AI In Education

White House Plans Executive Order to Curb State AI Oversight

dean

20 Nov 2025 • 1 min read

Published: November 20, 2025

Summary

The administration of Donald Trump is considering signing an executive order that would centralise federal control over AI regulation and effectively block or override state-level laws focused on AI safety, algorithmic fairness and “woke” AI. The draft order would create an “AI Litigation Task Force” within the Department of Justice to sue states whose regulations are deemed obstacles to the AI industry. Federal agencies such as the FTC, FCC and Department of Commerce would be directed to identify state laws that conflict with the administration’s federal “AI Action Plan”, with non-compliant states facing the potential loss of federal funds, including broadband grants.

The order follows earlier attempts to insert a nationwide AI moratorium into the National Defense Authorization Act. It raises questions about federal-state division of powers, the balance between innovation and regulation, and how AI governance intersects with civil liberties and fairness concerns.

Reflection

From my perspective, this moment highlights a core tension in modern AI governance: the push for rapid innovation versus the need for localised protections. Centralising control at the federal level may streamline industry growth, but it risks sidelining state-specific concerns around algorithmic fairness, transparency and local context. For education, this is especially relevant. If states lose the ability to define AI protections for schools, from data-handling rules to fairness requirements in automated systems, then AI tools may enter classrooms without sufficient guardrails.

This isn’t just a policy story. It’s a reminder that AI governance shapes who gets to decide how technology operates in public life. For AI literacy and digital citizenship, this provides a timely case study: who should set the rules, and what happens when those rules are taken out of local hands?