Leftist education president gets Millstone Award for opposing Trump’s order to end DEI

In the face of an executive order ending federal support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, the education establishment immediately began forming a resistance movement.   A key part of it is the American Council on Education (ACE), led by its president, Ted Mitchell.  

This past week, Mitchell was among so-called education leaders advocating ways to get around President Donald Trump’s executive order and a subsequent Dear Colleague letter from the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.   For defying these much-needed correctives to pervasive wokeness in the nation’s schools, Mitchell has earned the March 2025 Millstone Award from USPIE.     USPIE Millstone of the Month Award goes to “the person involved in government schools who has committed the most egregious acts against children.”   Left-leaning organizations like the American Council on Education are vowing full-scale resistance to President Trump’s plan to end wokeness in American education.  

Parents who think their schools will be better with the removal of DEI and Critical Race Theory need to realize that schools will defy the orders and continue to teach these harmful ideas.   The Education Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter warned schools that any “race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination” violate the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act. Signed by Craig Trainor, the office’s acting assistant secretary, the letter outlined a sweeping interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down affirmative action in admissions.   “The new letter declared all race-conscious student programming, resources and financial aid illegal and threatened to investigate and rescind federal funding for any institution that does not comply within 14 days,” according to Inside Higher Ed.  

Organizations such as ACE, the School Superintendents Association, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and EdTrust told educators to “vigorously oppose the assault on our education” and disobey the department’s rule, according to The Daily Caller.   “To be abundantly clear, Dear Colleague letters are not law,” ACE’s Mitchell said at a policy briefing, according to Inside Higher Ed. “They are simply statements of intent by executive agencies about how they intend to interpret the law. And so overcompliance, anticipatory compliance, pre-emptive compliance, is not a strategy. The strategy needs to be much more considered, much more nuanced.”  

The arrogance here is obvious. These people really think they own our children and that nothing will stand in the way of their radical designs for them.   This is why we do what we do at USPIE. We expose these leftwing activists for what they are, equip parents to hold school officials accountable, and encourage parents to exercise their God-given freedom to make better choices for their children, such as homeschooling and private schooling.​​​​​​​

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