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Trump Made a DEI “Snitch Form” for Public Schools. Trolls Have Big Plans
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Trump Made a DEI “Snitch Form” for Public Schools. Trolls Have Big Plans [www.them.us]:
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The Department of Education — which President Trump has promised to dismantle — launched a portal [ed.gov] last week that allows the public to anonymously report publicly funded K-12 schools for doing anything that could be perceived as promoting diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI).
A press release [ed.gov] announcing the portal quotes the far-right anti-LGBTQ+ organization Moms for Liberty and describes DEI activities as “discrimination based on race or sex in publicly-funded K-12 schools.” The site debuted on February 27 and quickly drew the attention of social media users who had their own suggestions about what kinds of things to submit.
Beth Lewis, the director of Save Our Schools Arizona, called the hotline a “snitch line for diversity” on her X account. “Would be a crying shame if people reported all of the discrimination happening in AZ’s state-funded private schools,” she wrote alongside a winky-face tongue-out emoji.
“ED is asking parents to ‘snitch’ on teachers they perceive to be ‘divisive,’” the Committee on Education and Workforce Democrats wrote on X. “This does not protect students' civil rights. This only sows division and fear."
Over on BlueSky [bsky.app], University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mann, who serves as the director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, wrote, “I believe Hitler had a program like this.”
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, spoke out explicitly against Moms for Liberty being cited in the portal’s official launch. “The fact that Trump’s — bigoted, extremist — effort to end diversity, inclusion, & equity in schools uses Moms for Liberty as its only validation tells you everything you need to know,” she wrote on X. “The same M4L that approvingly quoted Hitler & has deep ties to violent groups like the Proud Boys."
The site debuted shortly before the Senate confirmed [cbsnews.com] former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who can be seen here on the receiving end of a Stone Cold Stunner [youtube.com], as the new secretary for the Department of Education. After running the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, McMahon went on to lead the America First Policy Institute [www.them.us], a far-right anti-trans group that has said it is “fighting back” against “radical gender ideology [americafirstpolicy.com].”
Trump has repeatedly during his presidential campaign promised to shut down the Department of Education and has said he wants McMahon to “put herself out of a job,” according to CBS News [cbsnews.com]. Eliminating the Department of Education was a cornerstone of Project 2025 [www.them.us].
As of this writing, the anti-DEI “snitch” page reads “Schools should be focused on learning” at the top, followed by a statement saying that the DOE is “committed to ensuring all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination.”
It continues, “This submission form is an outlet for students, parents, teachers, and the broader community to report illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning. The Department of Education will utilize community submissions to identify potential areas for investigation.”
The form requires a person to provide an email address, the school or school district as well as its zip code, and includes an open-ended response box to describe the alleged DEI practice.
In the official press release announcing the portal, the Trump administration included a statement from Moms for Liberty [www.them.us], which has been instrumental in leading the exploding number of anti-LGBTQ+ book bans nationwide in recent years.
“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies—but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” Moms for Liberty co-found Tiffany Justice said in the government press release. “Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents.”
Though at least one outlet [thepinknews.com] has reported that the portal has been shut down after being flooded with emails, the portal was live as of Tuesday morning. As has happened in the past with right-wing efforts to create anonymous submission lines to report transgender people using the bathroom, among other “snitch” forms, social media users are finding creative ways to respond. In the past, queer people have flooded these types of inboxes — which have been set up in Utah [www.them.us], in Texas [www.them.us] and in Missouri [mo.gov] — with unrelated ephemera, especially the script for the 2007 animated film Bee Movie, which is widely available online, even in the form of a Spotify playlist [spotify.com]. The anti-DEI snitch form currently accepts 450 words at a time; the script to Bee Movie is approximately 14,000 words.
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