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  • Historians’ council vetoes Gaza scholasticide condemnation

    Historians’ council vetoes Gaza scholasticide condemnation

    The American Historical Association’s top elected body has shot down a resolution opposing scholasticide in Gaza, after members who attended its annual convention approved the statement early this month by a 428-to-88 margin.

    The association’s elected council, which has 16 voting members, could have accepted the resolution or sent it to the organization’s roughly 10,450 members for a vote. Instead, the council rejected it as the official position of the association.

    Jim Grossman, the association’s executive director and a nonvoting member of the council, said the Thursday afternoon vote was 11 to 4, with one abstention. He said the meeting was over Zoom.

    The rejected resolution had condemned the U.S. government’s funding of Israel, saying it “has supplied Israel with the weapons being used to commit this scholasticide” and that Israel “has effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system.” Scholasticide is defined as the intentional eradication of an education system.

    The resolution also called for a permanent ceasefire and for the association to form a committee to help rebuild Gaza’s “educational infrastructure.”

    In a written explanation of the veto, the council said it “deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities and archives in Gaza.”

    However, it considers the resolution to be a contravention of AHA’s “constitution and bylaws because it lies outside the scope of the association’s mission and purpose.” The constitution, the council noted, defines that mission and purpose as “the promotion of historical studies through the encouragement of research, teaching and publication; the collection and preservation of historical documents and artifacts; the dissemination of historical records and information; the broadening of historical knowledge among the general public; and the pursuit of kindred activities in the interest of history.”

    Grossman said the vote to approve that explanation was 10 to zero with three abstentions, after some members left the meeting following the veto vote. He said he couldn’t reveal who voted which way in either tally because the discussion was confidential.

    “We consider it imperative that council members be able to speak freely and candidly during the meeting, and that’s why they’re not recorded and that’s why we do not quote any individual council members,” Grossman said. “And they did speak freely and candidly.”

    Van Gosse, a co-chair and founder of Historians for Peace and Democracy, which wrote the resolution, said “we are extremely shocked by this decision, and disappointed.” He said, “It overturns the democratic decision at that huge [conference] business meeting and the landslide vote.”

    Anne Hyde, a council member and a University of Oklahoma history professor, said she voted to veto “to protect the AHA’s reputation as an unbiased historical actor,” noting that the organization does congressional briefings. She also said the current war in Gaza “is not settled history, so we’re not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn’t something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet.”

    Asked why she didn’t support sending the resolution to the full membership for a vote, Hyde said, “As a council member, you really are thinking about the full 10,000 people, and it includes high school teachers, people who teach in really difficult circumstances and who don’t agree about this issue.” She said, “You could imagine all kinds of scenarios” where a full membership vote “still wasn’t representative.”

    This marks the second time this academic year that the top body of a major scholarly organization has shot down a pro-Palestinian resolution before the group’s full membership could vote on it. In the fall, the Modern Language Association’s executive council rejected a resolution that would’ve also accused Israel of scholasticide—and would’ve gone further by endorsing the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli policy.

    Unlike the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association Executive Council, which has different bylaws, axed that resolution before its convention this month even began.

    In February 2022, the AHA council did approve a statement on another current war. It condemned “in the strongest possible terms Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine” and said, “This act of overt military aggression violates the sovereignty of an independent Ukraine, threatening stability in the broader region and across the world.”

    The statement rebutted Russian president Vladimir Putin’s historical justifications for the invasion, saying, “Putin grossly simplifies and distorts Ukraine’s history, essentially erasing its distinct past and rendering it indistinguishable from Russia.” The statement ended with this: “We vigorously support the Ukrainian nation and its people in their resistance to Russian military aggression and the twisted mythology that President Putin has invented to justify his violation of international norms.”

    Grossman told Inside Higher Ed Friday that “the Ukraine statement was purely historical. It was well within our scope.” He said, “No serious professional historian in the United States considers Putin’s historical explanation to be anything close to accurate history, so the war itself was based on an abuse of history, and that’s what our statement addressed.” There’s “no such consensus” among U.S. historians on the situation in Gaza, he said.

    Two pro-Israel organizations, the American Jewish Committee and the Academic Engagement Network, said they sent a joint letter to the council Thursday urging the veto. The letter calls the scholasticide accusation “preposterous.”

    “There is no evidence to suggest that Israel is deliberately and systematically targeting the Palestinian educational system for destruction,” the letter said. “The resolution blatantly ignores the fact that Hamas routinely launches rockets from, and houses its weapons and fighters in, civilian structures and facilities.”

    The organizations wrote that “as an institution, the AHA should steer clear of weighing in on contentious political conflicts, particularly when so many members vehemently disagree.” They said such resolutions can “create a hostile and unwelcoming environment for scholars and students who identify as Zionists and those with strong personal, academic and professional ties to Israel.” They further argued that “the association would be better served by adopting a stance of political neutrality on geopolitical issues.”

    This story has been updated.

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  • Korean reality TV showcases language learning in the UK

    Korean reality TV showcases language learning in the UK

    The series, premiering on February 5, was filmed at Bell English Schools’s Cambridge premisis in August 2025, which hosted Dong-Il Sung, Kwang-Kyu Kim, Ki-Jun Um, Hyuk Jang, and Seung-Hwan Shin for two weeks in August 2024.  

    The program, Shala Shala, follows the actors’ authentic experiences of learning English alongside other students, taking part in activities, and staying with host families and in Bell Cambridge’s on-campus residences.  

    “These are male, middle-aged actors who are famous in South Korea, but who have got to a certain point in their career and maybe they want to try more roles in English or maybe they want to travel personally with their families,” Rebecca Stead, head of marketing at Bell Educational Services told The PIE News. 

    “So, the premise of the show was that it’s never too late to late to learn English,” Stead added.  

    To make it as authentic as possible, 50 hidden cameras were set up around the school to capture the actors’ true experiences taking classes with Bell’s summer learners. 

    While Stead maintained that the actors were “great students”, the program’s trailer reveals a somewhat bumpy path to language learning success.  

    “It was a big operation and really interesting for us staff to see how a TV program is made, and the other students were really excited to have the actors around,” she added.  

    The premise of the show was that it’s never too late to late to learn English

    Rebecca Stead, Bell English

    With seven schools for adult students and young learners across the UK, Bell’s Cambridge institution is its flagship location offering year-round language courses to learners of all ages.  

    “We’ve got these beautiful gardens and traditional buildings, and it’s in Cambridge, which is such an attractive destination. It’s very much that quintessential image of what a lot of people from other countries imagine the UK to be like,” Stead noted.

    “Not only are we showcasing Bell but we’re also showcasing the UK and what a valuable experience it is to study and travel here, so hopefully it will be a positive thing for the industry as a whole.”  

    The program comes at a time of slowing recovery for the UK’s ELT sector, with levels likely to be a “new normal” for the sector, according to a recent report by English UK.  

    The program will be airing on YouTube as well as the South Korean television network JTBC on February 5, 2025.  

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  • Wildfire aid coming to California schools as educators plan to restart learning

    Wildfire aid coming to California schools as educators plan to restart learning

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    Schools across Southern California impacted by devastating wildfires this month are working to ensure students, families and staff are safe and have basic needs — all while attempting to restart instruction and as-normal-as-possible school routines after school closures. 

    At least 335 schools from Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and San Diego counties had closed temporarily when fires broke out last week, affecting more than 211,000 students, according to the California Department of Education. 

    Two schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District — Palisades Charter Elementary and Marquez Charter Elementary — will need to be rebuilt due to fire damage, LAUSD said in a Jan. 13 statement. 

    At an event Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to highlight U.S. Department of Education initiatives under the Biden administration, Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Marten, who previously served as superintendent of San Diego Unified School District, said the area is close-knit and that people have been “deeply affected” by the destructive wildfires. 

    “What we know is that precious schools have burned down and communities are reeling,” said Marten, adding that the U.S. Education Department will provide training and funding to communities affected by the disaster.

    According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as CAL FIRE, 40,695 acres have burned and more than 12,300 structures have been destroyed. Several fires that started Jan. 7 or after still have not been fully contained. 

    Most schools in LAUSD — the second largest school system in the nation — reopened Monday after district employees cleaned schools and others worked “around the clock” over the weekend to ensure campuses were safe for students and staff, a Jan. 13 district statement said. By Wednesday, outdoor activities including P.E. and recess could resume at all campuses pending local conditions, and students at the two schools destroyed by fire were relocated to two other campuses, the district said.

    “We have a unique opportunity to show the strength and resilience of our community in the face of adversity,” said Pamela Magee, executive director and principal of Palisades Charter High School, in a statement Jan 13. “By coming together, we can ensure that our students can stay in their learning environment, with their friends and mentors, at a time when they need it most.” 

    Schools in Malibu are closed through at least Jan. 21, while Santa Monica schools are open, according to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The district and its partners have organized optional gathering spaces for children and teens displaced by the fires and not in school.

    In the Pasadena Unified School District, more than 1,300 Pasadena USD staff members had homes within the burn zone, and the district is still determining the exact number of students and families impacted. That number is anticipated to be in the thousands, according to the California Department of Education. 

    The district is closed through Jan. 17, although students had access to optional, self-directed learning options, Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco wrote in a statement to the school district community Jan. 10. 

    “The health and safety of our PUSD community remain our highest priority as we navigate the significant impact of the fire on so many of our students, families, and staff,” said Blanco, adding that nearly half of the district’s employees live within the fire evacuation zone and that many staff, students and families lost their homes.

    Odyssey Charter Schools, South Campus, in Altadena, California, and authorized by PUSD, was destroyed by the Eaton fire on Jan. 8. The 7-year-old school served about 375 students in grades TK-8. 

    “While our campus is closed, Odyssey Charter Schools South continues and will move forward stronger than ever. We’ve already built this school from an idea to a full institution. Then we rebuilt it again online during COVID and we built it a third time when we had to relocate so we are a resilient community and we already weathered many challenges,” said a video showing the fire’s destruction to the campus.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/Q9sOZLdDcBg

    Providing basic needs, making adjustments

    With the widespread impact of the wildfires and ongoing firefighting, the focus on learning is taking a backseat to supplying students, families and school employees with basic needs.  

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  • Test yourself on this week’s K-12 news

    Test yourself on this week’s K-12 news

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    How well did you keep up with this week’s developments in K-12 education? To find out, take our five-question quiz below. Then, share your score by tagging us on social media with #K12DivePopQuiz.

     

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  • The universal language of football

    The universal language of football

    We were split into two teams scrimmaging against each other. The boys I play with are competitive so there was the usual light trash talking, jersey pulling and agile foot skills. 

    We were playing friendly rules with no corner kicks. My teammate, Gugu, was fouled in the makeshift goalie box and dramatically fell to the ground yelling for a penalty kick. 

    None of us expected the coach to listen to him, but surprisingly he gave it to our team on the condition that I take the kick. All the players lined up around the box as I prepared to shoot, choosing to aim for the bottom right corner. 

    Two things you should know: First this is in Italy and I’m an American teenager who speaks little Italian. Second, I’m the only girl on the team.

    The coach blew the whistle. I confidently ran, kicking the ball with all my strength. It went soaring over the crossbar into the fence behind. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. 

    A lifelong love of sports

    Sports have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As soon as I learned to walk, my parents introduced me to swimming (after all, 71% of earth’s surface is water). They had me learn tennis to hone my hand-eye coordination, ballet to cultivate “grace” and finally soccer to channel my boundless energy. 

    Ballet was the first to go. I was asked to leave for being too much of a distraction (it’s not my fault the class was boring and repetitive). Swimming followed when the early practices and relentless cycle of toxic comparison drained it of joy. Tennis, while never officially abandoned, became more of a casual hobby, a skill I maintained with occasional matches. 

    But soccer? Soccer was different. It endured. Not just for me, but for my siblings as well. My older brother and younger siblings all share a similar love for the sport.

    My football career began at six years old with my recreational team, Purple Thunder, where the post-game refreshments — orange slices and chocolate milk — mattered more than the outcome of the game. 

    Next came Academy, where I was paired with a “special buddy” (one of the older kids) to help me focus and follow directions. By eight, I advanced to the competitive world of travel soccer — a commitment that has defined half of my life. Over the past eight years, I’ve played on various teams, with different coaches, in several leagues and have witnessed the growing intensity of competition as more pressure is placed on each player.

    Soccer bridges divides across borders.

    Soccer has taken me across the country and around the world. I’ve played soccer in Denmark, Sweden and Germany against local girls’ teams in those countries. Soccer is now a cornerstone of my identity.

    When the external factors of my life changed as I grew and I matured, soccer remained the one constant. 

    During the pandemic, I found solace in dribbling by myself in my basement and backyard. When I moved to boarding school, leaving behind my family and home, my high school soccer team became my anchor. 

    Despite all the stress I endured through these changes, my love for the game only deepened as I experienced the unique camaraderie of a team composed of players from all over the world, united by our shared passion for soccer and desire to win. 

    I cried when my favorite coach left for another job, cried again, then confronted a different coach who left me off the roster for games. I cried when a teammate lost her brother. 

    Sports transcends the field.

    Soccer is more than a game. It’s an art, an outlet. And a team is more than just a group of players: it’s a community, a support system that celebrates your successes and lifts you up when you fall. In those eight years, I believed I had encountered every type of soccer environment imaginable — until I arrived in Italy. 

    So I could play here, the extracurricular coordinator at my study abroad school called on Gianni, a host parent who works for the local soccer club, Viterbese. 

    Equal parts nervous and excited, I met Gianni and told him about my soccer experience — travel for eight years, high school varsity for two — and what I’m looking for — consistent, high level practices to keep me in shape. 

    He suggests two teams I could play with, but both are boys’ teams, and I choose one. We decide I will go to the team’s practice on Monday and he even offers me a ride. 

    The second he leaves, my spiraling begins as my brain conjures up all the worst possible scenarios. Monday arrives and I can’t decide whether to be filled with dread or excited to finally play. 

    At the field, the boys are already huddled with the coach. Now I’ll stand out even more. I get my cleats on and join the circle, suffering through an awkward introduction with the coach, then we begin.

    It’s been four months now since that moment, and I’ve gone to every practice I could. I was nervous at first, especially after Gianni stopped coming and I was left to navigate it on my own. But during the drills on the first day, I quickly realized I’d been overthinking it. They weren’t a team of young Messis and Ronaldos, just regular teenage boys. 

    There are many ways to communicate.

    While I’d played against teams that didn’t speak English before, practicing alongside them and becoming part of their team was an entirely new experience. 

    Learning a new language is a year-long journey, and I take it one day at a time. So while I’ve built up a solid repertoire of Italian words and calcio (soccer) vocabulary, I’ve discovered other ways to communicate — through the game itself.

    Words aren’t always necessary to understand my teammates’ personalities. I can learn plenty from how they play. Whether they prefer to dribble or pass, take the shot or let someone else score, arrive early to practice, talk over the coach, yell at teammates or tug on someone’s jersey, these small choices on the field speak volumes about a person’s true character. 

    Playing soccer here has been living proof that actions truly speak louder than words and that sports have a unique ability to connect people. As a 16-year-old girl from Northern Virginia, I’ve formed a connection with 15-year-old Italian boys from a small city north of Rome. 

    It’s also a reminder that no matter how experienced or “well-versed” you think you are in a passion, there are always more opportunities to grow — if you’re willing to take the leap. I’ve embarrassed myself countless times, as I did trying to make that penalty shot after Gugu was fouled. I’ve lost the ball, missed shots, stumbled over Italian. I once even forgot my cleats. 

    But despite the awkward moments, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.

     

    Three questions to consider:

    1. How did the author manage to communicate with her teammates without knowing the language they spoke?
    2. What does the author mean by soccer being more than a sport?
    3. What sport or hobby are you passionate about and are there people who share that passion?

     

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  • Psychological Safety in the Doctoral Context

    Psychological Safety in the Doctoral Context

    by Jayne Carruthers

    The doctorate is a subjective experience demanding the re-evaluation of ways of thinking, the navigation of intense emotions, and the adaptation of behaviours by the candidate to achieve new learning goals, transforming the candidate from a consumer to a creator of knowledge. Candidates often face uncertainty and enter a state of liminality during this process, feeling caught between old beliefs and new insights, which can lead to discomfort and feeling ‘stuck’. To navigate this liminal space, candidates benefit from a change in perspective supported by transformative learning. While much of the focus in doctoral support is on the candidate avoiding negative experiences during this process, there is limited attention given to the candidate’s role of self-awareness and self-management. Reflexivity provides one such option to consider.

    Reflexivity is a cognitive, or thinking, process that enables individuals to move beyond simple reflection, fostering self-awareness and exploring different options for progress. While candidates have demonstrated its usefulness in understanding their doctoral journeys, further research is needed on initiating and sustaining this process independently. This ability to learn and develop autonomously is essential, as doctoral programs require candidates to show evidence of becoming independent researchers. In organisational literature, reflexivity has been demonstrated to enhance information processing, helping employees understand what, why, and how of learning and change. It enables adjustments in both task execution and personal approach. Moreover, team psychological safety has been demonstrated to be crucial for effective team reflexivity. However, variations in terminology and definitions related to psychological safety limit the extension of this construct beyond the organisational context.

    A body of conceptual research adopting a Theoretical Integrated Review (TIR) approach was conducted, with findings highlighting historical use, providing theoretical insights, and clarifying a generalised definition of psychological safety with relevance beyond the organisational setting. Psychological safety is an internal process that helps individuals manage distress, influencing their thoughts, feelings, and actions. It plays a crucial role in growth and development by connecting motivation and goal-directed behaviour, providing the opportunity for a generalised definition:

    Psychological safety is a dynamic intrapsychic construct drawn on by individuals to mitigate actual or foreseen distress. The presence or absence of psychological safety is influenced by context, the individual’s existing psychological frames of reference, and current and future motives relating to an endeavour.

    This understanding allows the absence or presence of psychological safety to be considered in broader contexts, including independent learning settings like doctoral programs. To explore this potential, a body of qualitative research was conducted with six volunteer PhD candidates enrolled at a regional Australian university awaiting feedback on their theses.

    Using the vignette methodology technique to present short fictional scenarios regarding experiences of doctoral knowledge uncertainty, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews to understand how doctoral candidates deal with knowledge uncertainty. This approach encouraged interviewees to discuss their experiences without the pressure of direct questions, facilitating open discussions about managing uncertainty. At the end of the interviews, findings from the conceptual research were shared, and feedback was gathered on their benefit as a basis for candidate support. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analysed.

    All six interviewees described experiences with knowledge uncertainty and agreed that the conceptual research findings on psychological safety could improve opportunities for candidate support and warranted further investigation. The analysis of the interviews revealed that the interviewees’ experiences of uncertainty stemmed from intrapersonal, interpersonal, and university governance-level interactions. While similarities existed based on stages in the doctoral program, no strong recurring theme of uncertainty emerged. Notably, the differences lay in how the interviewees discussed their experiences of uncertainty.

    Some interviewees emphasised the importance of interpersonal support to help them progress:

    … the Confirmation panel Chairperson insisted that I rework my research question … I found it confusing. I felt that I must have grossly mistaken something …. my supervisor just said, okay, well, rebuild methodology … I felt uncertain. But she was very encouraging and supportive … I got through the second time, no questions asked …                                                                                                                                                                                                 Interviewee Steve

    … my methodology was underdeveloped … I was asked to resubmit this section to the confirmation panel … I was stressed about it having to be perfect because I thought failing would be the worst thing in the world.  … I remember that being a big thing … I was embarrassed, … an extra hurdle because no one else I knew needed to resubmit … my supervisors were empowering … they both said, redo what you need to … You’ll get through. You’re going to be okay.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Interviewee Amy

    Other interviewees’ narratives shifted from reflection to reflexivity, demonstrating self-awareness and developing metacognitive strategies to navigate their uncertainties.

    So yeah, it was an unhappy period. It was a couple of months of really hating what I was, what I’d done to myself in choosing this particular topic…I just had to ride that wave, you know, think it through, think, really think about what I was doing and why I was doing it, what the product was, what the process was and what the result needed to be in the end. 

                                                                                                                                     Interviewee Julie

    … a big part of my uncertainty was about paradigms … I couldn’t write my methodology. … I was just not convinced … if I can’t believe in these views about knowledge and reality, I can’t write about this stuff. So that was a hurdle …  I was sometimes reading without knowing what would come of it. … then it felt like, oh, this is it … what had been a major period of uncertainty had also been a cognitively shifting one that changed my perception of the world.                                                                                                                Interviewee Jack

    The extracts illustrate how interviewees navigated uncertainties and liminal spaces, utilising various strategies to move forward. Some narratives show less use of self-awareness, relying on interpersonal support, while others reflect and use reflexivity as a proactive, independent approach to managing uncertainty.

    Understanding psychological safety as a multi-dimensional construct and appreciating its demonstrated moderating effect on reflexivity in the workplace provides an opportunity for further investigation. The differences in interviewees’ narratives offer valuable insights regarding reflexivity and the doctoral experience of uncertainty, collectively establishing a basis for exploring psychological safety in the doctoral context.

    Jayne Carruthers is a PhD candidate in SORTI, a research centre based in the School of Education at The University of Newcastle, Australia, where she works as a Research Assistant. With a background in Adult Education and Positive Psychology, she has a well-developed interest in fostering autonomous learners. Her PhD research explores psychological safety within doctoral learning and development. Her recent publications include “Conveying the learning self to others: doctoral candidates conceptualising and communicating the complexion of development”

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • DOL allows employers to self-correct 401(k) errors

    DOL allows employers to self-correct 401(k) errors

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    Employers can soon self-correct certain retirement plan contribution errors, thanks to federal regulations published Wednesday.

    Beginning March 17, employers may use a self-correction tool to “remedy delays in sending participant contributions, such as employee payroll deductions, and participant loan repayments to retirement plans,” according to a U.S. Department of Labor announcement.

    When the change was proposed two years ago, a business-side attorney said employers would likely welcome the option to self-correct as it would streamline the process.

    The correction program may allow employers and other plan officials to avoid certain civil enforcement actions and penalties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the Internal Revenue Code, DOL said.

    “The Employee Benefits Security Administration is pleased to provide these improvements to our Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program so that employers and other plan officials can take advantage of streamlined tools to correct legal violations, and America’s workers get full protection for their hard-earned benefits,” said Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa M. Gomez in a statement.

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  • This week in numbers: Clearinghouse retracts first-year enrollment data

    This week in numbers: Clearinghouse retracts first-year enrollment data

    We’re rounding up recent stories, including a methodology mea culpa and billions of dollars in discharged loan debt.

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  • Our First FOIAs of 2025

    Our First FOIAs of 2025

    The Higher Education Inquirer has started the year by digging deeper into the Federal Student Loan Portfolio using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. If you would like to know something that has not been made public by the US Department of Education (ED), please contact us. ED has a number of additional websites for public information, such as the College Scorecard, Federal Student Aid website, College Navigator, IPEDS data website, and the Closed Schools Monthly Report. But the availability of good data could be reduced in coming years. As usual, we appreciate your comments below.  

     
     

    Image from US Department of Education regarding FOIA Request 25-01935-F

     

     

     

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  • HBCU leaders prepare for “delicate dance” under Trump

    HBCU leaders prepare for “delicate dance” under Trump

    Mississippi Valley State University, a historically Black institution, proudly announced last month that its marching band was invited to perform at Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration. The university’s president, Jerryl Briggs, described the invitation as a chance to “showcase our legacy” and “celebrate our culture.” A GoFundMe campaign was started in hopes of raising enough money for the Mean Green Marching Machine Band to make its debut on the national stage.

    Then the fighting started. Social media exploded with reactions to the move from within and outside of HBCU campus communities, with alumni coming down on both sides of the issue. Some condemned the university for participating in the celebration while others argued the band should embrace its moment in the spotlight. (The band is doing that, heading to the inauguration on Monday.)

    The moment felt like déjà vu. During the first Trump administration, in 2017, a group of HBCU leaders spoke with Trump during an impromptu visit to the Oval Office after they met with other government officials. A photo of their interaction with the president went viral, prompting swift backlash and skepticism. “Is it a photo op, is it an opportunity for Trump to put himself next to Black people and smile?” Llewellyn Robinson, a Howard University sophomore at the time, asked The New York Times. “Is that the situation we’re dealing with? Or is it truly a seat at the table?”

    The controversy speaks to a tension HBCU leaders face ahead of a second Trump administration, with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress. On the one hand, they want to foster positive relationships with the powers that be and take advantage of whatever opportunities the new administration can offer their students and institutions. On the other hand, they’re serving communities with deep misgivings about the incoming president.

    Most Black voters, 83 percent, voted for Kamala Harris, reported AP VoteCast. And while that’s fewer than the 91 percent who voted for President Biden in 2020, it’s still the vast majority at a time when many Black Americans, including HBCU students, are leery of anti-DEI rhetoric and state laws advanced by Trump supporters. Some have a more tangible worry: that Trump’s talk of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education may threaten the federal financial aid that gets many HBCU students to and through college and helps often cash-starved, tuition-dependent institutions meet their bottom lines.

    HBCU leaders and scholars find themselves, once again, thinking through how to navigate a fraught political moment.

    “It is sometimes a delicate dance,” said Walter Kimbrough, interim president of Talladega College and the former president of Philander Smith College and Dillard University. He expects some HBCU presidents will avoid “high-profile photo opportunities” with members of the new administration this time around. Even so, “we have to let our constituents know, we have to work with whoever is in the White House. That’s part of the job.”

    He also, however, believes part of the job is pushing back on policies that could hurt the sector regardless of who’s in office.

    “We need to be consistent on the things that are good for us, to be advocating,” he said, “and the things that we think are problematic, we need to be brave enough to speak up against those, too.”

    But doing so can be precarious for HBCU presidents and their institutions, said Melanye Price, a political science professor and director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice at Prairie View A&M University. “The question is always: Is it better to speak out with the potential of losing whatever ability you have to tend to and care for students, or figure out ways to maneuver within the context that you’re in now and still be able to help students?” Price said.

    Efforts to partner with the new Trump administration have already begun. The Thurgood Marshall College Fund, an organization representing public HBCUs, congratulated Trump in a statement after he was elected. They also praised some of the wins HBCUs achieved under his first administration, including the FUTURE Act, which made permanent additional annual funding for minority-serving institutions, and the HBCU PARTNERS Act, which required some federal agencies to submit annual plans describing how they’d make grant programs more accessible to HBCUs.

    Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund, which represents private HBCUs, met with Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for education secretary, in December. He said in a press release that he found her to be a “good listener” and said they had a “productive discussion” about “issues of importance to HBCUs, HBCU students, the nation’s underserved students and how to improve the avenues of learning for all students.”

    “We will continue to work with those elected, because the needs of our institutions and students are urgent,” Lomax added. “Our motto is ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste,’ but so is an opportunity to advance our HBCU-related goals and objectives.”

    Strategies and Priorities

    Trump has often touted his support for HBCUs during his first term, arguing in a presidential debate last summer that he “got them all funded,” though HBCU leaders have pointed out that many of these successes were initially pushed forward by Congress and signed by the president. It’s also unclear whether support for HBCUs, a meaningful issue to Black voters, will be as much of an emphasis for Trump in his final term now that he’s no longer striving for re-election.

    But HBCU leaders express optimism that they can secure some legislative wins in the next four years, given that support for the institutions has historically come from both sides of the aisle. And they plan to keep it that way.

    “While I can’t say what the future may hold, I can say that our most recent interactions with the secretary-designate seemed as if we have reason to be positive about the next steps,” said Lodriguez Murray, UNCF’s vice president of public policy and government affairs.

    HBCUs achieved some of their goals in partnership with the first Trump administration, Murray noted, including some loan forgiveness for institutions that received federal disaster relief loans as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

    Harry Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, noted another reason for optimism heading into the new Trump term: Most HBCUs are located in red states, so they’ve always developed and relied on positive relationships with Republican lawmakers.

    State-level challenges to DEI programming from Republican lawmakers have ramped up anxieties on HBCU campuses about the state and federal political climate for their institutions in the years ahead, Williams said. But “what we have seen, and we’re hoping to continue” is that those same states are still investing in HBCUs. For example, Tennessee recently coughed up funds to keep Tennessee State University afloat, and Florida has made some sizable investments in HBCUs in recent years, he added.

    Williams hopes the incoming administration and Congress will echo those state lawmakers in their treatment of HBCUs. “Our strategy is to continue to partner with both sides and continue to forge relationships and create opportunities for our member schools to come and visit” government officials, he said.

    Kimbrough said those visits from HBCU representatives are going to be particularly important in the years ahead. Trump had an HBCU graduate and advocate among the ranks of his first administration, he noted—his former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman. But “right now, he doesn’t have anybody who really knows HBCUs at a close [level],” he said, “so we’ve got to do a lot of teaching and educating them about what we do, what our value is to the country.”

    With those ties reinforced, HBCU leaders plan to advocate for a long-held policy wish list: higher annual funding, improvements to campuses’ infrastructure, relief for institutions in debt and increases to the Pell Grant, federal financial aid for low-income students that helps the majority of HBCU students pay for college. HBCU leaders also want federal money for campus safety and security measures after a slew of bomb threats against HBCUs in 2022, which some campus leaders contend was inadequately handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    “We don’t believe that a single student needs to have in their mind that something is happening to their institution simply because of what the institution is and who they are,” Murray said.

    Murray noted one more priority: increased funding for the Education Department’s Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities program, from about $400 million per year to at least $500 million, to keep pace with inflation.

    Student Fears, Faculty Concerns

    The day after the election, students in Price’s class on voting rights at Prairie View A&M discussed the results. The same worry came up over and over again: How will they pay for college if Trump abolishes the Department of Education?

    According to data from TMCF, more than 75 percent of HBCU students rely on Pell Grants, federal financial aid for low-income students. Price said it’s natural that students are worried about any policy plans that could destabilize financial aid. “There is a palpable fear about what this new administration will bring and that there’s no one to stop them,” she said.

    The students’ often tuition-dependent institutions are also vulnerable if changes in financial aid make it difficult for students to pay; most HBCUs don’t have large endowments or megadonors as a safety net.

    University of the District of Columbia professors, worried themselves, described a particular kind of pall hanging over their students ahead of Inauguration Day as they prepare for the Trump administration and new members of Congress to settle into the deep-blue district. To acknowledge and address some of students’ fears and worries, two faculty members organized a pre-inauguration teach-in today. It will begin with mindfulness practices, followed by panel discussions and speakers on Washington, D.C., history and politics and how the transition of power could affect the district.

    “Students are concerned about what the city will feel like in terms of its receptivity [and] tolerance around diversity,” said Michelle Chatman, associate professor of crime, justice and security studies and the founding director of the Mindful and Courageous Action Lab at UDC. Since Congress has more sway over D.C. than elsewhere, students also worry about programming and curriculum at the HBCU given restrictions on African American studies pushed by Republican lawmakers in other parts of the country. “We want them to feel empowered, and we want to normalize their feelings of concern.”

    Amanda Huron, a professor of interdisciplinary social sciences and political science and the director of the D.C. History Lab at UDC, said a teach-in felt like the obvious move in this tense political moment.

    “When we think, ‘well, what can we do in this moment, what can we as a university community do’—what we do is teach,” Huron said.

    She acknowledged that HBCUs have a difficult balance to strike right now. “HBCUs in the country, we want to thrive, regardless of what’s going on politically, and we need to, because we need to serve our students,” Huron said. At the same time, “we need to make sure that we are always providing spaces for critical and honest and fact-based conversation, so I think it’s important that we’re able to do both things.”

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