Lightning McQueen from “Cars,” Nemo the clownfish and the Parr family from “The Incredibles” are among the animated personalities starring in the agency’s social media posts in recent months. 

“KA-CHOW! The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is coming to DC!” a department staffer posted July 23, using McQueen’s well-known catchphrase to promote the event that took over the streets of the nation’s capital last weekend. 

Disney fans on Facebook were quick to catch that the department had replaced the cartoon car’s number, 95, with 47 to represent President Donald Trump. Racing enthusiasts corrected the team for using a NASCAR-type vehicle to publicize an IndyCar event. But others jumped on the potential legal issues involved in the government’s use of copyrighted material.

“Does Disney know you’re using the likeness of Lightning McQueen in this way??” one Facebook commenter asked.

Disney is just one of several entertainment giants whose characters have inspired the department’s posts over the past several months. Sometimes, as in the “Cars” example, the messages have nothing to do with education. In other instances, the department clearly used the characters to promote its agenda. 

Last December, it employed kind and sensitive to plug its signature policy goal: getting rid of the agency. “Franklin knows the Department of Education doesn’t do any educating,” the post on X read. Similarly, twice this month, appeared on the department’s social media feed in support of what Education Secretary Linda McMahon calls her “final mission,” closing the department. 

Following a Monday, the White House used the same tactic, turning The Magic School Bus, a popular children’s book series, into The Magic Deportation Bus. Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and former Democratic candidate for Congress, suggested the altered image, which showed main character Ms. Frizzle transporting passengers in handcuffs, was offensive.

“The entire right-wing education reform network was at the White House yesterday — will a single person denounce a back-to-school message based on a bus full of children in chains?” he . 

Agency officials did not respond to multiple requests from ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ seeking to find out whether it had permission to use the images or how the re-creations might meet the standards for fair use. But one First Amendment scholar said she doubts officials sought approval from Disney, Nickelodeon, Scholastic or any of the other businesses that own the rights to the characters.

“This administration doesn’t ask for permission; it thinks that doing so is weak,” said Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Harvard Law School with expertise in legal issues affecting the .

The company is known for frequently to protect its content. In one example, it joined Warner Brothers, Discovery and Universal Pictures last year to sue a Chinese AI image generator for . It once sued three for painting Disney characters on their walls.

The fact that the Education Department’s use of its characters hasn’t sparked the same response suggests that “the administration’s tactics of seeking vengeance and punishing disagreement are factors weighing against legal action,” Tushnet said. 

Disney might also have more important legal matters to contend with.

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission over the agency’s review of its broadcast licenses in eight markets, including New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company argues that the Trump administration is trying to control what hosts say on “The View,” a morning show, and retaliate for late night talk show host calling first lady Melania Trump an “expectant widow.”

At press time Tuesday, the department released a statement making light of the controversy.

“It’s always great to see the 74 writing a hard-hitting piece about social media posts — and not the fact that 3 in 10 students are not proficient in reading or math, 1 in 10 students may be a victim of sexual misconduct prior to graduation, or chronic absenteeism rates skyrocketing across the nation,”  wrote Ellen Keast, a department spokeswoman. “Those are just three-story ideas for you that parents, local leaders, and educators are tracking across the country, not an irrelevant opinion about high-performing social media posts.”

Inspiring ‘generations of children’

Most of the companies that ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ contacted for reaction did not respond. But Peanuts Worldwide, which manages copyright and licensing for Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the  gang, said in an email that the department’s meme showing the characters reading books around the iconic red doghouse was “almost certainly an unauthorized reinterpretation.” 

“Peanuts does not take a political stance,” the statement said. 

The production company that owns , however, is suing the Department of the Interior. The complaint says the agency used the version of “O Tannenbaum” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on its social media accounts without permission.

The Snoopy doghouse image was seemingly innocuous, promoting literacy as the “foundation for a lifetime of success.” But the Super Mario image, like the use of Franklin, delivered a clearly partisan message. The Franklin post about shuttering the department came about a week after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted an image that reimagined the gentle turtle as hanging out of a helicopter and firing a machine gun toward a boat. “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists,” the imitation book cover said.

Kids Can Press, which owns the rights to Franklin, .

“Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy and inclusivity,” the Canada-based children’s publisher said. “We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values.”

But the publisher chose to stay quiet on the Education Department’s use.

“We would prefer not to be involved,” spokeswoman Michaela Cornell told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ.

Since the December Franklin post, roughly two dozen others have employed movie or book characters. One of the latest, published after the Monday White House event, features Sesame Street’s Elmo in a red Make Education Great Again hat.

Respecting boundaries

At the Education Department, career staffers have historically been diligent about adhering to copyright laws, said Hussien Salama, a Democratic political appointee who served as a video producer at the department under former Secretary Miguel Cardona. 

He recalled an instance in which Sally Harris, managing director of digital media and creative services at the department, warned him against using a CNN clip that featured Cardona unless he had “express permission, written down” from the network.

Harris, he said, worked to establish a “firewall,” in which the secretary’s account was used for more political messaging, like one about being “bullied for who they are,” while the official department account stayed more neutral. The political team, he added, understood that the career staff would still be there after the administration changed.

“One of the most frustrating things in the world is to leave the department, having done all of this stuff to try to respect these boundaries, and see it all thrown in the garbage,” he said. 

Under Cardona, the department frequently posted messages about supporting LGBTQ students and forgiving student loans, policies on which the Biden and Trump administrations sharply disagree. But the memes didn’t use well-known characters to convey those policy statements and often featured drawings created by an in-house graphic designer, Salama said. 

He said he “100%” suspects political appointees who work for McMahon are posting the copyrighted material. 

Meanwhile, Harris and the career staffers are likely “cringing every moment they see blatant copyright violations posted on the Department of Education’s social media channels,” Salama said. “We had arguments about splitting hairs on fair use news clippings, not using Disney characters to endorse a political agenda.” 

There are situations in which using copyrighted material is allowable under the law. But legal experts couldn’t say for sure whether the department’s depiction of the characters, from the to , would apply.

The fact that the government isn’t making a profit off the posts would “favor fair use,” said Tushnet, the Harvard law professor. In Hegseth’s case, she added, the secretary could argue that his Franklin meme was . 

The Education Department, however, hasn’t altered characters enough to fit that standard, said Matthew Sag, a copyright expert at Emory University. 

“Most things that end up being bound to be fair use are transformative,” he said. “They take something that was used for one purpose and use it in a very different purpose.”

Teacher appreciation

One policy expert defended the department’s use of the material and expressed support for their underlying messages. The “Finding Nemo” post, for example, shows Nemo and his father Marlin with the slogan, “Parents know best.”

“Families matter for student success, and reading and math scores are at or near historical lows,”  said Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

In response to its “Parents know best,” memes, a few expressed agreement or touted homeschooling as better than public schools. With the “Finding Nemo” post, one person , “Parents do know what is best. No school should keep secrets from parents.” But most noted that in the Pixar story, Marlin lost Nemo because he was overprotective.

The department also used a series of fictional educators to mark Teacher Appreciation Week in May. They included Ms. Fowl, from Nickelodeon’s “Jimmy Neutron,” known for making bird-like noises, and Elizabeth Hoover, from “The Simpsons.” Under the heading, “Teachers are mentors,” Hoover, often described as jaded after decades on the job, is depicted with a red MEGA (Make Education Great Again) book under her arm. In a separate post, Mrs. Puff, the teacher from SpongeBob SquarePants, was shown .

The posts drew widespread criticism from real teachers.

“I think we are being trolled,” one commenter . 

Stephanie Toliver, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, saw the choices of characters “who are often well-meaning but marred by burnout, incompetence, eccentricity and paranoia” as a not-so-subtle dig at the profession.

“If we appreciate teachers the way McMahon has, we won’t have many left,” .

Journalist John Ortved, a , offered a different take on Hoover. 

“Initially, she was written as a stand-in for ‘teachers’ in the public school system, who are exhausted or beaten down and perhaps just uncaring about their jobs,” he said. “But she’s there every day, in the world of the Simpsons, for the past 35 years. In some ways it’s a testament to the commitment of these people.”

There’s no way to know whether the staffer behind the Hoover post perceived the character that way. But one education policy expert said it doesn’t matter.

Neal McCluskey, formerly with the libertarian Cato Institute, supports shutting down the department. Still, he that the government should “stop paying for people at the department to create social media memes. Which would, of course, make it smaller.”

McCluskey, now with Florida State University’s Institute for Governance and Civics, said he hasn’t considered the copyright issues, but said, “If they’re belt-tightening, people who make cutesy tweets seem kind of nonessential, especially for a department that shouldn’t exist.”