Publication | Executive Actions Monitor

    Executive Actions Affecting Education

    2025 Presidential Actions
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    These executive order (EO) summaries are based on a cursory review; our lawyers and policy professionals continue to analyze these documents, and the directives they contain. Among other things, some of the directed actions may present significant constitutional questions that could be litigated and subsequently overturned or blocked.


    February 15, 2025

    Keeping Education Accessible and Ending COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates in Schools

    An EO directing the Secretary of Education to issue guidelines to educational entities regarding their legal obligations related to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations and equal protection in the context of COVID-19 school mandates. The order also instructs the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to develop a plan within 90 days to end COVID-19 school mandates. This plan must include a process for ensuring that federal funds are withheld from entities that do not comply with the issued guidelines. A fact sheet on the EO can be found on the White House website.
     
    February 5, 2025

    Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports

    An EO stating that it is the policy of the US to rescind all funds from educational programs that deny women and girls fair athletic opportunities, including those that permit biological males to compete in women’s sports. The order outlines several directives to implement this policy, including by requiring all executive departments and agencies to review grants awarded to educational institutions and rescind funding from programs that do not comply with the EO.

     
    February 3, 2025

    Career and Technical Education Month, 2025

    A proclamation declaring February 2025 as Career and Technical Education Month.
     
    January 29, 2025

    Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families

    An EO directing various agencies to expand options for educational choice through federal financial assistance programs. Among other directives, the EO instructs the Secretary of Education to issue guidance on how states can use federal formula funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives and to prioritize education freedom in its discretionary grant programs. A fact sheet on the EO can be found on the White House website.
     
    January 29, 2025

    Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling

    An EO directing the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Attorney General, to create an Ending Indoctrination Strategy to eliminate federal funding or support for discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools.
     
    January 28, 2025

    Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation

    An EO providing that it is the policy of the US government “that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” Accordingly, the EO directs several agency actions to comply with this policy, including through immediate appropriate actions to ensure that institutions receiving federal research or education grants “end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”