Executive Order Tracker: Higher Education Actions
Below are brief analyses of relevant Administrative Actions—including Executive Orders (EOs), Proclamations, Memoranda, and Guidance—issued by President Trump, ordered with the most recent Actions first. Expand each item by clicking on it to learn more.
Every day we are doing in-depth analysis of these Administrative Actions. If you’d like to learn more about what these mean for you and your business, don’t hesitate to contact us regarding higher education Executive Orders, and information for additional subjects can be accessed using the links below.
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EO 14235: Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness
March 7, 2025 — Details ⮟
- Overview: Directs the Secretary of Education to propose revisions to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to ensure the definition of "public service" excludes organizations that engage in "activities that have a substantial illegal purpose."
- Agencies Receiving Instructions: Secretary of Education; Secretary of the Treasury
- Topics: Loan forgiveness; public service
- Learn More: Visit The White House website.
EO 14214: Keeping Education Accessible and Ending COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates in Schools
February 15, 2025 — Details ⮟
- Overview: The Secretary of Education must issue guidelines to elementary schools, local educational agencies, State educational agencies, secondary schools, and institutions of higher education regarding those entities’ legal obligations with respect to “parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under law,” as relevant to “coercive COVID-19 school mandates.”
Within 90 days, the Secretary of Education must provide a plan to the President to end “coercive COVID-19 school mandates.” This plan must include: any proposed legislation; a list of discretionary Federal grants and contracts provided to elementary schools, local educational agencies, State educational agencies, secondary schools, and institutions of higher education that are non-compliant with the guidelines issued pursuant to this EO; and each executive department or agency’s process for preventing Federal funds from being provided to, and rescinding Federal funds from, elementary schools, local educational agencies, State educational agencies, secondary schools, and institutions of higher education that are non-compliant with the guidelines issued pursuant to this EO.
Further provides direction to certain agencies to encourage athletic organizations/governing bodies to promulgate policies consistent with this EO. Directs the Secretary of State to rescind support/participation for certain sports exchanges/programs where the female category is “based on identity and not sex”. Directs the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to review and adjust policies regarding the admission of “males seeking to participate in women’s sports” to the US (to the extent permitted by law). - Agencies Receiving Instructions: Secretary of Education; Secretary of HHS; and Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
- Topics: Health care; COVID-19; vaccines; schools; higher education
- Learn More: Visit The White House website.
EO 14201: Keeping Men Our of Women's Sports
February 5, 2025 — Details ⮟
- Overview: Generally directs the Secretary of Education to prevent transgender women from participating in women’s sports and to “protect . . . all-female locker rooms” thereby “provid[ing] the equal opportunity guaranteed by the Title IX . . . ” Directs the prioritization of Title IX enforcement action against educational institutions that “deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women’s category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”
Directs all executive department and agencies to review grants to educational programs, and if appropriate, rescind funding that do not comply with this EO. Directs the Department of Justice “to ensure expeditious enforcement of the policy established in this order.”
Further provides direction to certain agencies to encourage athletic organizations/governing bodies to promulgate policies consistent with this EO. Directs the Secretary of State to rescind support/participation for certain sports exchanges/programs where the female category is “based on identity and not sex”. Directs the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to review and adjust policies regarding the admission of “males seeking to participate in women’s sports” to the US (to the extent permitted by law). - Agencies Receiving Instructions: All executive departments and agencies; Secretary of Education, the Department of Justice; Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy; Secretary of State; and Secretary of Homeland Security
- Topics: Gender; sex; sports
- Learn More: Visit The White House website.
EO 14188: Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism
January 29, 2025 — Details ⮟
- Overview: Sets forth that it is the policy of the administration to combat anti-Semitism. Directs various federal agencies to act to promote this policy, including by filing reports on how each agency, identifying all civil and criminal authorities within their jurisdiction, could be used to curb and combat anti-Semitism. The reports must contain an inventory and analysis of all pending administrative complaints against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil rights violation relating to post-October 7, 2023 campus anti-Semitism.
The Secretary of Education’s report must additionally “include an inventory and an analysis of all Title VI complaints and administrative actions, including in K-12 education, related to anti-Semitism — pending or resolved after October 7, 2023 — within the Department’s Office for Civil Rights.” Additionally, “the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with each other, shall include in their reports recommendations for familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.” - Notes: Sections of this EO are subject a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York (case number: 3:25-cv-335). The sections of the EO that the suit seeks to enjoin involve allegations that the EO bars non-citizens from engaging in certain types of speech under threat of deportation. Further, a similar suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case number: 1:25-cv-1121).
- Agencies Receiving Instructions: All heads of executive departments or agencies, with more specific direction given to the Attorney General, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
- Topics: Education; anti-Semitism
- Learn More: Visit The White House website.
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