Category: Featured

How Labour’s 10-year health plan for England joins up with higher education and research

The government wants to reinvent the NHS (in England) through three radical shifts – hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.

Whether like the chief executive of the NHS you believe Labour’s 10-year health plan for England is about creating “energy and enthusiasm”, whether like the secretary of state you believe this is about building a NHS which is about “the future and a fairer Britain,” or whether across its 168 pages you find the government’s default to techno-optimism, AI will solve everything, one more dataset will fix public services, approach to governance to be somewhere between naive and unduly optimistic, it is clear that the NHS is expected to change and do so quickly.

This is a plan that is as much about the reorganisation of the economy as it is about health. It is about how health services can get people into work, it is a guide to economic growth through innovation in life sciences, it is a lament for the skills needed and the skills not yet thought about for the future of the NHS.

Elsewhere on the site, Jim Dickinson looks at the (lack of) implications for students as group with health needs – here we look at the implications for education, universities, and the wider knowledge economy.

Workforce modelling

One of the premises of the plan is that the 2023 Conservative long-term workforce plan was a mistake. The NHS clearly cannot go on as it currently is, and to facilitate this transformation a “very different kind of workforce strategy” is needed:

Until 2023, [the NHS] had never published a long-term workforce plan. The one it did publish did little more than extrapolate from past trends into the future: concluding there was no alternative than continuation of our current care model, supported by an inexorable growth in headcount, mostly working in acute settings.

A new workforce place is being put together, to appear “later this year” and taking a “decidedly different approach”:

Instead of asking ‘how many staff do we need to maintain our current care model over the next 10 years?’, it will ask ‘given our reform plan, what workforce do we need, what should they do, where should they be deployed and what skills should they have?’

The bottom line is that, therefore, “there will be fewer staff in the NHS in 2035 than projected by the 2023 workforce plan” – but these staff will have better conditions, better training, and “more exciting roles”.

So one immediate question for universities in England is what this reduced staffing target means for recruitment onto medical, nursing and allied health degrees. Places have been expanding, and under previous plans were set to expand at growing rates in the coming years, including a doubling of medical school places by 2035. There were questions about how optimistic some of the objectives were – the National Audit Office last year criticised NHS England for not having assessed the feasibility of expanding places, in light of issues like attrition rates and the need to invest in clinical placement infrastructure.

We won’t get a clear answer of what Labour is proposing until the new workforce plan emerges – especially as there is an accompanying aspiration in today’s plan to reduce the NHS’ dependence on international recruitment. But there are some clear directions of travel. Creating more apprenticeships gets a mention – though of course not at level 7 – but the key theme is a tight link between growing medical student numbers and widening participation:

Expansion of medical school places will be targeted at medical schools with a proven track record of widening participation… The admissions process to medical school will be improved with better information, signposting and support for applicants, and more systematic use of contextual admissions.

This is accompanied by endorsement of the Sutton Trust’s recent research into access disparities. And in one of those “holding universities to account” measures that everyone is so keen on, part of reinforcing this link will be done via work with the Department for Education to “publish data on the relevant background of university entrants, starting with medicine.” If you are thinking that we already did that – yes we did. The UK-wide HESA widening participation performance indicator was last published in 2022 – each regulator now has their own version (for example this from the Office for Students) which doesn’t quite do the same thing.

Education and students

Of course, creating more pathways into working in the NHS is one mechanism to grow its workforce. The other is to unblock current pathways that prevent people from getting into and getting on with their chosen careers in health.

For example, there is a (somewhat tepid) commitment on student support: the plan commits to “explore options” on improving the financial support on offer to medical students from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds.

For nursing students, the offer is slimmer still – a focus on the “financial obstacles to learning”, including faster reimbursement of placement expenses, and tackling the time lag between completing a course and being able to start work. This latter measure will involve working with higher education institutions to revise the current approach to course completion confirmation, and is billed for September 2026. The Royal College of Nursing has suggested that these “modest” changes go nowhere near far enough.

Nursing and midwifery attrition also comes under scrutiny – the government spots that reducing the rate of non-continuation by a percentage point would result in the equivalent of 300 more nurses and midwives joining the NHS each year. But rather than looking deeper at why this is a growing issue, the buck is handed over to education providers to “urgently address attrition rates.”

Elsewhere the interventions into education provision are more substantial. There’s an already ongoing review of medical training for NHS staff, due to report imminently. On top of this, the plan sets out how the next three years will see an “overhaul” of education and training curricula, to “future-proof” the workforce. There’s lots of talk about faster changes to course content as and when needed, to reflect changes in how the NHS will operate. This comes with a warning:

Where existing providers are unable to move at the right pace, we may look to different institutions to ensure that the education market is responsive to employer needs.

Clinical placement tariffs for undergraduate and postgraduate medicine will be reformed – the plan suggests the tariff system currently “provides limited ability to target funding at training where it is most needed to modernise delivery,” and wants to do more in community settings and make better use of simulation. There will also be expansion of clinical educator capacity, though this will be “targeted” (which is often code for limited).

And course lengths could fall – the plan promises to “work with higher education institutions and the professional regulators as they review course length in light of technological developments and a transition to lifelong rather than static training.” While this does not explicitly suggest shorter medical and nursing programmes – and a consequent growth in provision aimed at professionals – the preference is pretty obvious.

On that last point every member of NHS staff will get their own “personalised career coaching and development plan” which will come alongside the development of “advanced practice models” for nurses (and all the other professional roles in the NHS: radiographers, pharmacists, and the like).

Data and (wider) employment

The plan stretches much wider than simply making commitments on training though and, as the plan makes clear, if the answer isn’t always going to be more money there has to be more efficiency.

There’s a fascinating set of commitments linking health and work – one of those things that feel clunky and obvious until you note that “getting the long-term sick back into work” has just been a soundbite with punitive vibes until now.

Of course, everything has a slightly cringeworthy name – so NHS Accelerators will support local NHS services to have an “impact on people’s work status”, something that may grow into specific and measurable outcomes linking to economic inactivity and unemployment and link in other local government partners. And health support in the traditional sense will link with wider holistic support (as set out in the Pathways to Work green paper) for people with disabilities.

There’s also a set of commitments on understanding and supporting the mental health needs of young people – although the focus is on schools and colleges, there is an expectation that universities will play a part in a forthcoming National Youth Strategy (due from the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport “this summer”) which will cover support for “mental health, wellbeing, and the ability to develop positive social connections.”

All these joined up services will need joined up data, so happy news, too, for those looking for wrap-around support in transitions between educational phases – there will be a single unique identifier for young people: the NHS number. And for fans of learner analytics, a similar approach (with a sprinkling of genomics) will “tell [the NHS] the likelihood of a person developing a condition before it occurs, support early detection of disease, and enable personalised prevention and treatment”.

For some time, universities and other trusted partners have benefited from access to deidentified NHS healthcare administrative data via ADRUK – which has been used for everything from developing new medicine to understanding health policy. This will be joined by a new commercially-focused Health Data Research Service (HDRS) backed by the Wellcome Trust. This is not a new announcement, but the slant here is that it will support the private sector – and as such there will be efforts to “make sure the NHS receives a fair deal for providing access”, which could include a mix of access charges and equity stakes in new developments.

Research, research, research

In effect, the government’s proposals set out how improving the conditions, configurations, and coordination of the NHS workforce, and the information provided to them and their partners, can improve healthcare. The next challenge then is targeting the right kinds of information in the right places, and this depends on the quality of research the NHS can access, make use of, and produce.

The health of the nation does not begin and end at the hospital door. As The King’s Fund points out, “we can’t duck the reality that we are an international outlier with stagnating life expectancy and with millions living many years of life in poor health.” The point of this plan is not only about making health services better but about narrowing health inequalities and using life sciences research to grow the economy.

The plan talks about making up for a “lost decade” of life sciences research. In doing so, it cites an IPPR report (the author is now DHSC’s lead strategy advisor) which demonstrates that the global research spend on life sciences in the UK has reduced and that this has had an impact on life sciences GVA. Following this line of thought suggests that if the UK had maintained levels of investment the economy would have got bigger, people’s lives would have been better and because of the link between poverty and ill health, the NHS would be under less pressure.

The issue with this citation is that the figures used are from 2011–16 and some of the remedies, like association to Horizon Europe, are things the UK has done. Though the plan makes clear that “the era of the NHS’ answer always being ‘more money, never reform’ is over,” it is in fact the case that the government has ploughed record levels of public money into R&D without fundamental reform to the research ecosystem. The premise that economic growth can be spurred by research and leads to better health outcomes is correct – but it isn’t necessary to reference research carried out in 2019 to make the case.

This isn’t merely an annoyance – it speaks to a wider challenge within the plan which oscillates widely between the optimism that “all hospitals will be fully AI-enabled” within the next ten years (80 per cent of hospitals were still using pagers in 2023 despite their ban in 2019), and the obviously sensible commitment to establish Health Innovation Zones which will bring health partners within a devolved framework to experiment in service innovation.

The fundamental challenge facing innovation within health is the diffusion of priorities. There are both a lot of things the NHS and life science researchers might focus their time on, and a lot of layers of bureaucracies that inhibit research. The plan attempts to organise research priorities around five “big bets” (read missions but not quite missions). These include the use of health data, the use of AI (again), personalised health, wearables, and the use of robots. One of the mechanisms for aligning resources will be:

a new bidding process for new Global Institutes. Supported by NIHR funding, these institutes will be expected to marshal the assets of a place – industry, universities, the NHS – to drive genuine global leadership on research and translation.

It’s very industrial strategy – the government is setting out big ideas with some incentives, and hoping the public and private sector follows.

There are some more structural changes to research aside from the political rhetoric. Significantly, there is a proposal to change the funding approaches of the Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health and Care Research to pivot funding toward “prevention, detection and treatment of longterm conditions”. The hope is this approach will drive private investment. Again, like the industrial strategy, the rationale is that the state can be an enabling force for growing the economy.

Ten years’ time

The ten year plan, if it is to mean anything, has to be focused on delivering a different kind of health service. The fundamental shift is about moving toward personalised community orientated care. The concern is that the plan is light on delivery, which would tally with reports that a ninth chapter on delivery is missing all together.

The NHS is stuck in a forever cycle of reform, failing to reform, entering crises, and then being bailed out from crises. The mechanisms to break the cycle includes changes to the workforce, new skills provision, using data differently, and reorientating life sciences research toward prevention and economic growth.

The higher education sector, research institutes, and companies working in research are not only central to the new vision of a NHS but with the amount of investment placed on their capacity to bring change they are no less than the midwives of it. The government’s biggest bet is that it can grow the economy, improve people’s lives, and in doing so reduce pressure on public services. Its biggest risk is that it believes it can do this without fundamental reform to higher education or research as well.

Source link

July 4, 2025
One year on from the election, Labour is losing the student vote

A year ago, Sir Keir Starmer secured the largest election victory in the UK since 1997.

Labour won 411 seats and a 174-seat majority – and while Labour’s vote share across many constituencies dropped compared to national predictions, the UK was washed with red seats.

Yet as we reflect on Labour’s time in government to date, it’s fair to say the journey has not been smooth.

Starmer has already made several significant U-turns and has announced policy changes that haven’t landed well with voters – increases to national insurance contributions, reducing winter fuel payments and the “tractor tax”, to name a few.

As public trust in the government continues to decline and disapproval rates rise, we are continuing to see a swing of support over to Reform UK – including in constituencies with large student populations.

PLMR recently commissioned Electoral Calculus to conduct a new multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) poll to understand voting intentions and the current political attitudes of the public.

Conducted in June 2025 with a sample size of 5,400 individuals, the results show a significant change in student voting patterns and beg the question – is Labour losing the student vote?

Voting intentions

If a General Election was called tomorrow, our data currently places Reform UK with 31 per cent of the vote share ahead of Labour with 22 per cent and the Conservatives trailing with 19 per cent. Reform UK is predicted to win an outright majority, securing 377 seats and a majority of 104.

If a General Election was therefore called tomorrow, Nigel Farage would become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The data also shows changes in constituency MPs, including for ministers with responsibility for higher education like the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson MP, according to the projections.

While the sector is not unaccustomed to experiencing regular and quick changes in political governance – with six university ministers being in post in the last five years alone – the data does point to wider challenges for HE and the student vote.

Reform the system

Last year, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) published a piece about whether students made a difference at the 2024 General Election – identifying the top twenty student constituencies and Labour’s vote share in these seats.

We have analysed our polling to understand how these constituencies would fare in an election if it were called tomorrow – the results from which show the changing state of voting intentions in these areas.

Of the twenty constituencies, over one-third (35 per cent) are predicted to move away from being Labour-held to either Reform or Green. This aligns with the national picture – voters are showing an ever-growing frustration with the current government and are therefore evolving their political affiliation.

When we look specifically at the data for 18-24-year-olds – acknowledging the experiences of those beyond this age group who are currently studying in UK higher education – we continue to see this pattern of voting behaviour.

For example, when asked who they would vote for if a General Election was called tomorrow, 24 per cent of 18-24-year-olds who indicated a likelihood to vote noted their intention to vote for Labour – with 23 per cent claiming they would vote for Reform UK and 21 per cent for the Green Party.

The Conservatives followed with 13 per cent, the Liberal Democrats with 10 per cent and Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru with 1 per cent each.

Interestingly, when we then consider the likelihood of voting among 18-24-year-olds we see further frustration with the current political system.

For example, under half (41 per cent) of 18-24-year-olds responded that they would “definitely” vote in a General Election if it were called tomorrow, followed by 11 per cent who would be “very likely” to vote.

Yet 21 per cent responded that they would “definitely not” or are “unlikely” to vote, and 16 per cent were unsure. That reveals an almost even split in the likelihood of voting among 18-24-year-olds. For a traditionally politically mobile population, this raises concerns about young people’s faith and willingness to engage with an election.

Participants were then asked about the most important issues that will influence how they vote at the next General Election, with the top three issues for 18-24-year-olds being the cost of living and the economy (57 per cent), the National Health Service (NHS) waiting times, staffing and funding (45 per cent), and immigration and border control (25 per cent).

While these generally align with trends in all other age groups,

18-24-year-olds express greater concern for wider issues than other age cohorts. For example, 23 per cent of individuals in this age group reported being concerned about housing affordability and home ownership, 22 per cent about trust in politicians and government integrity, and 19 per cent about climate change and the environment.

While some in other age cohorts reported concerns in these areas, the proportion is highest among 18-24-year-olds.

So what does all of this tell us?

It’s clear that Labour isn’t sustaining the support it built up during the General Election campaign last year, despite securing such an historic electoral victory, and this is true especially in student-heavy constituencies – with many already indicating their interest in seeing an electoral change.

As economic challenges continue to create barriers within HE, with many institutions closing courses, implementing redundancy programmes and depending on international fees due to limited increases to domestic fees in line with inflation, government must be proactive in its engagement with the sector to recognise how challenges to the student experience can impact voter intention.

With a growing national swing towards Reform UK, Labour must become aware of the challenges facing student voters if it wants to change the projected course of action and secure a second term in office.

With lots of work to do ahead of 2029 – and only a year into this Parliament – student interests need to rise up the political agenda.

Source link

July 4, 2025
Helping professional services get confident with data

“I don’t do data.”

It’s a phrase heard all too often across professional services in UK higher education.

Despite the sector’s growing reliance on data to inform strategic decisions, evaluate performance, and improve services, a significant skills gap remains—particularly among non-specialist staff.

Critical skills

Universities increasingly regard data as a critical asset. But while institutional expectations are rising, many professional services teams feel underprepared to meet what is now expected of them. The ability to interpret, contextualise, and communicate insights from data is now an essential part of most roles. And yet, for many professionals, data remains confusing, intimidating, or simply outside their perceived remit.

This gap isn’t just about technical skills—it’s about confidence, culture, and collaboration. Professional services staff are often expected to make sense of complex datasets without the training or tools to do so effectively. Everyone is expected to engage with data daily, but few are properly equipped to do so. The result? Missed opportunities, reliance on specialist teams, and a growing divide between “data people” and everyone else.

That divide threatens more than just productivity. In an era of AI and self-service analytics, the risk is that subject matter expertise gets lost or overridden by automated insights or misunderstood metrics. True value comes not just from accessing data, but from interpreting it through a lens of organisational understanding and professional experience. So how can we bridge the gap between those who do and those who don’t do data?

The options

Often the answer seems to be recruiting external data specialists – usually at considerable expense. While this brings in the needed expertise it also creates silos rather than building capability across teams. This approach not only strains budgets—with specialist salaries commanding premium rates in today’s competitive market—but also creates dependency on individuals who may lack contextual understanding of higher education. There is also a problem of longevity. When these specialists eventually leave, they take their knowledge with them, leaving institutions vulnerable.

By contrast, institutions that invest in developing data confidence across existing staff leverage their team’s deep sector knowledge while creating more sustainable, resilient capabilities. The return on investment becomes clear: upskilling current staff who understand institutional nuances creates more value than repeatedly recruiting external experts who require months to grasp the complexities of university operations.

Meanwhile, higher education faces an ever-expanding regulatory and statutory data burden. From HESA returns and TEF submissions to access and participation plans and REF preparations, the volume and complexity of mandatory reporting continues to grow. Each new requirement brings not just additional work but increased scrutiny and consequences for inaccuracy or misinterpretation. This regulatory landscape demands that universities distribute data capabilities widely rather than concentrating them in specialist teams who come close to breaking point during reporting seasons.

When professional services staff across the institution can confidently engage with data, universities can respond more nimbly to regulatory changes, identify compliance risks earlier, and transform what might otherwise be box-ticking exercises into meaningful insights that drive institutional improvement.

Data confident

Recognising this challenge, UHR and Strive Higher have developed the Developing Confident Data Partners programme—a practical, supportive course designed specifically for HR and People professionals in higher education. Drawing on insights from UHR’s 6,000+ members, the programme addresses the real barriers to data confidence and equips participants with the skills and language to contribute meaningfully to data-informed conversations.

By bridging the gap between subject matter expertise and data literacy, this initiative empowers professionals to engage more fully with the data-driven culture of their institutions. As one participant put it:

The programme boosted my confidence and has taken away some of the mystery that some pure data experts can often create. I know what to do now before I ask for data, and what to say when I do want some.

In a sector where informed decision-making is critical, the data skills gap in professional services can no longer be ignored. The Confident Data Partners programme is one step toward a more inclusive, capable, and collaborative data culture across UK higher education.

The journey is just beginning. The opportunities in a data-driven world are endless, but success hinges on individuals understanding how to use data to inform strategy, planning and continuous improvement, and being able to communicate and collaborate with their peers.

This initiative has been a learning experience for us both. It’s shown how, when data aligns with real-world needs, the results are transformative. Because when data meets purpose – that’s where the magic happens.

Source link

July 3, 2025
Podcast: International, student leaders, metascience

This week on the podcast we examine the latest attacks on international student recruitment as Policy Exchange calls for new restrictions and a £1,000 levy on international fees.

Are universities really “selling immigration not education,” and what would raising English language requirements to advanced level mean for the sector?

Plus we discuss what incoming student leaders are promising in their manifestos – from subsidised laundry to lecture materials uploaded in advance – and ask whether the new metascience unit can deliver on its promise of a more efficient and transparent research funding system.

With Duncan Ivison, President and Vice Chancellor at the University of Manchester, Vicki Stott, Chief Executive at the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Debbie McVitty, Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.

The attack lines on international students are built on shaky foundations – but won’t go away that easily

Should students’ unions reach for the stars?

Metascience comes of age

Source link

July 3, 2025
Higher education postcard: Norwich University of the Arts

From the Bolton Chronicle, 7 June 1845:

[t]he following is the Report of the progress and state of this Institution made to Government, and just submitted to Parliament – The School of Design at Somerset-house was established at the commencement of the year 1837, by and under the superintendence of the Board of Trade, for the improvement of ornamental art, with regard especially to the staple manufactures of this country. The number of applicants for admission every month exceeds, by about fifty, that which the limited space in Somerset-house will accommodate.

In connection with the head school at Somerset-house, schools have been formed in many of the principal manufacturing districts, namely, in Spitalfields, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, York, Newcastle and Glasgow; and applications are at present under consideration for the establishment of others in the boroughs of Southward and Lambeth, in Norwich, in the Staffordshire Potteries, and in Dublin…

And it is to Norwich that we go.

The idea of a school of design had been floated in Norwich for some time. The chief magistrate, Henry Bellenden Ker, had written to the mayor in November 1841 – the letter was published with an editorial in the Norwich Mercury on 6 November – setting out the expectations on the town, were it to be granted a government school of design. Essentially, they would have to find about £150 per year, supplemented by the government funding for the salary of the head of the school.

The Norwich Mercury was very much in favour:

In 1842 the town council agreed to a grant of £75 towards the costs, the remainder to be made via subscriptions. And it seems that the subscriptions must have been forthcoming, for on 21 January 1846 the Norwich School of Design was formally opened with much hoo-ha and admiring of the artistic collections that it had. In addition to the pieces granted by the government, the council provided some works from its own collection. And the school was up and running!

By 1880 it was known as the Schools of Art and Science. It seems that this was by central government action: the schools of design were originally creations of the Board of Trade, and the Victorians recognised that science was just as important as creativity in that regard. (Even if this truth is one that our governments have forgotten today.)

In 1899 the Technical Instruction Act empowered local authorities to control and fund technical education, and by the following year suggestions were being made that the School of Art and Sciences might fall within the scope of this act. Certainly the council was active in this area, a technical education committee having been established and an organiser and inspector of technical education appointed. By 1891 a new technical institute was being built in Norwich – the one shown on the card. The School of Art and Design was incorporated into this new Institute from 1901, as was, in 1913, the Norfolk and Norwich School of Cookery.

The technical institute became the Norwich Technical College in 1930, and then in 1938 the Technical College and School of Art, Norwich. It feels almost like the artists and designers were not entirely integrated into the college!

And in 1964 there was a separation. The college by then had a new building, and it seems that the technical subjects went to this new building on the Ipswich Road (still used by City College Norwich to this day), while the renamed Norwich School of Art stayed put. This also led to the School of Art moving into degree level education: from 1965 it offered the Diploma in Art and Design, validated by the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design. And when in 1975 the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design was incorporated into the Council for National Academic Awards, the school started offering bachelor’s degree courses.

In 1974 responsibility for the School of Art had shifted from Norwich City Council to Norfolk County Council. And this fact became significant in 1989 when the School was merged with the Great Yarmouth College of Art, and the Norfolk Institute of Art and Design (NIAD) was created. This became an associate college of Anglia Polytechnic University (APU, as it then was), with APU validating NIAD’s degrees. These included postgraduate taught degrees from 1993, and research students from 1995.

In 1994 the institute was incorporated as a higher education corporation – this is the legal form for most universities created from 1992 onwards – and renamed as the Norwich School of Art and Design. In 2007 it gained taught degree awarding powers and again assumed a new name, this time as the Norwich University College of the Arts. And finally in 2013, after the size threshold for university status had been reduced from 4,000 students to 1,000, it gained university status, becoming the Norwich University of the Arts.

Alumni of the university include Keith Chapman, who created both Bob the Builder and Paw Patrol; and Neil Innes, of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Monty Python.

The card itself is unsent, but looks to me to date from the first decade of the twentieth century. There’s a jigsaw here, for your delight and delectation.

Source link

July 3, 2025
Speech is not a crime — even if it complicates ICE’s job

While I was driving down I-95 yesterday, a notification popped up on Google Maps: “Police ahead.” I eased my foot off the gas. Sure enough, a minute later I passed a cruiser parked in the median, radar aimed at oncoming traffic. I paid it forward by tapping “Still there” on Maps.

Did I commit a crime? Did Google?

No. Google simply provided a tool for sharing publicly observable information. I used it, just like millions of drivers do every day. That’s speech, and the First Amendment protects it.

None of that changes if you swap out highway patrol for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But the Trump administration sees it differently.

A new iPhone app called ICEBlock lets users report sightings of ICE activity and receive alerts about the agency’s presence within a 5-mile radius. The app’s website says:

ICE has faced criticism for alleged civil rights abuses and failures to adhere to constitutional principles and due process, making it crucial for communities to stay informed about its operations.

The app also warns users not to use it “for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement.”

After CNN reported on ICEBlock Monday, Trump administration officials claimed the app put ICE agents in danger and threatened to prosecute not only the app’s developer, but also … CNN. Border czar Tom Homan called on the Department of Justice to investigate whether the network had “crossed that line of impeding federal law enforcement officers.”

The next day, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said her agency was “working with the Department of Justice” to see if they could prosecute CNN for its coverage of the app. President Trump went further, adding CNN “may be prosecuted also for having given false reports on the attack in Iran.” He made similar threats to sue The New York Times over its coverage.

At the risk of stating the obvious, CNN’s routine reporting on ICEBlock is constitutionally protected. Even if the app itself were illegal, which it’s not, the press still has a right to report on it as a matter of public interest.

Consider the extensive reporting on the notorious “open-air drug market” in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. That journalism isn’t illegal just because it might tip off someone about where to get fentanyl.

By the administration’s logic, not just CNN, but anyone who speaks publicly about ICEBlock has committed a crime. Right-leaning outlets have covered the app, too. Prosecuting them for raising public awareness of the app would be just as unconstitutional. Ironically, the administration’s censorial threats are almost certainly doing more to amplify the app than CNN’s initial report did. The president’s team should look up the Streisand effect.

This episode is just the latest example of the administration trying to stretch the meaning of “obstruction” to cover nearly any speech that might complicate immigration enforcement. Back in February, Homan asked the Department of Justice to investigate Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “impeding our law enforcement efforts” by releasing a webinar and flyer that reminded people of their constitutional rights when interacting with ICE.

Informing the public that they don’t have to consent to warrantless searches might make ICE’s job more difficult, but that doesn’t strip the speech of constitutional protection. It’s as absurd as claiming a police officer interferes with the district attorney’s job by telling a suspect he has the right to remain silent.

As FIRE explained at the time, the First Amendment protects a significant amount of expression, including “providing information about the presence of law enforcement officers.”

Of course, there are narrow and carefully defined exceptions to the First Amendment. True threats aren’t protected. Nor is incitement. But speech qualifies as incitement only if the speaker intends to provoke immediate unlawful action and their speech is likely to provoke it. That’s a very high bar. Simply noting the presence of law enforcement in a particular location or talking about an app that facilitates that speech doesn’t come close.

It’s possible to imagine scenarios where speech might cross that line. If a hostile crowd gathered near ICE agents and someone with a megaphone called on them to attack, that would likely qualify as incitement. But that’s not what we’re dealing with here.

There are also circumstances in which helping someone evade law enforcement is a crime. You can’t lawfully harbor a fugitive or physically interfere with officers performing their duties. And the Supreme Court has held the First Amendment does not protect speech “used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute.” Consider a lookout who warns accomplices during a robbery that police are approaching. That person is intentionally working with specific individuals to carry out a specific unlawful act. The speech isn’t general or political. It’s instrumental to the commission of the crime and is not protected.

What is protected under the First Amendment is sharing publicly observable information about what government agents are doing in public — or providing the means to do so with a tool like ICEBlock — especially when that speech is tied to political activism. A federal appeals court recently upheld that principle in a case involving a man standing on a sidewalk with a sign that read “Cops Ahead.” The court found his sign, an analog version of the police alerts on Google Maps and Waze, was protected by the First Amendment.

It’s absolutely critical to maintain precise, narrow standards that prevent the government from expanding its power to regulate speech and suppress dissent. When officials blur the line between obstructing justice and merely speaking about public law enforcement activity, they put core First Amendment freedoms at risk.

But let’s step back and remember the administration is not only claiming ICEBlock is illegal, but also suggesting that reporting on it is a criminal offense. Just as baseless is the president’s threat to prosecute and/or sue CNN and The New York Times over their coverage of the bombing of Iran. After the U.S. military struck Iran’s nuclear sites, both outlets reported on a preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that contradicted Trump’s claim that the sites were “completely and totally obliterated.”

Reporting the government’s own findings about a major military action is not a crime — it’s protected by the First Amendment as well as vital to an informed citizenry. Again, this isn’t a close call.

In New York Times v. United States, the Supreme Court rejected the government’s attempt to block the press from publishing the Pentagon Papers — a classified history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam — despite the government’s claims that it would harm national security.

Trump’s issue with CNN and The New York Times isn’t even about national security. He’s upset that the DIA report undercut his narrative. But if he thinks the report is wrong, his problem is with his own intelligence agency, not the outlets who accurately reported on its assessment. (Notably, both CNN and The New York Times made clear the report was preliminary, the analysis ongoing, and that the administration disputed its conclusions.)

FIRE has gotten flak over the past few months for focusing so much on President Trump. Believe me, we wish we didn’t have to.

But when the most powerful official in the country repeatedly shows contempt for the First Amendment, it’s our job as a free speech organization to call that out. Presidents wield enormous power to stifle dissent. Their rhetoric and actions influence how other government officials interpret the bounds of the First Amendment, and they shape public attitudes about the enduring value of free expression.

This isn’t about partisanship. We unequivocally opposed the Biden administration’s efforts to suppress speech and consistently push back against censorship from the left, too. And much of our work doesn’t relate to partisan flashpoints that dominate the news. Every day, we’re defending ordinary Americans facing censorship from state legislatures, universities, city councils, school boards, and other government actors.

As FIRE’s Executive Vice President Nico Perrino said yesterday, “The biggest threat to free speech is political power,” and at this moment, the right side of the aisle controls both political branches of the federal government.

That balance will shift, as it always does. But FIRE’s mission of holding those in power to the First Amendment will not.

Source link

July 3, 2025
FIRE amicus brief: First Amendment bars using schoolkid standards to silence parents’ speech

Does the First Amendment protect passive, nondisruptive political speech of adults in a public forum? Under longstanding precedent and common sense, the answer is yes, of course it does. Yet a federal district court in New Hampshire ratified a viewpoint-based removal of parents from a high school soccer game. So FIRE filed an amicus brief in the appeal from that decision, explaining how the court went astray.

In September 2024, as a form of silent protest against allowing a transgender athlete to play on the opposing girls’ soccer team against Bow High School, parents Kyle Fellers and Andy Foote donned pink “XX” wristbands during halftime. After about 10 minutes, school officials approached, along with a police officer, and demanded that the two parents remove the wristbands or leave the game.

Worse, when the parents invoked their First Amendment rights, the officials threatened to arrest them for trespassing despite having no evidence that the wristbands, as opposed to the school officials’ conduct, was causing any disruption of the soccer match. Nor is there any evidence the transgender athlete saw the wristbands.

So when a federal district court rejected the parents’ constitutional challenge to their treatment, it made two key mistakes.

First, it held censoring their message was not viewpoint discrimination — even though the record shows Bow High School officials explicitly cited what they perceived as the protest’s “exclusionary” views while allowing “inclusive” messaging. That is, they objected to the wristbands’ gender identity messaging because they found it offensive, while at the same permitting other displays, including those celebrating LGBT causes.

That is textbook viewpoint discrimination, and is simply unconstitutional in any kind of forum, full stop. As the Supreme Court ruled in the 2001 case Good News Club v. Milford Central School, “When a restriction is viewpoint discriminatory, we need not decide whether it is unreasonable in light of the purposes served by the forum.”

Second, the court imported precedent applicable only to K–12 students in school into its forum analysis, and misapplied it to the speech of adults. Although it acknowledged this is not a student speech case, the court looked to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which affords school officials some authority to regulate student speech that substantially causes disruption or invades the rights of others. But Tinker has no role in analyzing adult speech in a public forum.

The district court compounded that error by developing a test based on its reading of the First Circuit decision in L.M. v. Town of Middleborough to justify censorship of the parents’ passive protest as demeaning towards a visiting student. But L.M. involved student speech — not adult speech — and used reasoning that doesn’t apply here.

Even if Tinker did apply (it doesn’t), L.M. relied solely on its “substantial disruption” standard to hold demeaning statements might eventually lower test scores and cause “symptoms of a sick school,” while disclaiming reliance on “rights of others” under Tinker. Despite that, the district court centered its L.M.-based analysis on how the protest here might invade the visiting athlete’s rights, not that it would disrupt school functions.

Had other students or adults actually engaged in what both the school district and district court feared may occur — essentially, discriminatory harassment — school administrators are already empowered under Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education to counteract conduct that is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive … that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.”

All told, as FIRE explained to the First Circuit, it is unwise to further dilute First Amendment protections by applying L.M. to adult speech. By sanctioning Bow High’s viewpoint discrimination against passive political protest and bastardizing student speech principles to silence adults, the district court’s decision would give administrators expansive authority over protected adult expression. That unwarranted and dangerous outcome is why the First Circuit should reverse on appeal, to protect First Amendment rights against erosion and abuse.

Source link

July 3, 2025
A Call for Revolutionary Hope in American Higher Education
In a fiery and prophetic address, the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries invoked the memory of America’s original struggle for freedom, branding the tyranny of King George III in the years before the American Revolution as “Project 1775.” With bold clarity, he drew a straight line from that era of oppression to today’s rising authoritarianism—what he identified as “Donald Trump’s Project 2025” and the accompanying Trump Spending Bill. But rather than ending in despair, his speech was a call to courage and hope: just as Project 1775 gave birth to the Revolution of 1776, we are called to give birth to a new movement—Project 2026, a revolutionary vision of democracy, justice, and renewal.

His message resonates beyond politics—it speaks deeply to the state of American higher education, which now stands at a crossroads. Under siege from authoritarian impulses, stripped of funding, and commodified by corporate greed, our colleges and universities reflect a nation in spiritual crisis. But as the Minority Leader reminded us, this moment is also one of great opportunity.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

Project 2026 is not merely a reaction to tyranny—it is a faith-driven declaration of agency. It is a call to restore education as a public good, not a private racket. It is a rejection of robocolleges, shadowy online program managers, and predatory lenders that have turned learning into a means of lifelong debt. And it is a stand against those who weaponize ignorance and rewrite history for their own gain.

We are reminded in the New Testament that resistance is righteous, and that reform must be rooted in love, justice, and truth.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

This truth must guide the next phase of the American experiment—a truth that recognizes students not as consumers but as citizens; that sees teachers not as disposable labor but as bearers of light; and that understands education as liberation, not subjugation.

Project 2026 can become our modern Sermon on the Mount, a blueprint for building a nation where colleges nurture both critical thinking and spiritual compassion, where public funding is a covenant—not a weapon—and where we “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).

For decades, institutions of higher learning have drifted toward elitism, exclusion, and exploitation. Many have served as tools of empire, not vessels of enlightenment. Project 2026 offers a rebirth—a Great Awakening that opens the doors of education wide to the poor, the marginalized, and the weary. It speaks to the tired adjunct, the indebted graduate, the first-generation student, and the worker seeking dignity.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

This is the moment to stand together. Project 2026 must not be left to chance or left in the hands of the powerful alone. It is a grassroots revolution of the mind and spirit—a multiracial, multigenerational, moral movement that calls upon students, faculty, parents, and communities to say: No more.

No more austerity cloaked as fiscal responsibility.

No more censorship masquerading as patriotism.

No more debt for a degree that leads to precarious work and empty promises.

Instead, let us build an education system worthy of democracy—a system animated by the values that once inspired a ragtag group of rebels in 1776. Let us be the generation that reclaims education as the soul of the Republic.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

The struggle ahead will not be easy. But neither was 1776. And yet from that fire emerged a new nation. With faith and fierce love, Project 2026 can become a new declaration—not just of independence, but of interdependence. A declaration of solidarity with the forgotten, the silenced, and the struggling.

Let the tyrants tremble. Let the profiteers beware.

A revolution is stirring in our hearts.

And as Scripture reminds us:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

Sources:
- The Holy Bible, New Testament
- House Minority Leader remarks, July 3, 2025
- Trump-aligned Project 2025 blueprint (Heritage Foundation)
- Trump Budget and Spending Bill (2025)
- The Higher Education Inquirer archives on privatization, debt peonage, and adjunct labor in U.S. higher education
Source link
July 3, 2025
House Minority Leader Jeffries giving marathon speech criticizing GOP tax cut bill (PBS News Hour)

US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gives a marathon speech, calling out the destructive path that House Republicans are going down. This is a Bill that undermines the United States of America and its national security. It is also a threat to democracy. Folks should listen to every minute of this historical speech.

Source link

July 3, 2025
Kashana Cauley’s Fictional Rebellion Echoes a Real-Life Debt Hero

Kashana Cauley’s second novel, The Payback (out July 15, 2025), might read like a brilliantly absurd heist movie—but its critique of debt peonage, surveillance capitalism, and broken educational promises is dead serious. With its hilarious yet harrowing depiction of three underemployed retail workers taking on the student loan-industrial complex, The Payback arrives not just as a much-anticipated literary event, but as a cultural reckoning.

The protagonist, Jada Williams, is relentlessly hounded by the “Debt Police”—a dystopian twist that, while fictional, feels terrifyingly close to home for America’s 44 million student debtors. But instead of accepting a life of financial bondage, Jada and her mall coworkers hatch a plan to erase their student debt and strike back against the system that sold them a future in exchange for permanent servitude.

This wild caper—praised by Publishers Weekly, Bustle, The Boston Globe, and others for its intelligence and audacity—may be fiction, but it echoes the real-life story of one bold man who did exactly what Jada dreams of doing.

The Legend of Papas Fritas

In the mid-2000s, a Chilean man known only by his pseudonym, Papas Fritas (French Fries), pulled off one of the most radical and symbolic acts of debt resistance in modern history. A former art student at Chile’s prestigious Universidad del Mar—a private for-profit institution later shut down for corruption and fraud—Papas Fritas discovered that the university had falsified financial documents to secure millions in profits while leaving students in mountains of debt.

His response? He infiltrated the school’s administrative offices, extracted records documenting approximately $500 million in student loans, and burned them. Literally. With no backup copies.

He then turned the ashes into an art installation called “La Morada del Diablo” (The Devil’s Dwelling), displayed it publicly, and became an instant folk hero. For many Chileans, who had taken to the streets in the early 2010s protesting an exploitative and privatized higher education system, Papas Fritas was more than a trickster—he was a vigilante philosopher, an artist of revolt.

His act raised questions that still haunt us: What is the moral value of debt acquired through deception? Should the victims of predatory institutions be forced to pay for their own exploitation?

Fiction Meets Resistance

In The Payback, Cauley’s characters don’t just want debt relief—they want retribution. And like Papas Fritas, they understand that justice in an unjust system may require transgression, even sabotage. Cauley, a former Daily Show writer and incisive New York Times columnist, doesn’t shy away from this. Her prose is electric with rage, joy, absurdity, and clarity.

She also knows exactly what she’s doing. Jada’s plan to eliminate debt isn’t merely about numbers—it’s about dignity, possibility, and reclaiming a future that was sold for interest. Cauley’s fiction, like Papas Fritas’s fire, is not just a spectacle—it’s a warning, and a dare.

In an America where student debt totals over $1.7 trillion, where debt servicers act like bounty hunters, and where the promise of higher education has become a trapdoor, The Payback delivers catharsis—and inspiration.

Hollywood, take note: this story demands a screen adaptation. But more importantly, policymakers, debt collectors, and university administrators should take heed. The people are reading. And they’re getting ideas.

Preorder The Payback

Signed editions are available through Black-owned LA bookstores Reparations Club, Malik Books, and Octavia’s Bookshelf. National preorder links are now live. Read it before the Debt Police knock on your door.

Because as both Cauley and Papas Fritas remind us: sometimes, the only moral debt is the one you refuse to pay.

Source link

July 3, 2025