President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said he avoided politically charged “culture wars” while in office despite advocating for divisive policies such as the Title IX rewrite that would have allowed men to participate in women’s sports and use women’s facilities.
Cardona largely blamed Republicans for waging wars on the education front and claimed to have prioritized student success, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The Biden official consistently pushed unpopular policies and reportedly targeted parents that pushed back against indoctrination in schools.
“I’m not going to get distracted by culture wars,” Cardona told the AP. “It’s nonsense, and I think the people that spew it, they make a fool of themselves. I don’t need to help them.”
Cardona’s Department of Education (DOE) proposed the controversial Title IX rule change that would have expanded protections against discrimination based on an individual’s gender identity. The proposed change faced numerous legal challenges before eventually being withdrawn by the Biden Administration. The majority of parents opposed the efforts to allow men into women’s spaces, according to a recent poll by Parents Defending Education (PDE).
Cardona previously refused to answer whether he believes there are any physical differences between men and women. In 2024, he also celebrated the “transgender day of visibility” and praised transgender identified students in a video shared on X.
“To the many transgender students across the country listening on this day of trans visibility,” Cardona said, “we in the Biden-Harris Administration want you to know that we see you, we support you and we celebrate you.”
President-elect Donald Trump has vehemently opposed Biden’s efforts to undermine women’s sports.
The education chief spent much of his tenure focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, issuing multiple grants to schools to train a “diverse educator workforce.” Cardona was also allegedly behind a push to use the FBI to investigate parents who spoke out against schools that brought critical race theory and gender ideology into classrooms, reportedly calling on the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to author a letter labeling such parents as “domestic terrorists.”
The Biden Administration made several attempts to cancel mass amounts of student debt alongside Cardona, which were routinely met with pushback from Republican lawmakers and was eventually shot down by the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional. Despite this, the administration found several loopholes and was able to wipe a total of $183.6 billion in student loan debt from more than 5 million borrowers.
Cardona was also accused in July 2024 of illegally sending an “overtly political” letter to student loan holders that bashed Republicans for blocking efforts to erase hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt. Just 39% of Americans believe student debt cancellation is important, according to an AP-NORC poll released in June 2024, and roughly 12.5% of the U.S. population currently owes student loans.
Trump nominated former head of the Small Business Administration Linda McMahon in November to succeed Cardona.
The DOE did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].