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linda mcmahon
'Project 2025 in Action': Trump Administration Fires Half of Education Department Staff
"Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students."
Mar 12, 2025
The Trump administration on Tuesday took a major step toward dismantling the U.S. Department of Education by firing roughly half of the agency's workforce, a decision that teachers' unions and other champions of public education said would have devastating consequences for the nation's school system.
The department, now led by billionaire Linda McMahon, moved swiftly, terminating more than 1,300 federal workers on Tuesday including employees at the agency's student aid and civil rights offices.
Sheria Smith, president of AFGE Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, pledged in a statement to "fight these draconian cuts." The union toldNPR minutes after the statement was issued that Smith, an attorney with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, was laid off.
The Education Department said the mass staffing cuts would affect "nearly 50%" of the agency's workforce and that those impacted "will be placed on administrative leave beginning Friday, March 21st."
In a press release, McMahon declared that the workforce cuts reflect the department's "commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers."
But critics, including a union that represents more than 3 million education workers nationwide, said the firings underscore the Trump administration's commitment to gutting public education in the interest of billionaires pushing tax cuts and school privatization.
"Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires," said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association.
"The real victims will be our most vulnerable students," Pringle added. "Gutting the Department of Education will send class sizes soaring, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections."
"We will not sit by while billionaires like Elon Musk and Linda McMahon tear apart public services piece by piece."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement that "denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it."
"The massive reduction in force at the Education Department is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country," she continued. "This move will directly impact the 90% of students who attend public schools by denying them the resources they need to thrive. That's why Americans squarely oppose eliminating the Education Department. We are urging Congress—and the courts—to step in to ensure all students can maintain access to a high-quality public education."
The Education Department purge came days after news broke that President Donald Trump was preparing an executive order aimed at completely shuttering the agency—a move that would legally require congressional approval.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said late Tuesday that the Education Department firings "are Project 2025 in action, and they have one goal—to make it easier for billionaires and anti-union extremists to give themselves massive tax breaks at the expense of working people."
"Today's announcement from the Department of Education is just the beginning of what's to come," Saunders warned. "These layoffs threaten the well-being and educational opportunities for millions of children across the country and those seeking higher education. The dedicated public service workers at public schools, colleges, and universities deserve better. Elections may have consequences, but we will not sit by while billionaires like Elon Musk and Linda McMahon tear apart public services piece by piece. We will keep speaking out and finding ways to fight back."
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Trump Attacks Public Service Workers With 'Blatantly Illegal' Loan Forgiveness Order
"Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine," said one critic.
Mar 10, 2025
Criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order intended to limit a program that forgives the federal student loans of borrowers who take public service jobs has grown since he signed it on Friday.
Opponents frame the order as yet another attempt by Trump to quash dissent. The Republican president directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to propose revisions to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, in coordination with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to exclude "organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose."
The order targets employers "aiding or abetting" violations of federal immigration law and the administration's definition of illegal discrimination, engaging in a pattern of violating state law such as disorderly conduct and obstruction of highways, "supporting terrorism," and "child abuse, including the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary states for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents."
Student Defense president Aaron Ament said in a statement that "when PSLF was created by a bipartisan act of Congress and signed into law by [President] George W. Bush, it was a promise from the United States government to its citizens—if you give back to America, America will give back to you."
"In the nearly two decades since, across administrations of both parties, Americans have worked hard and made life decisions under the assumption that the U.S. keeps its word," Ament continued. "Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine."
Nadine Chabrier, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, similarly highlighted "serious" First Amendment concerns, saying that "by penalizing individuals seeking loan forgiveness for their associations and the expressive conduct of their employers, new rulemakings could infringe on fundamental rights to speech and association."
"The executive order also undermines the very purpose of PSLF, which Congress established to encourage careers in public service across a broad range of fields," she said. "Stripping PSLF eligibility from nonprofit employees based on the nature of their work will deter skilled professionals from pursuing careers that benefit the public good, weaken critical services for underserved populations and hamper efforts to strengthen vulnerable communities."
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten explained that "PSLF is based on the idea that borrowers who make 10 years of repayments, and who often forgo higher wages in the private sector, can avoid a lifelong debt sentence."
The teachers union sued the Trump's first-term education secretary, Betsy DeVos, "and rogue loan servicers for their failure to administer the program—and we won," Weingarten noted. "This latest assault on borrowers' livelihoods is a cruel attempt to finish the demolition job that DeVos started. The goal is to sow chaos and confusion—separately, the PSLF application form has already been taken offline, making it effectively inaccessible."
The Economic Policy Institute pointed out Monday that "since the creation of the PSLF program, more than 1 million borrowers have received student loan forgiveness, largely due to fixes made under the Biden administration."
"More than 2 million individuals currently qualify for the PSLF program, according to the Department of Education," the think tank added. "The executive order could potentially narrow which organizations qualify for the program."
Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce blasted the order as "blatantly illegal and an all-out weaponization of debt intended to silence speech that does not align with President Trump's MAGA agenda."
"It is an attack on working families everywhere and will have a chilling effect on our public service workforce doing the work every day to support our local communities," Pierce warned. "Teachers, nurses, service members, and other public service workers deserve better than to be used as pawns in Donald Trump's radical right-wing political project to destroy civil society. This will raise costs for working people while doing nothing to make America safer or healthier."
In addition to scathing critiques, some groups threatened to challenge the order. Weingarten vowed that "the AFT won't stop fighting, in court and in Congress, until every single public service worker gets the help the law affords them."
Ament declared that "if the Trump administration follows through on this threat, they can plan to see us in court."
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Targeting 'Criticism of Israeli War Crimes,' Trump Kills $400 Million in Columbia University Contracts
"You can't appease the Zionists," said one critic. "Stop playing the game—refuse the terms."
Mar 07, 2025
Columbia University administrators garnered widespread condemnation last year for overseeing a violent crackdown on students who protested against U.S. support for Israeli war crimes in Gaza, but those actions against pro-Palestinian students didn't stop the Trump administration from cutting contracts and grants for the school on Friday.
The White House announced it was canceling contracts and funding for the Ivy League university shortly after Columbia officials began sending notices to students who have participated in Palestinian solidarity protests decrying Israel's bombardment of Gaza and the West Bank.
A senior named Maryam Alwan was accused by the school of "discriminatory harassment" for writing an op-ed in the student newspaper joining the call for divestment from Israel, while another student was contacted by a new disciplinary committee—established specifically to discipline students who express criticism of Israel—for hosting an art exhibit that focused on last year's demonstrations.
But in a move that one civil liberties advocate said was aimed at coercing all colleges into "censoring student speech," the Trump administration announced it was pulling the grants and contracts because Columbia hasn't done enough to clamp down on alleged antisemitism on campus.
"Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
One critic advised Columbia administrators that the news of the canceled funding was proof that "you can't appease the Zionists" by oppressing pro-Palestinian students.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, toldThe Associated Press the move was unconstitutional and meant to stop student's "advocacy that isn't MAGA-approved, like criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinian rights."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, added that while Trump "claims to be protecting Jews" by pushing Columbia to take more aggressive action against Palestinian rights supporters, "this is clearly about suppressing criticism of Israeli war crimes."
The news came days after U.S. Senate Republicans held the latest hearing on what they claim is antisemitism on college campuses. One Jewish student at Tufts University, Meirav Solomon, who was invited by Democrats to testify at the hearing, pointed out that Trump's gutting of the Department of Education has left all students without a way to lodge complaints of discrimination with the agency's Office of Civil Rights—eliminating "a crucial avenue for Jews and other minorities to advocate for our rights."
Meanwhile, noted Solomon, Republicans on the committee had nothing to say about Trump ally Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute at an inauguration event in January.
On Friday, the advocacy group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action said Trump's cancellation of Columbia's grants, "falsely in the name of Jewish safety, actively puts Jews in danger."
"History has shown that a strong democracy is what keeps Jews safest," said the group. "At the core of strong democracies are free speech and education."
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