The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Administration Interpretation Of Civil Rights Act Reshapes Public Schools

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

President Trump pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, but his administration is also using the department’s Office for Civil Rights to pressure local school districts to adhere to Trump’s political views. We discuss these tactics and how they fit into a broader culture war. This episode: politics correspondent Sarah McCammon, education correspondent Cory Turner, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On NPR's Wild Card podcast, author Elizabeth Gilbert gets brutally honest about her tendency to make bad choices. Whenever I see red flags, I think it's a parade in my honor. And I run toward it. I'm like, flags, it's a parade. Watch or listen to that wildcard conversation on the NPR app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kristen. Hi, I'm Rachel. Hey, I'm Stephen.

I'm Mary Catherine. I'm Griffin. And I'm Amanda. And we just won bar trivia again. This is Nick. Oh, Nick, the host. The only thing we're more competitive about than winning is learning. This podcast was recorded at 12.37 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, September 5th, 2025.

It's a lot of people in this group. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll continue to study our presidents and state capitals. Enjoy the show. Trivia's so much fun Absolutely I've been thinking about wanting to join a trivia team What's your trivia thing, Domenico? Is there like a special area?

Well, I mean, politics, government, sports, 90s rap. Usually those are the areas I get five out of five in jeopardy. Geography. Oh, very cool, very cool. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And NPR

education correspondent, Corey Turner, is here. Hey, Corey, good to have you. Good to be here. Today on the show, we're taking a look at how President Trump is changing the shape of K-12 education from the steps the administration has taken to try to shut down the U.S. Department of Education to fights over school funding nationwide. You know, Corey, what strikes you about the way the Trump administration is approaching the federal role in education? I think there's a really interesting contradiction or tension in the Trump administration's approach here. Because on the one hand, as you said, you know, President Trump campaign on the idea of closing the education department. He has said no shortage of terrible things about the department and what it does. And he has been busy making good on that promise. We know the staff, the department is now roughly half the level it was in January. And we know behind the scenes they're working on carving out some of its responsibilities. and trying to move them elsewhere, the tension comes from the fact that at the same time, President Trump wants to close the department, he has shown no hesitation in wielding the power

the department has in one really specific arena. And that is around the department's job in enforcing federal civil rights laws. Yeah. And how is that working? How are they doing that? Well, so they're basically using a combination of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and specifically Title VI in that law, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin. And they're using Title IX, which obviously prohibits sex discrimination and was meant to level the playing field for women and girls. What the administration is doing, though, is going after, we've seen them do this with colleges and universities, Harvard, Columbia

Brown. They're also doing this with school districts and even entire state departments of education. They're using these laws and sort of flipping them on their heads. So, for example, example, Title VI, which obviously 1964 was largely intended to help protect the rights of Black Americans, especially in schools, what they're using Title VI to do is to clamp down on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and to really punish school systems that the administration says are continuing to preference students of color over white students or Asian American students. And they're saying the same thing about Title IX. They're going after districts and states that have protections for transgender students saying, look, you're

discriminating against women and girls. So he wants to give it less power, but he wants to use the power that the department has. Yeah. And in really a more forceful way than we've seen in many administrations. And this is really all about Trump's agenda and how he wants to reshape the country on a cultural war standpoint. The point is, and we've seen this with a lot of other things politically with Trump and what he's tried to do from a governing standpoint. If you agree with him, you know, it's all about states' rights. If you don't, then the federal government's going to come in and try to make you adopt that point of view.

Does this seem to be about actually changing policy, changing curriculum, changing the way schools do things, or is it more sort of backward-looking, punishing schools that aren't aligning with the Trump administration's objectives? That's a really good question. I think if you look at the way they're doing it, they're using these laws, namely Title VI from the Civil Rights Act and Title IX. They're doing these really fast-tracked investigations, investigations into, for example, Denver public schools because of their transgender student protections. And the superintendent of Denver sent me a statement a couple days ago saying the Education Department's investigation involved no interviews. with folks on the ground there, it was quick and it felt like a power play.

And you can see also in the judge's ruling, the federal judge in Boston's ruling, in the Harvard case, she essentially said the same thing that the administration was using Title VI, but Title VI very clearly in law includes a process the government has to follow if it thinks a school is discriminating against students. And she said Trump administration didn't follow any of these steps. It just jumped right to trying to cut more than $2 billion in federal research funding. You know, education used to be a relatively bipartisan issue. I mean, when it came to President Obama, for example, I mean, there were Republican governors who would say that they disagreed with him on a lot of things, but that they felt like they could work with him on education.

Part of that was because Obama was more open to, you know, charter schools, for example, for decreasing some union rights to be able to. get those created. And we have to think about the fact that some major legislation that passed only a decade ago, ESA, for example, passed with more than 80 votes in the Senate. And that means plenty of Republicans who went along. And we're just not seeing that kind of willingness to be thinking about schools, how children are taught, and mostly how the schools are funded, and for what reasons that we saw in those days. You mentioned Harvard. There's been a lot of attention on the high-profile fights the administration has had with universities like Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and others.

How does what's happening in K-12 education compare to what's happening with higher ed? Yeah, it's interestingly very similar, yet for some reason, largely going under the radar. You know, I feel like I can't turn around without seeing a headline about what's happening to Harvard. And yet many folks don't realize that the administration is already going hard at the state of California and California's Department of Education as well as the state of Maine and its Department of Education for insisting on allowing protections for transgender students that align the states argue with state law as well as current federal law. And the reason these cases matter, in addition to the investigation, into school districts like Denver, Chicago. There are five districts in northern Virginia. They're all in the same boat.

The reason these investigations matter is ultimately the only real clout or power the federal government has here is to cut off federal funding to these public school districts. And the reason that would be catastrophic is because most people don't realize that the bulk of federal funding that goes to schools these days. It's not that much. But what does go to schools goes to schools goes to schools? goes to support kids with disabilities, pays for special education, and it goes to support kids living in poverty. So it's forcing school districts to really, like, choose between advocating on behalf of one marginalized student group, for example, transgender students, at the risk of losing funding that helps them support kids with disabilities or kids living in poverty.

Yeah, and it kind of reminds me what Trump is doing here in trying to punish with federal funds to threaten the tax. take them away as he has with higher ed, as he has, as you've noted with K to 12. It's sort of the opposite of what the Obama administration had tried to do with race to the top in trying to incentivize, you know, curriculum adoption of Common Core standards by saying, hey, here's this pot of money. If you want it, you got to participate and adopt these curriculum initiatives. But it's totally different than what the Trump administration is trying to do from a substantive standpoint, which is trying to reshape the culture in these schools. Because classrooms for a long time have been places where teachers can sort of, you know, work with kids who are from different

backgrounds, races, ethnicities, religions, special needs, what have you, to sort of push for acceptance and tolerance and empathy of people and things that are different. And the Trump administration is saying the total opposite of that, where they're essentially looking out for quote unquote parents' rights and those parents who are saying they don't want their kids learning about certain things, whether it's LGBTQ initiatives or books, and really saying that if you try to teach those things and make those explicit, then we're going to try to punish you. You know, Domenico, I wanted to ask you about something Corey talked about at the beginning, which is this idea that there's this inherent tension in the way the administration is navigating its

approach to education. On the one hand, calling for a smaller, less powerful federal government But on the other hand, using the powers that the administration has through the Federal Department of Education to implement these kinds of goals you were just describing, what do you make of the way the administration is threading that needle? I don't know that's that much of a needle that they're threatening. I think that they have, you know, two standards here where they say that they want smaller government when those places agree with them and they want the federal government to impose its will when there are places that defy them and places where Trump has personal animosity toward people like maybe the government. governor of California or the governor of Maine as we've seen so you know a lot of this is personal a lot of this is trying to instill this wholesale sort of culture change in the country and in education where a lot of teachers unions have pushed back and teachers have pushed back and it's something that frankly has been a campaign promise of

Trump's where you know really this education piece and the teaching of LGBTQ curriculum is something that you know his base has wanted out of schools for a long time. Even before the presidential election, of course, we saw a lot of those rowdy school board meetings where they were trying to take quote unquote woke things out of schools. And we saw that before, you know, really this was even a hot issue as Trump being president. He's just sort of picked up on that and using that to sort of satisfy his base. We're going to take a quick break. We'll have more in just a moment. And we're back. And, you know, as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking about the

decades of fights that have surrounded public schools around the country, both in terms of what's taught, the curriculum, and funding, how it's paid for. You know, many religious conservatives have been skeptical of public schools for a long time and have pushed for public funding for religious education and homeschools. That was an issue in Iowa where I was a reporter for a while. Dominico, how do these efforts by the Trump administration to cut funding to schools who don't align with the administration's views, how does that fit into the bigger picture here? Well, I think that those issues are kind of pedestrian compared to what the Trump administration is actually trying to do at the center of everything. I mean, certainly, you know, white Christian evangelicals are a huge portion of the backing of Trump.

But this goes far beyond, you know, just trying to back those schools and really just trying to be able to put forward what the MAGA-centric idea of how public schools should be run. and by doing so with, you know, as much leverage, whatever leverage the federal government has, because schools are so decentralized. I mean, they're really run at the local level, and the federal government has so little control over what they can do. But Trump is trying to be able to use all of the wind behind him from conservatives to try to push a different educational agenda than we've seen in the last, you know, 25, 30 years or more. The federal government really cannot dictate the terms to class. or to teachers, public education is a local enterprise, except for their learning standards, which tend to be dictated at the state level. And so it's no coincidence that like when we saw a rash of book banning, well, that happened during the Biden administration, right? Those

were local choices made by local communities. And, you know, the president talks a lot about influencing curriculum, getting woke out of schools. I don't think he can do that. He's He's using the instrument he has at his disposal, which is these civil rights laws and the threat of federal funding to sort of nibble around the edges. And the real question is, is the administration actually going to risk cutting this funding, which again would hurt the most vulnerable children in the country? And vouchers have been something that, you know, the right has talked about for a long time. And that was a thing that people would argue over whether or not, you know, you could have vouchers in schools, whether you could give quote unquote schools. choice. But, you know, that's something that conservatives have been pushing for for a long time. Obviously, that was a big part of Project 2025. It's not necessarily the heart, though,

I think as Corey's pointing out, of what the Trump administration is really trying to push on there. Well, and regardless of what the Trump administration can or mostly cannot do when it comes to education, I think Trump clearly understands that this is an issue that motivates the base. And so regardless of the fact that there are a few levers he can pull, he's going to pull them. You know, white grievance is something that has propelled Trump politically. ever since 2016. But there's a big difference between his first term, how he acted then and how he's acting now. And this time around, maybe with the help of Project 2025 and the people who wrote that, maybe with the fact that Trump had some experience already and now kind of more

comfortable in the role as president, we're seeing a real granular enactment of that ethos, you know, from a policy standpoint, from a from a leverage standpoint, as opposed to him sort of still trying to find his way through most of that first term. You know, I want to put this in context. How does Trump's approach compare to previous administration's approaches to education, whether Republicans or Democrats? So I do want to say here, I have heard from quite a few conservatives who had a real issue with the Office for Civil Rights in the Education Department under President Obama and then under President Biden. And specifically around the office's decision to interpret Title IX to interpret Title IX to account. expand it and include protections for transgender students.

There were an awful lot of conservatives, including school leaders, superintendents, districts, who felt like that was not the business of the federal government to tell them how far they should go. I will say, though, I was talking to a civil rights expert just the other day. He said, as much as conservatives really hated the Office for Civil Rights under Obama and Biden for that reason, what the Trump administration is doing now is essentially that on steroids and in the opposite direction. They're actually now threatening to withhold funding, which is something neither the Obama nor Biden administration ever came close to doing. And Domenico, I mean, what about Republicans? How does this compare to other Republican presidents?

Well, I mean, the last Republican president was George W. Bush before Donald Trump, right? And he went about education in a very different way, right? I mean, he championed no child level. behind, trying to get more measurement and standards in schools. That was, you know, kind of a big piece of what the education department actually is and has been able to do, which is keep statistics really been a hub for that over those 25 years or so that Trump has really kind of hollowed out in this, you know, first few months here, certainly. But, you know, George W. Bush was somebody who believed in this idea of compassionate conservatism. He was trying to expand the tent and wanted to appear to be somebody who was, you know, almost in the vein of LBJ of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who

taught in impoverished schools and wanted to be able to bring more funding and spotlight to those schools and those children. That was something that George W. Bush and people around him felt like if the Republican Party could be seen as compassionate in those ways, then you could lift, you know, sort of the view and the image of the Republican Party from one that maybe was a little harsher to one that was a little bit, quote, again, compassionate. And that's just not what we're seeing here. It's a complete 180 in many respects by the Trump administration. Before we move on, Corey, I want to ask you, we talked about the way that the Trump administration has really inverted the approach to civil rights laws when it comes to education.

Do we know if what they're doing is legal? That's the question of the next eight months, I would say. We got a ruling from a federal judge in Boston recently in the Harvard case. They used Title VI of the civil rights. Act to argue that rampant anti-Semitism on Harvard's campus was violating student civil rights, and so they moved to freeze $2.2 billion in federal research funding. And the judge said the way the administration went about it was fundamentally illegal. They didn't follow the process embedded in the law itself.

I mean, there's a reason it is incredibly rare to see the federal government actually cut funding to any school, Sarah. It's because it's hard, right? It's legally hard. It is legally hard. It is a long, torturous process that can take years. And what we're seeing are these investigations that begin with a press release and go in a matter of days from investigation to referral to the Department of Justice.

It is a fast track. And there will likely be more court battles as time goes by. Oh, absolutely. And I think we expect the Supreme Court in the not too distant future to probably help clarify this thing. And what you see from states and school districts right now who maintain protections for transgender students, is they're not saying, no, we will never abide by your view of the law, Trump administration. They're saying the law is open right now. The federal courts have contradicted themselves. states have adopted laws that we feel compelled to follow. Can we please just wait for the Supreme Court to say, yes, this, know this, let's move on.

All right. We do need to take a quick break. When we come back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. It's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics, or otherwise. And I'm going to start. You know, sometimes you have to let things go. And the last month of my life has been one of big transitions. My oldest went off to college. So, Corey, I now have somebody in higher ed and K-12. Congratulations. Thank you. And so, you know, I've been away for a few weeks getting ready for all of that. And my friends have been asking me, you know, what is it like in D.C. with the federal takeover of law enforcement, which we were talking about earlier this week.

week. And I had to say, well, I don't know. I'm not there. So I've been back for several days. And, you know, my little corner of the world looks about the same as it did the last time I was here. Although this morning I was at this outdoor yoga class that I sometimes go to. It's very sort of chill-free. You just kind of show up and do your thing on your mat. And I, you know, I looked up and the birds are flying over and the, you know, we're all on our mats doing our work. And I looked up and there were like three, National Guardsmen, just like walking by my yoga class through the park. And so in some ways, it's very different in D.C. And in other ways, it's not. Corey, what about you?

What can't you let go? I'm going to go super soft here. Last night, I went to the movies and I saw in IMAX the 50th anniversary re-release of Jaws, which by my lights is about as close to perfection as much. movies get. And it's just that rare movie that may be 50 years old, but every time I watch it, I just love it that much more. I guess this is a humble brag, although I'm terrified about it. I have reported in the past about the sharks that were used in Jaws. I have a very strange relationship with those sharks. One of them is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum in

Los Angeles. I found it in a junkyard. And so, next week, I'm actually going to Los Angeles, and I'm going to walk through the Academy Museum's brand new 50th anniversary Jaws exhibit with Steven Spielberg. Oh, my goodness. And so I'm a little bit terrified, but I'm also feeling very 11 years old. I cannot wait to hear this story. That's going to be great. What about you, Domenico?

What can't you let go? Well, for me, it's Thieves and the U.S. Open and tennis. and I don't mean people stealing points or water breaks here and there. I mean people actually stealing stuff from players and from other people. It's kind of crazy. There was a Polish CEO, Peter Zerick, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, and he has a paving stone company in Poland called Drugbrook. And he was at the U.S. Open.

There was a Polish player who had just beaten a Russian player, and the Polish player was giving his hat to a child. that he had just signed, and Zerick just took the hat from the kid. Oh, I saw this. Right? And it went viral, and people were outraged about it. They were trying to find him. There was even a lesson, by the way, in social media rage, just maybe going too far

because there was another person in Poland who runs a paving stone company, also called Dragbrook, but with a hyphen, with a similar sounding last name, who people were going after. targeting their rage at and he had no idea what they were talking about drugbrook by the way means paving stones for roads so it's not that weird that it would be called that um so that and so this so this guy like you know wound up apologizing he said he felt terrible it was the you know the heat of the moment he thought he was giving it to him for his son and he might not be that far off from thinking why because he has kind of a personal relationship with the tennis player because he sponsors a lot of tennis in Poland and where this guy with a Polish player practices and

stuff. Anyway, everyone apologized. The player then met with the kid. They were both smiling ear to ear, but is a real lesson, I thought, in how people really interact with the news and things that they see because people went after the CEO very quickly. And even people were posting fake apologies from the CEO and his family that he never even did so people have so much time on their hands boy i think i think others were making this point on social media but also i think one of the lessons of the last several months is if you're a CEO

in a public stadium just behave don't take things from children you know be happy with the large salary you get but then there was a fan who also tried to steal from yannick sinner's bag like kind of came on the court and was like going through his bag before security stopped them And Sinner is one of the top tennis players in the world on the men's side. And he was like, look, he's like, I didn't just have rackets in there. He's like, I also have my wallet and my phone. So luckily, nothing got taken. They didn't punish the fan, but everyone needs to chill out.

Maybe it's the nice weather in Queens that everyone's just decided this year that they're going to act a little feisty. I don't know. Well, fall is here, so it's time to chill out for sure. All right, that is a wrap for today. Corey, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Our executive producer is Mathony Maturi.

our editor is Rachel Bay. Our producers are Casey Morel and Brea Suggs. Thanks also to Kelsey Snell. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.