Closing Down the Department of Education, By Charles Taylor (Florida)
When institutions become too corrupted by woke, or just plain corrupted, there is no choice but to close them down and start with a clean slate. The US Department of Education, much like parallel organisations across the West, is riddled with crippling woke. President Donald Trump has called for the immediate closure of the Department of Education, describing it as a "big con job." He criticized the U.S. education system, pointing out that the country ranks 40th in global education, but spends the most per pupil. He cited this as evidence that the current system is failing, noting that nations like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and even China are performing better despite spending less. Trump suggested that education should be returned to individual states, claiming that many U.S. states could match the performance of top-ranked countries.
Trump has long advocated for closing the Department of Education and decentralizing education to state governments. He also mentioned appointing Linda McMahon to lead the department with the goal of ultimately "putting herself out of a job," as he believes in school choice and wants states to have more control over their education systems. Yes, centralised woke is even worse than woke at the state level, and below; the bigger, the more decadent.
If the Education department can be closed down, this suggests that something equally as radical could be done to higher education, the corrupt universities. Already there is some impact here via the Trump attack upon Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE, I call it):
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/02/12/trump-calls-department-education-closed-immediately/
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/false_claims_universities_can_t_make_them_anymore.html
"President Trump's team is not only overtly overturning the lunatic wokeness of Democrats/socialists/communists (D/s/cs) they're being deceptively subtle. Trump's executive orders have banned DEI and other forms of wokeness in the federal government, but they're more slyly affecting academia:
Little noticed in the blizzard of executive orders issued by President Trump is this provision in Executive Order No. 14173 for getting federal money:
(iv) The head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award:
(A) A term requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government's payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code; and
(B) A term requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.
In other words, if you want federal money, you will have to "certify" that you do not "operate any programs promoting" DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) "that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws." And the order eases the way for enforcement through whistleblower claims.
The trick is universities rake in billions in contracts, grants, and as we're now learning, stealthy, previously unsuspected, payments from a wide variety of federal agencies like USAID. Pam Bondi is proving she's taking this seriously. If they want taxpayer cash, universities will have to dismantle their DEI bureaucracies and if they don't, lose all federal funding which might require them—gasp!--to employ more teachers than administrators.
The horror.
But from the perspective of universities, as Mark Glennon at WirePoints writes, it's much worse than that:
Trump's new order includes this:
A term requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government's payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code.
Want to guess what that referenced Code section is?
It's the False Claims Act – the whistleblower law that allows private citizens to file what are called qui tam actions. That provision in Trump's new order is specifically intended to make it easier to win whistleblower actions under the False Claims Act. In other words, if a university or other party falsely signs the certification that they have no DEI policies, private parties like their employees can blow the whistle, perhaps getting a cash award. Treble damages are among the possible consequences for False Claims Act violations.
Make that "certain" consequences. You don't suppose university employees who have been mistreated or whose jobs have been eliminated so their schools could hire 100 DEI assistants to the under-assistant to the assistant of the Deputy DEI Assistant Compliance Officer might turn whistleblower, do you? University administrators suppose exactly that.
Various law firms and consultants advising them—like these--are taking this very seriously indeed.
No longer can universities rebrand or hide their DEI personnel, not if they don't want to lose federal funds, pay treble damages and lose the money they've depended on not to educate students, but to out-virtue signal competing institutions. All those contracts, grants, kickbacks, all that prestige and all those perks are drying up, and government is going to ensure taxpayer money is being used for specified purposes.
The horror—again.
The way things are going, they may not be able to wait Trump out for four years. Republicans could be in control for 12 or more! The performances of their previously most effective D/s/c congressional mouthpieces are looking increasingly stupid. Even the D/s/c propaganda media are shying away. Maxine Waters looks and sounds like a raving, angry drunk. Chuck Schumer looks and sounds even more demon-possessed than usual. Even the preacherly cadences and faux-moral outrage of black congressional shills has lost all effect as one angrily intoned: "moo, moo, moo."
They're all starting to realize Trump has been planning this all along. His team knows the ways of DC. Nothing is done by chance. D/s/cs, arrogant as always, are slow to realize they've been outfoxed. This time around Trump knows the rules—all the rules—and he's effectively using them against the people that wrote them.
Their screams about coups and dictatorship aren't working. Elon Musk isn't elected? So what? Most federal employees aren't, including everyone working for representatives and senators. If Trump is running a coup, from whom is he seizing power? Himself?
Even lawfare isn't going to do more than slightly delay Trump, and he's already factored that in. Threats of impeachment? Mitch McConnell will vote for it, but he's washed up and powerless. Republicans are already working up impeachment resolutions for D/s/c lawfare judges. That's going to leave a mark.
Republican, constitutional, government has come at long last to destroy "our democracy."
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