Newswise — A proposed Republican Party platform is set for approval at the upcoming national convention, but the detailed Project 2025 plan from the Heritage Foundation is drawing significant attention.
Spearheaded by former Trump administration officials, this nearly 900-page document advocates for significant changes, including sacking civil servants, expanding presidential powers, dismantling the Department of Education, and more. While Trump distances himself from the plan, Democrats are highlighting its proposals as potential indicators of a second Trump term.
Faculty experts at the George Washington University are available to provide context, commentary and analysis on this matter. If you would like to speak to an expert, please contact the GW Media Relations Team at [email protected].
Government & Politics
Peter Loge is the director of GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs. He has nearly 30 years of experience in politics and communications, having served as a deputy to the chief of staff for Sen. Edward Kennedy during the 1995 shutdown, a VP at the US Institute of Peace in 2013, and held senior positions for three members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Loge currently leads the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the School of Media and Public Affairs and continues to advise advocates and organizations.
Reverend Professor Quardricos Bernard Driskell is an adjunct professor of religion and politics at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, as well as a policy influencer and federal lobbyist. With nearly ten years of government relations experience, he has worked for two patient voluntary health associations where he advanced the patient voice into policy and research deliberations through services to Congress, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Steven Livingston is the founding director of the GW Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics and a professor of media and public affairs. Livingston's research and teaching focus on media/information technology and political theory. He is particularly interested in the role of information technologies and media on democracy as well as the rise of the far-right.
Federal Agencies
Susan Dudley, founder and former director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, is a distinguished professor of practice in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. She is past president of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis, a senior fellow with the Administrative Conference of the United States, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, on the board of the National Federation of Independent Businesses Legal Center and Economists Incorporated,and on the executive committee of the Federalist Society Administrative Law Group.
Historical Context
Matt Dallek, a professor at GW’s Graduate School of Political Management, is a political historian with expertise in the intersection of social crises and political transformation, the evolution of the modern conservative movement, and liberalism and its critics. Along with four co-authored books, Dallek is the author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, which explores the history and influence of America’s right-wing activism.
Immigration Policy
Elizabeth Vaquera is the inaugural Director of the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute and an Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University. Vaquera's research focuses on vulnerable and diverse groups, particularly Latinos/as and immigrants. Her work has analyzed the character and importance of immigrant status, race, and ethnic identity in outcomes such as education, health, and emotional and social well-being. In addition to an extensive body of work published in leading peer-reviewed journals, Vaquera is the co-author of several books, the most recent of which, Education and Immigration, examines the educational experiences of immigrants and their children living in the U.S.
Cori Alonso-Yoder is an associate professor of fundamentals of lawyering at the GW Law School. Alonso-Yoder is nationally recognized scholar on immigration legislation and the impacts of state, local and federal laws on immigrant communities. She specializes on the health policy of immigration.
Education Policy
Dean Michael Feuer is an education policy professor and former president of the National Academy of Education. He can discuss the idea of dismantling the Department of Education and what that would mean for public schooling.
Dr. Joshua L. Glazer is an associate professor of education policy who co-wrote a book about charter schools and vouchers, called Choosing Charters: Better Schools or More Segregation?. He has also done research in low income school districts in Tennessee. He can address proposals related to school choice and voucher initiatives, as well as the idea of turning Title I program funding (for lower-income school districts) into block grants for the states to fund vouchers.
Dr. Dwayne Wright is an assistant professor of higher education administration as well as an attorney and GSEHD's Director of DEI Initiatives. He can address the privatization of student loans for higher education as well as the removal of DEI initiatives and certain language (such as nonbinary) in schools.
Dr. Doran Gresham is an assistant professor of special education and disability studies. He can address the proposal to move funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) into no-strings block grants to the states. He can also address the desire to undo the shift in Title VI that looked at discipline for disparate impact (i.e. considering if a school disproportionately punished minority students).
Dr. Mary DeRaedt, clinical assistant professor of counseling and human development, teaches in the school counseling program and prepares trauma-informed and developmentally focused school counselors. She teaches courses in play therapy, trauma and crisis intervention, child and adolescent development, family therapy, and human sexuality. She can comment on the mental health ramifications on students and school staff regarding the proposed requirement for school staff to out LGBTQ students to their parents, as well as the laws against using a student’s preferred pronouns without parental consent.
Climate Policy
Susan Anenberg, is director of the GW Climate & Health Institute and associate professor of environmental and occupational health. Her research focuses on the health implications of air pollution and climate change. Recently her team published two studies finding links between health problems like asthma and exposure to polluted air.
Economy
Tara Sinclair is the director of the GW Center for Economic Research, which focuses on economic forecasting. Her research models, explains, and forecasts macroeconomic fluctuations and trends. She also evaluates forecasts, particularly with respect to their role in policy and decision-making. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in macroeconomics and econometrics. In 2022-2024 she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Macroeconomics in the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury.
Reproductive Health
Sonia Suter is The Henry St. George Tucker III Dean’s Research Professor of Law; The Kahan Family Research Professor of Law; Founding Director, Health Law Initiative at the George Washington University Law School. Professor Suter is an expert in the intersection of law, medicine and bioethics with a particular focus on reproductive rights, emerging reproductive technologies, and ethical and legal issues in genetics.
Julia Strasser, is the executive director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health and an assistant research professor of health policy and management at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is an expert on reproductive health care and access to essential care including abortion.
Sara Rosenbaum, is the emerita professor of health policy and management, and previously served as founding Chair of the Milken Institute School of Public Health Department of Health Policy at GW.
Elizabeth Borkowski is a senior research scientist in Health Policy and Management at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. Her areas of expertise include reproductive health and U.S. healthcare policy affecting women's health.
Political Extremism
Jon Lewis, research fellow at the GW Program on Extremism, studies domestic violent extremism and homegrown violent extremism, with a specialization in the evolution of white supremacist and anti-government movements in the United States and federal responses to the threat. Lewis is the co-author of two major Program reports on the events of January 6th, as well as numerous long form publications on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and their role in the events of January 6th. In addition, Lewis manages the Program's Capitol Hill Siege database, which is a public tracker for all federal cases stemming from J6 participation.
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