The 922-page Project 2025 document created by the conservative Heritage Foundation outlines plans to significantly change the American educational system under the next conservative president.
After President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 election, concern among University of Minnesota officials and students that he would remove the Department of Education and significantly reduce Title IX protections grew.
While Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, over half of the 307 contributors to Project 2025 previously or currently work on Trump’s campaign, according to reporting from The New York Times.
Project 2025 discusses educational policy in great detail, calling for an end to the Department of Education.
“Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated,” the Heritage Foundation Center for Education Policy Director Lindsey Burke wrote.
These policy plans led to discussions of how education could change. Martha Bigelow, the chair of the University’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, said the biggest impact of Project 2025 on university students will be the declining financial support for disadvantaged students.
“A fairly small percentage of school budgets come from the federal government,” Bigelow said. “It’s funds for programs for the most vulnerable kids, and so what will probably happen is the states have to figure out how to serve those kids.”
Native American programs for students would be moved to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Title I, which funds low-income school districts, would be removed, according to Project 2025.
Project 2025 also outlines a plan to strip away federal funding that goes toward vulnerable populations which would force state governments to fill that funding gap.
“That means every state is doing its own advocacy for vulnerable populations,” Bigelow said. “It’s up to school districts to figure out how they use their budgets. What I worry is that money won’t be earmarked for specific vulnerable populations.”
Project 2025 also plans to cut or restructure specific programs like the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid, the Office for Civil Rights, and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
Title IX
Project 2025 calls for a more restrictive interpretation of Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sexual discrimination and misconduct in all aspects of education.
“Remove all guidance issued under the Biden Administration concerning sexual orientation and gender identity under Section 1557, particularly the May 2021 announcement of enforcement 82 and March 2022 statement threatening states that protect minors from genital mutilation,” Project 2025 states under its Office of Civil Rights Title IX section.
This could lead to banning certain books from libraries, redefining sex to mean biological sex recognized at birth instead of sexual orientation and gender identity, ending protections for LGBTQ+ students and women, and ending any ongoing Title IX investigations, according to the National Education Association.
Trump said in May that he would end the Title IX regulations Biden implemented in August on “day one.”
The Biden regulations provided additional protections for transgender and pregnant students. Under the regulations, schools cannot force transgender students to use bathrooms or locker rooms that do not align with their gender identity.
Due to a recent court decision, the University still operates under the 2020 Title IX regulations, meaning if Trump’s plan to reverse Biden’s new regulations is implemented, University Title IX Coordinator Tina Marisam said the University’s current policies would be unaffected.
“What’s important for our community to know is that the University of Minnesota offers anti-discrimination protections for our transgender community members and others based on gender identity, regardless of whether we’re operating under the 2020 Trump administration regulations or the 2024 Biden-era regulations,” Marisam said.
Students concerned about Project 2025
Disbanding the Department of Education and cutting education funding is raising concerns among university students planning to become educators.
Second-year student Grace Russell said she and other education majors are worried about the president-elect defunding the Department of Education.
“The Department of Education is responsible for so much, like establishing policies and collecting data on schools, focusing on key educational issues in schools and stopping discrimination and making sure there’s equal access to education,” Russell said. “I personally believe that this is a very good thing that our country should have and something that should be on a federal level.”
Once the election results set in, Russell said her heart sank as she worried about the future of education. She said she feels fired up about educational policy and wants to become an inclusive teacher.
Russell said Minnesota is a safe place for educational policies, but other states are not as protected.
“Discrimination and access to education is going to become a lot worse if this ends up happening,” Russell said.
Fifth-year student Frank Bass, who is an education major, said cutting public school funding would make it more difficult for educators to work and students to get the education they deserve.
“I am worried about the future,” Bass said. “The new administration is going to start enacting these new laws and severely affecting the efficacy of our education system in America.”
Protections within Minnesota and the University
Marisam said the University has a non-discrimination policy and policies prohibiting sexual harassment and assault, stalking, and relationship violence and follows employment discrimination laws, all of which provide protections against discrimination.
The Equal Opportunity and Title IX Office offers a place to report discrimination on campus, resources to people who may not want to report and formal grievance processes to address discrimination concerns, Marisam said.
“I think it’s important to know that Minnesota law and University of Minnesota policy provides really robust protections against discrimination based on sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, period,” Marisam said. “If the Trump administration does roll back the Title IX regulations that Biden put out over the summer, the University would still prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and expression.”
