Education Department Stacked With Staff from Linda McMahon’s Think Tank

The 74 Million | By Linda Jacobson | January 23, 2025

Candice Jackson, who led work on the 2020 Title IX rule during Trump’s first term, is among those returning.

Linda McMahon isn’t in charge of the U.S. Department of Education yet, but if the Senate confirms her, she’ll be among friends. At least four former staff members from the America First Policy Institute, the right-wing think tank she chairs, have grabbed top posts as the senior leadership team takes shape.

They include new chief of staff Rachel Oglesby and Jonathan Pidluzny, deputy chief of staff for policy and programs. As the institute’s chief state action officer, Oglesby focused on promoting job opportunities that don’t require college degrees, while Pidluzny directed higher education reform work, including calls to eliminate university diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Civil rights experts immediately noted the addition of Candice Jackson as deputy general counsel. An architect of the 2020 Title IX rule, she said in 2017 that most sexual assault accusations “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ” but later apologized. Another addition with experience from Trump’s first term is Tom Wheeler, a former Department of Justice official who was instrumental in reversing Obama-era guidance that said trans students should be allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. He’s been named principal deputy general counsel.

Policy experts and former department staff said they expected to see names from America First, which McMahon chaired after leaving her post as head of the Small Business Administration during President Donald Trump’s first term. Little known prior to the election, the institute helped shape the aggressive agenda he began to execute on Monday with a series of executive orders, including one that says the U.S. government only recognizes “two sexes, male and female.” Outside of the education department, Brooke Rollins, who led the think tank, is up for agriculture secretary, and Dr. Heidi Overton, the organization’s former chief policy officer, is expected to join the White House Domestic Policy Council.

“Lots of AFPI folks, which is not surprising with Linda McMahon at the helm.” said Jackie Wernz, who runs Education Civil Rights Solutions and served as an attorney in the department while Jackson was there. Wheeler, she said, is also well-known in “education law circles” and has experience working within the “confines of the federal government.” But with Trump already challenging existing laws on issues such as immigration and school safety, she said tradition might not matter.

“It will be interesting to see how he develops now that the rules on how to govern seem to be out the window,” she said.

While he’s not from America First, Steve Warzoha, the new White House liaison, is a longtime McMahon colleague from Connecticut, where he led the Greenwich Republican Town Committee. He’s also spent some time at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida headquarters, and according to news reports, was arrested for driving under the influence in 2022 after leaving the area.

Asked about the arrest, Madi Biedermann, the department’s new deputy assistant secretary for communications and outreach, said she wouldn’t “confirm or comment on personnel.”

While the team thus far is light on K-12 education experience, those names are likely to emerge once Trump nominates an assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. Biedermann said she expects more announcements next week.

The department unveiled the new appointees, who don’t require Senate confirmation, as McMahon awaits a hearing before the Senate. A date has not yet been set. On Saturday, Trump also nominated former Tennessee education chief Penny Schwinn as deputy secretary.

Several conservatives said they were impressed by the list. Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, called them “smart, experienced people who know the law, the policies, and the regulatory context,” And David Cleary, a principal with The Group, a lobbying firm, said they are a “much better prepared team than in Trump 45” and show the administration is interested in more than just school choice.

Experts widely believe he’ll escalate enforcement of civil rights protections for Jewish students. While he has not yet named an assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights, Craig Trainor, who spent time at America First Policy Institute as senior litigation counsel could help lead those efforts. The newly named deputy assistant secretary for policy in OCR, he led investigations into antisemitism on college campuses as a senior special counsel for the House judiciary committee under Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chair.

But civil rights advocates said the department’s core function is to protect the rights of all students. Many who fought for LGBTQ students’ rights during the Obama administration are alarmed.

The 2016 guidance on rights for trans students were “developed after years of meeting with stakeholder groups, tracking the case law developments and looking at the research,” said Shiwali Patel, an attorney with the National Women’s Law Center who worked in the Obama administration and left during Trump’s first term. While the Biden administration wrote those protections into Title IX, Trump’s picks, she said, are undoing that regulation “without thoughtfulness and care.”

Liz King, senior director for education equity at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an advocacy organization, said the new faces at the department represent “a very narrow slice of America.”