Donald Trump announced he’s tapped former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) impresario Linda McMahon to head up the Department of Education (DOE) in his second term.
“And, in further ‘apparently not a joke’ news, Linda McMahon of the WWE for Secretary of Education. LULZ PWNED as a theory of governance, I guess,” posted McGill University professor of political theory Jacob T. Levy on Bluesky, summing up the mood around Trump’s latest provocative cabinet pick.
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McMahon will lead the effort to roll back protections the Biden administration established for LGBTQ+ youth, and in particular trans students, who benefited from his DOE’s interpretation of Title IX’s prohibition against sex-based discrimination to include transgender people.
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“Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform announcing McMahon’s nomination.
“Choice” refers to using public taxpayer dollars to fund private for-profit schools that can reject students for any reason and avoid all government oversight. Doing so is a major aim of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian activists. Voters in three states defeated school voucher ballot initiatives in the November elections. Studies have found that not all areas have private schools and that taxpayer-funded vouchers mostly benefit wealthy families whose students already attend such schools.
The president-elect described McMahon, who headed up the Small Business Administration in his first term, as a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights,” adding, “We will send education BACK TO THE STATES and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
Trump was clear about his plans for the DOE on the campaign trail, claiming he’d abolish every job at the Cabinet-level agency except for the head of the department and the secretary’s secretary. The DOE provides 10% of K-12 funding, enforces civil rights laws in schools, and runs a $1.6 trillion federal student loan program. To officially eliminate the department, Trump would need congressional approval.
McMahon, 76, has been deeply involved in advancing MAGA policy in her role as chair of the board at the America First Policy Institute, founded in 2021 to promote Trump’s public policy agenda in the wake of his election loss to President Joe Biden. She raised $83 million through her America First Action super PAC for Trump in 2020.
The former wrestling executive has minimal experience in the education field. She served for two years on the Connecticut Board of Education and for 16 years as a member of the board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University, a private, Roman Catholic school in Fairfield, Connecticut.
McMahon’s past history as a wrestling mogul, along with her on-camera appearances battling WWE superstars like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, have been both a distraction from her MAGA bona fides and one more source of scandal among Trump’s cabinet picks.
Donald Trump taps former WWE executive Linda McMahon to serve as education secretary.
McMahon is a co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team and headed the Small Business Administration during his first presidency.
Separate civil suits were filed against McMahon and her husband and WWE co-founder Vince McMahon in October by five anonymous plaintiffs who once worked as “ring boys,” teenagers who helped set up WWE events, the Washington Post reports. The plaintiffs claimed the couple allowed them to be sexually abused by other high-ranking WWE employees.
The McMahons are currently separated. Linda McMahon left the organization in 2009.
Trump’s education policy pitch boiled down to a false claim that schools around the country are “taking” kids and performing “operations” on them. “There are some places your boy leaves the school, comes back a girl,” Trump insisted repeatedly on the campaign trail, even though it’s a flat-out lie.
Republicans oppose Biden’s Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students
The Biden administration’s trans-inclusive interpretation of Title IX has already met fierce resistance in red state legislatures and school districts. The revised rules, unveiled in April, rely on the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which said that laws forbidding sex-based discrimination include sexual orientation and gender identity.
In August, a Texas judge ruled the court “declares unlawful the interpretation in the Guidance Documents as well as in any future agency action that the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX include sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Texas is one of 26 states that has blocked enforcement of the DOE’s rules, and Republican attorneys general have sued the DOE for trying to enforce them.
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