Trump Administration's Executive Orders Reshaping School Discipline Policies

In a move signaling a significant shift in federal education policy, the Trump administration has issued a series of executive orders aimed at reshaping how schools handle student discipline. These orders, framed as efforts to restore order and fairness, have sparked controversy and raised concerns about their potential impact on equity and civil rights in education.

Reversing Civil Rights Gains

Seventy-one years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision ended legal segregation in schools, the federal government is reversing civil rights in education. On April 23, 2025, President Trump issued executive orders #14280 and #14281. These directives, particularly executive order #14280, challenge previous administrations’ guidance aimed at reducing racial disparities in school discipline. The order also threatens public schools by directing the Secretary of Education to “take appropriate action” against districts that do not comply with the guidance, namely by taking away federal funds, funds that often serve students of color and from low-income backgrounds.

Throughout the executive orders, Trump repeatedly characterized earlier reforms to end racial disparities initiated under the Obama and Biden administrations as “discriminatory-equity-ideology-based-school discipline.” This characterization obfuscates, denigrates, and propagandizes legitimate efforts undertaken to protect civil rights of Black students, Latino students, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ students in recent years. Relatedly, both orders position any race-conscious efforts to mitigate discipline disparities as a form of racial discrimination.

These arguments overlook historical and present racial discrimination faced by Black Americans. They harken back to tactics used by white political officials to resist civil rights progress following the Brown decision. Back then, white political leaders in the South sought to undermine civil rights progress and educational opportunities for Black students by passing numerous laws that flat-out defied Brown. That movement, known as “Massive Resistance,” was also one in which exclusionary school discipline was utilized to resist civil rights progress (as were vouchers, another education reform that originated during Massive Resistance). Seven decades later, students of color and other already underserved student groups, may now find themselves being disciplined or expelled at even greater rates than they are currently.

The Disparate Impact Standard

The second executive order removes a key legal analysis called “disparate impact,” which is often used in school discipline investigations to determine if a race-neutral discipline policy or practice disproportionately harms students of color and other protected student groups. For example, if a district has a suspension policy that appears to be race-neutral or “colorblind” but actually results in more suspensions for Black students, it might be determined that the district is discriminating against Black students regardless of racially motivated intentions. But now, students of color won’t have those protections nor the data to back up their claims, which shows that students of color are more frequently punished in schools. For example, Black girls are 8% of student enrollment but 14% of students suspended. Similarly, Black boys are 8% of enrollment but 18% of students suspended. And Black boys with disabilities are among the most frequently suspended groups, and Black girls with disabilities also experience disproportionately high rates of punishment. White students, on the other hand, are either disciplined at rates comparable to their enrollment or at even lower rates.

Read also: Impact of Trump on Student Debt

The Administration's Stance on School Discipline

The Trump administration argues that previous policies aimed at reducing disparities in school discipline have made schools less safe by incentivizing them to sweep student misconduct under the rug. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon released a statement saying that under the Biden-Harris Administration, schools were forced to consider equity and inclusion when imposing discipline. She claimed that their policies placed racial equity quotas over student safety, encouraging schools to turn a blind eye to poor or violent behavior in the name of inclusion. She stated that disciplinary decisions should be based solely on students’ behavior and actions. This perspective reflects a broader concern within the administration about what they term "discriminatory equity ideology."

Experts' Concerns and Counterarguments

Experts in education policy and school discipline have voiced concerns that the executive order goes against evidence that discipline is unequally applied to Black students, and that alternatives to removing students from school are actually best for learning. Chris Curran, director of the Education Policy Research Center at the University of Florida’s College of Education, says that he’s not surprised by the executive order given how education has become front-and-center in today’s culture wars.

Rachel Perera, a fellow for the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, says she was surprised by the executive order, given that Trump’s decision to try to sunset the Department of Education was framed as a move to give back power over education to states and districts. She also points out that the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era policy during his first term, and the Biden administration’s directive on the same topic was widely criticized for being so vague that it provided no guidance at all.

Perera explains that there's such compelling evidence in education research that racial discrimination contributes to racial disparities. She argues that the Trump administration is saying fairness is discrimination against white kids, or Asian kids in some instances, and there's no basis in research or facts. She sees this as an ideology of white grievance that they're trying to promote through a number of avenues, including now apparently school discipline.

Richard Welsh, an associate professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University, says a major problem with the executive order is that it conflates school safety with school discipline. He explains that school safety refers to incidents involving weapons and physical harm, whereas school discipline involves behavior like being defiant. Welsh’s own research has found that even when the pandemic limited how much time students physically spent on campus, Black students were still disproportionately removed from class.

Read also: The Impact on Education

Emily K. Penner, an associate professor of education in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, has conducted research suggesting that teacher attitudes, rather than student misbehavior, may influence the high rate at which Black students are sent out of class for discipline. She likewise says that the school officials she works with are most urgently trying to find solutions to the chronic absenteeism that worsened during the pandemic.

Potential Consequences and the Return to Exclusionary Discipline

Critics fear that these orders could lead to a return to exclusionary discipline practices, where students are removed from the classroom or school, being used as a first resort rather than a last resort. Schools may abandon reforms such as restorative practices or trauma-informed approaches that grew in recent decades with support from the Obama and Biden administrations. This shift could disproportionately affect students of color and students with disabilities, who are already overrepresented in suspension and expulsion rates.

The Role of "Disparate Impact" and its Removal

By attacking disparate impact and inverting the public’s general understanding of racial discrimination, these orders aim to eliminate one of the few legal mechanisms for identifying racial discrimination in schools while using propaganda to legitimize unfounded claims of discrimination against white students lending to the administration’s broader efforts to undermine civil rights progress.

Intimidation Tactics and the "Dear Colleague Letter"

The Dear Colleague Letter, backed by the executive orders, is widely regarded as an intimidation tactic designed to pressure districts into compliance with the administration’s loose interpretations of discrimination and guidance pertaining to school discipline.

Gaming the System and Lack of Resources

Curran says any system that scrutinizes schools’ data opens the possibility that some will try to game the system, as the executive order accuses. He explains that for a school to lower their disparities and suspensions, that takes a lot of resources, which could include professional development for teachers or additional staff. He laments that we didn't necessarily couple the resources with the push to change policy in some cases, or in many cases.

The Vagueness of the Executive Order

The vagueness of Trump’s executive order leads Penner to believe that the administration wants schools to draw their own conclusions about what complying would mean. She says that they like to tell people that they need you to change, but then they don't tell you how, because they hope that you'll pick something that you're the most scared of.

Culture War and "Common Sense"

Curran says that results from his survey of Florida parents, which is being prepared for publication, shows they favor getting tough on student misbehavior, including using school suspensions. The executive order is part of broader culture wars, he says, over what “common sense” means in practice for school discipline and education. One bit of evidence for that idea? The order uses the term “discriminatory equity ideology” to describe an earlier approach to school discipline.

Community Response and Resistance

Despite these challenges, there are strategies to push back against these policies. These include:

Encouraging districts against pre-complying out of fear: Use resources like letters from organizations like the Federal School Discipline and Climate Coalition and the Education Civil Rights Alliance to talk with education leaders about maintaining positive school discipline, climate, and equity-oriented programming.
Building local coalitions: Partner with civil rights groups, youth and family organizations, and advocacy coalitions to coordinate responses, build shared strategies, and advocate for inclusive disciplinary alternatives and elimination of racial disparities.
Monitoring state and local policy changes: Proactively support candidates and legislation that will maintain inclusive alternatives to exclusion, end racial disparities, and protect the civil rights of Black and Latino students and other underserved groups.

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