Trump signs executive order to block federal money for schools, universities with COVID vaccine mandates

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday barring schools who still have coronavirus vaccine mandates from receiving federal funds. 

The order, according to a report from Breitbart confirmed by the White House, prohibits “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.”

It also tasks Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and the Secretary of Education to establish guidelines for compliance and to “provide a plan to end coercive COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”

That includes coming up with a system to block federal funding to “educational entities” that have coronavirus vaccine mandates.

NO LONGER TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF: TRUMP SIGNS ORDER PRIORITIZING ‘UNIFIED’ US FOREIGN POLICY FRONT

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House, where he signed an executive order, on Thursday, Feb. 13. (AP/Ben Curtis)

“That solves that problem,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

TRUMP ISSUES EXECUTIVE ORDERS ON RECIPROCAL TARIFFS

Trump also signed an executive order Friday establishing an “energy council” led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

It’s not clear how many schools will be affected by the vaccine order. The nonprofit Immunize.org said as of May 2024, no state required COVID-19 vaccines for any grade level K-12. No College Mandates, a group pushing to end coronavirus vaccine mandates, reported that as of December 2024, 15 of the more than 1,200 institutions it tracked had some form of coronavirus vaccine mandate.

An executive order Trump signed in late January called a vaccine mandate for U.S. service members “unfair, overbroad, and [a] completely unnecessary burden.” 

In December 2021, parents opposed to Los Angeles Unified School District’s student vaccine mandate rallied outside the district office. (Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

That order called to “make reinstatement available to all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and who request to be reinstated.” 

The order said in August 2021, the Secretary of Defense “mandated that all service members receive the COVID-19 vaccine.” That mandate was rescinded in January 2023. 

Parents watch their kids line up during the first day of class at Stanford Elementary School in Garden Grove, Calif., in August 2021. At the time, students and teachers were required to wear masks in the classroom, but not outside.  (Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Trump also signed an executive order in January that removes federal funding from K-12 schools that teach critical race theory.