Making Schools Great Again Thanks to Trump

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“Back to school” feels different this year, thanks to President Trump’s executive orders that remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Trump is also restoring the presidential fitness test that Democrats had removed.

Big-name colleges, including the University of Michigan and Columbia University, have shut down or scaled back their DEI centers due to concerns about Trump pulling federal funding from the school. Meanwhile, under Trump’s leadership, colleges in red states like Texas, Florida, and Kansas have ended their DEI programs to comply with state laws.

Five months ago, Trump’s Department of Education ordered public schools to eliminate their DEI programs or lose federal funding. School districts for the K-12 level were told to certify that they no longer have DEI programs, while universities were informed they would lose federal funding if they refuse to terminate their DEI.

Trump officials gave public schools two weeks to comply. Instead, many blue states ran to federal court to seek an injunction against Trump, and on August 14 federal judge Stephanie Gallagher invalidated and blocked the anti-DEI letters by Trump’s Education Department.

Judge Gallagher was initially nominated by President Obama to the federal bench and, possibly as part of an unfortunate compromise, subsequently renominated by Trump in 2018. Her 76-page decision in AFT v. Dept. of Education complained that Trump had “initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct.”

A “sea change” in education is exactly what Americans wanted when they returned Trump to the White House, to focus on teaching basic skills rather than indoctrinating children with a liberal ideology. An appeal is likely of this decision in favor of Randi Weingarten’s teachers union.

The percentage of students who are in traditional public schools has declined to 83%, or about 50 million kids, as parents flee from school failures. Homeschooling is growing and may increase further with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve online learning.

Effective September 1, a new law in Texas (SB 12) prohibits DEI in public schools there and requires parents to be notified if their child requests to be referred to by a different pronoun. Texas bans school clubs “based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

In May Texas also enacted an immense school voucher program, which provides $10,000 per student to attend an accredited private school instead of a public school, and up to $2,000 apiece for homeschooled children.

But this program does not begin until fall 2026, and is initially capped at $1 billion. Some conservative legislators from rural Texas who opposed splintering their school system with this were defeated by Gov. Abbott in order to enact this voucher program.

Democrat-controlled Illinois goes in the opposite direction, by lowering its proficiency standards without giving families enough options. Trump has threatened to take over Chicago to end the crime epidemic there, and it would be tantalizing if he could take over the Chicago public schools, too.

Even the editorial board of the liberal Chicago Tribune is complaining now about how Democrat politicians are lowering the proficiency standards there. Its August 22 headline shouted, “Illinois moves the goalposts on reading, math and science.”

“Now, scoring an 18 in English language arts and a 19 in math on the ACT will count as ‘proficient’ for high school juniors.” But an 18 is below the national average and far below the score of 30 to 34 that most freshmen at the University of Illinois attain.

Missouri enacted a statewide ban on all personal cell phones, smart watches, headphones, and tablets by public school students, with limited exceptions such as emergencies. School districts and teachers are welcoming this law and its implementation for this school year.

As to physical fitness, President Obama ended that test for public school students in 2012, which Trump is restoring so that students can again be asked to run a mile or do situps and pushups to demonstrate their physical fitness. For more than 50 years this test was given to public school students annually in gymnasiums.

Obama’s termination of the fitness test was part of the harmful shift away from competition and individual merit in education. The Democrat Party has abandoned the vision of President John F. Kennedy, who sought a stronger America and even wrote an essay for Sports Illustrated entitled “The Soft American.”

Trump inherits a nation of children who are badly out of shape, obese, and plagued by health problems. At least 20% of schoolchildren are obese, according to the CDC, and 77% of young adults are unfit to serve in the United States Armed Forces.

Chronic absenteeism has shot up to 25% of students in some school districts. A quarter of student enrollment did not show up for more than 10% of the school days last year.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

GOP Should Prioritize Ending Election Fraud

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Sandwiched between Trump’s high-powered meetings with foreign leaders, Trump took the time to prioritize ending fraud-prone mail-in voting. Slightly more than half of our country – 28 states – permit mail-in voting without any documented reason or excuse.

Earlier this month, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho began his decision in favor of a voter ID law in Texas by declaring, “Mail-in ballots are not secure.” The vast majority of the world agrees and has banned the permissive mail-in voting that is allowed here.

Our postal service was never intended to conduct elections – that is not its mission. The delivery standards of our postal service have been declining, such that postmarks are no longer consistently used and letters are no longer reliably received within 3 days of being mailed.

Like the designated hitter rule in baseball that many traditional fans oppose, a team needs to use what is allowed in order to win. Campaigns should encourage Republicans to vote early, including by mail, in states that allow it, while also seeking a return to Election Day-only voting for everyone to improve election integrity.

Federal law has long required that national elections be held on only one day, and our country would be better off with a return to that gold standard for everyone. As the Fifth Circuit explained on August 4 by quoting from a report by the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

Yet liberals are in a tizzy over Trump’s new push against mail-in voting, and stories about it have displaced news about Trump’s meetings with foreign leaders. The liberal media doubts that Trump can end mail-in voting by executive order, as Trump indicates he will do.

Democrats insist there is no evidence that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud, but they have blocked attempts by Republicans to audit signatures on mail-in ballots to check for authenticity. Some have destroyed records concerning the flood of mail-in ballots used in 2020 to elect Biden.

The Republican-controlled Congress has failed to hold hearings on this important issue, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has failed to investigate it. Instead, Republicans like Trump’s chief of staff in 2020, Mark Meadows, remain under indictment by a Democrat county prosecutor in Georgia for questioning the massive number of mail-in ballots counted in favor of Biden to surprisingly award him that state in 2020.

Since 2020, 19 states have enacted restrictions on mail-in voting. A surge of 33 million mail-in ballots in 2020 was used to elect Biden, and there has never been a real investigation as to the legitimacy of that massive spike, which was not seen again in 2024.

“REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY,” Trump posted Monday morning prior to his high-profile meeting with European leaders. Trump is impressed by how other countries have long prohibited mail-in voting “because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.”

As nearly half of our country limited mail-in ballots in the 2024 election, Kamala Harris received 6.3 million fewer votes than Biden did four years earlier. At the same time, Trump received 3 million more votes in 2024 than in 2020.

The Harris campaign spent $1.5 billion in 2024, which included paying for ballot harvesters, yet there is little explanation of what all that money funded. House Republicans and the DOJ should be investigating this, but have failed to.

“We, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots,” Trump responded to reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’re going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots.”

DOJ has spent tens of millions of dollars investigating critics of the reported election outcome in 2020, and yet apparently not a dime has been spent by DOJ on investigating rampant ballot harvesting and drop-box ballot dumps in 2020. There has been no investigation to explain the 6.3 million votes for the Democrat presidential nominee that disappeared between 2020 and 2024.

Trump’s opponents say that Germany and a few other Western countries allow mail-in voting, but only with stricter rules than in the United States such as Germany’s requirement that ballots be received by Election Day to be counted. France banned mail-in voting due to fraud, and most other European, Middle Eastern, and Latin American nations also prohibit it.

In too many of our states, mail-in signatures are not verified and ballots are accepted until 14 days after Election Day. Paid political operatives continue to have far too much influence over the harvesting of ballots.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

POTUS Trial Balloon on Pot

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

On Monday, President Trump floated a trial balloon to downgrade the federal ban on marijuana, and cannabis stocks skyrocketed by 25-40% on the news. This pro-marijuana change is something that the pot industry had hoped Biden would do for them, but never expected it from the Republican side.

Last November, 4 out of 5 Republican states defeated heavily funded ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana, with more than 75% of Trump’s supporters voting against the drug. Someone is giving Trump bad advice by encouraging him to give a shot in the arm to cannabis, which is the name preferred by marijuana dealers.

Marijuana farms are magnets for illegal aliens, and also exploiters of forced child labor. Last month a raid by Homeland Security at two of these farms in California netted the arrest of 361 illegal aliens, who included criminals convicted of rape, serial burglary, DUIs, and hit-and-run.

Federal law enforcement agents had to overcome more than 500 rioters who tried to block these arrests, one of whom shot at the agents while other protesters damaged vehicles. A total of 14 children were found working at these two locations.

The marijuana farms had licenses to operate, but there are many thousands of illegal marijuana farms today. In California, most of the licenses granted to grow marijuana have gone inactive, as the illegal grows run by criminal gangs have infiltrated the supply of pot.

Despite the proliferation of crime, much of it by illegal aliens, Trump is being pressured to reclassify marijuana as a less harmful Schedule III drug, like steroids or Tylenol with codeine. Currently marijuana is classified by the federal government in Schedule I, which is the category of drugs including cocaine that are prohibited for any purpose.

This reclassification by the federal government would enable marijuana sellers to take tax deductions for their business expenses, such as television and internet advertising. IRS Code Section 280E prohibits Schedule I drug dealers from deducting business expenses other than the cost of goods sold, and if this changes then pot promotion will become pervasive.

The potency of marijuana has sharply increased since a generation ago, as its THC content grew by 21% between 1995 and 2015 alone. A 2022 study found that 12% of drug-related emergency department visits were due to marijuana, most often for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, which is severe stomach pain and vomiting that afflicts long-term consumers of the drug.

The CDC warns that 30% of marijuana users develop cannabis use disorder, which includes an increased likelihood of “problems with attention, memory, and learning” and reckless car-driving while under the influence of the drug. Like many addictions, there is a never-ending increased craving in desperation by marijuana users for more to attain the same “high” as before.

Voters in Oklahoma rejected legalizing marijuana for recreational use in 2023, while the state has been overrun by 3,000 illegal farms controlled by Chinese gangs, to export this weed to other states. Two months ago Oklahoma’s Attorney General announced a drug bust of 40,723 marijuana plants and more than 1,000 pounds of processed marijuana.

While there has been talk about prohibiting the purchase of American farmland by China, the expansion of marijuana farms is a greater problem. In addition to Oklahoma, the States of California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Oregon all have a problem with Chinese gangs controlling marijuana operations.

Legalizing or downgrading the classification of pot was not a campaign promise by Trump, but was instead an idea raised by a donor at a fundraising event in Bedminster, New Jersey, one of the liberal states that has legalized this harmful drug. Trump’s NJ country club is not surrounded by the pot operations and their foul odor that have driven people away from California, Oregon, and Colorado.

Californians complain about the “sewer-like” smell of marijuana as it has taken over the Golden State in the last decade, without any redeeming benefits. Earlier this year the Cathedral City town council adopted a moratorium on any expansion or new opening of a cannabis business because the “disgusting” odor has diminished the quality of life for residents and harms the environment.

The proliferation of illegal cannabis farms, which become impossible to stop once marijuana is embraced, has led to rampant use of harmful pesticides and chemicals that are unlawfully dumped directly into the environment to contaminate groundwater. Yet liberal environmentalists are mostly silent about this.

Two weeks ago, New York City announced that it would refuse to renew the licenses of more than 100 marijuana dispensaries that are illegally operating within 500 feet of a school. By April, D.C. authorities had closed 50 illegal dispensaries in its pot market exceeding $4 million in monthly sales, and these drugs may have worsened its crime epidemic.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Governors Harbor Fugitive Texas Legislators

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The exodus of more than 50 Democrat members of the Texas House to block a quorum in Austin is bad enough. Even worse is how the Democrat Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has promised them safe harbor, appearing with them at a press conference on Tuesday while declaring “we’ll do everything we can to support” them as they violate Texas law.

Control of the U.S. House for the second half of the Trump Administration hangs in the balance, as the redistricting map to be voted on in Austin would give Republicans a good chance of winning 5 of the 13 Texas congressional seats now held by Democrats. Illinois already gerrymandered its House maps to help Democrats win 14 out of its 17 seats, so it is hypocritical for them to allege unfairness in Texas doing what Illinois did.

Perhaps Illinois was chosen because its Democrat governor owns the Chicago Hyatt hotel, which has offered rooms to these Texas Democrats while they violate Texas law. At a press conference near Chicago on Tuesday, Pritzker denied that he was writing them checks – yet.

Trump observed on Tuesday morning that “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas. And we are entitled to five more seats” in Congress from Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated on Monday, “Any Democrat who ‘solicits, accepts or agrees to accept’ … funds to assist in the violation of legislative duties or for purposes of skipping a vote may have violated bribery laws.” Abbott added that any person who “offers, confers or agrees to confer” money to the Democrats who left could also be charged with a crime.

In 2021, Democrat House members likewise fled Austin to frustrate a quorum, in order to block passage of new voting integrity measures including voter ID. That blockade lasted through the first and into the second special session, when three Houston Democrats returned while giving the pandemic as their reason, a quorum was established, and the bill passed. A court struck it down, but on Monday the appeals court ruled that it easily complies with federal law.

In the Texas House a quorum requires the presence of two-thirds, or 100, of the 150 representatives. The legislative session on Monday fell eight votes short of a quorum.

Civil arrest warrants were then ordered under Texas law because of the dereliction of duty by Democrats, but these warrants are enforceable only in Texas. The governors of states where they can be located could approve an extradition request, but they all fled to states having Democrat governors vowing to protect them against extradition.

Democrat Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said, “We recognized when we got on the plane that we’re in this for the long haul.” Fellow Texas Democrat Rep. Gene Wu observed that he and his colleagues “will do whatever it takes.”

Congressional Democrats have encouraged this defiance of the Texas law requiring its legislators to be in Austin. Ironically, Texas has an enormous congressional delegation of 38 seats because Democrats insist on including illegal aliens in the census used to allocate seats among the states, and multiple Democrat congressmen from Texas will lose their seats next year under this redistricting plan.

If Gov. Abbott’s threat of prosecuting those who aid these fugitive Democrats is ignored, then they have the financial resources to stay away for many months, whereupon it would be too late to redistrict. Texas has an early primary scheduled for March 3, 2026.

Defiance by Democrat-controlled states of Republican ones is growing. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has separately opposed a request by Texas to record a Texas judgment against an abortion provider in New York, who was sued in Texas for prescribing the abortion drug illegally for someone in Texas.

Gov. Hochul welcomed the Texas legislators who fled to New York in violation of Texas law, and even held a press conference with them. She blamed this on the same person that New York Democrats repeatedly try to scapegoat: Donald Trump.

There are 30-day limits on special legislative sessions in Texas, such that the current one must end by August 20. Gov. Greg Abbott can call as many new special sessions as it takes.

U.S. Marshals, the federal equivalent of sheriffs, typically handle federal warrants but also help in capturing and returning fugitives. In the acclaimed movie “The Fugitive” (1993), Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for portraying a U.S. Marshal chasing after a state-crime fugitive played by Harrison Ford.

Gov. Abbott could request assistance by the U.S. Marshals to return the renegade Texas Democrats who skipped town. Gov. Abbott has not yet publicly made this request, perhaps because of the pride that Texas takes in its independence, but Attorney General Pam Bondi could lead by stating her willingness to help.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.