Newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon during a cabinet meeting at the White House last week. Al Drago/CNP/Zuma
In President Donald Trump’s meritocracy, you apparently don’t need much educational experience to run the Department of Education.
The Republican-controlled Senate on Monday confirmed former wrestling exec and billionaire Linda McMahon as the next Secretary of Education. With a demonstrated lack of knowledge about even the most basic education laws and policies, McMahon is now the head of a department that Trump has called a “big con job” that he hopes to dismantle.
The Senate voted 51-45 to confirm McMahon after Democrats spent hours opposing the confirmation and a pending bill to ban trans girls and women from women’s sports from kindergarten through college. After confirming McMahon, Senate Republicans immediately, and ultimately unsuccessfully, moved to end debate on the bill, which would codify Trump’s change to Title IX that classifies trans-inclusive athletic policies as sex discrimination.
Created by Congress in 1979, the Department of Education is one of the largest agencies in the federal government, responsible for the disbursement of tens of billions of dollars each year for everything from preschool readiness programs to grants for low-income college students and school funding for students with disabilities. It holds more than $1.5 trillion in federal student loans from 43 million borrowers. It’s also responsible for ensuring that schools comply with a variety of federal laws, including Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination, and Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.
“We need a Secretary of Education who will put students first, not billionaires, who will stand up for our students—every single one of them—even if it means standing up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on the Senate floor. “Linda McMahon fails to make the grade.”
Best known as the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and a major Trump donor alongside her since-separated husband Vince, McMahon’s experience in education is limited. She worked for a semester as a student teacher while studying at Eastern Carolina University, served for a year in 2009 on the Connecticut State Board of Education (which ended after the Hartford Courant discovered she falsely claimed to have an education degree), and spent more than a decade on the board of a private Catholic university. She unsuccessfully ran for US Senate in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012. During the first Trump administration, she served as the administrator of the Small Business Administration, resigning in 2019 to join the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.
“We need a Secretary of Education who will put students first, not billionaires, who will stand up for our students—every single one of them—even if it means standing up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”
According to Senate Republicans, McMahon’s business track record matters much more than her skimpy experience in education.
“I know that some people feel the Secretary of Education should have extensive experience in a school system. However, it is important to remember that education is still mostly a state and local responsibility,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “The job is to manage a bureaucracy who [stet] runs a number of funding programs.”
During her confirmation hearing in February, McMahon largely defended Trump’s vision for education in America, affirming her dedication to the expansion of school choice programs and following the administration’s interpretation of federal anti-discrimination laws—such as using Title IX to investigate schools that allow trans women and girls to play girls’ sports. As I reported:
Between outbursts from protesters at the Senate hearing—most of whom identified themselves as teachers—McMahon did not say whether she supports Trump’s plan to get rid of the department. She vowed that important programs protected by statute, such as the Title I program for high-poverty schools, Pell Grants, and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, would continue.
But she also expressed support for downsizing the department and suggested that other federal departments and agencies might be able to oversee key education-related programs. For example, she said the department’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces federal anti-discrimination laws including Title VI and Title IX, might be better managed by the Department of Justice. Disabled students might have their funding and protections overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, she suggested.
When asked about choosing between upholding the law—for example, administering education funds already appropriated by Congress—and carrying out Trump’s directives, McMahon said that “the president will not ask me to do anything that is against the law.” She repeatedly asserted that defunding federal educational programs is not the Trump administration’s goal—ignoring Musk’s directive to slash funding, cancel grants, and end contracts.
“I believe the American people spoke loudly in the election last November to say they do want to look at waste, fraud and abuse in our government,” McMahon told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, suggesting Musk’s budget cuts amount to an “audit.”
As for questions about multiple education laws, including the Every Student Succeeds Act, one of the major laws governing K-12 public schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, McMahon was unable to reply. When Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) asked McMahon about Title IX, the nominee mischaracterized the policy and incorrectly stated that under the 2020 Trump rules, colleges are obligated to investigate off-campus sexual assaults. (In fact, those rules expressly forbid universities from investigating off-campus assaults.) Her difficulty in demonstrating some understanding of the foundational laws and policies affecting education prompted groups including the National Education Association and the National Center for Learning Disabilities to condemn her nomination. After the hearing, nearly 100 civil rights organizations penned a letter urging senators to reject McMahon.
“McMahon’s defense that she hopes to learn on the job what is required of a Secretary of Education would be a disqualifying answer in any environment,” the letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights read. “In this moment, when the threats to education are so overwhelming, and when so much damage has already been done in the first few weeks of this new administration, McMahon’s response is even more alarming.”
Along with nearly every federal agency, the Education Department has been upended since Trump took office. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has canceled nearly $1 billion in contracts, mostly affecting the department’s nonpartisan research arm that provides schools and states with valuable information about school performance. DOGE asserts that its calculations result in only about $450 million in savings. Dozens of department employees, including civil rights investigators, have been fired. In a prelude to a “very significant” workforce reduction, on Friday afternoon, the department’s top human resources official offered remaining employees a $25,000 buyout if they resigned by midnight on Monday, according to Politico.
“McMahon’s defense that she hopes to learn on the job what is required of a Secretary of Education would be a disqualifying answer in any environment.”
Meanwhile, the department has shut down income-driven repayment plans for student loan borrowers for at least three months. These plans tailor monthly loan payments to a person’s discretionary income and offer the lowest monthly payments compared to other plans. It has stopped investigations into race- and gender-based discrimination. In furthering Trump’s targeting of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the department gave schools until the end of February to halt initiatives that, in its view, unlawfully discriminate to achieve “nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity.” The memo, which the department admits holds no legal weight, faces a legal challenge. Still, colleges across the United States have shuttered diversity offices and scrubbed all DEI references from their websites rather than risk federal funding.
But it’s not as if McMahon has not invested in education. According to her December 2024 financial disclosure report, she holds millions of dollars worth of bonds issued to colleges and school districts across the country. Within 90 days, she’ll divest from more than 75 such bonds, most of which explicitly relate to education, she has said. Her ethics report also notes that she’ll resign from several boards, including those of America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank; the right-wing dark money group America First Works; Sacred Heart University, and the Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social.
“[Trump] pledged to make American education the best in the world, return education to the states where it belongs, and free American students from the education bureaucracy through school choice,” McMahon said at her confirmation hearing. “November proved that Americans overwhelmingly support the president’s vision, and I am ready to enact it.”
