Tag: Department of Education

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

Just the News
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.

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Analysis: A Survey of Trump’s Possible Education Secretary Candidates and His Commitment to Dismantling the Department of Education

The College Fix
Donald Trump, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump said several times during his campaign that he would eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, but it’s a pledge that may be more rhetoric than reality.

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Commentary: Remembering the Courage of Christopher Columbus

Admin

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.

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Universities Secretly Take Billions in Foreign ‘Ghost Dollars’: Report

The Center Square
College Students

American colleges and universities are accepting billions of dollars in foreign money without reporting it, according to a new report.

The National Association of Scholars released the report, which says that taking money from foreign governments and organizations without reporting it has become commonplace among American universities.

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NYC Education Bureaucrats Allegedly Took Own Kids on Disney Trip Meant for Homeless Kids

Just the News

Six New York City Department of Education employees used “forged permission slips” to take their children and grandchildren to Disney World and on other city-funded trips intended for homeless students, investigators allege.

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

Just the News
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.

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

Daily Caller News Foundation
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.”

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

RealClearWire
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.

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

Georgia Star News Staff
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.

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

Just the News
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.

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

Just the News
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.

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Experts Divided on Biden’s New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan

Georgia Star News Staff
President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s new student loan forgiveness plan has legal experts divided, with some citing similar problems to his previous plan struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education Plan is an income-based student loan repayment plan that provides full loan forgiveness in certain cases.

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

The Center Square

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.

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

Tom Pappert
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.

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Education Department to Open Civil Rights Probe into UC Berkeley Allegedly Banning White People from Farm

Just the News
University of California Berkeley Campus

“We envision a vibrant community farm, a model of shared governance and co-stewardship that helps restore community resilience,” the farm’s website reads.

The Department of Education is looking into an allegation that the University of California at Berkeley is prohibiting white residents from using a community farm on Saturdays.

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Georgia Lawmakers Approve Budget as Session Ends

The Center Square
Georgia Money

Georgia lawmakers signed off on the fiscal year 2025 budget in the final hours of this year’s legislative session but did not pass a bill to allow sports betting.

Lawmakers gave the nod to a more than $66.8 billion state budget for fiscal 2025, which starts July 1. The spending plan, which anticipates $36.1 billion in state money and $19 billion in federal taxpayer funds, includes pay raises for public school teachers and state law enforcement officers.

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‘Politically Weaponized’: Republicans Criticize Federally Funded Plan to have Students Register Voters

Georgia Star News Staff
Students registering to vote

Republican leaders are responding with skepticism to the Biden administration’s plans to hire students to register voters and work in polling places.

New Department of Education guidance states Federal Work-Study funds “may be used for employment by a Federal, State, local, or Tribal public agency for civic engagement work that is not associated with a particular interest or group.”

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After Canceling Student Loan Debt, Biden Admin Announces Paying College Students to Register Voters

Georgia Star News Staff
Paying Voters Biden

The Biden administration announced it will pay college students to register voters and participate in get-out-the-vote activities shortly after canceling student loan debt.

It’s a move that Republicans and election integrity advocates are saying will mobilize Democratic voters with taxpayer dollars.

After canceling student loan debt the prior week, the Biden administration announced that it will pay college students to register voters and engage in GOTV efforts through a Federal Work-Study (FWS) program.

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Biden Announces Fresh Wave of Student Debt Cancellations

Georgia Star News Staff

President Joe Biden on Friday announced the latest round of student debt cancellations in a statement issued by The White House.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on June 30 in Biden v. Nebraska that the administration’s plan to cancel up to $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers was unlawful, the administration has sought to pursue other debt cancellation measures, most notably through the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, which was finalized by the Department of Education (DOE) on the day of the court’s ruling. Biden said that borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan who borrowed less than $12,000 in debt, and who have been in repayment for at least ten years, will have their balances canceled by February.

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Federal Diversity Trainings Cost Taxpayers in 2023 Millions of Dollars

Georgia Star News Staff

The Biden administration spent millions on diversity trainings for federal agencies, including some for the armed forces, in 2023.

Taxpayers were on the hook for the more than $16.3 million the federal government spent on diversity trainings taking place in 2023, according to a government spending database. Past government diversity trainings have instructed federal workers that asking an Asian colleague for help with a math problem could be racist, that men can become pregnant and that “social pain” can be the same as physical pain.

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Biden Admin Investigates Wisconsin School After Man Identifying as Trans Allegedly Exposed Genitalia to Four Freshmen Girls

Georgia Star News Staff
Girls Sports

The Department of Education (ED) opened an investigation into a Wisconsin school Wednesday after an adult man identifying as transgender allegedly exposed himself to underaged girls, according to an ED letter.

After a swimming class in March at Sun Prairie Area High School (SPASD), four freshmen girls were exposed to the genitalia of an 18-year-old male student claiming to be transgender who allegedly undressed in front of them, and despite SPASD being informed of the incident, nothing was done. Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) demanded that the ED Office of Civil Rights (OCR) investigate SPASD after allegedly failing to address the incident.

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Commentary: The Reason the Department of Education Is Afraid of Innovation in Higher Ed

Georgia Star News Staff

Online learning has revolutionized higher education, but a recent move by the federal Department of Education is threatening to tear down systems that are helping millions of students learn.

An extremely wide diversity of students choose to take online courses or to get entire online degrees. Colleges that offer them need to be nimble as the economy changes, yet traditional colleges are slow to change, and they often lack the expertise and funding to develop and manage online courses independently.

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Biden Admin Announces Another $9 Billion Student Debt Giveaway

Georgia Star News Staff

The Biden administration announced nearly $9 billion in student loan relief Wednesday that will affect about 125,000 borrowers, according to a press release.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that the Biden administration could not cancel student loan debt for non-Pell Grant and Pell Grant recipients, and soon after on June 30 the Department of Education (ED) announced plans to expand income-driven repayment plans, which would cut payments for those making $32,800 or less annually to $0, potentially costing American taxpayers hundreds of billions. Now, the Biden administration has announced a new plan that will add $9 billion in student loan relief through additional forgiveness and income-driven-repayment programs, according to an ED press release.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Says He’d Win a Legal Challenge to His Plan to Slash the Administrative State

M.D. Kittle

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy knows there would be legal challenges to his sweeping plan to drastically reduce the size of the administrative state. The 38-year-old political outsider knows the big government left won’t give up the heart of the D.C swamp without a bruising fight.

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Biden Administration Withholding Funds from Schools with Hunting Courses

Georgia Star News Staff

The Biden Administration’s Department of Education (ED) confirmed that it is deliberately withholding federal funds from elementary and middle schools that have courses in hunting or archery.

As Fox News reports, the ED issued a statement claiming that the decision was due to an interpretation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year in response to several shootings. The agency claims that its interpretation determined that funding for any shooting-related activities will be blocked across the country, under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.

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‘We’re Paying People to Hate America’: Musk And Ramaswamy Blast Department of Education

Georgia Star News Staff

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Twitter owner Elon Musk ripped the current education system in the United States Friday, saying that taxpayers were “paying people to hate America.”

Ramaswamy and Musk took part in a Twitter Spaces forum where Ramaswamy blasted the Department of Education for using funding as an incentive for schools to use certain theories in curricula. Ramaswamy outlined plans to shut down that department during a July 20 forum in New Hampshire.

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Biden Admin Opens Federal Investigation into Harvard University over Legacy Admissions

Georgia Star News Staff

Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) officially opened an investigation Monday into Harvard to determine whether or not the university’s use of legacy admissions violate the Civil Rights Act, according to a letter from the DOE.

The DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) opened the investigation to determine whether or not Harvard discriminates on the basis of race by having donor and legacy admissions preferences after a complaint was filed on behalf of several activist organizations including The Chica Project, the African Community Economic Development of New England and the Greater Boston Latino Network, according to a letter from the DOE to Lawyers for Civil Rights. The complaint follows on the heels of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down race-based affirmative action admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

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Commentary: It’s Time to Acknowledge America’s Education Crisis

Georgia Star News Staff

The recent Supreme Court ruling regarding college admissions has once again thrust America’s educational system into the spotlight. A major question that has come from this ruling is whether America’s children are being intellectually and academically prepared to even enter or succeed in these colleges and universities. The tragic answer is that America’s public education system is failing to equip our youth with the tools necessary to succeed in higher education and in their future professional lives. We are failing America’s most valuable asset—our children.

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Despite Supreme Court Smackdown, Biden Admin Plans to Wipe $39 Billion in Student Debt

Georgia Star News Staff

The Department of Education (DOE) announced Friday that it will automatically forgive $39 billion of student loan debt for more than 804,000 borrowers, following a recent ruling by the Supreme Court that blocked the administration’s plan to grant forgiveness to nearly 40 million Americans.

The DOE will start notifying borrowers Friday that their federal student loans “will be automatically discharged in the coming weeks,” according to a DOE press release. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that the Biden administration cannot use executive power to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt for non-Pell Grant recipients and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

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California Gov. Newsom Demands Textbook Publishers’ Records to Determine If They Conformed to Florida Gov. DeSantis’ Education Laws

Admin

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is demanding records from textbook publishers to determine if they have changed any content used in California’s schools to comply with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education laws.

The DeSantis’ administration has enacted several laws in the past year prohibiting Critical Race Theory (CRT) and certain lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation from K-12 classrooms. In addition to the textbook companies records, Newsom’s office sent a public records request Saturday to DeSantis’ office and the Florida Department of Education (DOE) asking for all communications between the governor’s administration and the textbook publishers relating to revisions made to content to ensure compliance with the Florida education laws.

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House Bill Would Block Biden’s Student Loan Bailout

M.D. Kittle

While the constitutionality of President Joe Biden’s student loan bailout is awaiting a Supreme Court decision, a bill re-introduced by two House members would block the Biden administration from canceling student loan debt on a mass scale. 

The Student Loan Accountability Act, authored by U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI-08) and Drew Ferguson (R-GA-03) would also prevent forgiven loans from getting an additional tax break and it would bar the Internal Revenue Service from sharing American’s tax information for the purpose of implementing mass loan cancelation. 

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Civil Rights Commissioners Urge Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Hold Hearings on Title IX to Assure ‘Biological Sex’ is Protected

Susan Berry, PhD

In a letter obtained by The Star News Network, four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) are calling upon House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to hold hearings on the Biden administration’s “radical and legally unsupported proposals to change Title IX” to require that its prohibition on sex discrimination be interpreted to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The letter, signed by USCCR Commissioners labor attorney Peter Kirsanow, University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot, Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams, and South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce CEO Stephen Gilchrist, asserts to McCarthy that the Biden Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has erred in its claim that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County “requires that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination be interpreted to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

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Biden to Axe Trump Investigations of Secret Foreign Money in Higher Ed, College Groups Say

Just the News

The Biden administration plans to shutter its predecessor’s investigations into undisclosed foreign funding of U.S. colleges and universities, the subject of years of warnings from elected officials, law enforcement and academic freedom groups, according to higher education lobbyists.

The commitment was recorded in an August letter from a higher ed lobbyist recapping a June 23 virtual briefing by top Department of Education officials for the American Council on Education (ACE) and other university groups, including the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR), which includes medical centers and independent research institutes.

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Commentary: Back to School and New Radical Ideology on Campuses

Georgia Star News Staff

In 2011, a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) that required schools provide access to bathrooms, showers, and dorm rooms based on gender identity, rather than biological sex was introduced by the Obama Education Department. It defined sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”; required only that the alleged harassment potentially “interfere with or limit” access, rather than “deprive” the victim of access creating a “single-inquisitor” model where the investigator, prosecutor, and hearing officer could be the same person, and reduced the accused’s rights to a hearing to confront his accuser.

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Biden Admin Spends Millions to Create a ‘Diverse Educator Workforce’

Admin

The Department of Education (DOE) is giving about $25 million in grants to several universities to help them hire and train a “diverse educator workforce,” according to a Sept. 12 press release.

The DOE partnered with Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP), a group that works on preparing higher education faculty, to provide 22 new five-year grants to several universities, including three historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), according to the press release. The institutions receiving grants will work with TQP to “recruit highly qualified individuals, including individuals of color” for educator positions.

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Groups from the Left and Right Agree on Opposition to Biden’s Title IX Reform as Comment Period Ends

Just the News

From the feminist Women’s Liberation Front to the conservative Child & Parental Rights Campaign and Parents Defending Education, groups opposing the Biden administration’s proposal to redefine sex as “gender identity” are urging supporters to file comments in the Title IX regulatory proceeding before it closes Monday.

An 18-month-old nonprofit unexpectedly joined their ranks last week: the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), cofounded by black intellectuals including Columbia University’s John McWhorter and Brown University’s Glenn Loury, which fights identity politics in education and government and has focused mainly on race.

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Oversight Republicans Investigate Why DOE Hasn’t Spent COVID Relief Funds, Role of Teachers Unions

The Center Square

Oversight Republicans have launched an investigation into how the U.S. Department of Education has handled billions of COVID-19 relief dollars, raising the alarm about the major learning loss experienced by students.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona demanding documents and answers as to why most of the money has reportedly remained unspent.

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Alliance for Free Citizens Denounces Department of Education’s ‘National Parents and Families Engagement Council’

Cooper Moran

The Alliance for Free Citizens, a education-focused advocacy group, denounced a reported plan by President Joe Biden’s Department of Education to create the “National Parents and Families Engagement Council.”

According to a report from Fox News, the new organization will work to improve the relationship between parents and schools.

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Biden’s Education Secretary Calls Arming Teachers ‘One of the Stupidest Proposals’ Ever

Admin

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona criticized proposals to arm teachers to stop school shootings during a Thursday appearance on “The View.”

“Those are some of the stupidest proposals I’ve heard in all my time as an educator,” Cardona said when asked about arming teachers by co-host Sunny Hostin. “So that’s my answer to that. Listen. We need to make sure we’re doing sensible legislation, making sure our schoolhouses are safe as much as possible, but to say that we’re going to arm teachers to protect students, what happens when a teacher goes out on maternity leave?”

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Biden Set to Unveil Massive Student Loan Forgiveness: Report

Georgia Star News Staff

President Joe Biden is planning to forgive $10,000 of student loan debt per borrower, according to a Friday report from The Washington Post.

Biden intended to announce the new student debt forgiveness plan at the University of Delaware’s graduation ceremony Saturday but postponed the decision after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, unnamed sources familiar with the issue told The Washington Post. The newest debt forgiveness plan would apply to Americans who in the year prior made under $150,000 and to married Americans who made under $300,000 in joint filings.

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Biden Administration to Reverse Trump-Era Free Speech Rights in Education

Georgia Star News Staff

The Biden Administration’s Department of Education (DOE) is making plans to reverse Title IX regulations that had been implemented by the Trump Administration to more greatly protect free speech rights in education.

The Daily Caller reports that the soon-to-be-unveiled rewrite by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), focusing on Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, will roll back the Trump-era rules dictating that public schools, from K-12 to college, must investigate claims of sexual misconduct in a fair an unbiased manner. The rules implemented by President Trump allowed greater rights to both the accused and the accuser in such cases, including the right to be represented by counsel, the ability to cross examine witnesses, and the presumption of innocence.

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15 Attorneys General Call on Department of Education to Halt Revising Title IX Regulations

The Center Square

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, leading a coalition of 15 Republican attorneys general, has called on the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to cancel its plan to revise Title IX.

The DOE’s plan to do so, they argue, appears to be an attempt by the federal government to infringe on parental rights in education, erode the rights of women’s and girls’ sports, and reverse existing guarantees for victims of sexual harassment and assault.

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Biden Budget Proposes $100 Million for ‘Racial Diversity’ in Schools

Georgia Star News Staff

President Joe Biden administration’s newly proposed $5.8 trillion federal budget includes massive spending increases for the Department of Education to promote “racial” diversity.

The new education allocations for fiscal year 2023 include “$100 million for a new Fostering Diverse Schools program” which will use grants to help communities “develop and implement strategies that will build more racially and socioeconomically diverse schools and classrooms, ” according to the Department of Education’s (DOE) budget summary.

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Biden Administration Allegedly Set to Extend Title IX Rights to ‘Transgender’ Students

Georgia Star News Staff

The Biden Administration’s Department of Education (DOE) is set to impose new Title IX regulations in the coming weeks that will extend federal civil rights to so-called “transgender” students.

The Daily Caller reports that at least two anonymous DOE officials told the Washington Post about the planned expansion of Title IX, which currently only prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. The new regulations will redefine Title IX to include “gender identity” and sexual preference. A DOE spokesperson said that the newly-updated guidelines will be formally published in April.

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Over 120,000 Students and Families Have Left NYC Public Schools in Last Five Years

Admin

The New York City Department of Education (DOE) is bracing for a potential massive loss in its budget after over 120,000 students and families have left the city’s public school system over the last five years.

The New York Post reports that the city’s Chancellor of Schools David Banks addressed the matter before the City Council’s Education Committee on Monday, warning that the decline in enrollment could negatively impact the system’s budget plans for the coming years.

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Congress Considers Bill to Expose Russian, Chinese Funding of American Groups

Admin

Newly introduced legislation would require think tanks and nonprofits to reveal whether they have significant funding from governments and political groups in Russia and China.

U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, introduced the “Think Tank and Nonprofit Foreign Influence Disclosure Act” Thursday, which would require nonprofits and think tanks to disclose foreign donations over $50,000. The bill would require the U.S. Treasury Department to create a “publicly available in a searchable database information relating to such gifts and contributions received from foreign governments and political parties…”

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