Monash University’s new dean of law has announced senior law students will stop tutorials and suggested students should do no more than ten hours of paid work a week alongside their studies.
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At the beginning of October, Trump administration officials outlined a potential deal that it first brought to nine major research universities.
In return for special consideration in research and other federal funding, the universities were asked to implement a wide-ranging slate of policies. Those included a five-year tuition freeze, a standardized test requirement for applicants, an institutional position of neutrality on political and social events, and a commitment to potentially dissolve units deemed anti-conservative.
Seven of the universities rejected the compact outright. Two others, Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin, have yet to formally accept or reject the deal. In October, Trump appeared to open the compact up to all colleges via a social post. At least three other institutions have declined the compact since.
Many of the rejecting institutions cited concerns about academic freedom and independence. But NCF said Monday that it has already implemented policies reflecting many of the principles in the compact. The college has nixed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, dismantled its gender studies department, and eliminated “discrimination in admissions.”
Before 2023, NCF had a reputation as a LGBTQ+ friendly campus and one of the most progressive institutions in the state. But that year, DeSantis appointed a new slate of trustees at the liberal arts college, kicking off a turbulent transformation into a conservative model of public education.
The governor publicly advocated for a vision for NCF as a “Hillsdale of the South,” referring to Hillsdale College in Michigan, a conservative Christian institution.
The American Association of University Professors’ governing council voted unanimously in 2024 to sanction NCF over noncompliance with the faculty group’s standards for shared governance.
The AAUP called NCF’s changes an “unprecedented politically motivated takeover” citing findings from its 2023 report on political interference in higher ed in Florida. At NCF that included course changes, tenure decisions and faculty dismissals following DeSantis remaking of NCF’s board, according to the report.
“The board of trustees and administration thoroughly restructured the college’s academic offerings without meaningful faculty involvement and denied academic due process to multiple faculty members during their tenure applications and renewals,” the AAUP said in announcing the censure.
More recently, Republican state lawmakers and DeSantis have reportedly eyed an expansion of NCF, which could include diverting other public institutions’ resources to NCF’s control.
For its part, the college said Monday that it has reformed around principles such as merit and free thought.
“We have no affirmative action or DEI, and we have been building a campus where open dialogue and the marketplace of ideas are at the forefront of everything we do,” said NCF President Richard Corcoran, formerly the Republican speaker for the Florida House and the education commissioner under DeSantis.
Initially, the Trump administration offered the compact to research powerhouses that take on large numbers of federal contracts, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Southern California and UT-Austin.
The smaller NCF only reported $381,509 in federal grants in fiscal 2024.
New capabilities in Top Hat Ace enable educators to quickly and easily transform static course materials into accessible, interactive content.
TORONTO – October 28, 2025 – Top Hat, the leader in student engagement solutions for higher education, today announced the launch of a powerful new accessibility tool in its AI-powered assistant, Ace. Ace Content Enhancer gives faculty the ability to upload existing course materials into Top Hat and receive actionable guidance to meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards with minimal effort.
Following the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2024 Title II ruling, public colleges and universities must ensure all digital content meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards as early as April 2026, depending on institution size. But for most professors, the path to compliance is anything but clear. The rules are highly technical, and without dedicated time or training, it can be challenging to ensure materials are fully compliant. Ace Content Enhancer removes this burden by scanning materials in Top Hat in seconds, identifying issues, and providing recommendations to help content meet the standards for accessibility outlined under Title II.
“We’re helping educators meet this moment by simplifying compliance and making it easier to create learning experiences that serve all students,” said Maggie Leen, CEO of Top Hat. “More than meeting a mandate, this is an opportunity to create content that’s more engaging, and ultimately more effective in supporting student success.”
With Ace’s AI-powered Content Enhancer, faculty can:
“Educators retain full control of their content, while Ace eliminates the guesswork, making accessibility improvements fast, intuitive, and aligned with instructional goals,” said Hong Bui, Chief Product Officer at Top Hat. “We’re providing a guided path forward so that accessibility doesn’t come at the expense of interactivity, creativity, or sound pedagogy.”
The launch of Ace Content Enhancer reflects Top Hat’s broader commitment to accessibility. It builds on existing capabilities—like automatic transcription of slide content—and reinforces the company’s focus on ensuring all student-facing tools and experiences, across web and mobile, meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards, including readings, assessments, and interactive content.
About Top Hat
As the leader in student engagement solutions for higher education, Top Hat enables educators to employ evidence-based teaching practices through interactive content, tools, and activities in in-person, online and hybrid classroom environments. Thousands of faculty at more than 1,500 North American colleges and universities use Top Hat to create personalized, engaging and accessible learning experiences for students before, during, and after class. To learn more, please visit tophat.com.
PCOS is a metabolic and reproductive condition. Although it’s the most common hormonal disorder in women of reproductive age, up to 70% of women affected by it never get diagnosed. Dr. Jamie Benham, an endocrinologist and principal investigatorat the EMBRACE Women’s Health Research Lab at the University of Calgary, said that because patients with PCOS can have a variety of experiences and symptoms, it can be challenging for doctors to diagnose.
For Joslin, it wasn’t until she began to struggle with infertility that she finally received a proper diagnosis. “When I saw the infertility doctor … he looks at me [and the] first thing he said to me was, ‘You are textbook PCOS’,” she said.
Joslin said that if it weren’t for the online community, PCOS wouldn’t have been on her radar at all. Through treatments from her fertility doctor and naturopath, she was able to start a family.
Jade Broughton, a member of the PCOS Patient Advisory Council at the University of Calgary, said she initially downplayed her own symptoms for years. She assumed they were stress-related from her shift work as a nurse and she was told her symptoms were normal.
“I started noticing, quite a few years ago, my hair started falling [out] in clumps,” Broughton said. “I was just gaining weight so rapidly, I started having facial hair, all that stuff. I went to my doctor, and she was like, ‘You just turned 30, that’s just normal’ … So, I felt like I was just being gaslit for years and years.”
Through internet searches and the PCOS Reddit page, she was finally able to understand what her symptoms might mean. After about seven years of advocating for herself, she finally received a diagnosis from her family doctor.
“I feel like women’s health is still not taken seriously when it should be,” Broughton said. “Just stand up for yourself and trust your gut if you know something’s wrong.”
Lisa Minaker, a legal assistant student in Winnipeg, Canada said that her irregular periods were concerning to her family physician, who referred her to an endocrinologist. Through blood work, her endocrinologist diagnosed PCOS. Although she received a diagnosis relatively quickly, Minaker said she felt that her doctors were not always “overly helpful” when it came to managing her symptoms. She thinks that doctors lack sufficient training in women’s health.
“Not that it’s their fault,” she said. “Finding out how women don’t metabolize things like men, and how it’s dependant on where you are in your cycle … we’re still treated as basically a smaller version of men.”
Due to the complexity of PCOS and its diverse range of symptoms, a team of healthcare practitioners can be helpful. Joslin and Minaker both say that including other healthcare professionals, such as a naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist, helped with symptom management.
“The [naturopathic doctor] was that complement to the medical world,” Joslin said. “My fertility doctor would prescribe me medication, and the naturopath would talk to me about my blood work [and supplements] … It was the hand holding and just someone talking you through [your results] to make sure you know what’s going on.”
“I 100% credit the fact that I’m a mom to my naturopath,” Joslin said. “I would not be a mom without her.”
Minaker said that in her own health journey she learned more from social media than from any doctor. “The girls in the [Facebook] group are pretty helpful,” she said. “I had to do my own research because I wasn’t really given a choice.”
Although social media has played a big role in educating women about PCOS and other health problems, it can sometimes provide misinformation. A common misconception Broughton hears from patients is that they’re afraid to exercise, believing it’s bad for their health because of internet claims that it will raise cortisol levels — a hormone released in response to physical or emotional stress.
“This is not consistent with what we know about the condition and exercise is recommended for all people with PCOS,” said Benham. “Unfortunately, we’re limited in that PCOS is not well studied. It’s not well understood. It hasn’t been funded from a women’s health research perspective. So there’s a lot of people that are profiting off nutrition plans or exercise plans or giving different advice around supplements.”
Minaker said she found it difficult in the beginning to distinguish which resources were helpful and which were targeted marketing scams.
“I wasn’t always that intuitive to be able to tell who was truthful,” Minaker said. “[I was] trying to find as many answers as possible.”
In some Facebook groups, women share their symptoms, medications and diagnostic test results. Chats in these groups often involve consultations, advice and, sometimes, bullying.
Joslin said that instead of lifting others up, some members of fertility groups for women with PCOS create guilt, embarrassment and shame around a vital aspect of life that PCOS can affect — being able to start a family.
“In some groups, like the PCOS groups that focus specifically on trying to get pregnant, I had to leave right away,” Joslin said. “It was very toxic … where, truthfully, in this journey you need support. I’ve found much more success with smaller localized groups.”
To combat misinformation, some medical organizations have created their online forums and portals. Broughton pointed to Monash University in Australia, which released new PCOS guidelines and launched a phone application called Ask PCOS.
“They actually have an app that has tons of resources on weight management, food, insulin resistance, all of that stuff,” Broughton said. “And they’re actually one of the big players that’s trying to have it renamed as well.”
Since PCOS affects more than ovaries, a new name would reflect that and might make it less confusing for women with symptoms to get the help they need.
Other institutions are bringing women together in person to share experiences face-to-face.
The EMBRACE Lab at the University of Calgary, for example, formed a PCOS Patient Advisory Council to conduct patient-oriented research earlier this year. The council, which meets monthly, is a space for community.
“It’s such an amazing experience to sit in the room with all these women,” Joslin said. “Knowing all the struggles I’ve had … and sitting with people who are newly diagnosed or on their fertility journey … I’m able to share my advice and say, ‘You’re not alone.’”
Community, whether found online or through research, has been an important part of the journey for these patients.
Benham said that PCOS is a lifelong condition, whose symptoms can be managed although it cannot be cured. Joslin adds that it’s important to bring awareness to the condition. “Because there’s so many of us that have it, let’s make this more known.”
1. Why might someone trust a random person on an online forum over a doctor for medical advice?
2. How can medical information you find online leave you more confused?
3. If you felt unwell where would you turn for information about your condition?
Key points:
In the growing conversation around AI in education, speed and efficiency often take center stage, but that focus can tempt busy educators to use what’s fast rather than what’s best. To truly serve teachers–and above all, students–AI must be built with intention and clear constraints that prioritize instructional quality, ensuring efficiency never comes at the expense of what learners need most.
AI doesn’t inherently understand fairness, instructional nuance, or educational standards. It mirrors its training and guidance, usually as a capable generalist rather than a specialist. Without deliberate design, AI can produce content that’s misaligned or confusing. In education, fairness means an assessment measures only the intended skill and does so comparably for students from different backgrounds, languages, and abilities–without hidden barriers unrelated to what’s being assessed. Effective AI systems in schools need embedded controls to avoid construct‑irrelevant content: elements that distract from what’s actually being measured.
For example, a math question shouldn’t hinge on dense prose, niche sports knowledge, or culturally-specific idioms unless those are part of the goal; visuals shouldn’t rely on low-contrast colors that are hard to see; audio shouldn’t assume a single accent; and timing shouldn’t penalize students if speed isn’t the construct.
To improve fairness and accuracy in assessments:
These subtleties matter. General-purpose AI tools, left untuned, often miss them.
The risk of relying on convenience
Educators face immense time pressures. It’s tempting to use AI to quickly generate assessments or learning materials. But speed can obscure deeper issues. A question might look fine on the surface but fail to meet cognitive complexity standards or align with curriculum goals. These aren’t always easy problems to spot, but they can impact student learning.
To choose the right AI tools:
General AI tools can get you 60 percent of the way there. But that last 40 percent is the part that ensures quality, fairness, and educational value. This requires expertise to get right. That’s where structured, guided AI becomes essential.
Building AI that thinks like an educator
Developing AI for education requires close collaboration with psychometricians and subject matter experts to shape how the system behaves. This helps ensure it produces content that’s not just technically correct, but pedagogically sound.
To ensure quality in AI-generated content:
This process is iterative and manual. It’s grounded in real-world educational standards, not just benchmark scores.
Personalization needs structure
AI’s ability to personalize learning is promising. But without structure, personalization can lead students off track. AI might guide learners toward content that’s irrelevant or misaligned with their goals. That’s why personalization must be paired with oversight and intentional design.
To harness personalization responsibly:
It’s not enough to adapt–the adaptation must be meaningful and educationally coherent.
AI can accelerate content creation and internal workflows. But speed alone isn’t a virtue. Without scrutiny, fast outputs can compromise quality.
To maintain efficiency and innovation:
Responsible use of AI requires processes that ensure every AI-generated item is part of a system designed to uphold educational integrity.
An effective approach to AI in education is driven by concern–not fear, but responsibility. Educators are doing their best under challenging conditions, and the goal should be building AI tools that support their work.
When frameworks and safeguards are built-in, what reaches students is more likely to be accurate, fair, and aligned with learning goals.
In education, trust is foundational. And trust in AI starts with thoughtful design, expert oversight, and a deep respect for the work educators do every day.
Trump’s proclamation announcing the H-1B fee left employers with plenty of unanswered questions. While Monday’s update provides some clarity, the policy’s future is still uncertain in part because business groups, employers, unions, lawmakers and other stakeholders oppose it.
At least two lawsuits have been filed seeking to enjoin the fee proclamation — one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., and another by a group of plaintiffs in California. Both similarly alleged that the H-1B fee violates the constitutional separation of powers as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaints also warned of negative effects on U.S. employers that depend on the H-1B program to attract skilled foreign workers.
In a letter to Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers agreed to the need for reform of the H-1B program while expressing concerns about the potential effects of the fee on U.S. employers’ ability to compete with their global counterparts for talent.
“The recently announced H-1B visa changes will undermine the efforts of the very catalysts of our innovation economy — startups and small technology firms — that cannot absorb costs at the same level as larger firms,” the lawmakers wrote.
Trump and the White House have said the fee is necessary to combat “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program by employers that seek to artificially suppress wages at the cost of reduced job opportunities for U.S. citizens. In addition to the fee imposed on new visa petitions, the administration issued a proposed rule to change its selection process for H-1B visas to be weighted in favor of higher-paying offers.
USCIS’ guidance noted that the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant other exceptions to the H-1B fee in “extraordinarily rare” circumstances where:
The agency provided an email address to which employers could send requests for fee exemption along with supporting evidence.
Employers planning to file for new H-1B visas should plan to pay the fee unless litigation results in some kind of change, Akshat Divatia, attorney at law firm Harris Sliwoski, wrote in an article Tuesday. Divatia noted that some of the criteria for exemptions outlined by USCIS may conflict with congressional design of the H-1B program, and that employers “should watch closely how the courts respond” to such arguments.
I used to require my students submit AI disclosure statements any time they used generative AI on an assignment. I won’t be doing that anymore.
From the beginning of our current AI-saturated moment, I leaned into ChatGPT, not away, and was an early adopter of AI in my college composition classes. My early adoption of AI hinged on the need for transparency and openness. Students had to disclose to me when and how they were using AI. I still fervently believe in those values, but I no longer believe that required disclosure statements help us achieve them.
Look. I get it. Moving away from AI disclosure statements is antithetical to many of higher ed’s current best practices for responsible AI usage. But I started questioning the wisdom of the disclosure statement in spring 2024, when I noticed a problem. Students in my composition courses were turning in work that was obviously created with the assistance of AI, but they failed to proffer the required disclosure statements. I was puzzled and frustrated. I thought to myself, “I allow them to use AI; I encourage them to experiment with it; all I ask is that they tell me they’re using AI. So, why the silence?” Chatting with colleagues in my department who have similar AI-permissive attitudes and disclosure requirements, I found they were experiencing similar problems. Even when we were telling our students that AI usage was OK, students still didn’t want to fess up.
Fess up. Confess. That’s the problem.
Mandatory disclosure statements feel an awful lot like a confession or admission of guilt right now. And given the culture of suspicion and shame that dominates so much of the AI discourse in higher ed at the moment, I can’t blame students for being reluctant to disclose their usage. Even in a class with a professor who allows and encourages AI use, students can’t escape the broader messaging that AI use should be illicit and clandestine.
AI disclosure statements have become a weird kind of performative confession: an apology performed for the professor, marking the honest students with a “scarlet AI,” while the less scrupulous students escape undetected (or maybe suspected, but not found guilty).
As well intentioned as mandatory AI disclosure statements are, they have backfired on us. Instead of promoting transparency and honesty, they further stigmatize the exploration of ethical, responsible and creative AI usage and shift our pedagogy toward more surveillance and suspicion. I suggest that it is more productive to assume some level of AI usage as a matter of course, and, in response, adjust our methods of assessment and evaluation while simultaneously working toward normalizing the usage of AI tools in our own work.
Studies show that AI disclosure carries risks both in and out of the classroom. One study published in May reports that any kind of disclosure (both voluntary and mandatory) in a wide variety of contexts resulted in decreased trust in the person using AI (this remained true even when study participants had prior knowledge of an individual’s AI usage, meaning, the authors write, “The observed effect can be attributed primarily to the act of disclosure rather than to the mere fact of AI usage.”)
Another recent article points to the gap present between the values of honesty and equity when it comes to mandatory AI disclosure: People won’t feel safe to disclose AI usage if there’s an underlying or perceived lack of trust and respect.
Some who hold unfavorable attitudes toward AI will point to these findings as proof that students should just avoid AI usage altogether. But that doesn’t strike me as realistic. Anti-AI bias will only drive student AI usage further underground and lead to fewer opportunities for honest dialogue. It also discourages the kind of AI literacy employers are starting to expect and require.
Mandatory AI disclosure for students isn’t conducive to authentic reflection but is instead a kind of virtue signaling that chills the honest conversation we should want to have with our students. Coercion only breeds silence and secrecy.
Mandatory AI disclosure also does nothing to curb or reduce the worst features of badly written AI papers, including the vague, robotic tone; the excess of filler language; and, their most egregious hallmark, the fabricated sources and quotes.
Rather than demanding students confess their AI crimes to us through mandatory disclosure statements, I advocate both a shift in perspective and a shift of assignments. We need to move from viewing students’ AI assistance as a special exception warranting reactionary surveillance to accepting and normalizing AI usage as a now commonplace feature of our students’ education.
That shift does not mean we should allow and accept any and all student AI usage. We shouldn’t resign ourselves to reading AI slop that a student generates in an attempt to avoid learning. When confronted with a badly written AI paper that sounds nothing like the student who submitted it, the focus shouldn’t be on whether the student used AI but on why it’s not good writing and why it fails to satisfy the assignment requirements. It should also go without saying that fake sources and quotes, regardless of whether they are of human or AI origin, should be called out as fabrications that won’t be tolerated.
We have to build assignments and evaluation criteria that disincentivize the kinds of unskilled AI usage that circumvent learning. We have to teach students basic AI literacy and ethics. We have to build and foster learning environments that value transparency and honesty. But real transparency and honesty require safety and trust before they can flourish.
We can start to build such a learning environment by working to normalize AI usage with our students. Some ideas that spring to mind include:
The point with these examples is that we are inviting students into the messy, exciting and scary moment we all find ourselves in. They shift the focus away from coerced confessions to a welcoming invitation to join in and share their own wisdom, experience and expertise that they accumulate as we all adjust to the age of AI.
High Point University in North Carolina sets itself apart by offering a luxury experience.
Wikipedia
Two university campaigns hit the national spotlight in recent weeks. Each tells a very different story about how colleges market themselves.
Colorado Mesa University’s new Featherstone University spoof takes aim at elite school stereotypes, ending with the line “We care about who you are, not who you know.”
Days later, The Wall Street Journal profiled High Point University in a turnaround story built on private wealth and exclusivity. Its campus features etiquette lessons, manicured gardens and an airplane cabin for networking drills. HPU prepares students for a world where who you know still matters.
In an industry criticized for sameness, both CMU and HPU stand out as strategic outliers.
Public trust in higher education is fragile. Concerns over cost, access and free speech have left families asking if it is worth it. Against this backdrop, two playbooks are emerging: anti-elitist authenticity and elite-adjacent experience.
Colorado Mesa University’s “Welcome to Featherstone” flips elite-school marketing on its head. The parody ends with a challenge: “We don’t care about who you know. We care about you.”
For a public university serving rural, first-generation, working-class students, the message fits. CMU has built its brand on affordability, access and trust by cutting tuition, growing CMU Tech and guaranteeing free tuition for Colorado families earning $70,000 or less.
This isn’t simply mocking the elite; it’s segmentation. CMU speaks to families who see higher education as a bridge, not a birthright. In a sea of interchangeable ads, it uses satire to say, “We hear your skepticism—and we’re still here for you.”
CMU’s approach hit a nerve, but it also hit a truth.
I was born in East Detroit, then raised in Richmond, Mich., a farming town of 4,000. When my parents learned our local high school wasn’t accredited, they sent my brothers and me to school an hour away. At that time, only 32 percent of the local high school graduates pursued college. I still remember junior high classmates missing school to plant and harvest corn and soybeans.
For rural communities like these, college can feel distant—financially and culturally. CMU’s campaign speaks to them with rare honesty.
If CMU sells authenticity, High Point sells aspiration. Its campus hums with classical music and fountains, lined with rocking chairs and gardens designed for conversation. Students dine in on-campus restaurants that double as lessons in professional etiquette, and housing options range from traditional dorms to $40,000 tiny homes.
President Nido Qubein calls it preparation, not pampering: “Half of Wall Street sends their kids here.” The model caters to families who can pay full price and want an environment that mirrors the careers their children expect to enter.
It’s not subtle, but it shows the university understands its target audience. In an uncertain marketing environment, HPU is selling a vision of success that feels polished, predictable and safe.
CMU and HPU reveal opposite, equally intentional strategies. CMU doubled down on affordability with its 2024 CMU Promise Tour, which reached 22 rural and urban communities, boosting first-year enrollment by 25 percent. HPU, meanwhile, courts families buying access and advantage through concierge-level amenities.
CMU uses satire to mock exclusivity; HPU leans into luxury to promise it. Both know exactly whom they’re speaking to.
In a landscape of sameness and skepticism, higher ed leaders should ask, “What do we stand for—and how do we prove it?”
Is it belonging and mobility like CMU, or exclusivity and polish like HPU? Either can work if it’s backed by programs, outcomes and transparency. Whatever your promise, ensure the experience delivers it.
Both institutions have likely alienated some audiences, but they’ve connected deeply with their own. That’s the point of strategic marketing. Their playbooks, while different, seem to be working for Colorado Mesa and High Point, which both had record enrollments in fall 2025 amid national headlines warning of a demographic cliff.
Beyond the spotlight, both universities must prove results. Time and measurement will tell if they are delivering on access and affordability, or on postgraduate success and networks.
Authenticity carries risk, as organizational psychologist Adam Grant recently noted in a New York Times op-ed, but when outcomes match promises, both models can be legitimate. Hide results or exaggerate benefits and either fails the test of ethics and equity.
In a nation this diverse, there is no single market for higher ed—there are many markets. And in a landscape this stratified, the unforgivable sin isn’t satire or spectacle; it’s sameness without substance.
Ever since Miami Dade College announced last month that it was donating land for the construction of Donald J. Trump’s presidential library, the community college has faced criticism. Now it is fighting in court to prevent a public hearing on the deal, which would resolve a lawsuit brought by a citizen who has argued the move is illegal.
At a Sept. 23 board meeting, Miami Dade College transferred land to the state of Florida to be used for Trump’s presidential library. Critics alleged that the meeting was rushed, failed to offer adequate public notice on the specifics of the deal and lacked any discussion or debate; a public notice referenced only a “potential real estate transaction” as the reason for the meeting.
Some estimates have put the value of the 2.6-acre site in downtown Miami at $250 million to $300 million, though others say it is worth $67 million. But regardless of the dollar amount, Miami Dade College is giving the land away for free.
Marvin Dunn, a local historian, sued to block the transfer, alleging in his lawsuit that the Board of Trustees “unquestionably violated” state anticorruption laws. Dunn argued in a court filing that “depriving the public of reasonable notice of this proposed decision was a plain violation of the Sunshine Act and of the Florida Constitution” and asked for an injunction to block the transfer.
Judge Mavel Ruiz of Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit granted Dunn a temporary injunction earlier this month, noting that he is likely to prove his claims about sunshine law violations, but she did not altogether block the land transfer. She also left the door open for the Board of Trustees to redo the deal.
“It is understood that the board can provide the reasonable disclosure and convey this property as they see fit,” Ruiz said. “That’s why this is not a case, at least for this court, rooted in politics.”
Jesus Suarez, an attorney for Continental Strategy (founded in 2022 by former Republican lawmaker Richard Corcoran, who was later tapped to lead New College of Florida), which is representing Miami Dade College, has contended that the deal is completely aboveboard.
“The law doesn’t require that there be any specificity in the notice,” Suarez has argued. College lawyers also said they would appeal the ruling to temporarily block the transfer.
State officials have bristled at Ruiz’s temporary injunction. Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, who has assigned members of his staff to assist the college in its legal battle, told The Miami Herald the temporary injunction is not technically in place because it was not issued as a written order.
Dunn, meanwhile, is seeking to expedite legal proceedings, aiming for a trial to begin by January.
While Ruiz emphasized that the case is not about politics, the MDC board, which is appointed by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, is overwhelmingly comprised of Republican donors. Board chair Michael Bileca and trustee Jose Felix Diaz are also former GOP lawmakers.
Of the seven trustees, six have donated to Republican candidates and causes. Miami Dade College president Madeline Pumariega, who has defended the way the board handled the transfer, has also donated to GOP candidates, though she has given to Democrats in the past as well. (Most of the presidents at Florida’s 40 public institutions have either Republican ties or past donations.)
Miami Dade College officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.