Trump is fulfilling an education promise Republicans made for decades
For decades, Republican presidential candidates have had a consistent education agenda: to dismantle the Department of Education and to bring much-needed reform to the universities.
Yet Republican administrations have usually backed down from these promises after taking office, and their reforms have mostly fizzled.
The Trump administration has broken the cycle. During the campaign, the president outlined an ambitious agenda for dismantling the federal education bureaucracy and addressing the problem of left-wing ideological capture in universities.
But rather than abandon these ideas on Inauguration Day, his administration has pursued them with incredible grit, power and determination.
Linda McMahon has already proven to be the most influential education secretary in the department’s history. She has swiftly stripped more than a billion dollars in funding from left-wing race NGOs, terminated the employment of approximately half of the Department of Education’s bureaucrats, and put the president’s executive order on dismantling the department into action.
Where others have cowered, McMahon didn’t even flinch.
Unprecedented action
Likewise, on higher education, the new administration has taken unprecedented action, pausing billions of dollars in funding to Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, in part because these universities have violated the Civil Rights Act and continued to support discriminatory DEI programs. This marks another sea change.
Conservatives have long been shy about enforcing civil rights law, which in practice has served as a left-wing rachet.
By contrast, the Trump administration has signaled that civil rights law is not only for “oppressed” groups, but for all Americans — including whites, Asians and Jews, all of whom have been targeted for discrimination by the Ivy League universities.
Although the inciting incident in the recent conflict is the explosion of antisemitism on elite campuses, the Trump administration understands that antisemitism is merely a “nesting doll” for anti-white and anti-Western ideologies, which have been heavily subsidized with public dollars.
In framing this fight, Secretary McMahon and her capable team of deputies have wisely refused to accept the myth of “university autonomy,” arguing that universities forfeit absolute autonomy when they take money from the federal government and that the department has an abiding interest in upholding basic standards of academic and legal conduct.
The underlying development is that, unlike its predecessors, this administration has moved from criticism to action.
Since the birth of the modern conservative movement with William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale,” the right has lamented the corruption of the humanities and the capture of the institutions.
But many of the movement’s leading lights have been more comfortable with high-minded critique than with brass-knuckled politics. The key difference with this administration is an intense focus on practical, tangible reforms.
Political kayfabe
On this point, President Trump and Secretary McMahon have a unique understanding of two essential practices: political theater and political leverage.
McMahon, who built her personal fortune through her leadership of the World Wrestling Federation, has been able to advance a persuasive public narrative and accepts that politics involves a certain amount of “kayfabe,” a wrestling term for scripting the action in advance.
For both the Department of Education bureaucrats and the Ivy League administrators, she represents a credible threat.
In the same way, President Trump, who prides himself on his negotiation tactics, understands that he holds all the leverage. The Ivy League universities built their business model on federal grants and foreign student tuition, both of which are contingent on compliance with civil rights law.
The president opened the negotiation by pausing billions in funding, forcing the universities to scramble for cash and float bonds to meet immediate obligations.
Despite tough talk from Harvard and Princeton, the financial executives at those universities are clearly aware of their relative status: The president holds all the cards.
From my vantage point, the first 100 days of this administration have a surreal feeling. I have long argued for many of these policies, but watching them come to life has been another matter entirely. The administration has demonstrated that it is willing to spend political capital and willing to carry through on its campaign promises.
Positive trajectory
The question now is: Who flinches? The administration has opened the field of conflict, but now the siege must proceed diligently.
To truly transform education, Trump and McMahon must hold tough in their negotiations with the Ivy League, persuade Congress to permanently dissolve the Department of Education, and advance an alternative vision for the institutions.
My own hope is that McMahon will be not only the most significant secretary of education in history, but the last secretary of education in history.
It’s early in the term, but on education, the trajectory of this administration is cause for optimism. Here’s hoping for their continued success.
Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute.
