Trump has not made the teaching of the Bible mandatory in schools and universities.

It is false that the U.S. President, Donald Trump, has declared the teaching of the Bible mandatory in American schools and universities. There are no executive orders in the White House archives with this instruction and no media outlet has recorded this pronouncement. Social media posts attach a statement from Donald Trump in which the US president claims that “the teaching of the Bible IS MANDATORY in schools and universities” (sic). In the message, a photograph of Trump sitting in his White House office is seen, on which the quoted phrase is inserted.

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“Trump insists that the teaching of the word of God in schools, universities, and prisons should be mandatory,” users add in their messages. FACTS: Donald Trump has not made those statements and in the record of executive orders issued by the president in his first and second terms, none appears that points to the obligation to teach the Bible. The only initiatives related to the subject have been promoted in some states and only affect their territory and not the rest of the country. A statement without traces The search in internet media for the supposed words of Donald Trump yields no results that indicate that the President of the United States is calling for the mandatory teaching of the Bible. A search of the White House Archives and the U.S. Federal Register for Trump’s executive orders during his first term and in the current legislature has also yielded no positive result. However, articles dated 2019 do appear, analyzing a post on the X account of then-President Donald Trump, in which he supports several state initiatives that “are introducing biblical literacy classes, offering students the option to study the Bible.” Most recent is an entry on the White House news page, from September 2025, about a speech at the Museum of the Bible, in which Trump “emphasized the enduring role of faith in American identity” and highlighted “his Administration’s unwavering defense of religious values.” But in none of the previous entries is the mandatory teaching of the Bible expressly declared, nor are presidential initiatives announced to make it mandatory in public schools or universities throughout the country. A statewide initiative, not federal. In 2019 reports, the media highlighted proposals from lawmakers in at least six states that demanded or encouraged public schools to offer elective courses on the literary and historical importance of the Bible. But in no case is its mandatory nature in schools or universities mentioned.

Some of these initiatives, such as the one in Florida in 2019 that required offering courses for the study of the Bible in public schools, or the one in Oklahoma in 2024, which provided teachers with a physical copy of the Bible, have created controversy and were criticized for attacking the separation between Church and State.

Judicial rulings against this type of project
It should be remembered that the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled on several occasions against initiatives of this type. The most important one was ruled in 1963 against a guideline from a Pennsylvania school district that required reading the Bible and reciting the Lord’s Prayer in public schools. According to the Supreme Court, it conflicted with the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects religious freedom. In 1980, it declared unconstitutional a Kentucky law that required a copy of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, considering that it did not serve a secular purpose and violated the First Amendment. Recently, on November 18, 2025, a federal judge in Texas blocked a state law that requires public schools in the state to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Therefore, it is not true that Donald Trump has said that the teaching of the Bible is mandatory in schools and universities, there is no trace of this statement and the related initiatives are at the state level and do not affect the entire territory of the United States.