President Donald Trump signed multiple Executive Orders relating to education Wednesday afternoon, with several tied to the theme of returning meritocracy back to the education system.
The orders, seven in total, included actions to integrate artificial intelligence into K-12 school curricula, reforms to school discipline and accreditation guidelines, requirements related to the disclosure of foreign funding to schools and enhancements to the country’s workforce development programs.
Trump’s slew of education-focused orders also included another directive demanding an end to DEI ideology in schools, specifically the use of “disparate impact theory,” on top of his previous executive order from January ordering an end to DEI-like programming and ideology in K-12 schools. An Executive Order setting up a White House initiative supporting the efficiency and effectiveness of Historically Black Colleges and Universities was also signed by the president on Wednesday.
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“They’re allowing people into school – they can’t do math – and yet kids who have worked really hard and are number one in their class out of high school – some place in New Jersey or Mississippi – they can’t get into the best schools,” Trump said as he signed his order implementing new school accreditation requirements. “What is that all about?”
“I think that gets to your policy, sir, of meritocracy – that we should be looking at those who have real merit to get in,” Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was standing over Trump’s shoulder as he signed, chimed in. “And we have to look harder at those universities that aren’t enforcing that.”
The accreditation reforms, along with the president’s Executive Orders on school discipline and “disparate impact theory,” were all connected to pulling back from the Biden administration’s era of prioritizing DEI over meritocracy. Specifically, the accreditation reforms seek to prevent accreditors from imposing “discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-based standards,” while compelling them to “prioritize student outcomes.”
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Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, the Department of Education released student discipline guidance contending that persistent racism clouds school disciplinary systems. Trump’s Wednesday Executive Order rescinds that guidance.
“Under, I believe it was the Biden administration – first Obama and then Biden – the Department of Justice issued guidance that made it almost impossible for schools to enforce adequate disciplinary policies,” Trump’s executive assistant Will Scharf said of the order as Trump was signing it. “Basically they focused on CRT and diversity ideology, instead of actually just enforcing the rules in classrooms to ensure a safe learning environment.”
The prohibition of “disparate impact theory” builds on the president’s past orders on ridding “discriminatory” DEI programs and influences from educational settings.
“This is a theory that underlies a lot of the modern DEI and CRT-driven diversity culture,” Scharf explained. “The basic idea is instructing your department and agencies to no longer rely on disparate impact theory as they’re regulating, as they’re issuing guidance, as they’re making rules. We want to focus on results, we want to focus on actual fairness, we want to focus on merit, not things like disparate impact theory and the whole sort-of diversity, equity and inclusion cult.”
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Besides focusing on returning meritocracy to the education system, the president’s Executive Orders also sought to modernize American education and workforce preparation through the implementation of AI education in schools and through a commitment to add 1 million new apprenticeships.
The AI order, Trump’s latest pro-AI measure, established a White House task force for AI and education that will work with federal agencies and the private sector to help draft AI programs for schools.
The president previously signed an Executive Order in January, which worked to rescind Biden-era policies that critics say restricted the nation’s AI growth.
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