National Association for Multicultural Education Logo

Advancing and Advocating for Social Justice & Equity

National Association for
Multicultural Education

NAME Statement on First 100 Days

Only one word stands out as the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) assesses the first 100 days of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term: Chaos. Unlike during his first term, Trump has surrounded himself with a cabinet of people and advisers who have enabled rather than stopped him from doing great damage to local and state governments, the entire federal infrastructure, the economy, schools, and global relations. The GOP dominated House and Senate have remained passively silent, encouraging Trump’s assault on the people of the United States and World to continue unabated.
 
A key concern for NAME is Trump’s efforts to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Linda McMahon, who co-founded and led the World Wrestling Entertainment, is overseeing Trump’s directive as his secretary of education. Cuts already have dismantled the department’s staff, and funding for programs has been shifted to areas with no expertise or familiarity. Such actions following the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 are intended to cause numerous national tragedies by removing the social infrastructures required by inclusive democracies. The Department of Education, established in 1979, serves the nation’s schools by:
  1. Advocating for and leveraging equal access to education for students;
  2. Improving the quality and relevance of schooling through federally supported research, evaluation and sharing of information;
  3. Promoting student engagement and achievement through myriad ways;
  4. Supporting low-income families, English language learners, and students with disabilities;
  5. Increasing family, student, and community involvement; and
  6. Enhancing the coordination and accountability of federal education programs, to name a few.
 
 NAME also is distressed by the Trump White House’s attacks on public and private efforts that even hint of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Many colleges, universities, school districts, local governments and companies that receive federal funding have been busy scrubbing their websites, literature and other data of anything that suggests that people and communities of color exist. This is a social justice tragedy as the demographics of the United States show that U.S. diversity continues to grow, just as staunch inequalities remain entrenched across all sectors. NAME knows that at this critical juncture, more efforts to combat systemic inequities are needed, not less.
 
Additionally, the Trump administration’s efforts to deport immigrants independent of their legal status clearly violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. First Amendment rights to free speech have been trampled, as students who use their right to protest or voice dissent are targeted and abducted by the U.S. government. The federal actions against the LGBTQ-plus community, reflected in canceling more than $800 million in health grants and, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s permission, banning transgender people from serving in the military further reflect Trump’s anti-human violences.
 
 Added to the chaos has been the termination of thousands of federal employees under the ruse of efficiency, by nazi-influencer turned federal governmental contractor (himself an immigrant), Elon Musk. NAME knows that these actions have intentionally created an environment of fear among those workers remaining in the federal government and left thousands of others without a means to support themselves and their families.
 
As if these anti-humane assaults were not enough, Trump imposed tarrifs have roiled the global economy, damaging relationships, diminishing retirement funds, access to college funding, while also exacerbating poverty and health disparities. This is in addition to Trump’s fostering of violence in already war-torn regions, including Ukraine, the Middle East and most recently in India and Pakistan. As Elon Musk has leveraged his relationship with Trump to divest from South Africa (a good 30 years after the overthrow of the U.S. supported apartheid regime), the world is now faced with a new onslaught of U.S.-based global aggression.
 
NAME is aware that the good news boiling from the White House kettle of violent, racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist chaos is that people continue to challenge the Trump administration’s actions in court, and in many cases, are winning. Firings have been reversed, funding cuts have been restored, and wrongfully deported and imprisoned individuals appear to have a chance of getting their lives back. NAME also applauds Harvard University for being the first university to publicly stand up to the bullying of the Trump administration.
 
Such courage has to grow and spread throughout the nation if the Constitution is to remain intact and the people’s rights are to prevail. We have seen such nationalistic fervor before – some 90 years ago with the consolidation of power by Hitler’s Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s. We must stand up now, for all rights, and recognize that a deeply white supremacist agenda lies at the foundation of Trump’s power.
 
As Pastor Martin Niemöller long ago reflected, after not standing up with those persecuted before him:
 
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.


Click to download this statement
5/2025