“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote this in the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, surrounding mandated procedures of patriotism in schools. Yet, the recent flurry of education-related executive orders have begun to eclipse this constitutional constellation. Throughout American history, education has periodically become a means to force students to confess their faith in an orthodox nationalism, overshadowing the very American moral foundation nationalism claims to promote. The episodic reemergence of hyper-patriotification in American education becomes not only counterproductive but also frequently defined by the dynamic relationship between federal and state power.
Within the first four months of his second administration, President Donald Trump signed a total of 124 Executive Orders, including an order entitled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” Section One of the order states its purpose: to curb “anti-American” education that compels students to “adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics.” The order also reinstated the 1776 Commission—Trump’s old commission challenging how slavery is taught—and revitalized efforts to rewrite history syllabi to glorify the United States. The “disparaging” depiction of America through historical portrayals of slavery is frequently labeled by Trump as subversive and “left-wing.” This government imposition of a uniform nationalism invokes familiar questions about the role of the state in determining how history should be taught.
In the 1940 Supreme Court Case Minersville School District v. Gobitis, Lillian and William Gobitis, two Jehovah’s Witness schoolchildren, were expelled from school for not saluting the American flag during the daily school exercise on the basis that it was forbidden by the Bible. The Court ruled against the children, arguing that national unity “was the basis of national security.” Three years later, in the 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court held that enforcing unanimity in action, even with patriotic intent, was unconstitutional, overturning the Minersville ruling. The court asserted that intensified “patriotification” in schools can be markedly unpatriotic, threatening American foundational principles. In the case of William and Lillian Gobitis, the very image of mandating ten and twelve year old schoolchildren into ritualistic political conformity and daily procedure invokes images of militaristic and authoritarian regimes, like the crown from which our country’s founders fled.
The Cold War followed these US Supreme Court precedents. During this time, apprehensive bureaucrats sought American unity more than ever when faced with ideological confrontation and domestic paranoia. The federal government initiated the “Civics Education Program” which distributed teaching materials and lessons to schools. It served a dual purpose: promoting US foundations and attacking ideologies like communism. Its malfeasance emanates, not from basic teaching of American civics, but from intolerance for political diversity within schools. The federal government essentially sought ideological and political uniformity. Imposed patriotism, in its monomaniacal preoccupation with ideological homogeneity, attempts to create, like religion, an “orthodox…nationalism.” But since our country’s founding, the thoughts and beliefs of its citizens cannot be standardized.
This patriotic regimentation—especially visible in Cold War foreign villainization—ties directly to current policy in which economic isolationism has been the model: high tariffs are being utilized to achieve US demands and retaliatory tariffs are becoming more widespread. This tendency towards isolationism today mirrors the foreign resentment and mistrust of yesterday, brought about by a misguided, intensified desire for American unity.
Today, President Trump’s attempts to further “patriotize” education, removing “anti-American” curriculum from classrooms, invokes many of the same concerns from the Cold War era. Critics of his education executive orders note that “it promotes distorted views of history” and harms public schools in need of federal funding. Prior to the enactment of these recent executive orders, historical realism in education had already been under attack, with many Catholic and public schools teaching curricula that labels slavery as a type of “black immigration.” Now, with the introduction of these executive orders, distortionist historical teaching has never been easier.
However, most importantly, Trump’s executive orders fail to foster true patriotism. In their attempts to venerate American values, many curricula changes will occur around unfavorable American history—most notably slavery. If the federal government hungers for a more patriotized population, its most optimal option is an education dissecting the ways in which American society has acknowledged and looked to progress beyond the most ignoble aspects of its history. After all, it is this same federal government which determines “American-ness” on the basis of the substantive knowledge of American civics and history tested in its US Naturalization Civics Tests.
While these executive orders lessen understanding of American values through inaccurate curricula, a universal definition of “patriotism” in schools remains unrealized. While some believe educational patriotism requires minimizing flaws that may deface American image through the use of federal mandates, others believe true patriotism stems from unflinching focus on those flaws. These competing definitions ironically divide, despite patriotism’s initial, unifying intentions.
Part of this controversy stems from debates about the jurisdictional limits between state and federal power within schools. Traditionally, the practical oversight of education has been viewed as largely a local issue best governed by the states. However, federal demands sometimes drive hyper-patriotism in education, regardless of state boundaries. In addition to the inherently “unpatriotic” substance of imposed patriotism in schools, attempts by the federal government to spearhead educational curricula themselves are treasonous to American foundations. According to Title 20, Section 1232a of the United States Code (20 U.S.C. § 1232a), the federal government cannot control school curriculums. This, in addition to the 10th Amendment—allotting powers undelegated to the federal government to be reserved to the states—requires that the federal government not infringe upon education as a right of the states. Federally imposed patriotism enforced through federal power, is, substantively as well as procedurally, “anti-American.”
The problem with “patriotification” stems from its conflation of history and patriotism in a dynamic that often favors nationalism at history’s expense. The most truly “American” education fosters opinionated diversity. Patriotism is most naturally beautiful within its own individual sphere, partitioned separate from historical teachings—in this way, history remains incorrupt and independent from any nationalistic, potentially distortionary desire to uphold an honorable American image, and in doing so, sustains a naturality of foundational principles that allows both environments to flourish. Yet, if patriotism is to be cultivated across the country, additional efforts, both internal and external to education, must be made to develop an American identity steeped in unity, but never conformity. In these contexts, Trump’s recent education executive orders—whether they be distorting historical realism through federally mandated curricula, or attempting to abolish agencies that sustain a more common American identity through equity—prove dangerous and contradictory, rotting any vestige of a single, unified, patriotic American identity.