I know something about standing up to the authoritarian impulses of the MAGA movement. I resigned as Kentucky’s commissioner of education in late 2023 rather than enforce the GOP-dominated state legislature’s shameful law aimed at erasing and marginalizing LGBTQ+ students.
The Trump administration has escalated these attacks from hostile rhetoric directed toward students and K-12 and higher education to putting policies in place that are not just disruptive, but outright harmful — especially to the most vulnerable students.
Across the country, education leaders are being forced to make some tough decisions — to choose between defending core values, such as equity and historical truth, or yielding to political coercion in hopes of avoiding conflict. There is no strategy that does not involve conflict and trade-offs. Every education leader operates in their own political context with unique legal and cultural constraints.
But make no mistake: Inaction is not neutral. Even the decision to do nothing is a choice, one that has consequences.
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Among the Trump administration’s more recent demands is that state education chiefs dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives or lose federal funding. Insisting that they pledge to do so is more than just an egregious federal overreach into state and local control. It is a direct threat to the values around access, opportunity and truth that our schools are meant to uphold. And it’s not the only threat.
Other MAGA-aligned efforts include dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, stripping protections from students with disabilities, criminalizing support for LGBTQ+ youth and censoring instructional content deemed “anti-American” — including teachings on race, gender and historical injustice.
In the face of this, educators have no easy path forward. But we do have choices. And what we choose now will shape the future of our institutions and our nation for years to come.
The most passive choice is disengagement: turning away from national politics to attend to the mechanics of education, focusing on instruction, operations, student events.
Getting education leaders and their students to disengage has been an implicit goal of the MAGA education movement.
In turbulent times, the education leader’s instinct to shield students, families and staff from external chaos is understandable. Disengagement can preserve short-term stability and offer a temporary sense of peace for leaders, students and educational communities under pressure.
While recent protests suggest some awakening, the administration’s daily stream of democratic affronts is having a numbing effect. Many Americans are fatigued and tuning out. A similar dynamic has long existed in Putin’s Russia, where citizens retreated from public life, prioritizing private concerns as authoritarianism solidified around them.
A second option is vigilance — a wait-and-see approach. Many of the administration’s proclamations appear to contradict federal or state law or basic constitutional protections.
Many exasperated Americans, including educators, hope the courts will hold and intervene. Perhaps future elections will correct the course. Or perhaps the administration won’t be able to follow through and execute some of the threats they are making. Vigilance allows leaders to conserve resources and avoid premature battles while assessing what will actually be enforced.
But like disengagement, vigilance is reactive and passive. It can leave vulnerable students unprotected, and it sends a muted signal to communities looking for leadership. By waiting for the right moment and issue on which to engage and challenge authoritarianism, we risk waiting until it’s too late to stop it.
Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department and more
A third option is capitulation — compliance, whether out of fear or pragmatism. We’ve seen this clearly in recent decisions by Columbia University and several prominent law firms, which caved to Trump administration pressure to eliminate DEI policies or face financial retaliation and Kafkaesque bureaucratic oversight.
For school leaders, the temptation to capitulate is real, especially when federal dollars fund essential programs for at-risk students. Capitulation may mean gutting DEI offices to avoid scrutiny or rewriting curriculum to fit a government-approved narrative. But in any form, it’s a retreat from our professional and ethical responsibilities.
Sometimes, capitulation happens without even being asked. Historian Timothy Snyder calls this “anticipatory obedience” — the impulse to surrender freedom preemptively in the hope of avoiding punishment.
The appeasement that comes from capitulation does not prevent harm — it invites more. Like giving in to any form of extortion, we just show our tormentors that they have an effective tool for control and manipulation.
The final option is resistance.
Resistance can take many forms: refusing to comply with unconstitutional directives, issuing public statements defending inclusion, organizing your community to protect vulnerable students.
For me — and for many other public servants — resistance is not a political gesture. It is a moral obligation.
Authoritarian regimes depend on the quiet cooperation of public servants. When education leaders stay silent while the government targets marginalized students or attempts to erase historical truths, we become complicit.
Resistance carries risk. School districts and campuses may lose funding. Leaders who stand up should expect to face attacks — political, professional, even physical — from MAGA-aligned extremists, the far-right media or Trump administration sycophants. As authoritarianism advances, the costs of dissent become more real and more personal.
I have been inspired by the principled courage of higher education leaders such as Princeton’s Christopher Eisgruber and Harvard’s Alan Garber, who have stood firm in the face of Trump’s demands and are clear-eyed about the consequences that may follow, and by state K-12 education chiefs who are refusing to pledge to Education Secretary McMahon that they will end DEI-related programs in local schools.
As education leaders consider their options in responding to the Trump administration’s increasingly authoritarian actions, we must also ask: What is the cost of not resisting? What happens when educators stop defending students and start enabling oppression?
Authoritarianism thrives when people bend. It crumbles when they hold firm. For our republic to survive, education leaders must be among those who hold firm.
Our children are watching.
Jason E. Glass is associate vice president for teaching and learning at Western Michigan University. He previously served as state education chief in Kentucky and Iowa, and as a school superintendent in Colorado.
Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].
This story about education leaders’ response to authoritarianism was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
