NAS Welcomes Trump's Day One Executive Orders on Education
National Association of Scholars
- Statement
- January 21, 2025
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) welcomes the first-day Trump administration executive orders regarding education. These executive orders promise ambitious and effective reform to rid American education of the many detrimental policy decisions that have accreted in the last years.
In particular, we welcome these four executive orders:
- Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth To the Federal Government. This executive order re-conforms the government with reality by stating that the government recognizes only two biological sexes, directs the government to use the word “sex” instead of “gender,” and directs the government to abandon all policies redefining sex to accord with “gender ideology” and “gender expression.” NAS has encouraged such measures to be enacted by statute; we are delighted that this executive order begins the process of restoring the recognition of natural order to the American government.
- Ending Wasteful and Radical Government DEI Programs and Preferencing. This executive order rescinds the government’s commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs, “equity” programs, and “environmental justice” programs. This begins the process of eliminating both the government commitment and the bureaucratic infrastructure devoted to this latest form of race discrimination. NAS has opposed such euphemisms for race discrimination since its founding in 1987; this too is extremely welcome news.
- Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness. This executive order restores our public history by restoring our geographic nomenclature from the purge enacted upon it by radical ideologues. Members of our staff have explicitly called for this long since, and it certainly aligns with NAS’ mission to keep the politicization of the academy from destroying America’s public history.
- Promoting Beautiful Civic Architecture. This executive order restores our public spaces by evicting the cult of ugliness—another unfortunate import from the radicalized academy—from our civic architecture. Members of our staff also have supported this measure, and it likewise aligns with NAS’ mission to preserve the best of Western civilization.
The Trump administration’s first-day executive orders are more declarations of intent than detailed policies. They set an agenda rather than imposing policy changes at once. The devil, therefore, will be in the details of execution. We urge the Trump administration to fulfill the spirit of these executive orders as swiftly as possible—and, wherever possible, to undergird these executive orders with statutes that confirm their broad democratic support and make it more difficult for a later administration to undo these reforms. And, of course, we very strongly urge Secretary of Education–Designate Linda McMahon and her colleagues at the Education Department to apply these executive orders as soon as possible to every Education Department policy and regulation.
Some of these executive orders could go further. We do not believe that the Trump administration has yet renounced the Title IX redefinition of “sex” to include “sexual orientation,” or the redefinition of “sex discrimination” to include “sexual harassment” and “sexual violence.” Nor has the Trump administration declared that it will rescind “disparate impact” theory. We hope that these and many other needed reforms also will be addressed in the days to come. But we say this with a deep and grateful acknowledgment of how much the Trump administration has accomplished in its first day. Even the Lord took six days to make the Earth; we realize that humans will take longer to make America great again.
We do raise an official eyebrow at renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. NAS does prefer traditional nomenclature, which allows America to retain its connections to its history and its culture. If this shift were successful, it would make it more difficult for future Americans to understand great contributions to the American songbook such as “The Battle of New Orleans”:
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’;
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
But the world can live with different names for bodies of water. The English Channel is La Manche in France; the Sea of Japan is the East Sea in Korea; and Arabs call the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf. If this name change sticks, then Mexico will call it the Gulf of Mexico, we will call it the Gulf of America, and fishermen on waterfront bars at Brownsville will have something to banter about over beer.
The National Association of Scholars has never seen a better first day for education policy from any presidential administration. More! More! Let this first day presage four years of successful education policy reform.
https://www.nas.org/blogs/statement/nas-welcomes-trumps-day-one-executive-orders-on-education
Photo by Gajus on Adobe Stock
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