The Attack on Head Start Is an Attack on Women | Ming-Qi Chu

ACLU Deputy Director Ming-Qi Chu on the Trump administration’s latest effort to gut Head Start—and the larger agenda behind it.

The Trump administration is taking aim at Head Start, the 60-year-old program that provides early education, healthcare, nutrition, and other critical services to low-income children and their families.

Jen talks with Ming-Qi Chu, deputy director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, about a proposed rule that would eliminate roughly 90% of Head Start’s performance standards, weaken health and developmental screening requirements, reduce services for children with disabilities, impose English-only instruction, and make enrollment more difficult for some of the country’s most vulnerable families.

They also examine the larger agenda behind the attack: the Project 2025 vision of traditional gender roles, the dismantling of America’s care infrastructure, and why weakening childcare ultimately threatens women’s ability to work and remain economically independent.

Plus, Jen shares her own connection to Head Start—and why the program mattered to her family.

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