Exclusive: Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Outlines 2026 Priorities After Year of Tackling Radical Left-Wing Agenda

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is taking a victory lap on protecting women’s sports and tackling leftist DEI initiatives and antisemitism on college campuses this year as she looks to further wind down the Department of Education in 2026. AP Photo/Alex Brandon In a broad-ranging interview with Breitbart News before Christmas, McMahon reflected on her victories at the Department of Education and her priorities for the new year, which include continuing to send more power back to states as she waits for Congress to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating the elimination of the department. McMahon said one of her favorite accomplishments is the department’s Title IX work protecting women’s sports from the incursion of transgender-identifying male athletes, and noted that men playing women’s sports “lacked common sense.” “Title IX was established to give women equality in sports programs, and now to have transgenders participating - we saw things like a volleyball spiked into a woman’s face that broke her nose. We saw a fencer take a knee so that she didn’t have to compete. She was afraid that she was going to be injured.” The Education Secretary specifically pointed to an agreement reached with the University of Pennsylvania ordering awards to be taken from trans-identifying male swimmer Lia Thomas and given to the female athletes who really deserved them. “The agreement that we signed with the University of Pennsylvania, those trophies, and ribbons, and accolades that had gone to Lia Thomas were taken from [him] and awarded to those women who would’ve won those, but for that competition,” she said, adding that she is especially proud of the work women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines has done. Gaines notably became outspoken on the issue of men in women’s sports after competing against Thomas in 2022 and sharing a locker room with him. “I think that was a huge win,” McMahon said. McMahon also celebrated college admissions being “based on merit, not on race,” after bringing institutions of high education to heel on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and ordering compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling banning affirmative action . “I think we’ve done a lot to protect students’ interests across the country, and hopefully, with our institutions of higher education, as we’re looking at merit-based admissions and merit-based promotions and hirings on those campuses,” she said. “This is not an attempt to dictate curriculum. While we have made it very clear that programs involving DEI will not be allowed for federal funding and [have] gotten some pushback on that, I think what we have found most of the time when we’re putting these measures in is that they are welcomed.” The Department of Education additionally cracked down on antisemitism on college campuses that arose after the horrific October 7 attack on Israel perpetrated by Hamas terrorists. “I think we made huge gains on university campuses relative to antisemitism and some of the practices that different universities like Columbia [University] had - [that one] certainly comes...

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