Biden blocks federal funds from schools with archery and hunting programs
Jeremiah Poff
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The Department of Education is withholding federal funding from hunting and archery programs in schools, citing a bipartisan law passed last year that tightened restrictions around gun purchases in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Texas.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said that the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed in the wake of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, requires the department to withhold certain grant funds from archery and hunting programs in schools, according to Fox News.
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“The prohibition went into effect immediately on June 25, 2022, and applies to all existing and future awards under all ESEA programs,” the department told the outlet. “The department is administering the bipartisan law as written by Congress.”
The specific provision in the act was an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that prohibits federal funds from going to programs that “provide to any person a dangerous weapon or training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”
Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, lamented the new restrictions.
“It’s a negative for children,” Floyd told Fox News. “As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students. In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”
In a “frequently asked questions” document, the department says that the Stronger Connections grants, which were created in the 2022 law, should be used to “establish safer and healthier learning environments, and to prevent and respond to acts of bullying, violence, and hate that impact our school communities at individual and systemic levels, among other programs and activities.”
The department’s document says that the grants can be used to “invest in high-quality teaching and learning, including by implementing culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices,” among other uses, including physical education programs. But the physical education programs cannot include hunting or archery programs, which is included in the prohibition on “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”
“A ‘dangerous weapon’… is a weapon, device, instrument, material, or substance, animate or inanimate, that is used for, or is readily capable of, causing death or serious bodily injury, except that such term does not include a pocketknife with a blade of less than 2 1/2 inches in length,” the document says, citing U.S. law.
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In a statement to the Washington Examiner, a department spokesperson said the Stronger Connections grants were created to “provide all students with safe and supportive learning opportunities and environments that are critical for their success.”
“The funds were released to [state education agencies] last September, and now the SEAs must award these funds competitively to high-need local educational agencies (LEAs), as determined by the state, to fund activities allowable under section 4108 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,” the department said.