Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Project 2025: A threat to equitable education

Happy elementary students raising their hands on a class at school
skynesher/Getty Images

Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" and program director for the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Michelle Obama resonated deeply at the Democratic National Convention.

"Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books — none of that will prepare our kids for the future," she said.


Her warning comes as Project 2025’s proposed overhaul of the Department of Education gains traction. This radical plan, part of the Heritage Foundation’s design for the early days of a second Trump administration, promises efficiency and reform but delivers a blueprint for discrimination, cultural insensitivity and the erosion of democratic principles. In analyzing the historical, socioeconomic and democratic implications of the document's proposed policies, one truth becomes clear: This is a battle for the soul of the American education system.

But Project 2025 is not just a threat to our educational system; it's a threat to our cultural diversity. Consolidating power in the hands of a select few unelected officials risks stripping away the local control that has long defined America's educational landscape. This is a direct assault on the democratic ideals our schools should embody, and it jeopardizes the very principles of representation and community involvement that are the bedrock of our nation.

Parents and communities, particularly those of multiracial and ethnic descent, could see their stories and cultures erased from classrooms. These are the very spaces where children should feel seen, heard and valued, and their potential loss is a devastating blow to the sense of worth and belonging that is so crucial for healthy development and academic engagement. Research confirms that seeing oneself reflected in the curriculum is not just beneficial. It's critical to academic success and a positive school experience.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund warns that this lack of accountability invites policies that benefit a privileged few at the expense of the marginalized communities. The proposed curriculum reforms more than border on discriminatory. They place an undue emphasis on standardized testing and rote memorization, practices that betray the principles of a comprehensive education. Instead of nurturing critical thinking and creativity, schools are at risk of becoming factories, resulting in mere compliance and unquestioned obedience.

Moreover, such proposals are fundamentally at odds with the democratic purpose of education: to empower students to engage actively with our diverse society. The National Education Association, too, warns that such an approach “would lead to a narrowing of the curriculum and a lack of access to educational opportunities for already underserved students.” It's these students, already struggling against the odds, who stand to lose the most from Project 2025.

Perhaps most corrosively, Project 2025 threatens to segregate our schools through provisions for increased school choice and funding portability. Giving families more options and allowing education dollars to follow the child seems innocuous, even laudable. But similar policies have consistently led to greater racial and socioeconomic segregation, undermining the integration that is a bulwark against prejudice. Studies have shown that when given the option, affluent families often choose to cluster in well-funded schools, draining resources from those serving predominantly low-income and minority populations.

Project 2025 attempts to turn back the clock to a time when schools were tools of oppression, a retrograde vision that would unravel decades of progress toward educational equity.

We live in a moment that beckons concerned citizens to respond. It is a moment for parents, educators and communities to act. Whether flooding elected offices with calls, packing public hearings, or exposing the dangers of this proposal, mobilization is only the beginning. Project 2025 is a rallying cry to defend our schools and the values they represent. We cannot be cavalier about this for our children's and society's sake. The time to act is now. Educational opportunity is a civil right, and responding to the threat of Project 2025 is our civic responsibility.

More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025

    Read More

    A Promise in the Making: Thirty-Five Years of the ADA

    Americans with Disabilities Act ADA and glasses.

    Getty Images

    A Promise in the Making: Thirty-Five Years of the ADA

    One July morning in 1990, a crowd gathered on the White House lawn, some in wheelchairs, others holding signs, many with tears in their eyes. President George H.W. Bush lifted his pen and signed his name to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—the most sweeping civil rights law for people with disabilities in the nation's history. It was a moment three decades in the making: a rare convergence of activism, outrage, and legislative will. The ADA's promise was simple—no longer would disability mean exclusion from public life—but its implications were anything but.

    Thirty-five years later, the ADA remains a landmark, a legal bulwark against discrimination, and a symbol of hard-won visibility for a community that has been too often relegated to the margins. Yet, like every civil rights law, the ADA's story is more complex than a single signature or a morning in Washington. Its passage and its legacy have always been about more than ramps and regulations.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    Illinois Camp Gives Underrepresented Kids an Opportunity To Explore New Pathways

    Kuumba Family Festival at Evanston Township High School

    Illinois Camp Gives Underrepresented Kids an Opportunity To Explore New Pathways

    Summer camps in Evanston, Illinois — a quiet suburb just north of Chicago — usually consist of an array of different sports, educational programs, and even learning how to sail. But one thing is obviously apparent throughout the city’s camps: they’re almost all white.

    Despite Black or African American families making up nearly 16% of Evanston’s population, Black kids are massively underrepresented throughout the city's summer camps.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    Students in a classroom.​

    Today, Hispanic-Serving Institutions enroll 64 percent of all Latino college students.

    Getty Images, andresr

    Tennessee’s Attack on Federal Support for Hispanic-Serving Colleges Hurts Us All

    The Tennessee Attorney General has partnered with a conservative legal nonprofit to sue the U.S. Department of Education over programming that supports Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), colleges, and universities where at least 25% of the undergraduate full-time equivalent student enrollment is Hispanic. On its face, this action claims to oppose “discriminatory” federal funding. In reality, it is part of a broader and deeply troubling trend: a coordinated effort to dismantle educational opportunity for communities of color under the guise of anti-DEI rhetoric.

    As a scholar of educational policy and leadership in higher education, I believe we must confront policies that narrow access and undermine equity in education for those who have been historically underserved. What is happening in Tennessee is not just a misguided action—it’s a self-inflicted wound that will harm the state's economic future and deepen historical inequality.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    Inclusion Is Not a Slogan. It’s the Ground We Walk On.

    A miniature globe between a row of blue human figures

    Getty Images//Stock Photo

    Inclusion Is Not a Slogan. It’s the Ground We Walk On.

    After political pressure and a federal investigation, Harvard University recently renamed and restructured its Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. MIT announced the closure of its DEI office, stating that it would no longer support centralized diversity initiatives. Meanwhile, Purdue University shut down its Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and removed cultural center programs that once served as safe spaces for marginalized students. I am aware of the costs of not engaging with ideas surrounding diversity and difference, and I have witnessed the consequences of the current administration's actions— and the pace at which universities are responding. It’s nowhere good.

    I was forced to move to the United States from Russia, a country where the words inclusion, diversity, and equality are either misunderstood, mocked, or treated as dangerous ideology. In this country, a woman over fifty is considered “unfit” for the job market. Disability is not viewed as a condition that warrants accommodation, but rather as a reason to deny employment. LGBTQ+ individuals are treated not as equal citizens but as people who, ideally, shouldn’t exist, where the image of a rainbow on a toy or an ice cream wrapper can result in legal prosecution.

    Keep ReadingShow less