{"id":15142,"date":"2025-02-06T17:08:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T17:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=15142"},"modified":"2025-02-06T17:32:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T17:32:18","slug":"these-executive-orders-can-hit-black-students-the-hardest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/06\/these-executive-orders-can-hit-black-students-the-hardest\/","title":{"rendered":"These Executive Orders Can Hit Black Students the Hardest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The flurry of Trump\u2019s orders has left educators concerned about students\u2019 safety and censorship of what they can teach.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Aziah Siid, Word In Black<\/em>
\nGuest Column<\/em><\/p>\n

When President Donald Trump signed a barrage of controversial executive orders rolling back civil rights protections and racial equity policies, he didn\u2019t explicitly address education. But he did set the tone for what schools and education policy leaders should expect during the next four years.<\/p>\n

That includes an end to diversity in teacher hiring, a green light for immigration officers to raid public schools, no government protection for LGBTQ+ students, and no pushback for districts that ban books or restrict teaching Black history.<\/p>\n

Just hours after taking the oath of office, Trump signed dozens of his own executive orders and rescinded almost 80 orders signed by the Biden administration. Many of these executive orders have already been implemented, while others will likely be challenged in court and overturned. The overall effect, however, signaled a decisive break with former President Joe Biden\u2019s educational policies.<\/p>\n

For example, after Trump signed the order titled, \u201cEnding Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing<\/a>,\u201d the Education Department almost immediately took several steps to dismantle its Biden-era DEI programs and practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws,\u201d according to the executive order. \u201cThey also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, the Education Department put employees charged with leading DEI initiatives on paid administrative leave, but did not clarify how many staffers had been suspended, according to USA Today. The paper reported that department officials said they also canceled millions of dollars in contracts related to DEI training and services.<\/p>\n

The Department of Education announced nearly a dozen new political appointees for top leadership positions \u2014 including several who worked for Linda McMahon, Trump\u2019s education secretary nominee, when she ran the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, according to USA Today.<\/p>\n

The potential educational impact can range from districts no longer feeling the need to hire Black teachers or teach American history that includes honest accounts of slavery and Jim Crow.<\/p>\n

Ending DEI programs in public schools also undoes the Biden administration\u2019s work challenging districts that restrict or ban books.<\/p>\n

When the order was signed, the department\u2019s Office for Civil Rights Enforcement dismissed 11 formal complaints about book bans in local districts and retracted guidance that removing books may violate civil rights laws, according to a DOE\u00a0press release<\/a>. OCR also dismissed six other pending cases.<\/p>\n

Reversed Protection for LGBTQ+ Students\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In another executive order, titled Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, Trump officially declared he will recognize just two sexes: male and female.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Administration will defend women\u2019s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,\u201d according to the order.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The order effectively dismantles Biden-era protections for K-12 transgender students, ending a long struggle by parents who want schools to address their children by their preferred pronouns and names. While local schools still have the option to respect students\u2019 wishes, parents no longer have Education Department protection if a school decides not to do so, and a school risks losing federal funding if it ignores Trump\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

Education Week reported that the executive order directs the U.S. attorney general to instruct government agencies that civil rights laws that ban discrimination based on sex \u2014including Title IX, the federal law that prohibits gender discrimination at federally funded schools \u2014 no longer apply in cases involving sexual orientation or gender identity.<\/p>\n

The move likely will do little to reverse the spike in calls to LGBTQ+ youth crisis centers, a rise\u00a0linked to Trump\u2019s election.\u00a0<\/a>In a statement, Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, an\u00a0 LGBTQ+ suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, said the executive order wasn\u2019t a surprise, \u201cand for many communities, these (actions) are not new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky for us, we sit on the shoulders of leaders who have faced tremendous obstacles and uncertainties, for generations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

ICE Can Make Arrests at Schools\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to Trump returning to office, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents had to \u201csensitive locations,\u201d including places of worship, hospitals, and schools, when conducting enforcement activities like making arrests. But the Trump administration overturned the 13-year internal policy that protected students from being\u00a0pulled out of their classrooms<\/a>, with the fear of themselves or their parents being deported.<\/p>\n

Kalyn Belsha, a reporter for Chalkbeat, told NPR that some parents in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles have kept their children home from school, while the schools themselves have prepared for the possibility of ICE agents knocking at their doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re preparing for the possibility that things could be happening outside the school while families are dropping their children off or potentially waiting at their bus stop,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then also, what would they do if an agent actually knocked on the door and said, \u2018I would like to come in potentially to talk to a staff member or a parent or a child?’\u201d<\/p>\n

She told the network about an incident in Chicago when \u201csome federal agents that showed up at a school asking to come in to interview an 11-year-old who had posted an anti-Trump video on TikTok.\u201d The agents said they were with the Department of Homeland Security, but \u201cthe school was confused and said, \u2018No, you cannot come in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It turned out that the officers were Secret Service agents. The school activated protocols to protect the student and sent the agents away because they did not have the proper paperwork to interview the child. But the situation could have easily gone the other way, Belsha told NPR.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the kind of example of, even if it isn\u2019t an ICE agent, [Trump\u2019s elimination of sensitive location protections] creates all kinds of chaos for the school and for the school communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flurry of Trump\u2019s orders has left educators concerned about students\u2019 safety and censorship of what they can teach. By Aziah Siid, Word In Black Guest Column When President Donald Trump signed a barrage of controversial executive orders rolling back civil rights protections and racial equity policies, he didn\u2019t explicitly address education. But he did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[279],"class_list":["post-15142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15173,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15142\/revisions\/15173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15142"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=15142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}