On the heels of an executive order expanding education freedom and parental choice in schooling, President Trump on Wednesday signed a separate executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” targeting the infiltration of “radical, anti-American ideologies” into the nation’s classrooms. The move marks more progress on the list campaign promises he articulated in a series of 2023 videos collectively known as “Agenda 47.”
“Parents trust America’s schools to provide their children with a rigorous education and to instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand,” the order states. “In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”
The order admonishes schools that create an environment where “innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics,” and where students are led to question their gender identity without parental involvement. It further states, “Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority.”
To halt these trends, the administration “will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of Federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights;” including, the order says, enforcing laws such as the including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and Title IX.
The executive order introduces the term “discriminatory equity ideology,” and defines a detailed meaning as “an ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals.” It defines such ideologies as those that suggest, for instance, “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
In a bid to steer education back to traditional values, the order mandates the development of an “Ending Indoctrination Strategy” the end of April 2025 by key federal officials, including the Secretaries of Education, Defense, and Health and Human Services.
Furthermore, Trump’s order re-established the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission to promote “patriotic education,” reversing its earlier dissolution by the previous administration. The commission will foster an educational environment where “an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles” is taught.
The order also emphasizes compliance with existing laws requiring schools to host educational programs on the U.S. Constitution, ensuring “each educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution.”
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Christina Botteri is the Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow her on X at @christinakb.
Photo “President Trump Signs EO’s” by Dan Scavino.
