New Department of Ed Secretary Confirmed, Will Begin Dismantling the Agency
The nomination of former World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. President Linda McMahon to be Secretary of Education raised many eyebrows --- not because of her reputation as a tough, no-nonsense, efficient CEO who also had headed President Trump’s Small Business Administration during his first term, but because of her obvious lack of experience in the field of education. It turns out that the background may be irrelevant. “We have failed in our mission. We are not delivering the kind of education our children need. The system is in decline. It is in need of vast improvements.” McMahon said. On March 20, she agreed to implement Trump’s executive order to “begin to dismantle the entire department.”
The DOE is one of the smallest cabinet level departments. Its $268 billion appropriations last year represented 4% of the total U.S. budget. Until March 2025, DOE employed some 4400 staff to mainly oversee special funding and civil rights enforcement for the nation’s school children. But it doesn’t fund school operations nor decide the national curriculum. About 85% of the funding for basic school operations is paid for by state and local funds. The DOE cannot even pose national curriculum standards -- although it tried through the much-disputed “common core” program during President Obama’s administration.
Words matter, as we all know. Politicians and partisan journalists are especially good at spinning words to imply an action that might not quite be true but fits their partisan narrative. Good journalists should report the different words used to justify different positions.
Press members use multiple words – most often “eliminate” -- to describe the Trump administration’s DOE goals, while Trump’s executive order calls for the first steps to “dismantle” it.
This year, news articles declared that McMahon will close, shut down, scrap, eliminate, and abolish the Department of Education entirely. But that is not what the new Secretary said. “I cannot close the entire agency as Secretary,” McMahon stated many times, “Only Congress can do that. But I intend to significantly reorganize it, reform it, reorient it, dismantle and reshuffle its functions, sending some to other federal agencies and especially to the states while keeping major federal initiatives to be managed by a small efficient staff – not necessarily in Washington DC”.
In February, the DOE reduced the number of its employees by nearly 50 percent – some 600 accepted buy-outs and about 1400 were told they had been placed on immediate administrative leave. A coalition of Democratic state attorney generals sued to block the Department “from being eliminated.”
The DOE was created by President Carter, who removed it from the giant HEW (Health, Education and Welfare) Department in 1980. In 1982, President Reagan tried to get Congress to eliminate it, calling it unnecessary. The partisan battle has continued ever since, with Republicans mainly wanting the tax funds used to operate the DOE to be given as block grants to the states and to parents to support education at the state level -- including subsidies for private charter and faith-based schools. Democrats argue for a much more centralized system.
McMahon was confirmed by the Senate on March 3 by a 51 to 45 vote.
Columbia University’s 2024 Occupation Protests Now Involve Deportations, Universal Injunctions
New York City’s renowned Columbia University has been hit with fines, donor withdrawal and condemnation for allowing so-called “pro-Palestinian occupation protests” to take place on the campus in the spring of 2024. Reportedly, participants (students and non-students) intimidated, assaulted and terrorized Jewish students with impunity under the strong defense of freedom of speech. Now in 2025 some of the non-citizen participants who hold international student and scholar permits (F and J visas --temporary non-immigration time limited tracked permits), and green cards (PLRs- Permanent Legal Residency) are facing withdrawal of their permits to stay and a choice of self-deportation (with a possible ability to return legally) or forcible permanent removal by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau in the Department of Homeland Security.
The news focal point has become Syrian-born Mahmoud Kahlil, a Columbia U foreign grad student who in 2024 became the highly visible, eager, unmasked “spokesperson and negotiator” for the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel protestors. ICE agents arrested him on March 9, taking in custody his green card (which does not grant the holder protection from deportation) that he reportedly had just recently received to replace his foreign student permit (international student visa).
“If he had stated on his application for a foreign student permit that he was coming to the United States with the intention of immigrating and becoming an active spokesperson for possibly terrorist organizations on campus, he never would have been granted the foreign student permit,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. The fact that Kahlil married an American citizen who is pregnant may have allowed some prosecutorial discretion in getting the green card unusually quickly, but it does not protect him as a non-citizen from deportation for an alleged criminal act. A federal judge, using a universal injunction, removed the deportation order and the case was moved to New Jersey from Louisiana, where Khalil is in immigration detention.
The issue of single judge orders increasingly being evoked to block presidential executive orders may be headed for a Supreme Court review.
"Invaders" is a new powerful word now being used by the Trump administration in reference to millions of illegal border crossers in 2021-23. Invaders are described in dictionaries as: large numbers of “unwanted and unwelcomed entrants into a place, situation or sphere of activity especially with intrusive effects.” Words matter. By using the term “invaders”, the current President can justify unilaterally removing undocumented migrants even with military force without the consent of Congress or a declaration of war. “Invaders,” are also considered globally not to be under the jurisdiction of the country they are invading. Under the 14thAmendment, therefore, children born in the U.S. of invaders do not qualify for birthright citizenship. By referring to undocumented migrants in this manner, they become automatically ineligible. The use of this strong word – which has concrete effects on public policy as well as on public perceptions of “illegal border crossers” or “undocumented migrants” (other contested terms) - is the subject of ongoing debate.
