One former clerk confided, “I never imagined my job would involve policing colleagues for daring to ask questions of White House lawyers.”
Newsrooms felt the squeeze next. With the Corporation for Public Broadcasting defunded, NPR and PBS stations in small towns teetered on the brink. “We felt the floor drop out beneath us,” says Linda Martinez, manager of KLBC in rural Kansas. Under a new mandate, noncommercial licenses could be revoked, freeing reserved FM slots for religious or partisan broadcasts. Freelance reporters whisper fears of hand-picked White House correspondents—those deemed “friendly”—and about the looming rollback of FCC safeguards that once kept media consolidation in check.
Librarians found themselves under unprecedented scrutiny. From the opening pages of the Heritage manifesto, libraries were painted as dens of moral rot: “children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries,” the document declared. By conflating LGBTQ literature, lessons on race, and even classic novels under a catch-all label of obscenity, Project 2025 sought to criminalize those who stocked shelves.
“They’re turning librarians into criminals for doing their jobs.”
— Molly Peterson, EveryLibrary Institute
Suddenly, librarians faced legal threats and potential sex-offender registries for simply ordering the wrong book. Meanwhile, the Institute of Museum and Library Services—which funneled millions in grants for internet access, literacy programs, and community outreach—was slated for abolition. Rural branches, long operated on shoestring budgets, braced for staff cuts or outright closure. Public-interest lawyers scrambled to file injunctions, arguing that starving libraries of resources would devastate underserved communities.
In classrooms, the blueprint’s assault on federal education policy was swift and brutal. Title I funding for low-income schools expired without extension—an $18 billion annual lifeline yanked away overnight. Free-meal programs faced deep cuts, and administrators in high-poverty districts received emails with detailed “compliance checklists,” warning that any mention of pronouns, critical race theory, or gender identity could trigger criminal investigations under newly empowered prosecutors. “I never thought I’d call the superintendent at midnight to ask if we’d still get paid next week,” recalls Sarah Nguyen, a middle-school teacher in Detroit.
Curriculum publishers woke to lengthy lists of banned chapters, and teachers were sent home with directives to scrub lessons on slavery, climate science, or civil-rights history—or risk felony charges. One principal in Maine heard that “mentioning slavery in a Civil War unit might now count as indoctrination.” In districts across the country, story hours were canceled and lesson plans rewritten at the eleventh hour.
Title IX protections that once shielded transgender students were reversed with the stroke of a pen. Gender identity was stripped from the definition of “sex,” permitting school districts and faith-based academies to refuse enrollment to LGBTQ youth and staff. And to ratchet up pressure, Project 2025 even endorsed federal criminal penalties for educators who “provide banned materials,” turning classrooms into legal minefields.
Behind the scenes, Heritage’s Presidential Administration Academy alumni filled key slots in the Office of Management and Budget, Justice Department, and Education Department. In one January budget meeting, former Project 2025 director Paul Dans watched his conservative wish list come alive.