A graphic with different images pertaining to Project 2025.A graphic with different images pertaining to Project 2025.

Project 2025, Explained

Learn more about The Heritage Foundation initiative that threatens to erode our civil rights and civil liberties during a second Trump term.

The ACLU doesn’t endorse or oppose candidates for elected office — but we recognize that the re-election of Donald Trump as president will have immense implications for the future of our democratic norms, institutions, and processes. In 2022, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank, and 140 former Trump staffers authored Project 2025 -- a roadmap for how to replace the rule of law with ring-wing ideals.

Learn more about this initiative and its perilous implications for our civil rights and civil liberties below — as well as how the ACLU will use all of the tools at its disposal – from advocacy to litigation to community organizing – to defend our democracy.


What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity. Project 2025’s largest publication, “Mandate For Leadership,” is a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda.

Project 2025 includes a long list of extreme policy recommendations touching on nearly every aspect of American life, from immigration and abortion rights, to free speech and racial justice. A number of its recommendations rely on support from the executive branch and from Congress. Many other initiatives are outright unconstitutional.


What Are Some Plans/Proposals Included in Project 2025?

Project 2025 calls for hundreds of individual policy changes that will impact our constitutional freedoms, and every aspect of our lives. Among them are:

Gutting Abortion Access

Severely limiting abortion access nationwide by reversing the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion, and reviving a 19th century law, the Comstock Act, to ban any abortion medications, equipment, or materials from being sent through the U.S. Postal Service.

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Mass Deportations

Targeting immigrant communities through mass deportations and raids, ending birthright citizenship, separating families, and dismantling our nation’s asylum system.

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Abusing Warrantless Surveillance

Exploiting the executive branch’s vast and unprecedented powers to spy on Americans’ lives with warrantless surveillance of our data.

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Unleashing Undue Force on Protestors

Violating the First Amendment by using federal law enforcement to target journalists and protestors.

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Severely Limiting Voting Access

Abusing executive power to interfere in our elections by criminalizing the voting process and damaging fair representation.

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Censoring Critical Discussions in Classrooms

Censoring academic discussions about race, gender, and systemic oppression, in violation of the First Amendment, and promising to cut federal funding for schools with curricula that touch on these subjects.

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Rolling Back Trans Rights

Weaponizing federal law to require states and private actors to discriminate against transgender people by threatening to sue schools that protect the rights of trans students or telling hospitals that they would lose their Medicaid funding if they provide gender-affirming medical care to trans adolescents.

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What are President-Elect Trump’s connections to Project 2025?

Project 2025 was published by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with direct ties to Trump’s first administration. Though Trump has falsely claimed he is not connected to Project 2025, a recent report from CNN found at least 140 people who worked on Project 2025 that previously worked in Trump’s administration, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts–who previously worked on Trump’s transition team in 2016–has described his organization’s role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

Roberts was also one of the principle advocates for overturning the 2020 election to keep Donald Trump in office after he lost the election. Heritage Foundation executive Mike Howell called the 2024 election illegitimate before voting even began, claiming without evidence that any result other than a Trump victory will have been the result of fraud.


How is the ACLU Fighting Back?

In a series of seven memos, the ACLU details the civil rights and civil liberties challenges that a second Trump presidency will present and provides a roadmap for how we will fight to protect and expand the freedom of all people. This includes:

  • Going to court to preserve and advance the rights of immigrants, LGBTQ rights, abortion access, nondiscrimination laws, voting rights, and the free speech of all people
  • Working with Congress members to enact policy solutions to many of the most extreme proposals in Project 2025 and using Congress’s constitutional powers to provide oversight, investigate wrongdoing, and defund executive branch policies that threaten our most fundamental rights and freedoms
  • Working with state lawmakers around the country to enact proactive laws that protect people from federal interference.
  • Organizing in communities to educate the public about their rights, the harms of Project 2025, and what they can do to protect and expand our freedoms

For more info, visit aclu.org/47