Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy demanded “transparency” from the Department of Education Wednesday regarding the disputed results of a national civics contest for high school students.
“This competition was supposed to be a celebration of this nation’s founding, uplifting principles of equality and justice,” Murphy wrote in the letter addressed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, exclusively obtained by NOTUS. “Instead, the Presidential 1776 Award’s opaque rules and scoring have cast serious doubts about basic standards of fairness and left a family reeling.”
The Connecticut senator wrote on behalf of Aangad Singh, the 15-year-old Connecticut boy who competed, and his family, who are seeking to understand why Singh did not advance to the finals. The controversy, first reported by NOTUS, has drawn national scrutiny over whether the results were rigged or biased against a boy of Indian descent in favor of three finalists who fit President Donald Trump’s education agenda.
One was home-schooled, another attended a private, Catholic school, and the third, who went to public school, told CNN that she supported Trump and believed the most important thing was “everyone walking away from the competition knowing this is the greatest country of the world.”
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“The students who won the competition were undeniably impressive,” Murphy wrote. “However, it is easy to understand why groups like the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus have suggested the competition was biased since the Trump Administration has made clear it believes anyone who is not a white male is inferior. Through hateful rhetoric, sweeping executive orders, and devastating funding cuts, Trump has turned discrimination into a governing agenda.”
Murphy, who sits on two Senate committees that oversee the Department of Education, requested “a full review of the results,” including detailed explanations for disputed answers and any scoring documents. He set a Sept. 1 deadline for the department to respond.
“We are very grateful to Senator Murphy and his team for raising these questions, and we hope this will help us finally receive clear answers,” Bhalindar Singh, Aangad’s father, said.
The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
CBS broadcast the Presidential 1776 Award competition on June 30, and immediately, Singh and his family questioned the results.
According to their analysis, two of Aangad’s answers were incorrectly scored as wrong, and if either had been scored correctly, he would have advanced to the final three. The finalists received a share of $250,000 in scholarships and a trip to the Oval Office to meet the president.
The first disputed answer was about the finer points of Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution. The second was about which amendment ended slavery. To the latter question, Singh said “13th,” according to auto-generated subtitles, which was correct. But on the broadcast, it was marked as wrong.
“His answer to question two is undeniably correct,” Murphy wrote. “As has been publicly reported, there is some debate about how to score his answer to question one, but his answer is clearly at least partially correct.”
On July 14, Aangad’s father asked the Education Department to review his son’s scores. A week later, an aide to McMahon wrote back that the “judges exercised independent good faith judgment in selecting finalists and winners.”
“The graphics shown in the broadcast accurately reflected the points awarded by the judges’ interpretation of answers and scoring,” the aide said.
The response did not engage with the substance of their questions, Aangad’s father said, and Murphy echoed the sentiments in his letter.
In an initial statement to NOTUS before the story was published, an Education Department spokesperson said any questions about the integrity of the competition should be directed to the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, the federal organization that it said independently developed, judged and scored the questions.
As Education secretary, McMahon holds one of the foundation’s two active board seats. None of the five judges responded to multiple requests for comment. The panel scholar, Abbylin Sellers, initially agreed to an interview but then canceled, saying, “I have informed the Department of Ed press team of your request and will let them handle it.”
Roger Jones III, the principal at a Tennessee high school where one of the judges teaches social studies, said in an email that he was not aware of the controversy and referred questions to the foundation.
“While the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation may have provided the judges,” Murphy wrote to McMahon, “it is incumbent upon the Department to clarify the results as the host of this official competition put on by the federal government.”
Murphy’s letter is the latest twist in a relationship that can seem like a storyline straight out of the wrestling organization McMahon once helped run.
In 2012, Murphy and McMahon, a former WWE executive, battled for the Senate seat Murphy now occupies, a race that Murphy won by 15 percentage points. McMahon spent a record $100 million in personal funds on two unsuccessful Senate bids — she also lost in 2010 to Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Five years later, Trump nominated McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration. During her confirmation process, Murphy struck a more conciliatory tone. He voted for her confirmation and said in a statement that, “while Linda and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, I look forward to working with her to help small businesses in Connecticut.”
In 2025, when Trump returned to office, they went back to battling.
During McMahon’s confirmation hearing to lead the Education Department, Murphy, who sits on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, pressed her about how an executive order restricting federal funding for DEI programs would impact schools.
“It is good to see you again outside of the state of Connecticut, where we run into each other,” she replied.
This time, he voted against her nomination. The committee advanced her on a 12-11, party-line vote, and she was ultimately confirmed.
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