Trump signed EO 14242 directing closure of the Department of Education, ordering Secretary McMahon to facilitate shutdown

On March 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14242, "Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities" (90 FR 13679), directing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities." The order characterized the department as an entrenched federal bureaucracy whose "main functions can, and should, be returned to the States." Section 2(b) additionally directed McMahon to condition all federal education funds on "rigorous compliance" with the administration's interpretation of anti-discrimination law, including termination of DEI programs as a condition of continued federal funding.

The Department of Education was established by Congress in 1979 under the Department of Education Organization Act (Pub. L. 96-88, codified at 20 U.S.C. § 3411), signed by President Carter. Closing or abolishing a statutory Cabinet department requires congressional action — a president cannot dissolve by executive order an agency that Congress created in law. The EO included the phrase "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law," language legal scholars identified as designed to slow judicial challenge by framing the closure directive as aspirational rather than unilateral. The order became the governing legal authority for subsequent reduction-in-force notices, mass layoffs of department personnel, and the transfer of agency functions that followed throughout 2025.

EO 14242 is the originating directive for the administration's campaign to hollow out and dismantle the Department of Education through administrative action rather than legislation. Subsequent entries in this archive document the implementation of that campaign, including the June 2026 transfer of the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to HHS.