DV Journal

President Donald J. Trump’s reinstatement of commonsense school discipline policies couldn’t have come at a more critical time. After years of failed experiments in equity-driven discipline, our schools, particularly in places like Lower Merion and Philadelphia, have veered away from one of their most basic responsibilities: maintaining safe, orderly classrooms where every child can learn.

Trump’s new directive reestablishes what should never have been abandoned: that discipline should be based on behavior, not race. It reinforces Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, making clear that school districts cannot enforce different standards of behavior based on a student’s skin color. This executive action demands an immediate and honest reassessment from districts whose current practices have prioritized ideology over safety, often at the expense of the very students they claim to protect.

The Problem in Philadelphia and Lower Merion

Both the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and the Lower Merion School District (LMSD) have embedded “restorative justice” and “equity-focused” approaches into their discipline codes. In theory, these methods aim to teach, restore, and guide students toward better behavior. In practice, however, they have often resulted in lowered expectations, inconsistent enforcement, and dangerous learning environments.

The Philadelphia district’s Code of Conduct, for example, openly prioritizes “reducing disproportionality” in discipline over maintaining order. Lower Merion’s equity policies, meanwhile, promote “inclusive environments” through alternative discipline practices that can sometimes downplay or excuse serious infractions in the name of equity.

The focus has shifted from what a student did to who a student is. That’s not education. That’s ideology — and it’s making schools less safe, less effective, and less just.

What the Executive Order Demands

Trump’s order flips the current broken model on its head. It insists that discipline be based purely on student behavior, not on group identity or pressure to engineer equal outcomes. It demands that safety and accountability return to the heart of school governance.

Districts are now required to prove that their discipline policies comply with Title VI without resorting to racial balancing acts. This will mean dismantling practices that effectively excuse misbehavior because of a student’s background, and replacing them with clear, consistent standards for all students, equally enforced.

It doesn’t mean abandoning compassion or eliminating opportunities for students to learn from mistakes. It means recognizing that truly caring about students — all students — requires creating an environment where learning can actually happen without fear, chaos, or disorder.

Why This Matters for Philadelphia’s Future

For the Philadelphia area, the stakes could not be higher. Philadelphia’s public schools already rank among the lowest-performing in the nation. Safety is a daily concern. Classroom disruptions have become normalized, driving good teachers out of the profession and leaving students to suffer the consequences. Lower Merion, often seen as a top suburban district, has similarly struggled under the weight of ideological policies that have confused discipline with discrimination.

If school leaders in these districts take the executive order seriously, they have an opportunity to reverse these trends. They can rebuild schools around a simple, fair principle: every child deserves a safe place to learn, and behavior, not race, determines consequences.

The challenge will be political. Many activists and administrators have become deeply invested in the DEI frameworks that led to today’s problems. Changing course will require courage from school boards, superintendents, parents, and community leaders alike.

A Call to Action

Restoring order and safety in our schools should not be a partisan issue. It should be a moral one. We owe it to our students — especially those from the most vulnerable backgrounds — to create schools where learning, not disruption, is the norm.

Districts like Philadelphia and Lower Merion must take this moment seriously. They must overhaul their discipline policies, reject race-based outcomes, and embrace behavior-based accountability. If they do, they will not only comply with the law — they will start winning back the trust of parents, the respect of teachers, and most importantly, the futures of their students.

Common sense is making a comeback. It’s time our school districts catch up.

Although the federal government is now moving at warp speed to remove DEI [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] programs from its various agencies, Montgomery County is doubling down on its program.

County officials announced “a transformative investment in the Montgomery County Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, reinforcing the County’s commitment to fostering a workplace culture and county-wide community that emphasizes inclusion and belonging.”

The office, which has one employee now, will be adding four additional positions after the county Salary Board approved the new jobs on January 9.

County Commissioners Chair Neil K. Makhija and Vice Chair Jamila Winder, both Democrats, voted for the new positions.  Minority Republican Commissioner Tom DiBello voted against the new hires, which could add up to $507,176 to the county’s payroll, not including benefits.

The salary of the current Chief DEI Officer, Donna Richemond, is listed at $151,032. The new director of immigrant affairs has a salary range of $98,645 to $147,960.  The two new deputy chiefs will be paid $89,464 to $134,197.  And a new senior administrative assistant for the department will be paid $60,550 to $90,822.

County spokeswoman Megan Alt said, “The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion intends to ensure that diversity of thought, experience, and approach is represented in all sectors of our workforce, services, and business enterprises; that all members of our workforce and  community feel they belong and are supported regardless of their background, identity, or affiliations; and that all members of the community have broad access to the opportunities and benefits of working, visiting and living in the county.”

Alt denied the county’s move had any relation to the federal government’s ban, saying it had been done before that. However, President Trump campaigned on removing DEI from government.

During a recent speech to the World Economic Forum, Trump said, “My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense. So, these were policies that were absolute nonsense throughout the government and the private sector.”

“America will once again become a merit-based country,” said Trump.

“In doing so, Montgomery County reaffirmed its commitment to the value of diversity, inclusion, and belonging,” said Alt.

Makhija said, “ “By fostering representation that includes our entire community, we can continue to hire the best of the best, ensuring our workforce is as innovative, skilled, and diverse as the people we serve. These new positions will drive meaningful impact across the County, preparing us to meet future challenges and ensuring we maintain our commitment to merit and excellence.”

Winder added, “Equity doesn’t happen by chance—it requires deliberate action and sustained commitment. By investing in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Montgomery County will continue to be a leader in creating a community that is inclusive, supportive, and equitable for all. This added capacity will allow us to deepen our impact and expand programs that make Montgomery County a better place to live, work, and raise a family.”

DiBello told DVJournal that he opposed the new hires because he believes they’re “not necessary or needed or warranted in the county” and “we don’t need to spend the money.”

In December, the Democratic county commissioners approved a 2025 budget that increased real estate taxes by 9 percent.  DiBello noted that he voted against the tax increase.

“The county had a $44 million deficit and $36 million of that was in the personnel buckets of salaries, benefits and pensions,” said DiBello.  His suggestion that the county do a department by department analysis of positions has fallen on deaf ears. “In the last five years the county raised taxes a cumulative 43 percent,” DiBello said.

The 2025 tax bills are arriving in residents’ mailboxes this week.

The U.S. armed forces exist to deter aggression and, failing that, to destroy the aggressor’s ability to wage war. The military must be a cohesive team of lethally competent warriors loyal to one another, their service branch and their nation. 

We have strayed from those truths in recent years, and the Department of Defense needs reform. Although the armed services recruited 12.5 percent more people in 2024 than in 2023, a significant recruitment crisis still needs to be addressed, as well as a retention problem. 

There are three areas the next secretary of defense should focus on to restore a healthy interest in military service — culture, operational competence and the depoliticization of the military. 

First, what should be a warrior culture at Defense has strayed to one obsessed over diversity, equity and inclusion. This is evidenced most famously by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown’s 2022 memorandum that outlined specific demographic quotas for officer applicants. When asked for communications and documents surrounding this memorandum, the Air Force provided a slideshow that outlined its goal to “achieve” a reduced number of White males in its ROTC program. 

Brown’s predecessor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army Gen. Mark Milley, defended the introduction of critical race theory to the West Point curriculum, infamously telling Congress, “I want to understand White rage.” 

The Defense Department has repeated that diversity is the American military’s greatest strength. It would follow that more DEI hiring would make the military stronger. Yet, a DEI hiring freeze was recently implemented. The U.S. military is best served when its members are selected and promoted based on merit. Only a merit system can provide us with a diverse, qualified and lethal military ready to take on the many threats across the globe. 

Now comes a disturbing report that more than half of the Army’s senior officers are turning down command positions, preferring low-pressure staff jobs. That doesn’t happen in a healthy culture.

Second, operational competence needs to improve. Over the last four years, we have seen several examples of a lack of operational professionalism, including the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers and the abandonment to the Taliban of millions of dollars in arms and equipment. 

While American troops were risking and giving their lives attempting to ensure a safe withdrawal, top Pentagon officials were working to get the secretary of defense to sign a climate change initiative. The ill-conceived and poorly executed “Gaza Pier” mission caused the serious injury and eventual death of a soldier. (The Pentagon has been stonewalling on records related to the building, maintenance and repairs of the $320 million taxpayer-funded pier). 

Competence begins at the top. So, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin failed to inform the chain of command he was undergoing a major medical procedure, it sent a troubling message to personnel. 

Third, the military should not be involved in politics. Servicemembers come in all political stripes. Republicans, Democrats, independents and others are spurred by patriotism and share a common goal — defeating the enemy and protecting America and its allies. However, Milley signaled a new, politicized environment during the defense of critical race theory when he speculated that White rage was behind the January 6 riots. 

He wanted to know, he said, what “caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America.”

There are other examples. For instance, at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, where a brief for the training of gate guards labeled pro-life and anti-abortion Americans as terrorists. At Minot Air Force base, airmen received texts from their chain of command warning them not to attend an event espousing political viewpoints. The airmen were warned that attending the event “could jeopardize their continued service in the U.S. military.” 

If servicemembers cannot freely express their political views freely without fear of retribution from their chain of command, what are they fighting to protect? 

Other aspects of the military need reform, but few would yield greater results in transforming it into a lethal, mission-focused, merit-based agency.

By returning to first principles, the next secretary of defense must ensure we have a military worthy of  what Donald Trump has referred to as “The Golden Age of America.” 

This is a big week in Philly sports. The Eagles have the NFL Draft, the Sixers are in the playoffs, and the Phillies have come alive and are getting fans to dream of another World Series appearance. It is a great time for the fun and joy that we get from sports, and I’ve always cherished it.

However, progressive forces, which are often synonymous with destroying fun associated with holidays, language, and hundreds of other things, are on the march to change the world of sports. The brilliance of former Iowa star basketball player Caitlin Clark has stoked their claims of lack of pay equity for women athletes. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) forces are going after Major League Baseball because only six percent of the players are African-American. Finally, the Biden administration last week announced changes in Title IX that open the door for more biological men to compete in women’s sports.

The pay equity argument shows that the people making it don’t follow WNBA and NBA basketball. They argue Clark’s four-year contract will pay her just under $340,000 while the first pick in the NBA draft last year earned just over $ 10 million in his rookie year deal alone. However, the WNBA only takes in about $60 million in yearly revenue compared to the NBA’s $10 billion in yearly revenue. There are reports that Nike and others will pay Clark millions in endorsements because they recognize her value. And over time, she may significantly drive more attendance and revenue and then base salaries will go up.

The second progressive nonsensical attack on sports comes from MSNBC’s Joy Reid’s blog, which celebrated Major League Baseball’s Jackie Robinson’s Day by running a piece from Ja’han Jones stating that the scarcity of Black players in MLB should serve as a warning about attacks on DEI. He theorizes that MLB is guilty of something because the number of Black American players has dropped to just six percent of all players.

Jones scoffs at people like me who point out that maybe the NBA and NFL are more appealing to Black athletes. He makes no mention of the huge increase in MLB Latino players. Those players are not included in determining whether MLB values diversity and values any players who are going to continue to raise the level of play and competition in MLB.

It’s a good idea for MLB to try to invest in restoring playing fields in the inner city and trying to get young kids interested in baseball. How would DEI aid in this? This is just a progressive fixation from those who don’t really get sports.

Finally, on Friday, the Biden administration announced changes to Title IX that clearly have opened the door to more biological males participating in women’s sports. Riley Gaines, a former University of Florida swimmer who competed against Lia Thomas in the NCAA swim finals, tweeted that these changes mean “Sex equals gender identity.” She forecasts that men can take more athletic scholarships away from women, and biological men will have full access to female bathrooms and locker rooms.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, saw the regulation changes differently. Fox News Channel reported Weingarten said the changes would “Remove dangerous regulations put in place in 2020 and put us back on the path of honestly discussing the modern realities of equal access to education.”

So, artificial pay equity standards, DEI meddling in the competitive aspects of sports, and forcing women to accept biological men into their events will rob sports of fun and joy. Let’s root for Caitlin Clark, MLB players from around the world, and the strides that women’s sports are making for the next generation.

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