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department of education
Students Like Grace Pay the Price If Trump Dismantles the Education Department
Stripping federal oversight will abandon the students who need it most.
Mar 13, 2025
For decades, the federal government has played a crucial role in ensuring that every child—regardless of disability, income, or background—has access to a quality education. That role isn’t just administrative; it’s a safeguard against discrimination, neglect, and the systemic failures that have historically left the most vulnerable students behind. Now, with the recent push to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, that safeguard is under attack.
As an education attorney, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when schools fail to meet their legal obligations—and who suffers most when oversight disappears. No group stands to lose more than the 7.3 million children with disabilities who depend on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for basic educational access. Without federal enforcement, that right isn’t just at risk—it could vanish overnight.
And the harm won’t stop there. Weakening the Department of Education means weakening the very mechanisms designed to prevent discrimination and protect students from systemic inequities. It means fewer safeguards, fewer resources, and fewer options for the millions of students who already face the greatest barriers to educational opportunity. The brunt of these cuts will fall hardest on Black and brown students, students with disabilities, English learners, LGBTQIA+ students, and low-income families—communities that have long relied on federal oversight as a necessary check against discrimination and neglect.
Without federal enforcement of the IDEA’s key provisions, Grace’s school district may well elect to discontinue her therapy sessions with impunity, leaving her unable to make progress much like her typically achieving peers.
The numbers tell the story. In Fiscal Year 2024, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received a record-breaking 22,687 complaints—an 18% increase from the previous high of 19,201 complaints in FY 2023. The vast majority, year after year, involve allegations of disability discrimination. If anything, this surge in complaints underscores the urgent need for stronger civil rights enforcement in schools—not a retreat from it. Stripping away the department’s oversight would not only silence these complaints, but leave the most vulnerable students with nowhere to turn.
Consider Grace (a pseudonym), a bright, eight-year-old girl living in a small Massachusetts farming town. Born with cerebral palsy, Grace depends on physical therapy to navigate her school environment, and occupational therapy to master everyday tasks, like writing and eating independently. Through the provisions set forth in the IDEA, Grace’s family secured access to these vital services at her local public school—services they, like most families, would otherwise be unable to afford out of pocket.
Without federal enforcement of the IDEA’s key provisions, Grace’s school district may well elect to discontinue her therapy sessions with impunity, leaving her unable to make progress much like her typically achieving peers. Her parents, already stretched thin, would have no recourse. For Grace, and for millions of families across the country, what’s at stake isn’t just a matter of policy—it’s the ability to build a future on fair and equal ground for all.
The Lessons of History: Why Federal Oversight Matters
To grasp the significance of the U.S. Department of Education, we need only look to the past. Its oversight, enforcement, and technical assistance functions are not bureaucratic formalities—they are the guardrails that ensure students’ rights are more than just words on paper. Well before the enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), students with disabilities faced not only educational exclusion, but also deep-seated social marginalization.
As I’ve written elsewhere, throughout the 19th century, children with disabilities were largely seen as a private concern—a “private trouble” rather than a public responsibility. But as the early 20th century ushered in compulsory school attendance laws, this exclusionary paradigm began to shift. For the first time, children who had long been dismissed as “seemingly uneducable” were legally required to enroll in public schools, disrupting the longstanding pattern of social and educational isolation.
Yet, attendance did not guarantee access to meaningful education. From the 1950s through the early 1970s, the neglect and ableist hostility that had defined the prior century took on new forms within the nation’s public schools. Rather than providing necessary supports, many schools systematically segregated students with disabilities into poorly resourced and stigmatized classrooms.
The White House Committee on Special Classes condemned these environments as little more than dumping grounds for students with specialized needs. In response, parents and community advocates “lobbied aggressively to root out [the] entrenched discrimination” pervading public schools. Still, by the 1971-72 school year—just three years before IDEA’s passage—the scale of educational exclusion remained staggering: Seven states were educating fewer than 20% of their known children with disabilities, and in 19 states, fewer than a third. Only 17 states had even reached the halfway mark.
Without federal protections guaranteeing a right to education, disability rights activists fought to bring students with disabilities into standard educational environments. Drawing inspiration from Brown v. Board of Education, they argued that segregated special education classrooms, much like racially segregated schools, resulted in unequal and inferior educational experiences. Their efforts helped lay the groundwork for constitutional protections that, particularly at the district court level, affirmed the right of students with disabilities to receive a public education.
This federal intervention wasn’t about bureaucracy—it was about necessity. And yet, today, some lawmakers are pushing to strip away the very enforcement and oversight protections that helped bring an end to that era of exclusion and ableism.
The Bipartisan Stakes of Dismantling the Department of Education
Disability knows no boundaries. It cuts across race, class, geography, and political affiliation. It is an equalizer in its unpredictability, shaping lives in urban centers, suburban neighborhoods, and rural farming towns alike. Yet in the very communities where support for President Donald Trump was strongest, families may not realize how deeply this proposal could undermine their children’s futures.
Rural schools already operate under immense strain—stretched budgets, fewer specialized teachers, and the challenges of geographic isolation. For students with disabilities, these hurdles are even higher. Federal funding under the IDEA is a lifeline, covering nearly 15% of special education costs nationwide, amounting to billions in critical federal aid.
Dismantling the Department of Education isn’t just a bureaucratic maneuver—it’s a fundamental betrayal of the promise that every child deserves a fair chance at an education.
States like Nebraska, Indiana, and South Dakota—all of which invest disproportionately less in their rural school districts—depend on these federal dollars to meet even the most basic obligations to students like Grace. Yet in Nebraska, where the funding gap between rural and urban schools is widest, Trump won approximately 60% of the vote in the last presidential election.
For many rural families, these stakes aren’t theoretical. Losing federal protections could mean losing access to the nearest specialist—often hours away—or having nowhere at all to turn when their child needs critical services.
Block Grants: A Recipe for Inequity
As the push to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education gains momentum, leaders in Republican-led states are renewing calls to shift federal education funding to block grants—a move that would only deepen the crisis. While touted as a way to give states more flexibility, block grants come with fewer guardrails, making it easier for states to divert funds away from the students who need them most.
If enacted, this shift would further weaken federal oversight, making it far more difficult to enforce “maintenance of effort” (MOE) provisions, which ensure states uphold their own education spending. In a more decentralized system, the risk isn’t just mismanagement—it’s an abdication of responsibility, leaving vulnerable students at the mercy of shifting political priorities and budget shortfalls.
Consider Medicaid block grants as an analog and cautionary tale. States that received Medicaid waivers under block grant-style flexibility often shifted funds away from vulnerable populations to cover budget deficits. For example, in Tennessee, the state redirected Medicaid dollars meant for underserved communities to plug holes in unrelated health system budgets. Without federal oversight, similar reallocations of special education funding are not only possible, but likely.
Without these safeguards, history could repeat itself—not as a distant memory, but as a lived reality for millions of students. The lack of federal accountability would make it nearly impossible for families to challenge these decisions, leaving rural families, already underserved, at an even greater disadvantage.
A Call to Action: Protecting the Future for All Children
Dismantling the Department of Education isn’t just a bureaucratic maneuver—it’s a fundamental betrayal of the promise that every child deserves a fair chance at an education. The impact won’t be abstract. It will be felt in classrooms and kitchen-table conversations, in the quiet struggles of families left without recourse, and in the futures of children who will be denied the support they need to thrive.
This isn’t about politics; it’s about priorities. Federal oversight exists because history has shown what happens when states are left to decide, on their own, whose education matters. Without these protections, vulnerable students will once again be pushed to the margins, their futures dictated not by potential but by geography, circumstance, and political whim.
The question before us is simple: Do we honor our commitment to all children, or do we turn back the clock on decades of progress? For Grace, for her classmates, and for the generations to come, the answer must be clear. We must act—not out of partisanship, but out of principle. The future of our children, and of our country, depends on it.
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Targeting 'Criticism of Israeli War Crimes,' Trump Kills $400 Million in Columbia University Contracts
"You can't appease the Zionists," said one critic. "Stop playing the game—refuse the terms."
Mar 07, 2025
Columbia University administrators garnered widespread condemnation last year for overseeing a violent crackdown on students who protested against U.S. support for Israeli war crimes in Gaza, but those actions against pro-Palestinian students didn't stop the Trump administration from cutting contracts and grants for the school on Friday.
The White House announced it was canceling contracts and funding for the Ivy League university shortly after Columbia officials began sending notices to students who have participated in Palestinian solidarity protests decrying Israel's bombardment of Gaza and the West Bank.
A senior named Maryam Alwan was accused by the school of "discriminatory harassment" for writing an op-ed in the student newspaper joining the call for divestment from Israel, while another student was contacted by a new disciplinary committee—established specifically to discipline students who express criticism of Israel—for hosting an art exhibit that focused on last year's demonstrations.
But in a move that one civil liberties advocate said was aimed at coercing all colleges into "censoring student speech," the Trump administration announced it was pulling the grants and contracts because Columbia hasn't done enough to clamp down on alleged antisemitism on campus.
"Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
One critic advised Columbia administrators that the news of the canceled funding was proof that "you can't appease the Zionists" by oppressing pro-Palestinian students.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, toldThe Associated Press the move was unconstitutional and meant to stop student's "advocacy that isn't MAGA-approved, like criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinian rights."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, added that while Trump "claims to be protecting Jews" by pushing Columbia to take more aggressive action against Palestinian rights supporters, "this is clearly about suppressing criticism of Israeli war crimes."
The news came days after U.S. Senate Republicans held the latest hearing on what they claim is antisemitism on college campuses. One Jewish student at Tufts University, Meirav Solomon, who was invited by Democrats to testify at the hearing, pointed out that Trump's gutting of the Department of Education has left all students without a way to lodge complaints of discrimination with the agency's Office of Civil Rights—eliminating "a crucial avenue for Jews and other minorities to advocate for our rights."
Meanwhile, noted Solomon, Republicans on the committee had nothing to say about Trump ally Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute at an inauguration event in January.
On Friday, the advocacy group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action said Trump's cancellation of Columbia's grants, "falsely in the name of Jewish safety, actively puts Jews in danger."
"History has shown that a strong democracy is what keeps Jews safest," said the group. "At the core of strong democracies are free speech and education."
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In Response to Reported Executive Order, School Defenders Vow Uprising as Trump Targets Public Education
Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump "have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America," said one union leader.
Mar 06, 2025
With the Trump administration reportedly preparing an executive order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education, the head of the union the American Federation of Teachers has vowed to fight any gutting of agency programs "tooth and nail."
According to Wednesday reporting from The Wall Street Journal, a draft text of the executive order compels Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department" based on "the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law."
The Journal and other outlets reported that the order could come as soon as Thursday, though Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on X that Trump will not sign an order Thursday.
AFT president Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle, the president of the teachers union the National Education Association (NEA), cast the latest news as an attack ultimately aimed at public education.
"Don't use a 'war on woke' to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities, in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires," Weingarten said in a Wednesday statement.
Pringle said Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk "have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires."
The Trump administration and congressional Republicans are currently pursuing trillions in tax cuts that would primarily benefit the wealthy.
While education policy and funding in the U.S. are largely handled at the state and local level, the Department of Education provides money for districts that serve lower income-income communities, as well as funding to help districts better serve students with disabilities. The agency is also responsible for managing federal college financial aid and federal student loans and also makes sure schools comply with a variety of federal laws, such as Title IX.
Getting rid of the Department of Education would ultimately empower the "the extremist anti-public education agenda" that is already being implemented in parts of the country, according to NEA. A key part of that agenda is vouchers for private schools, per NEA.
Vouchers siphon funding away from public schools. In 2024, the majority staff of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, then chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), authored a report detailing how right-wing billionaires have bankrolled coordinated efforts to privatize U.S. public education by promoting voucher programs.
Vouchers are often the mechanism at play when conservatives talk about advancing "school choice"—which was one of the key education goals put forward by the far-right policy blueprint Project 2025. The cornerstone education policy in Project 2025 is getting rid of the Department of Education.
In January, Trump issued an executive order asking the Department of Education to spend time coming up with guidance to help states apply federal funding to school choice initiatives.
While education union voices and Democrats have vowed to resist attacks on the Department of Education, those attacks have already begun. Probationary employees there have been laid off and the agency has paused some civil rights enforcement, among other actions, per the Journal.
While the draft executive order reviewed by the Journal makes clear the ultimate aim is to get rid of the department, the Trump administration needs Congress' help to unwind the agency, according to legal experts.
The order doesn't mention Congress, which created the Department of Education in 1979, and fully dismantling the department would require a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
"You can't just drop a bomb on the Department of Education and turn it into rubble," Jonathan E. Collins, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, toldTime in February. "Legally, it has to start with Congress, not the president."
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