Like their work to narrowly define the idea of family, the U.S. K-12 education system is a sphere of influence that Seven Mountain Mandate (7MM) adherents have spent decades chipping away at, carving it into their Christian-supremacist vision of the world. (Their forays into higher education is a newer initiative, one that is beyond the scope of this article.) To understand how President Trump is aiding them in accelerating their vision, two things must remain in focus.
First, I will continually repeat throughout this series on the Seven Mountain Mandate: 7MM adherents are a relatively small but significant portion of a coalition of players who hold different worldviews but share similar objectives. For example, Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, has likely never heard anything about the Seven Mountain Mandate.
If she has, she’s probably dismissed it as yet another carnival-like manipulation device within religion, akin to similar tools her family uses to hook viewers on their WWE enterprise. (Which, incidentally, has much in common with Pentecostal forms of Christianity from which 7MM ideas emerged.)
Regardless, McMahon and 7MM adherents share the same goal: the complete privatization of the public school system, transforming it from an institution for the common good into an instrument that serves the whims of a few.
Second, any conversation about public education in the U.S. must always have the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate schools at least in the background. Particularly relevant is the now over 70-year attempt to circumvent that decision through various means.
What began with threats to shut down schools altogether to avoid integration turned into white flight. When families from cities, bolstered by civil rights advancements, moved into the suburbs, it led to a massive uptick in private religious schools that could deny enrollment to students on any basis.
Now, as economic realities have made it difficult for these private schools to remain open, they are looking to raid taxpayer coffers to fund their resurgence. If the courts stymie that, they will settle for remaking public schools in the image of their religious schools.
All this is to say, the methods and desired outcomes may be different, but the results are the same—public schools that are designed to educate every child, in an environment that neither advantages nor restricts the expression of particular religious (or non-religious) viewpoints, have been under attack for some time now. The Supreme Court, a third of which was appointed by Trump and another third that is inclined to overlook the Establishment Clause, appears poised to launch the final assault.
As Good Faith Media reported recently, public school defenders earned a small but significant victory when the court upheld an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision on taxpayer-funded religious charter schools. However, that was likely only a technical victory, as Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case.
In 2022, the court drastically reshaped the landscape of religion in public schools when it sided with a Washington state football coach, who had been fired for leading his team in post-game prayers. The court determined that Joseph Kennedy’s termination was a violation of his First Amendment rights of free speech, and that the prayers didn’t violate the Establishment Clause, as they were “voluntary.”
Of course, anyone who has spent time in a predominantly Christian small community, especially one that loves football, knows the squishy nature of the term “voluntary.”
Additionally, in 2022, the court also sided with a Maine family, allowing them to use public funds for their child to attend religious schools. These decisions have emboldened efforts in states to advance sectarian religious education in public schools.
In Oklahoma, State School Superintendent Ryan Walters is seeking to require classes to teach the Bible, and has requested state funding to do so.
Texas, following the lead of Louisiana, is on its way to requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. The Beatitudes and other religious texts are optional, of course. Other states are following suit.
Along with these developments, legalized school segregation may also be back on the table.
Axios recently reported that the Trump administration has signaled its desire to put an end to federal programs put in place over the decades that forced non-compliant school districts to abide by the 1954 Brown decision. Some of these programs have included transfer rules that open enrollment up to students outside school districts’ traditional zoning lines. As with other initiatives, the administration is citing “DEI” and “white discrimination” as its reasoning.
These cases will likely make their way to the Supreme Court at some point before the end of the Trump administration. Their outcomes could reintroduce Jim Crow-era enrollment policies.
They could also shut the door on the First Amendment principles that protect religious and non-religious students from discrimination, and open the door for Christian-supremacists to finally “conquer the education mountain.”
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Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
