President Donald Trump says he will cut off federal funding to schools and universities that allow “illegal protests.”
Trump announced in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests.”
“Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he added.
Trump has leveraged federal funding several times already as a way to shape policy in schools, universities, and college campuses.
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For instance, as Breitbart News first reported, Trump signed an executive order last month halting funding for schools and universities that impose coronavirus vaccine mandates on students.
The order would prohibit “federal funds from being used to support or subsidize an educational service agency, state education agency, local education agency, elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education that requires students to have received a COVID-19 vaccination to attend in-person education programs,” a White House document read.
Trump also signed an executive order to defund K-12 schools that teach transgender ideology and critical race theory, as Breitbart News noted:
The order will give the Department of Education 90 days to create a plan about how to weed out CRT and radical gender ideology instruction in K-12 schools, according to a White House memo first obtained by the Daily Caller. Trump notably promised on the campaign trail to sign an order defunding schools that teach “Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”
The White House memo also reportedly states that the order will direct the Attorney General to work with state attorneys general and district attorneys “to file actions against teachers and school officials who sexually exploit minors or practice medicine without a license through ‘social transition’ practices.”
Trump’s announcement Tuesday comes after college campuses and universities across the country were sites of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests during the end of the Biden administration.
