NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday called for the federal government to reinstate the Department of Homeland Security’s School Safety Board, which is meant to reduce and protect communities from school shootings, after it was disbanded by President Donald Trump last week.
The Democratic Senate minority leader claims that the move by Trump is likely illegal as the board’s existence was passed into law as part of the 2022 bipartisan gun safety bill, following mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. He said the president’s decision “reeks of NRA pressure.”
“The gun lobby wants the School Safety Board shut down, and today I’m saying the Trump administration should not bow down to the NRA because their views are not where America is at with gun safety,” Schumer said.
Schumer—joined by Parkland school shooting survivor and gun safety advocate Cameron Kasky—demanded that Trump and newly-confirmed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem immediately restore the board, which met for the first time in October.
“It’s important for us to come out and talk about this so we do not establish a precedent that Trump is going to be able to go in, do whatever he wants, and never have to face the music,” Kasky said.
There were 330 school shootings in the United States last year, and Schumer said that the creation of the board through the bipartisan bill was meant to quell those numbers by bringing together a wide range of experts.
“The [School] Safety Board is a 26 member board of experts, educators and people who really know schools who are working together to help the feds stop senseless gun shootings,” Schumer said.
The board is made of leaders from the fields of education, psychology and gun safety to “[work] on ways to get at the root of these shootings, not only the guns, but also the larger problems of violence,” the senator said.
Trump’s decision to axe the board went relatively under the radar last week amid a rush of high-profile decisions his first week back in office, but Schumer said that cutting the board is damaging to those who have been touched by gun violence.
“It is a slap in the face to families who have lost their loved ones so senselessly,” he added.
According to a memo obtained by Education Week, Acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman said that the department was “eliminating misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”
Three board members confirmed to Education Week that Homeland Security had planned to terminate the board under an inauguration day directive applying to all external advisory committees working with the agency.