Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Education Committee, issued the following statement in response to the post on X by DOGE and the letter sent by the Trump administration to all state departments of education as well as the nation’s colleges and universities, threatening them that they just have 14 days to remove all so-called DEI programming in their institutions.
“This threat to rip away the federal funding our public K-12 schools and colleges receive flies in the face of the law. I hope no parent, student, or teacher is intimidated by these threats—this former preschool teacher certainly is not. While it’s anyone’s guess what falls under the Trump administration’s definition of ‘DEI’, there is simply no authority or basis for Trump to impose such a mandate. In fact, federal laws prohibit ANY president from telling schools and colleges what to teach, including the Every Student Succeeds Act, that I negotiated with Republicans. I refuse to let Trump and Elon try to bully our schools from teaching students basic and important topics like the history of slavery or treatment of indigenous people in America or the powerful contributions of the civil rights movement.
“Parents want their local schools to have the funding they need so their kids can get a great education—they don’t want Trump and Elon to impose their deranged culture war onto our kids. Parents want their kids to be able to go to college to get the workforce training they need to graduate and find a good job. Rather than trying to make college more affordable or helping to improve our kids’ outcomes, Trump is letting far-right extremists inject politics into the classroom at every turn. Republicans tell you they want to empower local communities and that states, schools, and parents know best, and again and again use top down threats to achieve their culture war agenda.
“Democrats are focused on getting our kids math and science scores up—making sure they can read at grade level. Parents are right to be enraged that two billionaires are threatening to rip away funding for their kids’ public schools and local colleges over their petty political crusade.”
Senator Murray has championed students and families at every stage of her career—fighting to help ensure every child in America can get a high-quality public education. Among other things, Senator Murray negotiated the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), landmark legislation that she got signed into law, replacing the broken No Child Left Behind Act. As a longtime appropriator, she has successfully fought to boost funding to support students and invest in our nation’s K-12 schools, and she has secured significant increases to the Pell Grant so that it goes further for students pursuing a higher education. Senator Murray also successfully negotiated the FAFSA Simplification Act, bipartisan legislation to reform the financial aid application process, simplify the FAFSA form for students and parents, and significantly expand eligibility for federal aid.
In March 2020, Senator Murray introduced the Supporting Students in Response to Coronavirus Act to support students as COVID-19 spread, and she proceeded to work across the aisle to deliver resources to schools to support students in the CARES Act in March 2020 and in December 2020 through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA). In March 2021, Senator Murray helped secure critical resources for K-12 schools in the American Rescue Plan, which was passed without any Republican votes. She also worked to require a portion of the resources are specifically used to address learning loss—and has pushed to ensure the resources are being used effectively to help students get back on track. In the years since, Senator Murray has fought to renew federal investments in our schools, ensure resources are used effectively and consistent with federal laws, and successfully defeated House Republicans’ efforts to gut federal educational funding as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the 118th Congress.
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