Newsom’s California Illegally Discriminated Against Female Students with Trans Policy, Trump ED Department Says

Girls Basketball

The Department of Education (ED) announced on Wednesday it has found California in violation of Title IX for allowing men to compete in women’s sports.

The department opened an investigation into the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) in April and February, respectively. California state law allows men to compete in women’s sports and use women’s facilities, and CIF has openly announced its intention to continue abiding by state law despite ED’s warning.

Read the full story

One of America’s Biggest Youth Trans Clinics Closing Its Doors

surgery

The Center for Transyouth Health and Development (CTYHD) at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), one of the largest youth transgender clinics in the nation, is shutting its doors due to increasing pressure from the Trump administration, The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

CTYHD — which has provided transgender-related procedures such as puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries to thousands of minors — will close on July 22, according to internal emails reviewed by The Los Angeles Times. Hospital leadership cited “increasingly severe impacts of federal administrative actions and proposed policies” against transgender procedures performed on minors.

Read the full story

Deputy Secretary of Education Nominee Penny Schwinn Says Foreign Students Boost U.S. Competitiveness in Confirmation Hearing

Penny Schwinn

Former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who was controversially nominated in January to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Education, told the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that foreign students boost the competitiveness of the American economy.

Schwinn mostly avoided controversy in the Thursday hearing, which also included three other of the Trump administration’s nominations, but was pressed by U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) to elucidate her stance on foreign students at American colleges and universities.

Read the full story

Biden-Appointed Judge Blocks Trump’s Bid to Shut Down Education Department

Judge Myong J. Joun

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from abolishing the Department of Education (ED).

President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the department in March. Judge Myong J. Joun, a Biden-appointed judge, granted a preliminary injunction Thursday against the department’s attempt to redistribute its duties to other agencies and lay off over 1,000 employees.

Read the full story

Department of Education Says Nomination Process for Penny Schwinn Remains Ongoing

Penny Schwinn

The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday told The Tennessee Star Penny Schwinn remains the White House nominee to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Education, stating that contrary information given to The Star is false.

This suggests Schwinn, the former Tennessee Commissioner of Education, has been waiting more than four months for approval by the U.S. Senate. She was nominated to serve under Education Secretary Linda McMahon on January 18. 

Read the full story

Trump Ed Department Rescinds ‘Largest’ Fine Ever Levied Against Christian School

Brian Mueller

The Department of Education (ED) on Friday rescinded a $37.7 million fine applied to Grand Canyon University (GCU) under the Biden administration.

The fine was the largest ever proposed against a university and sparked allegations that the Biden administration was targeting and harshly punishing Christian universities. ED under the Trump administration dismissed the case with “no findings” of wrongdoing by the university, according to GCU, and with prejudice, meaning the suit can’t be brought again.

Read the full story

Harvard No Longer Eligible to Receive Future Grants, Trump Admin Says

Harvard University

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced that Harvard will no longer be eligible for new grants after rejecting the Trump administration’s resolution proposal.

The Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to the Ivy League university on Monday alleging Harvard is engaged in a “systemic pattern of violating federal law” and notifying the university of its inability to receive federal funding. The violations cited include a failure to adhere to civil rights laws by illegally using race as a factor for admission decisions and failing to protect Jewish students on campus.

Read the full story

Commentary: From One Fake Left-Wing Hysteria to the Next

Donald Trump

The decade-old age of fables like Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, or the pangolin/bat cause of COVID is not over; it is just hitting midstream.

For much of April, amid stock downturns, in the classical paranoid style, we were assured by the Wall Street Journal news reporters and the liberal press that Trump had either a) guaranteed an inevitable recession, b) engineered a losing trade war he likely regretted, c) crashed the stock market, d) lost his once majority favorability ratings, e) mostly had a failed first 100 days, or f) all of the above.

Read the full story

DOGE Unmasks Maddening Waste, but May Struggle to Find Permanent Spending Cuts Without Congress

DOGE

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is delivering powerful anecdotes of wasteful government spending, inefficiencies, and fraud, but will continue to struggle to achieve permanent reductions without an act of Congress.

The DOGE website currently touts about $130 billion in savings spread across nearly every major government agency, at a total of about $807.45 per taxpayer. The effort has boasted some shocking finds, including an old mine shaft where federal employee retirement records are processed entirely by hand, $80 million in “wasted” funds at the Pentagon, and millions in controversial spending at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Read the full story

Trump Admin Probing California Law Allowing Schools to Hide Students’ Gender Identity from Parents

Kids getting on school bus

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) Thursday opened an investigation into the California Department of Education (CDE) over its policy forcing schools to hide information from parents regarding their children’s gender identity.

Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law in 2024 prohibiting schools from enacting policies that require teachers and administrators to notify parents if a child requests to change their name or pronouns, use opposite-sex facilities or play on opposite-sex sports teams. ED said that law may be in violation of the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA), which gives parents the right to access their children’s educational data.

Read the full story

Commentary: Teachers Unions Oppose Reintroduction of Phonics

Teaching Students

For decades, K-12 schools have wandered away from a time-tested, research-based method of teaching reading: phonics. Student scores have plunged to historic lows, but some states are turning back to the practice of teaching letter sounds—if teacher unions do not spoil the efforts first.

Phonics instructs children to identify letters and their pronunciation to construct words, supplying the tools needed to tackle combinations of letters. “Cueing” and its related methods, such as “look-say” and “whole word,” show children a picture with a word beneath it (such as a picture of a dog with the letters “d-o-g” beneath). Students are supposed to connect the visual with the word below. American Public Media reporter and podcaster Emily Hanford has documented the widespread failure of cueing that has haunted schools and students nationwide for generations.

Read the full story

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee Says Department of Education ‘Siphoned Off’ School Funding to Create Washington, D.C. Bureaucracy

bill lee

Governor Bill Lee on Monday said the executive order signed by President Donald Trump to return control over education back to state governments will empower them by dispensing with a Washington, D.C. bureaucracy that has “siphoned off” taxpayer funding through the Department of Education since its formation in 1979.

Lee made the case that Trump’s efforts to return control over schools and dismantle the Department of Education will allow Tennessee to become better stewards of tax dollars during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “National Report.”

Read the full story

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee Backs Trump Executive Order to Dismantle Department of Education

Bill Lee

Governor Bill Lee on Thursday confirmed his support for President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. The Tennessee governor told reporters that the president’s plan would move control over education decisions from Washington, D.C., to Tennessee.

Lee was in attendance on Thursday as Trump signed his executive order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities. ” USA Today reporter Joey Garrison posted a photo of the governor sitting next to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on the social media platform X.

Read the full story

Trump Declares Education Belongs to the States as He Abolishes Federal Oversight

President Donald Trump

In a highly anticipated move on Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, calling it a “historic action that is 45 years in the making.” The East Room ceremony was attended by GOP governors from Texas, Indiana, Florida, and Ohio, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, senior advisor Stephen Miller, along with a number of students and other special guests.

“We are going to be returning education very simply BACK TO THE STATES where it belongs,” Trump said. “It’s a commonsense thing to do and it’s going to work.”

Read the full story

Attorney General Kris Mayes and Other Democratic AGs Sue Trump Administration over Laying Off Federal Employees

Kris Mayes

Attorney General Kris Mayes, who has pushed back aggressively against the Trump administration since January including filing nine lawsuits, joined a lawsuit with 20 other Democratic attorneys general on Thursday suing to stop the layoffs of half of the U.S. Department of Education employees. The lawsuit comes on the heels of a broader lawsuit she joined last week with her Democratic colleagues suing over the layoffs of probationary federal employees at nearly two dozen agencies, and a lawsuit filed last month over Trump cutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A press release from the Department of Education announcing the cuts said it was “part of the Department of Education’s final mission,” implying the agency is going to be shut down, which Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has called for.

Read the full story

Education Department Opens Dozens of Investigations into Schools over Alleged ‘Race-Exclusionary Practices’

Georgetown University

The Department of Education announced Friday it was opening investigations into more than 50 universities over alleged “race-exclusionary practices.”

Yale, Georgetown and the University of Michigan are among the universities under fire for hosting graduate programs partnered with “The Ph.D. Project,” an organization that limits eligibility based on race, according to a press release from the department. Other universities, such as the University of Alabama and the University of South Florida, are being investigated for allegedly issuing race-based scholarships and allowing other race-based segregation.

Read the full story

Education Department Faces ‘Final Mission’ with 1,950 Jobs Cut

Education Sec Linda McMahon

The Department of Education announced a sweeping reduction in force (RIF) that will cut nearly 50% of its workforce, marking a significant step in what officials describe as the agency’s “final mission” under the Trump administration. The move, impacting approximately 1,950 employees, will see affected staff placed on administrative leave starting as early as Friday, March 21.

Read the full story

America’s Second Largest Teachers Union Sues Trump Admin to Keep Left-Wing Ideology Embedded in Schools

Students asking question

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and American Sociological Association (ASA) filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump administration over its crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in schools.

The lawsuit specifically targets a Feb. 14 memo released by the Department of Education (ED) threatening to revoke federal funding from schools that do not halt all racially discriminatory practices and programs. AFT, the country’s second-largest teachers union, and ASA claim the letter “misrepresents” the law surrounding schools’ ability to use race as a factor in decision making.

Read the full story

Penny Schwinn Listed Among University of Florida Admin Allegedly Hired for Unreasonable Salaries by Anti-Trump Ben Sasse

Penny Schwinn

Former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, whom President Donald Trump controversially nominated to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Education for his second administration, was among those listed in a report issued by the Florida Auditor General who were hired under the questionable practices employed by the anti-Trump former Senator Ben Sasse when he served as the President of the University of Florida (UF).

Sasse hired Schwinn to serve as the Vice President for PK-12 and the Pre-Bachelors Program at UF in September 2023, just months after he began leading the university following his departure from the U.S. Senate and appointment by Governor Ron DeSantis.

Read the full story

Commentary: A Judge Can’t Block Trump’s Pause on Spending

Judge McConnell

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump, quite sensibly, paused some federal spending programs to see whether they are lawful and advance America’s interests, which he had promised voters he would do. That temporary delay, however, set off a firestorm among the liberal states and organizations that, as recent disclosures have revealed, have benefited immensely and unjustifiably from the government’s largesse.

Some states and the District of Columbia convinced a federal district judge to temporarily block Trump’s spending pause, arguing (quite hyperbolically) that the pause would irreparably harm “the social fabric of life” in their jurisdictions. In just a few days, and without full briefs from the parties, Chief Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island concluded that this spending pause was unlawful, because no statute authorizes the president to delay the disbursement of congressionally appropriated funds, the pause was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, and it is unconstitutional because Congress has the spending power, not the president.

Read the full story

Trump’s Education Department Probes Blue State School for Turning Girls’ Bathroom into ‘All-Gender’ Space

Girl in locker room

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education announced the opening of an investigation into a Colorado high school Tuesday for reportedly turning a women’s bathroom into an “all-gender” facility.

East High School in the Denver Public Schools District now has a men’s restroom and an all-gender restroom but no female-only space on the second-level of the building, the education department said in its announcement of the investigation, alleging that the school may have violated students’ constitutional rights. The department cited the Title IX rule, which mandates that institutions receiving federal funds provide similar facilities to both sexes.

Read the full story

Tennesseans Torch Christopher Rufo’s Uninformed and Ineffective Defense of Penny Schwinn

Penny Schwinn

Tennessee conservatives have lambasted education journalist and author Christopher Rufo for the support he expressed for Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee Education Commissioner who was controversially nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Education last week.

After meeting with Schwinn, Rufo wrote in a Tuesday post to the social media platform X that the former Tennessee official provided sufficient answers to the allegation she allowed sexually explicit material to remain in school libraries and supported “wellbeing checks” for all Tennessee students.

Read the full story

Penny Schwinn’s Response to Nomination Criticism Ignores Sexually Explicit Books in Tennessee Schools, Statement on ‘Wellbeing Checks’ for Kids

Penny Schwinn

Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee Education Commissioner who was controversially nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as Deputy Secretary of Education, reportedly offered a response to two criticisms levied against her, though seems to have failed to address the claims.

Education journalist and author Christopher Rufo reported on Tuesday that he met with Schwinn, who he wrote “addressed the criticisms directly and outlined her plan to fight CRT, gender cultism, and DEI in America’s schools.”

Read the full story

Trump Picks Penny Schwinn, Who Declined to Enforce Tennessee’s CRT Ban and is Affiliated with Prominent Never Trumper, for Key Education Position

Penny Schwinn

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday announced that Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee Education Commissioner who resigned amid controversy in 2023, and made similar controversial departures from both Texas and Florida, would serve as his administration’s Deputy Secretary of Education.

Trump made the announcement in a post to Truth Social, where he noted that Schwinn previously worked in Tennessee, Texas, Florida, and Delaware.

Read the full story

Education Department Forgives $4.5 Billion in Student Loans for over 200,000 Borrowers

The Department of Education (DOE) on Wednesday announced the forgiveness of another $4.5 billion in student loans for over 200,000 borrowers at Ashford University, in one of the department’s final moves of the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden and his administration have attempted to clear out a massive amount of student loan debt for Americans who are still paying off their loans after 20 years, though some efforts have been curbed by the courts. However, they have successfully forgiven loans for over 5 million borrowers over the past four years.

Read the full story

Biden Admin’s Effort to Drive Men into Women’s Sports Runs Out of Gas

President Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX to include gender identity was officially blocked by a federal court Thursday.

The rule rewrite would have allowed biological males to compete in women’s sports and use women’s spaces. Challengers to the rule hailed the court’s decision, with Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti declaring the ruling to be a “massive win.”

Read the full story

Report: Biden’s Department of Education Spent over $1 Billion on DEI Grants

Teacher Students

A new report claims that the Biden Administration’s Department of Education has spent over $1 billion on grants that force the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda in hiring practices, programming, and mental health training in public schools.

According to Fox News, the report from the watchdog group Parents Defending Education (PDE) claims that this DEI spending has been ongoing since 2021. PDE researchers found a total of 229 such grants across 42 states, plus Washington D.C., during the roughly four-year time period.

Read the full story

Sen. Blackburn Slams Department of Education for Funding Professor Who Called October 7 ‘Stunning Victory’

Blackburn and Lummis

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) sent a letter criticizing the U.S. Department of Education after a watchdog report revealed the federal government is using taxpayer money to fund the salaries of multiple professors who hold anti-Israel or antisemitic views, including one educator who described the October 7 attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians as a “stunning victory” for Palestine.

The letter came in response to an October report by Open the Books, a nonprofit whose mission is to “capture and post all disclosed spending at all levels of government,” which revealed the Department of Education funded professors with antisemitic, anti-Israel, or pro-Hamas views at Columbia University, Indiana University, and Georgetown University, as part of two federal grant programs.

Read the full story

‘DOGE-Ball’: Here’s How the Trump Administration Hopes to Slash the Government

Elon and Vivek

President-elect Donald Trump has an ambitious agenda to reduce the size of the federal government, uproot the federal bureaucracy, and limit Washington’s intrusion into the daily lives of the average American citizen. Such goals have long been the aim of many a Republican executive, though few have managed to materially advance them. 

Trump himself struggled to restrict the government in his first term, encountering significant resistance from entrenched executive agencies and congressional Republicans alike. Indeed, newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Co-Chief Elon Musk on Thursday reshared a meme commenting on Republican apprehensions toward budget cuts.

Read the full story

Commentary: Remembering the Courage of Christopher Columbus

Today we remember the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who in October 1492 landed in the Bahamas and became the first Western European to discover what the Europeans would call the New World.

When Columbus and his crew of approximately 200 sailors left Spain in three crowded ships – the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria – they set their sails toward an unknown horizon. They expected to discover a trade route to India. (Most Europeans at the time knew the earth was round – but they were unaware of the North and South American continents.) Instead of finding a route to Southeast Asia, Columbus and his crew landed on a continent of new opportunities. Columbus’s accidental discovery opened a permanent passage across the Atlantic and redrew the known map of the world.

Read the full story

Commentary: ‘American Girls in Sports Day’ Matters More Than Ever

Across our country, more than 3 million female high school and college athletes compete, practice, and train every day to achieve athletic success.

For many of these young women and girls, athletic participation is more than just a game: It is a life-long passion that improves their physical health, boosts their self-confidence, and teaches them the discipline and leadership skills to succeed on and off the field.

Read the full story

Federal Judge Blocks New Biden-Harris Student Loan Forgiveness Plan from Implementation

College Graduation

A federal judge in Georgia on Thursday temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s proposal to forgive federal student loans for nearly 30 million borrowers after a group of seven state sued.

According to the ruling from U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall, the seven states that sued the Biden administration have established a valid case that’s likely to prove the Department of Education lacks the constitutional authority to implement the student loan cancellation proposal.

Read the full story

Tim Walz Signed a Law Creating ‘Ethnic Studies’ Requirements Extending to Elementary School Students

Tim Walz with children in classroom

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz signed a law in May 2023 as Minnesota governor that will require schools to offer “ethnic studies” courses that may include lessons on “resistance” and discussions on “social identities.”

The law requires elementary and middle schools to teach ethnic studies classes by the 2027 to 2028 school year, while high schools must offer a course on the topic starting in the 2026 to 2027 school year, though some districts have already begun implementing ethnic studies programs. The program is described as an “interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity” and says it will emphasize “perspectives of people of color” and analyze “the ways in which race and racism have been and continue to be social, cultural, and political forces.”

Read the full story

Commentary: The Reckoning Has Come for K-12 Sex Abuse, and You the Taxpayer Are on the Hook

High School students in the classroom

The teenage female athletes at California’s Pomona High School said they felt special when a handful of coaches there took them under their wing, spending more time with them than others, providing extra encouragement, sharing personal stories and, sometimes, seemingly harmless flirtatious talk.

One track team member was amazed at a Nevada meet when she saw the coaches drinking, smoking marijuana, and sharing the party scene with teammates. But that attention turned to tragedy at a subsequent meet in Las Vegas when a coach brought the 16-year-old to his hotel room, plied her with alcohol, and, she says, raped her.

Read the full story

National Debt Reaches $35 Trillion for First Time in U.S. History

National Debt

The national debt surpassed $35 trillion on Monday for the first time in U.S. history as exorbitant federal spending continues under President Joe Biden.

Since Biden was inaugurated, the national debt has increased by over $7 trillion, from $27.7 trillion on January 20, 2021 to now over $35 trillion as of July 29, 2024. If the debt were to be divided among the roughly 258.3 million adults in the U.S., each adult would have roughly $135,500.

Read the full story

Federal Court Halts Biden’s Title IX Regulations in Four New States

Federal Judge John Brooms

Federal judge John Broomes ruled on the side of attorneys general in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, claiming that Title IX was meant to protect biological women from discrimination in education.

A federal court in Kansas on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations from taking effect in four states, becoming the latest court to stop the new controversial rules from taking effect in August.

Read the full story

Republicans Fight Federal Funding for College Voter Mobilization That Biden Gave Democrat States

Voter Registration

Republicans are pushing back against federal funds being used to promote get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities among college students as Democrat-led states are taking advantage of the new Federal Work-Study (FWS) program focused on voter registration efforts.

Secretaries of state from Democratic-run states pushed the Biden administration for federal funds to be used in college GOTV activities, and Republicans are now fighting back against the funding in Congress and across GOP-led states.

Read the full story

Senate Bill Would Ban Student Loan Forgiveness for Protestors Convicted of a Crime

Republican U.S. senators introduced a bill that would ban student loan forgiveness for protestors convicted of a crime while protesting on U.S. college campuses.

The No Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act was filed by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., with multiple cosponsors. The bill would prevent any college or university student who is convicted of any offense under federal or state law while protesting at a higher education institution from having their federal student loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified.

Read the full story

Arkansas Becomes Latest State to Defy Biden Title IX Changes

Susan Huckabee Sanders

Arkansas GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ordered state officials to ignore the Biden administration’s latest changes to Title IX on Thursday, making Arkansas the latest state to fight back against the changes that add protections for transgender students.

The Department of Education finalized new rules related to Title IX last month, which expands the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy. Attorneys General in Louisiana and Texas have already filed lawsuits against the new changes, with Texas claiming that the new orders ignore the Constitution and harm women.

Read the full story

Biden Administration Investigates Alleged Anti-Muslim Discrimination at Emory University Following Complaint by CAIR-Georgia

Emory University Campus and Students

A federal civil rights investigation into Emory University was confirmed on Thursday, with Biden administration officials asked to determine whether the university discriminated against Muslim students following the devastating October 7 surprise attack by Hamas fighters against civilians in Israel.

The Department of Education is now investigating Emory University to determine whether it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in its treatment of Muslim students following the October 7 attack.

Read the full story