Trump Administration

By Suzanne Potter, California News Service

March 9, 2025 (Los Angeles) -- The American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association are suing the Trump administration over a threat of funding cuts and investigations of schools that integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into their policies or lessons.
The letter schools received purports to reinforce anti-discrimination laws - but casts efforts to hire or help disadvantaged people of color as a form of discrimination.
Roderick Castro, assistant superintendent of educational services at Santa Rosa City Schools, noted that the letter criticizes using race as a factor in hiring and training.
"A letter like this is basically giving them the directive to abandon those," said Castro. "That cuts us off at the knees. We're looking for educators to be more representative of the students that are in the classrooms. It's a blow, more of a gut punch, to us."
The letter is critical of courses that involve certain racial groups. Castro said ethnic studies classes rightly lift up students' cultural heritage.
And he said he thinks teachers and students should be free to examine the facts about topics like slavery or civil rights.
Schools were given until last Friday to comply with the Trump administration's anti-DEI directive, and many colleges are pulling back, even reevaluating campus groups like the Black Student Union.
Chuck Flores, PhD, is an associate professor of educational administration at California State University-Los Angeles and UCLA - and teaches social justice and educational leadership at Cal State LA.
"We have to provide an open forum for all people of all races to discuss what it is that we need to achieve as a country," said Flores. "Eliminating DEI doesn't really go in that direction. I just feel that we're going down a dark hole we're not going to be able to pull out of, if people don't wake up and start taking a stand for what's right."
The letter from the Department of Education also says diversity and social justice are not valid reasons to take race or a proxy for race into account for admissions and financial aid.

By S.E. Michael

Photos: CC via Bing

February 27, 2025 (San Diego) -- Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress ran on a pro-life platform. But it’s clear from recent actions of the Trump administration that its leaders don’t care about babies. Its actions are putting lives and wellbeing of millions of infants and children at risk, both around the world and here in the U.S.

Cutting off U.S. Aid including food in famine-stricken areas, clean water and medical supplies without notice, for instance, means that “millions of children will suffer and thousands may die” around the world, according to an analysis by First Funding for Children. Ships laden with food were prohibited from unloading, leaving food to rot rather than save lives of starving children, CBS reports. The United Nations warns of “mass death” in Sudan from starvation and is seeking donations after the U.S. abruptly cut off all aid.

Similarly, Republicans’ Congressional budget cuts to Medicaid, school lunch programs, and the child tax credit will all harm children.

Mass federal firings by the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) include workers who ran childcare and Head Start programs and also ended a program to improve maternal healthcare for pregnant women, threatening the wellbeing of their unborn  babies.

Cuts to medical research will “will limit access to effective health care treatments and diagnostics for patients” and “threaten the ability of children’s hospitals to provide future groundbreaking cures for children,” according to a press release from the organization representing children’s hospitals.

Robert F. Kennedy Junior, the anti-vaxxer named Secretary of Health and Human Services, is considering changing recommendations for childhood vaccines such as measles and polio, an action that if carried out could put children at risk of dying or being left paralyzed from devastating and preventable childhood diseases.

The Trump administration is also pushing to deport undocumented children who entered the U.S. alone, putting their lives and safety at risk and to cut off infant assistance funds for migrant babies, as well as legal assistance for unaccompanied minors.

Cuts to the department of Education, which Trump eventually hopes to eliminate, would harm children with disabilities, PBS reports. NBC reports that if Trump is successful in eliminating the department of Education, it would harm the most vulnerable students,  such as by ending federal funding of schools, increasing class sizes for all public school students, eliminating federal funding for students with disabilities, ending civil rights protections for minority students, and grants to assure equal access to education for all children.

Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse is best accomplished by a careful, extended examination of individual programs—not slashing and eliminating entire programs and departments such as USAid and the Department of Education, nor gutting funds for children’s health research and successful childhood vaccine programs, nor eliminating childcare options for working parents, or taking away all protections for vulnerable immigrant children unaccompanied by parents or guardians.

These are politics of cruelty, not compassion. If you care about the lives of babies and children, now is the time to speak out and let your elected members of Congress know that policies harming children are unacceptable and must change.

S.E. Michael has written about medical issues for trade journals and newspapers, and is the parent of child cured of a life-threatening condition through a procedure at a children’s hospital made possible by federally funded medical research.

The opinions in this article reflect the views of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. To submit an editorial for consideration, contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org