The head of Michigan’s board of education said the state will not be following President Donald Trump’s executive order demanding schools stop teaching radical gender ideology and Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Trump’s Jan. 29 order strips schools that refuse to halt these lessons of federal funding. Michael Rice, superintendent of the Michigan board of education said in an interview with Chalkbeat that his state is committed to teaching the topics in K-12 schools anyway.
“In Michigan, it is unlawful to discriminate against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” Rice said in a letter sent to local school superintendents on Thursday in response to the order. “Neither a presidential executive order nor federal regulations, whether related to federal funding or not, can supersede or otherwise set aside our obligation to comply with a validly enacted state anti-discrimination law. State civil rights law remains the law.”
Rice cited a 2023 statistic that nearly 25% of public high school students in the state “identify as LGBTQ+.”
The Department of Education has already begun dismantling DEI within its walls, scrubbing hundreds of documents from its website outlining DEI practices, dissolving DEI teams, halting DEI trainings and placing several staff on administrative leave.
“LGBTQ+ students do not disappear just because websites are scrubbed of LGBTQ+ content,” Rice continued in the letter. “Despite attempts to redefine language and delete pages from federal websites, LGBTQ+ students remain a valued part of Michigan schools and communities and deserve to be supported.”
Trump has also signed orders declaring the federal recognition of only two genders, banning federal funds from going towards the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children and prohibiting men from competing in women’s sports.
The Biden administration poured millions into DEI initiatives, working to entrench topics focusing on “LGBTQ inclusion” and “anti-racism and anti-oppression” into schools. It also attempted to redefine Title IX, which protects women from discrimination, to include gender identity, which would have allowed men to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and participate in women’s sports.
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