President Donald Trump - Photo by AFP
WASHINGTON D.C. (WSAU) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday afternoon focused on halting federal funds from public school districts and universities that are continuing to enforce COVID-19 vaccinations for enrollment purposes.
According to Fox News, the president’s order states that COVID-19 “federal funds from being used to support or subsidize an educational service agency, state education agency, local education agency, elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education that requires students to have received a COVID-19 vaccination to attend in-person education programs.”
President Trump also announced that he has tasked newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “provide a plan to end coercive COVID-19 vaccine mandates” as well as implement guidelines on medications and vaccinations for schools to adhere to.
Because of prior infections, vaccinations, and the virus’s natural ability to mutate into strains more similar to influenza, most medical experts and officials no longer believe that the COVID-19 virus is a deadly illness for the majority of Americans. This order would fulfill Trump’s campaign promise, which he made to voters throughout the 2024 election cycle in which he would seek to end COVID-19 mandates in public schools, the military, U.S. agencies, and federal health organizations.
According to the National Academy for State Public Health, 21 states have passed laws banning coronavirus vaccine mandates in schools, including Republican-controlled states like Florida and Texas as well as Democratic-controlled states like Arizona and Michigan.
This would not be the first time that lawmakers in Washington have attempted to use federal funds to achieve a political win, as former U.S. Senator and President Joe Biden helped to introduce a bill in 1994 that would’ve banned public schools from receiving federal tax dollars if they continued with “the promotion of homosexuality as a positive lifestyle alternative.” The proposed bill did not receive sufficient support in the House and failed to become law.
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