I know something about standing up to the authoritarian impulses of the MAGA movement. I resigned as Kentucky’s commissioner of education in late 2023 rather than enforce the GOP-dominated state legislature’s shameful law aimed at erasing and marginalizing LGBTQ+ students. Education leaders' resistance is vital in upholding democracy.

The Trump administration has escalated these attacks from hostile rhetoric directed toward students and K-12 and higher education to putting policies in place that are not just disruptive, but outright harmful — especially to the most vulnerable students.

Across the country, education leaders are being forced to make some tough decisions — to choose between defending core values, such as equity and historical truth, or yielding to political coercion in hopes of avoiding conflict. There is no strategy that does not involve conflict and trade-offs. Every education leader operates in their own political context with unique legal and cultural constraints.

But make no mistake: Inaction is not neutral. Even the decision to do nothing is a choice, one that has consequences.

Among the Trump administration’s more recent demands is that state education chiefs dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives or lose federal funding. Insisting that they pledge to do so is more than just an egregious federal overreach into state and local control. It is a direct threat to the values around access, opportunity and truth that our schools are meant to uphold. And it’s not the only threat.

Other MAGA-aligned efforts include dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, stripping protections from students with disabilities, criminalizing support for LGBTQ+ youth and censoring instructional content deemed “anti-American” — including teachings on race, gender and historical injustice, demonstrating the vital importance of education leaders' resistance to authoritarianism.

In the face of this, educators have no easy path forward. But we do have choices. And what we choose now will shape the future of our institutions and our nation for years to come.

The most passive choice is disengagement: turning away from national politics to attend to the mechanics of education, focusing on instruction, operations, student events.

Getting education leaders and their students to disengage has been an implicit goal of the MAGA education movement.

Read the full article about education leaders resisting authoritarianism by Jason E. Glass at The Hechinger Report.