President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at fighting what he described as “radical indoctrination” in public schools in a move to advance “patriotic education.”
In the executive order issued Wednesday, Trump claimed that public schools across the United States were indoctrinating “children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”
“Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority,” states the order.
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To combat this, the Trump administration will cut federal funding to any K-12 schools that are supporting “indoctrination,” including “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
The executive order reestablishes the 1776 Commission, an entity that Trump created during his first term that sought to provide a pro-American interpretation of U.S. history for schools to implement. President Joe Biden dissolved the commission shortly after taking office in 2017.
“The Department of Education shall provide funding and administrative support for the 1776 Commission, to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations,” continued the order. “The 1776 Commission shall terminate 2 years from the date of this order, unless extended by the President.”
In 2021, shortly before it was dissolved, the commission released a report denouncing the “distorted histories” created by progressive intellectuals since the 1960s.
“This new education replaced humane and liberal education in many places, and alienated Americans from their own nature, their own identities, and their own place and time,” read the report.
“It cuts students off from understanding that which came before them. Like square pegs and round holes, students are made to fit the latest expert theory about where history is headed next.”
The 2021 report recommended creating an “authentic education,” including teaching Americans that all are equal, encouraging “the love of country,” and relying “almost exclusively on primary sources.”
“While this country has its imperfections, just like any other country, in the annals of history the United States has achieved the greatest degree of personal freedom, security, and prosperity for the greatest proportion of its own people and for others around the world,” added the report.
“An authentic civics education will help rebuild our common bonds, our mutual friendship, and our civic devotion. But we cannot love what we do not know.”
The commission’s report was denounced by the American Historical Association, a prominent organization of professional historians that was founded in the 19th century, and other groups.
“The report actually consists of two main themes. One is an homage to the Founding Fathers, a simplistic interpretation that relies on falsehoods, inaccuracies, omissions, and misleading statements,” stated the AHA at the time.
“The other is a screed against a half-century of historical scholarship, presented largely as a series of caricatures, using single examples (most notably the ‘1619 Project’) to represent broader historiographical trends.”
