Colleges fear ‘smackdown’ from wrestling mogul turned minister

Choosing the co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment as education secretary could indicate that Donald Trump is planning a “theatrical smackdown” on US higher education, it has been warned.

Best known for her time as chief executive of WWE, Linda McMahon also served as director of the Small Business Administration in the first Trump administration – a role for which the president called her a “superstar”.

Apart from serving on the board at Sacred Heart University – and briefly the Connecticut State Board of Education – the major Republican donor has little experience within education, with the National Education Association labelling her unqualified.

“I think what it shows is that Trump prioritises loyalty and is placing old friends in high places,” Brendan Cantwell, a Michigan State University professor of higher, adult and lifelong education, told Times Higher Education.

“Linda McMahon has been a long-time associate of the president-elect, she’s rich, she knows and likes the president, he knows and likes her, and so this is a sort of a reward – it’s patronage.”

In announcing the decision, Mr Trump said that his new education secretary would “spearhead” efforts to “send education back to the states”. It has previously been suggested that Mr Trump might seek to disestablish the Department of Education – a complicated move that would require congressional approval.

Ms McMahon’s lack of experience in education – and her role as co-chair of the transition – suggests that she was chosen purely to “do the president-elect’s bidding” in this one task, Professor Cantwell said.

“It's hard to know exactly what he means; whether it would be more like trying to devolve policy…or actually pick apart the department,” he said.

“Linda McMahon, having no real commitment to education policy, may be happy to be his loyal soldier in doing that.”

Her lack of qualifications was consistent with Mr Trump’s intention to eliminate the department, agreed Pedro Noguera, dean of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.

“I believe there will be considerable opposition to any effort to eliminate the vital programmes that serve America’s children in both red and blue areas, but I do think that they are serious about implementing their misguided agenda,” he added.

However, Frederick Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) thinktank, said the sector should avoid “gross assumptions based on biography”.

Dr Hess contrasted the “profound ineptitude” of Miguel Cardona, Joe Biden’s secretary of education and a veteran school administrator, with what he saw as the “admirable performance of “outsider” Betsy DeVos during Mr Trump’s first term.

“Moreover, after the media’s appalling treatment of DeVos and the free pass granted Cardona, I’m hoping to see a more measured, even-handed assessment of McMahon’s qualifications and, if she ultimately assumes office, her performance in it,” Dr Hess said.

While Ms McMahon has said little publicly about higher education, statements from the American First Policy Institute (AFPI) – the influential pro-Trump thinktank she co-chairs – might give an indication.

It has said that the country’s universities are “lavishly funded by state and federal taxpayers” but are failing to live up to their important public responsibilities. Its recent writings about the sector have touched on removing degree requirements from public sector job requirements, abolishing diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) laws and combating “foreign influence” on campuses.

And in a post on X after the Cabinet announcement was made, the AFPI criticised the “woke worldview” of pro-Palestinian student protesters and said antisemitism was a “toxic ideology spreading through our universities”.

Professor Cantwell said student encampments could be one arena that the wrestling executive could make a grand entrance in – possibly echoing the controversial congressional hearings earlier this year.

“She’s come from the world of showbusiness and, if we looked at the higher education antisemitism hearings in Congress last spring, that was a main event,” he added.

“It was a theatrical smackdown, and it might indicate that the president is interested in this kind of theatrical culture war stuff, and that would be consistent with pro wrestling.”

Overall, Professor Cantwell said the sector would be “confused and cautious” by the appointment, but perhaps slightly optimistic.

While “it could have been worse”, he said, colleges would be anxiously waiting to see who is appointed as undersecretary – particularly if it is someone like Christopher Rufo, an “active culture warrior” and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

“If Linda McMahon is the secretary and somebody equally detached from the sector becomes the undersecretary, then maybe this is mostly a big show, like a professional wrestling match,” Professor Cantwell said.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com