The president’s efforts to purge Marxist ideology from schools have a particular educational organization, “one step ahead,” previewing what may come for the rest of K-12.
Upon returning to the White House, President Donald Trump wasted little time setting his expectations to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion and any other forms of “discriminatory treatment and indoctrination” from government-run schools through executive orders.
As military facilities followed through with guidance on removing prohibited materials and protecting girls’ and women’s spaces, at the same time activist-primed students held protests, the 160 K-12 schools that fell under the Department of Defense Education Activity were positioned to troubleshoot the woke purge.
“Historically speaking, the military has always been one step ahead politically of where society is because of the controlled environment,” Veterans for Responsible Leadership President Bobby Jones told The Hill.
“In some respects, the military can be used as a social experimentation area because of the controlled environment, and everybody has to roger up to the orders,” he added while expressing that “it would not surprise” him if the administration wanted universities to follow the lead of service academies.
Among the executive orders signed in January, the president gave the secretaries of Defense, Education, and Health and Human Services 90 days to consult with Attorney General Pam Bondi to provide an Ending Indoctrination Strategy for K-12 schools.
Already, that intent could be seen unfolding as the U.S. Naval Academy has reportedly removed around 400 books said to promote DEI after having flagged about 900 for review. Meanwhile, as the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy were reviewing their own curriculum, some of the roughly 66,000 students who fall under the DoDEA have already proven the extent indoctrination has permeated their educations.
According to Military.com, hundreds of DoDEA students on U.S. military bases around the world walked out on Thursday in an organized protest over the curriculum refresh.
Ahead of the walkouts, where students held signs with messages like, “Hands Off Our Library,” and “Academic Freedom = American Freedom,” letters to students and parents warned that such protests risked penalties that included recorded unexcused absences, limits on participation in sports, and even detention.
“DoDEA policies on attendance and student discipline have not changed,” detailed a statement from the DoDEA on the walkouts in Europe, Asia and the U.S. “While student-led walkouts in the past have concluded without serious incidents, the cumulative disruption to the DoDEA school system negatively impacted classroom instruction and pulled resources away from normal school operations to ensure student safety.”
As has often been the case with such organized efforts, the students were not without influence, as it was reported in July 2024 via an Open The Books report shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation that students had been encouraged to be left-wing activists. This included DoDEA staffers revealing that materials from the Southern Poverty Law Center were being used both in training teachers and in classrooms.
Countering the protest narrative, Heritage Foundation Will Skillman, senior research fellow in education policy, and Jonathan Butcher expressed to The Hill that the president’s orders were “actually doubling down on how we understand civil rights law should be applied.”
“That’s the best way that I feel like we should describe many of these executive orders dealing with diversity, equity, inclusion … as opposed to creating something new when it comes to a military academy,” he added.
Where the Department of Education was concerned for the rest of America’s government-run schools, Secretary Linda McMahon made it clear, “Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history — not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology.”
Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history – not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology.
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) April 11, 2025
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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