President Signs Seven Education-Related Executive Orders Ranging From Accreditation to Workforce Development

At a Glance

• On April 23, 2025, President Trump issued seven executive orders (EOs) relating to broad aspects of the U.S. education sector, including elementary, secondary and postsecondary institutions, as well as accrediting agencies and workforce education programs.
• The EOs address the role and recognition of institutional and programmatic accreditors; foreign-gift reporting requirements for postsecondary institutions; the promotion of “excellence and innovation” at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs); the availability of apprenticeships in skilled trades; certain school discipline policies; the advancement of AI education; and the purported unlawfulness of disparate-impact theories of liability for discriminatory acts.
• We provide below a brief overview of each EO, with a more detailed analysis of certain EOs’ contents and potential implications to follow in subsequent alerts.

Overview of the Executive Orders

On April 23, 2025, President Trump signed seven executive orders with significant implications for various participants in the education sector, including K-12 schools, colleges and universities, accrediting agencies, workforce development programs, and others. Each is briefly summarized and linked below.

“Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education”

Asserting that accreditors have heretofore “remained improperly focused on compelling adoption of discriminatory ideology, rather than on student outcomes,” this EO alleges that accreditors have condoned or promoted impermissible discrimination in postsecondary programs. This order also states that the administration “will reform our dysfunctional accreditation system so that colleges and universities focus on delivering high-quality academic programs at a reasonable price.” The EO thus directs the secretary of education to monitor, deny, suspend or terminate the recognition of accreditors who “engage in unlawful discrimination” through their formal standards of accreditation or other means. It further directs the secretary of education to undertake actions to ensure that accreditors “require institutions [to] support and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity amongst faculty”; require accredited institutions to use program-level student data without reference to race, ethnicity or sex; advance credential and degree completion; discourage credential inflation; and other matters. The order seeks to “increase competition and accountability” among accreditors by directing the secretary of education to resume recognition of new accreditors, “streamline” the process through which institutions may change their accreditor(s), improve the efficiency of accreditor recognition review, and establish an experimental site that can develop new “flexible and streamlined quality assurance pathways” for postsecondary institutions.

“Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities”

This EO asserts that current foreign contract and gift reporting requirements for postsecondary institutions, as enumerated in Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, have not been “robustly enforced.” The EO directs the secretary of education to enforce existing timely disclosure requirements, and to increase public access to information regarding institutional disclosures of foreign gifts and contracts. It also specifically directs the secretary of education, U.S. attorney general and other agency heads to consider certifications of foreign disclosure compliance to be material claims with respect to the False Claims Act, and for the receipt of “appropriate Federal grant funds.”

“Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future”

This EO seeks to increase the availability of registered apprenticeships (RAs) in particular, and workforce training and development programs in general. Specifically, the EO directs the secretaries of labor, commerce and education to submit within 90 days a report identifying strategies to improve the American workforce, including: systems integration and realignment; workforce development and education programs; statutory authority to promote innovation; upskilling investment opportunities; feasibility of alternative credential programs; and the streamlining of information collection, including with respect to performance outcomes. The EO also directs those secretaries to submit, within 120 days, a plan to achieve at least one million new active apprenticeships, including through: expanding RAs to new jobs and industries; policies to assist in scaling the RA model nationwide; better coordinating career technical education and RA placements; and improving transparency of workforce development program outcomes.

“White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities”

This EO revokes President Biden’s EO 14041 of September 3, 2021, which established the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity Through Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It also directs the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to terminate, within 14 days, the HBCU and MSI Advisory Council. The EO further establishes the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (the Initiative) in the Executive Office of the President. Working with executive departments and agencies, the Initiative must seek both to (1) increase the private sector’s role in institutional management, infrastructure upgrades and professional development opportunities, and (2) expand HBCUs’ capacities through agency coordination (as required by the existing HBCU PARTNERS Act (Public Law 116-270)), philanthropic partnerships, improved visibility, increased awareness of best practices, promotion of student achievement and retention, convening an annual White House Summit on HBCUs, and other means. The EO also establishes the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities within the Department of Education, and requires annual reporting to the president regarding the Initiative’s progress.

“Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies”

This EO critiques the joint guidance issued in 2023 by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, which provided a resource to confront and combat racial discrimination in K-12 student disciplinary practices. The EO alleges that such guidance “reinstated the practice of weaponizing Title VI to promote an approach to school discipline based on discriminatory equity ideology.” To address such purported weaponization, the order requires: (1) within 30 days, issuance by the secretary of education of new guidance to state educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) regarding their nondiscrimination obligations under Title VI, including in the school disciplinary context; (2) within 60 days, the initiation of coordination among the secretary of education, the U.S. attorney general, the governors and state attorneys general regarding prevention of race discrimination in school discipline; (3) within 90 days, issuance by the secretary of defense of a revised school discipline code for applicable educational sites; and (4) within 120 days, the submission of a report to the president from the secretary of education, the attorney general, the secretary of health and human services, and the secretary of homeland security, regarding “the status of discriminatory-equity-ideology-based school discipline and behavior modification techniques in American public education.”

“Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy”

Taking aim at the content and effect of disparate-impact claims of unlawful discrimination, this EO asserts that such theories of liability “hold[ ] that a near insurmountable presumption of unlawful discrimination exists where there are any differences in outcomes in certain circumstances among different races, sexes, or similar groups, even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved, and even if everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.” The EO purports to revoke prior presidential approvals, in 1966 and 1973, of regulatory language implementing Title VI. This EO then directs executive departments and agencies to “deprioritize enforcement of all statutes and regulations to the extent they include disparate-impact liability,” and further directs the attorney general to “initiate appropriate action to repeal or amend the implementing regulations for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for all agencies to the extent they contemplate disparate-impact liability.” Current matters are to be reviewed at all agencies, and the EO directs the attorney general to determine whether any “State laws, regulations, policies or practices” which impose or contemplate disparate-impact liability may in fact be preempted by federal law or otherwise contain “constitutional infirmities that warrant Federal action.”

“Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth”

To promote AI usage skills and the integration of AI into education, this EO establishes the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education, chaired by the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and including agency leadership at the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, Energy, and Education, as well as the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the president’s special advisor for AI and crypto, among other participants. The order establishes a Presidential AI Challenge and directs the task force to encourage the development of K-12 AI education resources through public-private partnerships and the use of available federal funding mechanisms, including discretionary grants. The secretary of education is directed to issue guidance on the use of grant funds to “improve education outcomes using AI,” to identify ways to assist SEA and LEA programs using AI for improved student outcomes, and to prioritize the use of AI in grant programs for teacher training under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and Title II of the Higher Education Act (HEA). The order encourages the expansion of AI-related registered apprenticeships, including through the use of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funds to develop AI skills, and directs all agencies that provide educational grants to consider AI “a priority area” for existing federal fellowship, scholarship and service programs.

What’s Next?

All schools, colleges, universities, accrediting agencies, workforce education partners, and any other entities that receive federal education funds or which otherwise are subject to federal education regulations should stay apprised of further guidance regarding these matters.

The authors are continuing to review the impact of these executive orders and related agency directives, and are available to answer any questions.