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  • Department of Justice Withdraws Decree Requiring Schools in This Louisiana Parish to Integrate

    Department of Justice Withdraws Decree Requiring Schools in This Louisiana Parish to Integrate


    After the Brown decision of 1954, after years of delay, the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson cracked down on districts that refused to desegregate their schools. The Department of Justice negotiated consent decrees with recalcitrant districts, mostly (but not only) in the South.

    More that 100 such consent decrees are still in effect.

    The Trump Department of Justice recently canceled the consent decree with Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana.

    The head of the Department’s Civil Rights Division hailed this reversal of longstanding policy.

    Expect more such rulings from the Civil Rights Division, dismantling protections for racial minorities, LGBT, and women. The only protected group in the Trump era is white men.

    The Guardian had the story.

    In late April, the Department of Justice announced that it was ending a decades-long consent decree in Plaquemines parish, Louisiana, in a school district that has been under a desegregation order since the Johnson administration in the 1960s.

    The Plaquemines parish desegregation order, one of more than 130 such orders nationwide, was in place to ensure that the school district, which initially refused to integrate, followed the law. Many consent decrees of the era are still in existence because school districts are not in compliance with the law.

    Some experts, including former justice department employees, say the change in direction for the department could be worrying.

    These orders “provide students with really important protections against discrimination”, said Shaheena Simons, who was the chief of the educational opportunities section of the civil rights division at the justice department for nearly a decade. “They require school districts to continue to actively work to eliminate all the remaining vestiges of the state-mandated segregation system. That means that students have protections in terms of what schools they’re assigned to, in terms of the facilities and equipment in the schools that they attend. They have protection from discrimination in terms of barriers to accessing advanced programs, gifted programs. And it means that a court is there to protect them and to enforce their rights when they’re violated and to ensure that school districts are continuing to actively desegregate.”

    The justice department ended the Plaquemines parish desegregation order in an unusual process, one that some fear will be replicated elsewhere. The case was dismissed through a “joint stipulated dismissal”. Previously, courts have followed a specific process for ending similar cases, one in which school districts prove that they are complying with the court orders. That did not happen this time. Instead, the Louisiana state attorney general’s office worked with the justice department in reaching the dismissal.

    “I’m not aware of anyone, any case, that has [ended] that way before,” said Deuel Ross, the deputy director of litigation of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF); the LDF was not specifically involved with the Plaquemines parish case. “The government as a plaintiff who represents the American people, the people of that parish, has an obligation to make sure that the district has done everything that it’s supposed to have done to comply with the federal court order in the case before it gets released, and the court itself has its own independent obligation to confirm that there’s no vestiges of discrimination left in the school district that are traceable to either present or past discrimination.”

    Despite the district not proving that it is compliant with the order, the justice department has celebrated the end of the consent decree.

    “No longer will the Plaquemines Parish School Board have to devote precious local resources over an integration issue that ended two generations ago,” Harmeet K Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the justice department’s civil rights division, said in a statement announcing the decision. “This is a prime example of neglect by past administrations, and we’re now getting America refocused on our bright future.”

    But focusing on the age of the case implies that it was obsolete, according to Simons, who is now the senior adviser of programs and strategist at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The administration is trying to paint these cases as ancient history and no longer relevant.”

    In 1966, the Johnson administration sued school districts across the country, particularly in the South, that refused to comply with desegregation demands. At the time, Plaquemines parish was led by Leander Perez, a staunch segregationist and white supremacist.

    Perez had played a large role in trying to keep nearby New Orleans from desegregating, and once that effort failed, he invited 1,000 white students from the Ninth Ward to enroll in Plaquemines parish schools. By 1960, nearly 600 had accepted the offer. Perez was excommunicated by Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel for ignoring his warning to stop trying to prevent schools run by the archdiocese of New Orleans from integrating.

    Perez attempted to close the public schools in Plaquemines parish, and instead open all-white private academies, or, segregation academies, which became a feature of the post-integration south. An estimated 300 segregation academies, which, as private schools, are not governed by the same rules and regulations as public schools, are still in operation and majority white.

    Students and teachers working in school districts today might be decades removed from the people who led the push for desegregation in their districts, but they still benefit from the protections that were long ago put in place. Without court oversight, school districts that were already begrudgingly complying might have no incentive to continue to do so.

    According to the Century Foundation, as of 2020, 185 districts and charters consider race and/or socioeconomic status in their student assignment or admissions policies, while 722 districts and charters are subject to a legal desegregation order or voluntary agreement. The justice department currently has about 135 desegregation cases on its docket, the majority of which are in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.skip past newsletter promotion

    “Separate but equal doesn’t work,” said Johnathan Smith, former deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division at the justice department. “The reality is that students of color do better when they are in integrated classrooms … We know that the amount of resources that are devoted to schools are greater when there are a higher number of white students. So to have students attend majority-minority school districts means that they’re going to be shut out, whether that’s from AP classes, whether that’s from extracurricular activities. All the activities that make it possible for students to fully achieve occur when you have more integrated classrooms.”

    “Public education isn’t just about education for the sake of education,” he added. “It’s about preparing people to be citizens of our democracy and to be fully engaged in our democratic institutions. When you have students that are being shut out from quality public education, the impact is not just on those communities. It’s on our democracy writ large.”

    Smith, the current chief of staff and general counsel for the National Center for Youth Law, said that the decision “signals utter contempt for communities of color by the administration, and a lack of awareness of the history of segregation that has plagued our nation’s schools”.

    Expect more reversals from the Civil rights Division of the Justice Department. Harmeet K Dhillon has spent years litigating against civil rights of minorities.



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  • Justice Department Employees Dismissed Without Reason, Creating Climate of Fear

    Justice Department Employees Dismissed Without Reason, Creating Climate of Fear


    Perry Stein of The Washington Post wrote about the arbitrary dismissals at the Justice Department, as Attorney General Pam Bondi clears out anyone suspected of disloyalty to Trump’s agenda.

    Republicans complained in the past that Biden was “weaponizing” and “politicizing” the Justice Department. That was not true. But it’s happening now, and Republicans don’t care. Lawyers who worked on prosecution of January 6 insurrectionists are being terminated, as are those who worked on investigations of Trump. If Trump and Bondi succeed, only Trump loyalists will still have a job in the Justice Department. James Comey’s daughter, who was a prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, was fired from

    Her job in the New York office of the Justice Department.

    Stein writes:

    The Trump administration is firing and pushing out employees across the Justice Department and FBI, often with no explanation or warning, creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next, according to multiple people with knowledge of the removals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

    Some people are simply fired, delivered a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi that cites the broad powers afforded to the president in the U.S. Constitution. Others, particularly at the FBI, are told they can leave or be demoted or terminated.

    The removals appear more individually targeted, and are happening in smaller numbers, than the high-profile ousters of senior Justice Department and FBI officials in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term, when he returned to the White House vowing to clean house at the federal law enforcement agency that had brought two criminal cases against him. They are unrelated to the mass reductions-in-force and reorganizations that Trump has launched at many other federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has said may move forward for now.

    Multiple people familiar with the Justice Department said scores of experienced staffers are opting to voluntarily leave the government to avoid being fired at random or asked to do things that would potentially violate their legal ethics. Their departures are worsening staff shortages in major divisions and U.S. attorney offices and have created an opening for the Trump administration to further shape the Justice Department workforce, allowing officials to fill career staff vacancies with attorneys who align ideologically with the president.

    “Many, many lawyers have resigned on their own power because they saw the writing on the wall,” said Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that pushes for a strong federal workforce. “They understood if they didn’t leave on their own volition they would be subject to firing — or if they stayed they felt they couldn’t uphold their oath in a way that was consistent with their integrity.”

    The lack of explanation for the firings has fueled rumors, multiple people familiar with the situation said.

    One Justice Department lawyer was suspected of being fired because he used “he/him” pronouns in his email signature. People interviewed say they believe another attorney was ousted because of a message he put on social media. Others told to leave may not mesh with or may be disliked by Trump’s political appointees, the people said. And some are suspected of speaking to the media without authorization.

    “Notice of Removal from Federal Service,” the subject line in the email from Bondi to one employee read. It continued: “Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, you are removed from federal service effective immediately.”



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  • SCOTUS Gives Trump Permission to Eliminate Department of Education

    SCOTUS Gives Trump Permission to Eliminate Department of Education


    After the election, I confidently predicted that Trump would never be able to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education. To eliminate a Department required Congressional approval, and I was confident that Trump would never get that. He would need 60 votes, not 51, and he would never get them. There might even be Republicans voting to keep the Department.

    But I was wrong. Obviously. It didn’t occur to me that Trump would fire half the staff of the Department and dismantle it without seeking Congressional approval.

    Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the President could continue to lay off the employees of the Department of Education while leaving aside the legal question of his power to destroy a Department created by Congress 45 years ago. Its ruling allowed him to achieve his goal without consulting Congress or abiding by the Constitution.

    Because he wanted to. And because Congress–if asked– would stop him. And because six members of the Court wanted to help him achieve his goal.

    Lower courts told him to reinstate those who were fired without cause. Federal Appeals courts agreed with the lower courts. The Supreme Court reversed them and gave Trump what he wanted.

    The Republicans in Congress watched supinely, conceding another of their Constitutuinal powers. They had already abandoned their power of the purse. Trump might as well abolish Congress. He doesn’t need their approval. They have disemboweled themselves, with the approval of the Supreme Court.

    The Supreme Court majority are extremists. They occasionally hold up a fig leaf and claim to be “originalists” or “textualists,” interpreting the Constitution as it was written. We now see that they are originalists when it suits them, but not originalists when Trump asks them to expand his imperial powers.

    The Founders thought they had created a system of checks and balances, where no single branch could control the other two. Trump is the conniving scoundrel that they warned about in the Federalist Papers.

    Republicans were not always hostile to the Department of Education. Reagan wanted to abolish it right away, but instead reaped the rewards of a 1983 report called “A Nation at Risk,” which excoriated the nation’s public schools and undermined the public’s faith in them.

    Reagan’s successor, his Vice-President George H.W. Bush, did not try to abolish the Department of Education. Instead, he decided to use it to burnish his credentials. After first appointing a little-known president from Texas as Secretary of Education, Lauro Cavazos, President Bush decided that he wanted to be known as “the Education President.” He appointed Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander as Secretary and convened a gathering of the nation’s governors to set national goals. (Secretary Alexander selected me to become Assistant Secretary in charge of the Department’s research arm).

    There was no talk of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education during the term of Bush 1.

    When George W. Bush became President in 2000, he never sought to close down the Department. His first piece of legislation was called No Child Left Behind, and he expected the Department to help him build his claim to be “a compassionate conservative.”

    Again, no talk of abolishing the Department during the eight years of Bush 2.

    When Trump was elected in 2016, abolishing the Department was not on his agenda. He appointed billionaire Betsy DeVos as Secretary, and her goal was to use the Department to fund charters and vouchers. She shoveled nearly $2 billion into the creation and expansion of charters but got nowhere with a federal voucher plan.

    And then came Trump’s second term, where he allied himself with the most extreme elements of the Far Right. They were there during Trump 1, but in his second term, the extremists are in charge. By extremists, I mean not only the anti-government billionaires like Peter Thiel, but the entrenched rightwing zealots of what used to be called the John Birch Society. When Trump denounces Democrats as “Communists,” “radical leftwing lunatics,” and other bile, I feel as if I’m time-traveling back to the McCarthy era, when unhinged rightwingers flung such insults at their political opponents.

    With the Supreme Court’s approval, Linda MacMahon will resume firing employees of the Departnent of Education and sending its core programs to other departments.

    If the Supreme Court ever gets around to deciding whether Trump has the legal authority to abolish the Department of Education, it will already be gone.



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  • Trump’s Energy Department Hires Climate Change Deniers

    Trump’s Energy Department Hires Climate Change Deniers


    Is the climate changing? Most scientists who study the environment believe that it is. They agree that human-caused pollution degrades the climate and that the health of the planet requires less reliance on fossil fuels. The Biden Administration passed landmark legislation to encourage the transition from oil and gas to electricity. Trump has rolled back whatever he could of Biden’s contribution to green energy. No more tax credits for electric vehicles or solar panels. Every program that promotes green energy has been dismantled.

    The New York Times reported that the Department of Energy has added three scientists to its roster who are known for their criticism of mainstream climate science. The Secretary of Energy is Chris Wright, an entrepreneur who was CEO of Liberty Energy.

    The Energy Department has hired at least three scientists who are well-known for their rejection of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, according to records reviewed by The New York Times.

    The scientists are listed in the Energy Department’s internal email system as current employees of the agency, the records show. They are Steven E. Koonin, a physicist and author of a best-selling book that calls climate science “unsettled”; John Christy, an atmospheric scientist who doubts the extent to which human activity has caused global warming; and Roy Spencer, a meteorologist who believes that clouds have had a greater influence on warming than humans have.

    Their hiring comes after the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship report on how climate change is affecting the country. The administration has also systematically removed mentions of climate change from government websites while slashing federal funding for research on global warming.

    In addition, Trump officials have been recruiting scientists to help them repeal the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which determined that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare, and which now underpins much of the government’s legal authority to slow global warming, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly…

    Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, expressed alarm that the Energy Department had hired the three scientists.

    “What this says is that the administration has no respect for the actual science, which overwhelmingly points in the direction of a growing crisis as we continue to warm the planet through fossil-fuel burning, the consequences of which we’ve seen play out in recent weeks in the form of deadly heat domes and floods here in the U.S.,” Dr. Mann wrote in an email.

    Dr. Mann added that the Trump administration appeared to have fired hundreds of “actual government science experts” and replaced them with “a small number of reliable foot soldiers.”

    Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said it would be troubling if these three scientists were involved in repealing the 2009 endangerment finding, which cleared the way for the government to regulate the planet-warming gases emitted by cars, power plants and other industrial sources.



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  • California Department of Education urges school districts to resist Trump’s threats over transgender athletes

    California Department of Education urges school districts to resist Trump’s threats over transgender athletes


    Flanked by fourth-place winner Ellie McCuskey-Hay, left, and first-place winner Loren Webster, right, second-place winners AB Hernandez, center right, and Brooke White share the podium during a medal ceremony for the long jump at the California high school track and field championships in Clovis.

    Credit: AP Photo / Jae C. Hong

    Top Takeaways
    • California Department of Education vows to protect “all students’ access to participate in athletics in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity.” 
    • Sixteen-year-old transgender athlete AB Hernandez shared three medals with cisgender competitors under newly rejiggered rules at California’s track and field championships last weekend, sparking controversy.
    • The U.S. Department of Justice warned California schools they may be held in violation of civil rights protections for girls.

    The California Department of Education on Tuesday weighed in on the escalating controversy over transgender athletes in school sports, advising schools to hold the line in the wake of threats from the federal government. 

    The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday issued a letter warning California school districts they will face legal trouble if they don’t pledge to bar trans athletes from competition by June 9, citing civil rights concerns. The CDE countered Tuesday, advising schools to hold fast and let it respond to the Justice Department regarding matters of gender identity on behalf of the state.

    “Let’s be clear: sending a letter does not change the law,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in a statement. “The DOJ’s letter to school districts does not announce any new federal law, and state law on this issue has remained unchanged since 2013. California state law protects all students’ access to participate in athletics in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity. We will continue to follow the law and ensure the safety of all our athletes.”

    Last weekend’s fracas over California’s track and field championships in Clovis has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s campaign to target transgender athletes in girls sports, a divisive hot-button issue that conservatives have pushed aggressively of late.

    President Donald Trump has threatened financial penalties for California public schools after a 16-year-old trans athlete, AB Hernandez, won three medals in last weekend’s California Interscholastic Federation State Track and Field Championships. Hernandez placed first in the high jump and triple jump and finished second in the long jump.

    In the wake of a key last-minute rule change, Hernandez shared the podium with her cisgender competitors. The hastily rejiggered rules allow girls to receive medals based on where they would have finished if a transgender athlete had not been allowed to compete. 

    This compromise did not mollify the president. 

    “Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump wrote in a 12:56 a.m. ET post on June 2. “As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!” he added, referring to Newsom.

    Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, argues that letting transgender athletes into girls sports competitions constitutes sex discrimination, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

    “Scientific evidence shows that upsetting the historical status quo and forcing girls to compete against males would deprive them of athletic opportunities and benefits because of their sex,” Dhillon has said. “Therefore, you cannot implement a policy allowing males to compete alongside girls, because such a policy would deprive girls of athletic opportunities and benefits based solely on their biological sex.”

    The Civil Rights Division has also announced investigations into the University of Wyoming and Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado for allegedly allowing males to live in intimate and communal spaces earmarked for females.

    Town leaders in Clovis, the largely conservative city in Central California that hosted the track and field championships, called it unfair to include a transgender athlete in girls sports, The Fresno Bee reported. Chino has also filed a lawsuit on the issue. 

    California is among 22 states with laws that allow transgender athletes to compete with girls. Amid the state’s nearly 6 million TK-12 public school students, experts say, the number of active transgender student-athletes is estimated to be in the single digits.

    Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has often jousted with Trump on social issues, shocked many on the left when he admitted that he felt allowing transgender athletes to compete against girls was “deeply unfair” during a recent interview with conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

    While Newsom himself has not as yet weighed in on this specific controversy, Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for the governor, has praised the new rules as “a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness — a model worth pursuing.”

    For her part, Hernandez, a junior at Southern California’s Jurupa Valley High, has been characterized as poised and unruffled amid the heated controversy. 

    “We could not be prouder of the way this brave student-athlete conducted herself on and off the track,” said Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, the state’s LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. 





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  • Federal Judge Blocks Shutdown of Department of Education

    Federal Judge Blocks Shutdown of Department of Education


    When Trump promised to shut down the U.S. Department of Education during his campaign, he must have known that he couldn’t close down a department without Congressional approval. Everyone else knew it. He brought in wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education to preside over the Department’s demise. He never sought Congressional approval.

    Elon Musk’s DOGS team did the dirty work, laying off half the Department’s employees, some 1300 people.

    The most severely affected offices were the Federal Student Aid office, the Office for Civil Rights, and the Institute for Education Sciences (which oversees federal research and NAEP). The IES was eliminated, leaving future administrations of NAEP in doubt and disemboweling the government’s essential historic role in compiling data about education.

    But today a federal judge ruled that the shuttering of ED was wrong and that everyone laid off should be rehired. Bottom line: a President can’t close a Congressionally authorized department by executive order.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to shut down the Education Department and ordered the agency to reinstate employees who were fired in mass layoffs.

    U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from carrying out two plans announced in March that sought to work toward Trump’s goal to dismantle the department. It marks a setback to one of the Republican president’s campaign promises.

    The injunction was requested in a lawsuit filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts and the American Federation of Teachers, along with other education groups.

    In their lawsuit, the groups said the layoffs amounted to an illegal shutdown of the Education Department. They said it left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws.

    In his order, Joun said the plaintiffs painted a “stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”

    Layoffs of that scale, he added, “will likely cripple the Department.”

    Joun ordered the Education Department to reinstate federal workers who were terminated as part of the March 11 layoff announcement.

    The Trump administration says the layoffs are aimed at efficiency, not a department shutdown. Trump has called for the closure of the agency but recognizes it must be carried out by Congress, the government said.

    The administration said restructuring the agency “may impact certain services until the reorganization is finished” but it’s committed to fulfilling its statutory requirements.



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  • Trump Plans Deep Cuts to Interior Department, National Parks Service

    Trump Plans Deep Cuts to Interior Department, National Parks Service


    Government Executive describes the deep cuts that the Trump administration and the DOGE team intend to impose on the Interior Department, with the collaboration of Secretary of the Interior Douglas Burghum, former Governor of North Dakota.

    The Interior Department is finalizing reduction-in-force plans expected to target thousands of employees, including 1,500 at the National Park Service, with notices going out to employees within 10 days. 

    The anticipated layoffs follow the departure of thousands of Interior employees leaving the department under various incentives. Interior earlier in May initiated a consolidation of several functions currently conducted by each bureau individually by rolling them up into the department’s headquarters, where they will report directly to Secretary Doug Burgum. Some of the employees who were part of that consolidation—such as those in IT, communications, finance, human resources and contracting—are eventually expected to feel the impacts of workforce downsizing. 

    NPS is expected to issue around 1,500 RIFs, while the U.S. Geological Survey will lay off around 1,000 employees—focused on its Ecosystems Mission Area, according to a person familiar with the plans—and the Bureau of Reclamation will target around 100 to 150 employees, according to another employee there briefed on the details. Other components, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service, are also expected to experience layoffs. Four sources confirmed the first round of RIFs are expected on or around May 15.  

    Reclamation already lost about one-quarter of its 5,800 employees through incentivized departures, according to an employee briefed on the details, so it is expecting a smaller RIF of 100 to 150 employees. At NPS, meanwhile, just 5% of employees have so far opted into the “deferred resignation program”—which has enabled them to take paid leave through September, at which point they must leave government service—leading to a more significant expected RIF for the agency. 

    In addition to NPS headquarters and regional offices, NPS’ Cultural Resources Stewardship, Partnerships, and Science Directorate and Natural Resource Stewardship and Science directorates are expected to be heavily impacted, with the vast majority of staff being laid off. Those divisions are made up of hundreds of biologists, archaeologists, geologists, historians and other scientists and specialists who help preserve and understand resources within the parks. 

    While NPS staff were originally told the RIFs would focus on Washington and regional staff, wiping out those directorates would mean individual parks would also see direct impacts. Some of the functions of those offices are statutorily required, said Kriten Brengel, the National Parks Conservation Association’s senior vice president for government affairs, who added groups like hers would sue Interior if it follows through on its plans….

    Government Executive first reported on Interior’s plan to consolidate functions across the department earlier this month, which Interior Secretary Doug Burgum subsequently confirmed in a memorandum. Burgum tapped the assistant secretary for policy, management budget—a role currently being filled by Tyler Hassenm—to lead the effort. Hassen previously served in the Department of Government Efficiency….

    The cuts come on top of a significant exodus across Interior as employees have flocked to the deferred resignation, buyouts and early retirements all while a hiring freeze is in place. NPS has already lost around 13% of its workforce, according to NPCA, complicating Burgum’s order to keep parks open without reducing hours. 

    The mandate—park superintendents will need a sign off from agency leadership to close even a trail or visitor center—already raised concerns with agency stakeholders even before the layoff plans were made clear. NPCA’s Brengel suggested Burgum was “setting up the Park Service for failure” as it aims to carry out the same level of operations without the requisite staff to do so. 

    She added the expansion of NPS RIFs to the science teams means the cuts are “larger and more directly attacking the Park Service.” 

    A USGS employee in the Ecosystems Mission Area said the cuts will likely spell the end of fish survey work, in which agency staff go out on ships to inform states of fish stocking and harvest rates. 

    “The states do not have the funds or staff to take over,” the employee said. “There are few people in the US with these skills.” 

    Mary Jo Rugwell, a long time BLM executive who now leads the Public Lands Foundation, said her former agency has lost more than 1,000 employees since President Trump took office, or about 10% of the workforce. The agency has long suffered from understaffing, Rugwell said, an issue exacerbated in Trump’s first term when he moved the agency’s headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado. Now, she said, as employees head for the exits and more RIFs are expected, BLM will struggle to carry out the Trump administration’s priorities to approve oil and gas leasing, grazing permits, drilling and timber sales, work that requires significant experience. 

    “The very people you need to get this work done, they’re sending them packing,” Rugwell said. “And it doesn’t make any sense….”

    “Morale is at an all time low,” one employee said. “People are worried about RIFs, contracts being cut and so many changes coming at once. Consolidation at the department is seen as a hostile takeover of bureau level functions, and a way to group people to make RIFs easier.”  



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  • Maybe we should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education

    Maybe we should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education


    Credit: Carlos Kosienski/Sipa via AP Images

    In 1994, I was the press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education when Republicans took over Congress and threatened to shut us down. My then boss, Secretary Dick Riley, would joke in almost every speech he gave that each morning his wife would open the newspaper and say, “Hey! looks like they’re trying to fire you again!” He regularly talked about it because it quickly became clear to us that people deeply believed in the Education Department’s mission and that the threats against us were bad politics.

    I was thinking of this when I watched Donald Trump’s 10-point plan for education.  I was struck by its contradictory nature of wanting to dismantle federal involvement in schools, while simultaneously trying to dictate curriculum and impose ideological policies. The department was established in 1979 to ensure resources were being spent on our nation’s poorest children.

    Now, three decades after my time at the department, the same battle is resurfacing with a new twist. At its heart, what Trump’s really proposing is a hollowing out of the department’s founding mission — not a true decentralization of power to states, but a reimagining of federal oversight as a tool for ideological control instead of a protection for our nation’s most vulnerable.  

    But here’s the paradox: Without a Department of Education and federal resources, there’s less leverage to enforce his ideological agenda. As a result, we may be in a bizarre quandary of having to choose between these two opposite visions. Given the choice between a Department of Education that no longer champions equity and no department at all, perhaps it’s time to consider the latter.

    The plan, as I understand it, is to move higher ed funding (Pell Grants and student loans) and education research to other agencies while providing equity-driven K-12 federal funds as block grants to be spent however states want.

    In California, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) ensures that schools serving students with the greatest needs — low-income students, English learners and foster youth — receive additional resources. With LCFF, we’ve built a system that both works and meets this moment (though we may also need to codify our clear commitment to special education). As someone who has spent decades in education policy, I don’t say this lightly — in fact, it breaks my heart. But this moment calls for different thinking.  The U.S. Department of Education has been a force for good in countless lives. But it should not stand if it’s dictated by ideological agendas. Quality education for all children must remain our North Star in California, because when we center our most vulnerable students, we all succeed.

    •••

    Rick Miller is the CEO of CORE Districts, a collaboration of nine large California urban districts. He previously served as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education and as deputy state superintendent at the California Department of Education.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Memo Leaked about Cuts to State Department, Slashing Africa Offices, Climate and Human Rights Agencies

    Memo Leaked about Cuts to State Department, Slashing Africa Offices, Climate and Human Rights Agencies


    The New York Times published a leaked plan to reorganize the Trump State Department; Rubio disowned it. Its goal is to align the State Department and foreign policy with Trump’s “America First” agenda. It’s a very scary vision of Fortress America, cut off from the rest of the world, with no concern for democracy, climate change, human rights, or Africa.

    The Times reported:

    A draft of a Trump administration executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.

    The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.

    The purpose of the executive order, which could be signed soon by President Trump, is to impose “a disciplined reorganization” of the State Department and “streamline mission delivery” while cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” according to a copy of the 16-page draft order obtained by The New York Times. The department is supposed to make the changes by Oct. 1.

    Some of the proposed changes outlined in the draft document would require congressional notification and no doubt be challenged by lawmakers, including mass closures of diplomatic missions and headquarters bureaus, as well as an overhaul of the diplomatic corps. Substantial parts of it, if officials tried to enact them, would likely face lawsuits.

    Elements of the executive order could change before final White House review or before Mr. Trump signs it, if he decides to do so. Neither the State Department nor the White House National Security Council had immediate comment on the draft order early Sunday.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote a short comment on social media after this article was published calling it “fake news…”

    Major structural changes to the State Department would be accompanied by efforts to lay off both career diplomats, known as foreign service officers, and civil service employees, who usually work in the department’s headquarters in Washington, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The department would begin putting large numbers of workers on paid leave and sending out notices of termination, they said.

    The draft executive order calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, and it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”

    The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”

    The proposed reorganization would get rid of regional bureaus that help make and enact policy in large parts of the globe.

    Instead, the draft says, those functions would fall under four “corps”: Eurasia Corps, consisting of Europe, Russia and Central Asia; Mid-East Corps, consisting of Arab nations, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan; Latin America Corps, consisting of Central America, South America and the Caribbean; and Indo-Pacific Corps, consisting of East Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.

    One of the most drastic proposed changes would be eliminating the bureau of African affairs, which oversees policy in sub-Saharan Africa. It would be replaced by a much smaller special envoy office for African affairs that would report to the White House National Security Council. The office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”

    The draft also said all “nonessential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa would be closed by Oct. 1. Diplomats would be sent to Africa on “targeted, mission-driven deployments,” the document said.

    Canada operations would be put into a new North American affairs office under Mr. Rubio’s authority, and it would be run by a “significantly reduced team,” the draft said. The department would also severely shrink the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.



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  • Trump’s nominee says she may break apart, not shut down Education Department

    Trump’s nominee says she may break apart, not shut down Education Department


    Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, answers questions from senators during her confirmation hearing while surrounded by family members in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

    Credit: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP

    The nominee to become the next and, President Donald Trump vows, last secretary of education assured U.S. senators on Thursday that there are no plans to shut down the Department of Education or to cut spending that Congress has already approved for the department.

    Linda McMahon, however, said she would be open to moving programs to other departments, such as sending the Office of Civil Rights to the Justice Department.

    Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, brought up funding early in the two-hour hearing on the nomination.

    “If the department is downsized, would the states and localities still receive the federal funding that they currently receive?” he asked.

    “Yes, it’s not the president’s goal to defund the programs. It’s only to have it operate more efficiently,” she said.

    Closing the department, a longtime goal of conservative Republicans, was one of Trump’s campaign promises. Calling the department a “con job” this week, he has said repeatedly that McMahon’s goal should be to shrink the department, to “put herself out of a job.”

    But Trump also acknowledged that only Congress can dismantle what it established in 1980 during the Carter administration. At the hearing, McMahon affirmed that she would work with Congress to follow the law.

    With husband Vince, McMahon, 76, founded a successful sports entertainment company that later became World Wrestling Entertainment, and served as its president, then its CEO for 30 years. McMahon served as Trump’s administrator of the Small Business Administration in his first administration. She also served for a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009 and is a longtime trustee of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, but otherwise has had little involvement in education. 

    Democratic senators did not press her on her lack of education experience, although Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, did push her to name a requirement for schools to show improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the principal law determining accountability for K-12 schools. She could not.

    Instead, they questioned her on Trump’s plan to ship federal funding to states as block grants without federal oversight, his intention to expand parental school choice, and his threats to cut funding for colleges that allow transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports and for schools that continue policies for diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI.

    ‘Invest in teachers, not bureaucrats’

    McMahon made clear in her opening statement she is in sync with the president’s assessment of education.

    Calling the nation’s schools a “system in decline,” she said, “we can do better for elementary and junior high school students by teaching basic reading and mathematics; for the college freshmen facing censorship or antisemitism on campus, and for parents and grandparents who worry that their children and grandchildren are no longer taught American values and true history.”

    “So what’s the remedy?” she asked. “Fund education freedom, not government-run systems. Invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats.”

    McMahon expressed support for continuing federal funding for Title I in support of low-income students, and for students with disabilities under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). However, she will investigate whether IDEA should remain in the department.

    “When IDEA was originally set up, it was under the Department of Health and Welfare. After the Department of Education was established, it shifted over there,” she said. “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in Health and Human Services, but I don’t know.  If I’m confirmed, it is of high priority to make sure that the students who are receiving disability funding (are) not impacted.”

    Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, called her commitment to continued funding “gaslighting.”

    Even as the hearing was happening, Republicans in the House were working on “reconciliation” bills that called for possibly balancing massive continued personal income tax cuts with hundreds of billions in funding cuts for Medicaid and education. 

    This week, Elon Musk’s budget-cutting SWAT team known as DOGE, cut $881 million in research contracts without notice. Other education grants associated with DEI received termination notices, too.

    McMahon said DOGE’s “audit” of the department was appropriate. “I believe the American people spoke loudly in the election last November, to say that they want to look at waste, fraud and abuse in our government.” Trump recently fired the Department of Education’s independent inspector general, Sandra D. Bruce, whose job was to root out waste, fraud and abuse.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm9QfK8zDU0

    Watch: Linda McMahon said DOGE’s “audit” of the department was appropriate.

    “I understand an audit,” Murray said. “But when Congress appropriates money, it is the administration’s responsibility to put that out, as directed by Congress who has the power of the purse. So what will you do if the president or Elon Musk tells you not to spend money Congress has appropriated to you?”

    “We’ll certainly expend those dollars that Congress has passed,” McMahon responded. “But I do think it is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before the money goes out the door. It’s much easier to stop the money before it goes out the door than it is to claw it back.”

    Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said schools across the nation are “scrambling because they have no idea what DEI means” and are worried they will lose funding. He presented two scenarios that pointed to ambiguities in the executive order.

    If a school in Connecticut celebrates Martin Luther King Day events and programming teaching about Black history, does it violate or run afoul of DEI prohibitions? he asked.

    “Not, in my view, that is clearly not the case,” McMahon said. “That celebration of Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month should be celebrated throughout all of our schools.”

    Murphy continued, “What about educational programming centered around specific ethnic and racial experiences? My son is in a public school. He takes African American History. Could you perhaps be in violation of this executive order?”

    “I’m, I’m not quite certain,” McMahon said. “I would like to take a look at these programs and fully understand the breadth of the executive order and get back to you on that.”

    As with all of Trump’s nominees so far, McMahon is expected to win a majority vote in the Senate, possibly along party lines, later this month.  





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