Layoffs gutted federal enforcement—civil rights, special education, funding audits, student aid. The Court, reengineered across election cycles, let the pink slips stand.
The damage wasn’t theoretical. It arrived as erasure.
By February, $7 billion in appropriated education funds were frozen, pending ideological review. Summer programs collapsed. Teacher training grants were clawed back. LGBTQ support lines were cut. One district in rural Missouri laid off all but one bilingual aide. Another canceled its after-school food program and posted a sign: No Meals This Summer—Funding Withheld.
“They’re defunding the roof while blaming us for the leak.”
That’s how one superintendent in Arizona put it. He asked not to be named. “We’ve got migrant students, queer students, kids who need IEPs. You can’t serve them all while being told not to ‘promote ideologies.’” His hands made air quotes when he said it.
In January, Executive Order 14190 banned the teaching of so-called “anti-American ideologies,” including gender identity, systemic racism, and critical race theory—threatening criminal charges for teachers who cross the line.
Ruiz read the order twice. She thought about Ana again. The girl had quietly asked about name changes, about pronouns. Nothing major—just curiosity. But curiosity now carried risk.
“You know what’s radical?” Ruiz said. “Teaching a kid to read when half the world says they don’t deserve it.”
In some states, the backlash has begun. Over twenty attorneys general have sued the administration over funding clawbacks. Courts are weighing whether these freezes violate congressional authority. But while legal gears turn slowly, classrooms don’t wait.
By April, the Department of Education had dismantled its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives under EO 14151. The order wiped out DEI programs across all federal agencies, scrubbing websites, canceling equity grants, and firing staff.
The infrastructure that made school feel safe for so many students was gutted—sometimes literally. One principal in Ohio was told to repaint his “All Are Welcome Here” sign.
He painted it over in black, left a single word: “Still.”
Elsewhere, quiet revolts have begun: a librarian in New Mexico refusing to remove banned titles, a school board in Illinois voting unanimously to defy curriculum restrictions.
“They’re not just defunding education,” Ruiz said. “They’re defunding the idea of public.”
The impacts are heaviest where the needs are greatest. Cuts to oversight teams have left special education cases unmonitored. A GAO ruling confirmed that the administration’s freeze on Head Start funding—later reversed—was illegal and endangered nearly 800,000 low-income children. In the meantime, families scrambled. One mother in Detroit described how her son’s wheelchair sat broken for six weeks waiting on parts. “He didn’t leave the house,” she said. “School was his legs.”
What ties it all together isn’t ideology—it’s erosion. Not an open war on public education, but a dismantling by design. Strip the funding. Criminalize the teachers. Rewrite the curriculum. Call equity radical. Let fear do the rest.