However, critics swiftly condemned the executive orders as being an attack on LGBTQ students and on the accurate teaching of U.S. history, specifically concerning slavery and racial injustice.

Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools

The executive order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools threatens to withhold federal funding for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools,” including based on gender ideology and the undefined and vague “discriminatory equity ideology.”

The order calls for schools to provide students with an education that instills “a patriotic admiration” for the United States, while claiming the education system currently indoctrinates them in “radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”

Without proof, the order claims that students are forced to adopt “identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color” and “made to question whether they were born in the wrong body.”

“These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity,” the order states.

The order threatens to sanction schools that support LGBTQ students, but specifically trans students, by promoting what it calls “social transition” — meaning acceptance of a student’s gender identity.

Schools that provide trans students with psychological or psychiatric counseling, modify their names, use pronouns to reflect their gender identity, permit them to use gender facilities that match their gender identity or allow them to participate in athletic competitions on gendered teams that reflect their gender identity will have federal funding threatened, it said.

The legality of some of its directives were unclear, with civil rights organization Lambda Legal calling it “patently unconstitutional nonsense” designed to demean transgender and LGBTQ students by denying their existence.

It said the order encourages mistreatment and bullying of the minority students. By forcing schools to inform parents when a student chooses an identity that does not match their birth sex, the executive order also exposes them to abuse at home, it said.

“Lambda Legal is taking a hard look at the details of this horrific executive order,” Nicholas Hite, the McDonald/Wright senior attorney at Lambda Legal, said in a statement.

Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ political lobby in the United States, described the executive order as dictating to children, parents and schools what they can and cannot read and learn and who they can and cannot be.

“They want to limit the ability to talk about the very existence of LGBTQ+ people in our schools and keep all our children from being taught an honest, accurate history of our nation,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement on Blue Sky.

And Advocates for Trans Equality described the executive order as an attempt to paint those who believe in equity and respect for trans students as anti-American.

“The scapegoating of trans students and developmentally appropriate curricula is from an old playbook,” A4TE Executive Director Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen said in a statement emailed to UPI.

“This executive order does not change the law, but it sends a harmful message to trans young people and could make school harder for students who are already struggling to get through each day.”

Like Lambda Legal, A4TE said its lawyers will look over the executive during the next few days and stand ready “to use every resource at our disposal, from Capitol Hill to the courts, to defend the rights of all students, parents and teachers who deserve to feel safe and welcome at school.”

Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism

A second executive order, Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, involves several federal departments, including the Department of Homeland Security, to combat anti-Semitism in universities, which across the United States saw mass pro-Palestine protests amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Among the directs is the calling for schools to monitor and report the protest activities of “alien students and staff” in order to investigate and deport them “if warranted.”

“Anti-Semitism has no place in America,” Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on X.

“President Trump took an important step today by showing that non-citizen criminals involved in hate speech against Jews following the horrific October 7 attacks in Israel must leave.”

However, Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney for Palestine Legal, told The New York Times that the Trump administration was targeting people based on their support of Palestinian rights.

“And they’re trying to drag all federal department into it,” she said.

Meanwhile, the pro-Israel Jewish lobby Anti-Defamation League welcomed the executive order, saying “there must be real consequences for those commit violent crimes.”

“Obviously, any immigration-related ramifications must be consistent with due process and existing federal statutes and regulations and should not be used to target individuals for their constitutionally protected speech,” it said in a statement.

Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families

A third executive order, Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families, seeks to make available federal funding to expand education options for private, faith-based or public charter schools.

The executive order argues that “well-designed education-freedom programs” improve student achievement while causing nearby public schools to improve their performance.

“When our public education system fails such a large segment of society, it hinders our national competitiveness and devastates families and communities,” it said.