For immediate release

Contact: Court Beyer, cbeyer@americanhumanist.org

(March 6, 2025, Washington, DC)  – The following is a statement from American Humanist Association Executive Director Fish Stark following media reports that President Trump plans to eliminate the federal Department of Education through executive order:

“This move by the Trump Administration won’t help America’s students, because it wasn’t meant to. Trump and Musk are continuing their slash-and-burn rampage against the federal government, consequences be damned. Even putting aside the blatant illegality of this executive order, eliminating the Department of Education is a new low.

“Dismantling the Department of Education–a civil rights agency–will immediately harm the country’s 26 million low-income students, our 7.5 million students with disabilities, and our 15 million nonreligious students. Ultimately, the impact will be felt by all 50 million young people who rely on public schools after they have had their education privatized and sold to the highest (and likely Christian Nationalist) bidder. That’s immoral. And it tells us more of what we already know: Trump and his Christian nationalist cronies don’t care about Americans, they care about power.

“Children are worthy of our attention, care, and support simply by nature of being. And their education is not disposable. Humanists will not sit idly by while the uniquely-American promise of a free, secular, and excellent education – a right American humanists have fought for over generations – is torn away from children.”

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The American Humanist Association (AHA) works to protect the rights of humanists, atheists, and other nontheistic Americans. The AHA advances the ethical and life-affirming worldview of humanism, which—without beliefs in gods or other supernatural forces—encourages individuals to live informed and meaningful lives that aspire to the greater good of humanity.