Officials at the California Department of Education are standing defiant in response to the threat President Donald Trump may try to strongarm states into changing school curricula.
The order in question seeks to punish schools for lessons that involve race, gender, or politics. It requires the Secretary of Education to "provide a strategy to the President" to cut federal funding to schools that, in his words, use "indoctrination." It's part of a broader package of policies Trump directed on education, that also includes instructing the federal government to find ways to support school voucher programs and divert money to private or faith-based institutions.
In a statement posted on Wednesday, California officials warned the president that his plan is illegal.
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"President Trump signed an executive order today that does nothing but require the Secretary of Education to determine what federal education funds can legally be rescinded as a penalty for teaching curricula that President Trump finds objectionable," said the statement. "We can give the Trump Administration that answer right now: nothing. It is against federal law for the White House to dictate what educators can and cannot teach by threatening to defund essential public services for students."
"School curriculum should not vacillate back and forth depending on the occupant of the White House, which is why federal law already prohibits the federal government from leveraging grants to mandate specific instructional content in schools," the statement continued.
Trump has spent months vowing to help right-wing activists in their decades-long quest to eliminate the Department of Education altogether — an agency that, among other things, is critical to protecting the civil rights of students around the country.