Schools That Mandate COVID-19 Vaccine Run Risk of Losing Federal Funds Under Trump Decree

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday to defund schools with COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

The directive comes one day after the confirmation of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has raised questions about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

The executive order also applies to education service agencies, and state and local education agencies, Breitbart first reported. This action is in line with Trump’s campaign promise to “not allow schools to impose COVID mandates.”

“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,” he said during his campaign.

Many teachers and school employees lost their jobs for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. A New York judge ruled last September that 10 employees fired by the New York City Department of Education for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine must be reinstated with back pay.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams blacklisted fired New York teachers and other school employees who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine with what they called a “scarlet letter” in their personnel files.

A teacher in Boston told The Daily Signal in 2023 that her school’s vaccination mandate “felt like coercion.”

Friday’s order would prohibit “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.”

The order also directs Kennedy and the secretary of the Department of Education to establish compliance guidelines “and provide a plan to end coercive COVID-19 vaccine mandates,” according to Breitbart.

Kennedy announced on Fox News on Thursday night that he is creating a vaccine-injury system to track adverse effects of vaccines.

In the same signing ceremony, the president issued an order establishing an Energy Dominance Council led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.