Hello and welcome to another edition of The First 100 Days, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of news from the Hill to the Oval Office. I’m your host, Katherine Knott, the news editor, and it's Day 46 of the second Trump administration.
This week, we finally got an education secretary, and Linda McMahon wasted little time getting to work. We’ve heard about her “final mission”—which has a lot to do with gutting the agency—and rumors swirled about a pending order directing McMahon to facilitate closure of ED.
Now, we thought Trump would sign the executive order Thursday—as many other news outlets reported—only for the White House press secretary to say that it was “fake news.” Sigh. But we did get our hands on a draft of the executive order, and our reporter Jessica Blake has more here about the plan.
As always, remember that when it comes to plans to shut down the Education Department, only Congress can do that and nothing will happen immediately. But McMahon can still do a lot. In her “final mission” memo, she pledged to “restore the rightful role of state oversight in education and to end the overreach from Washington.” That overhaul will “profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations,” she noted. More details are forthcoming, I’m assuming.
In other news, the deadline for colleges to comply with the department’s guidance to end all race-based programming came and went last Friday. Agency officials appeared to walk back some of its sweeping guidance in an FAQ published over the weekend, and we’re still waiting to learn more about what the department will do next.
On tap for next week: The government will shut down Friday night if lawmakers don’t cut a deal to keep the lights on. Historically, shutdowns haven’t led to major disruptions for colleges, but it all depends on how long the funding lapse persists. We’re also waiting on judges to act on lawsuits challenging the department’s DEI guidance. (You can follow the suits via our tracker.) And of course, we are waiting for Trump to sign that executive order.
So that’s a wrap for Week 7. If news breaks over the weekend, you can find the latest at InsideHigherEd.com. In the meantime, I’ll be catching up on the Traitors finale and mastering my pickleball swing. As always, feel free to email me at katherine.knott@insidehighered.com.
Have a good weekend!
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