinated, something that it’s not clear he has the authority to do. His nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a noted vaccine skeptic who tried to block the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine at the height of the pandemic.
Trump also redesignated career employees in “policy-influencing positions” as political appointees, who are easier to hire and fire at the president’s discretion. This move could have major implications for the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. In the first Trump administration, the president and his allies contended that career bureaucrats who make up the core of the federal workforce undermined many of their initiatives.
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at [email protected].
