The answer to that question may tell you all you need
to know about the government involving itself in social media
content moderation.
On today’s show, we cover the latest tech policy
developments involving the Federal Communications Commission,
Federal Trade Commission, AI regulation, and more.
–
Adam Thierer, a resident technology and innovation senior
fellow at the R Street Institute
– Jennifer
Huddleston, a technology policy senior fellow at the CATO
Institute
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:30 Section 230
06:55 FCC and Section 230
14:32 Brendan Carr and “faith-based programming”
28:24 Media companies’ settlements with the Trump
30:24 Brendan Carr at Semafor event
38:37 FTC and social media companies
48:09 AI regulations
01:03:43 Outro
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With your experience in the education field, you likely understand the benefits of cultivating strong relationships with current members of your school community. What many school administrators and marketers forget is that alumni, though they no longer attend a school, are invaluable to educational marketing strategy and an institution’s overall growth. If you haven’t already, it’s time to examine how your school can build a strong alumni network as part of your marketing efforts and general institutional development.
An alumni network is one of the most valuable assets a school can cultivate. Your graduates are living proof of your programs’ effectiveness. Their journeys from classroom to career serve as compelling testimonials that not only strengthen institutional reputation but also attract prospective students who seek assurance that your school can set them up for success. Join us as we discuss what an effective alumni network should look like, the benefits you can expect, and how to get started.
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What’s an Alumni Network?
At its core, an alumni network is a community of former students who remain engaged with their alma mater. This engagement can take many forms, from mentorship opportunities and career support to networking events and fundraising initiatives. A well-developed alumni network fosters lifelong connections, enabling graduates to support each other while strengthening the institution that provided their foundation.
Enriching Education: The Power of an Alumni Network
When alumni feel connected to their school, they become brand ambassadors, willingly sharing their success stories and contributing to a culture of loyalty and pride. These graduates are more likely to participate in career panels, donate to scholarship funds, and advocate for your institution within their professional circles. Most importantly, their success becomes a tangible example of your school’s impact, which is a powerful marketing tool in itself.
Alumni relationships create a dynamic ecosystem of support, mentorship, and career growth. So in summary, why is alumni networking important? It plays a crucial role in helping graduates navigate their professional journeys, opening doors to job opportunities, industry insights, and collaborative ventures. An engaged alumni network ensures students are stepping into a lifelong professional community that enhances their career trajectory. For schools, this network fosters goodwill and credibility, proving that your programs produce graduates who thrive in competitive industries.
Example:On a dedicated alumni network page on their website, Ivey Business School plainly states the objective of their program” To encourage and promote continuous professional and personal enrichment by connecting alumni with each other and the school”. The alumni network is positioned as a resource for career development and support for graduates.
Source: Ivey Business School
The Unique Marketing Benefits of Alumni Networks
Now that higher education is increasingly competitive, the ability to showcase real-world success is crucial. What is the value of alumni networks when it comes to your marketing strategy? Alumni networks are excellent social proof, providing great opportunities for organic traffic, and showcasing how your school facilitates career development. Here’s how:
Your Alumni Network Offers Valuable Social Proof
In an education marketing context, social proof refers to the credibility and trust institutions build by showcasing the success and satisfaction of their alumni, current students, and faculty. When prospective students see tangible examples of graduates thriving in their careers, testimonials from successful alumni, or high employer satisfaction rates, they gain confidence that choosing your school is a worthwhile investment.
Social proof can take many forms, including video testimonials, alumni spotlights, employer endorsements, rankings, and word-of-mouth referrals. A strong alumni network serves as a powerful form of social proof, demonstrating that your institution provides quality education and equips graduates with the skills, knowledge, and professional connections necessary for long-term success.
Alumni success stories create a compelling narrative that validates the effectiveness of your curriculum, the strength of your career support services, and the credibility of your institution as a whole. Whether through personal testimonials, LinkedIn endorsements, or employer recommendations, alumni reinforce the value of your educational offerings in a way that no traditional marketing message can replicate.
Example:On their website, Boston University showcases alumni success stories that highlight educational and career development opportunities like internships and networking events. The success of graduates provides valuable social proof for prospective students, who can identify with and look up to these role models.
Source: Boston University
Driving Organic Traffic
An engaged alumni network plays a crucial role in generating organic traffic through word-of-mouth marketing. When alumni have a positive experience with your institution, they naturally become enthusiastic advocates, sharing their journey with peers, family members, and colleagues. This organic promotion is highly credible because it comes from real-life experiences rather than institutional messaging.
Beyond personal referrals, alumni contribute to organic traffic through their online presence. When they mention your school on LinkedIn, post about their achievements on social media, or participate in professional discussions related to their field, they create a ripple effect that drives interest in your institution. Schools can amplify this impact by encouraging alumni to tag their alma mater in their career updates, engage in school-sponsored events, and contribute to online discussions within alumni groups.
Additionally, search engines favor authentic, frequently updated content. When alumni success stories are featured on your website, blog, or social media channels, they provide valuable, keyword-rich content that enhances search visibility. Prospective students searching for insights on career outcomes in their chosen field may stumble upon these stories, further reinforcing your school’s credibility and increasing inquiries and applications.
Example: Here an alumni from Koç University in Turkey posts a very valuable testimonial, even tagging her alma mater and citing it as the #1 medical school in the country. In addition to an official alumni network, encouraging UGC from graduates is an effective strategy that comes across as authentic and therefore, trustworthy. Ask alumni to tag your school in graduation posts or list you in the education section of their LinkedIn profiles for organic traffic.
Source: Instagram
Mentorship and Career Services as a Unique Selling Point
An active alumni network can significantly enhance a school’s career services by establishing mentorship opportunities and creating a direct pathway for graduates to secure employment. When alumni hold influential positions in various industries, they become a valuable resource for current students and recent graduates looking to break into their fields. Schools that foster strong alumni engagement can tap into this network to offer students real-world insights, industry-specific guidance, and professional connections that go beyond what traditional career services can provide.
By collaborating with alumni who have become hiring managers, entrepreneurs, or industry leaders, schools can develop a reliable talent pipeline that benefits both graduates and employers. Alumni who feel a deep connection to their alma mater are more likely to offer internship programs, job placements, and networking opportunities tailored specifically to students from their former institution. These partnerships not only enhance job placement rates but also reinforce the credibility of your programs, proving to prospective students that your institution delivers real career outcomes.
Moreover, alumni mentors can serve as role models, helping students navigate their career paths through professional guidance and hands-on training. Schools can structure formal mentorship programs where alumni are paired with students based on career interests, fostering long-term professional relationships that extend well beyond graduation. These interactions boost student confidence, provide practical career advice, and offer an inside look at industry trends and expectations.
When alumni return to recruit from their alma mater, it strengthens the institution’s reputation as a trusted source of skilled professionals. This cyclical relationship, where alumni continuously contribute to the success of new graduates, creates a sustainable ecosystem of career support and growth.
Example: McMaster University has an Alumni Services page that highlights all of the career advantages that come with being part of their alumni network. Be sure to put all of the career benefits that your alumni network offers on full display so that you can leverage them as part of the FAB marketing strategy (features, advantages, and benefits), an effective form of brand storytelling that encourages prospective students to vividly imagine their success at your institution.
Source: McMaster University
Building a Strong Alumni Network
If you want to harness the power of alumni networks, it starts with cultivating meaningful relationships from the moment students enroll. Establishing a culture of connection early on makes it easier to keep graduates engaged long after they receive their diplomas.
One of the most effective ways to build a thriving alumni network is through dedicated alumni associations. These groups should not merely exist on paper but should be actively nurtured with opportunities for engagement, such as career workshops, networking events, and mentorship programs. Leveraging digital platforms, such as LinkedIn and exclusive alumni portals, helps create spaces where former students can stay in touch, share job openings, and collaborate on projects.
Personalized outreach is key to maintaining long-term engagement. Schools that take the time to check in with alumni (through newsletters, exclusive events, or professional development opportunities) demonstrate continued investment in their graduates’ success. This encourages reciprocity, as alumni become more willing to give back, whether through donations, guest lectures, or referrals.
Video testimonials featuring alumni discussing how your programs shaped their careers are incredibly effective. Highlighting their professional achievements, career transitions, and personal growth builds trust with prospective students who are weighing their options. Success stories can be embedded into your website, showcased on social media, and included in email campaigns.
Featuring alumni in live webinars or Q&A sessions allows prospective students to ask direct questions about career outcomes. This real-time engagement adds credibility to your institution’s claims, reinforcing the message that your graduates excel in their fields. Schools that leverage alumni networks in these ways transform passive viewers into engaged applicants.
Example: Get creative with your alumni recruitment strategy! Here, Stellenbosch University promotes its alumni network app, Maties Alumni, on YouTube – an exclusive, all-in-one platform for nurturing alumni relationships, career opportunities, mentorship, and personal connections.
Source: Stellenbosch University | YouTube
Elevating Your School’s Reputation Through Alumni Success
Ultimately, the strength of your alumni network is a reflection of the strength of your institution. Schools that prioritize alumni engagement are not only fostering lifelong relationships but are also investing in an authentic, powerful marketing strategy. By celebrating alumni achievements, maintaining strong communication channels, and integrating success stories into recruitment efforts, you can build lasting credibility and attract the next generation of students eager to follow in their graduates’ footsteps.
If your institution is looking for ways to enhance engagement and incorporate alumni networks into your marketing strategy, Higher Education Marketing can help you develop targeted campaigns that amplify your alumni success stories and drive enrollment growth. Your graduates are your greatest success. Make sure their voices are heard!
Struggling with enrollment?
Our expert digital marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Why is alumni networking important?
Answer: It plays a crucial role in helping graduates navigate their professional journeys, opening doors to job opportunities, industry insights, and collaborative ventures.
Question: What is the value of alumni networks?
Answer: Alumni networks are excellent social proof, provide great opportunities for organic traffic, and showcase how your school facilitates career development.
EducationDynamics is excited to announce our new webinar series — the InsightsEDU Echo Webinar Series. This series is designed to expand access to the impactful sessions delivered at InsightsEDU 2025. Whether you attended the conference or are looking to gain valuable insights into higher education marketing, recruitment, and enrollment strategies, this webinar series brings expert-led presentations directly to you.
Join us throughout March and April for these exclusive webinars:
This webinar presents insights and discoveries from our most recent report, “Engaging the Modern Learner: 2025 Report on the Preferences & Behaviors Shaping Higher Ed.” These findings lay out the framework for a strategic approach built upon strengthened institutional reputation and engagement strategies that deliver the right message, at the right time to all students and institutional stakeholders.
Speakers: Greg Clayton, President of Enrollment Management Services, and Katie Tomlinson, Sr. Director of Analytics and Business Intelligence. Register Here
Discover proven strategies for navigating marketing transformation in higher education. This session will explore how institutions can modernize their marketing tactics to better align with today’s digital-first landscape.
Speakers: Jamie Ceman, Senior Executive Vice President, RW Jones Agency. Register Here
Learn how cross-departmental collaboration can unlock new strategies for enrollment growth. This webinar will provide actionable steps for aligning marketing, admissions, and academic teams.
Speakers: Dr. Jodi Blinco, Vice President for Enrollment Management Consulting. Register Here
Join EducationDynamics and the experts from EY Parthenon for a solutions-focused conversation about the impact and implications of the Enrollment Cliff. Participants will leave with a better understanding of the full impact of the changes facing higher education and the opportunities available for thriving in the evolving educational landscape.
Speakers: Tracy Kreikemeier, Chief Relationship Officer at EducationDynamics, Kate Kruger, Partner/Principal at EY-Parthenon, and Elizabeth Palmer, Senior Director at EY-Parthenon. Register Here
Explore how AI is transforming search algorithms, user behavior, and website optimization. This session, led by Sarah Russell, VP of Marketing at EducationDynamics, will deliver practical techniques to future-proof your SEO efforts and create a full-funnel marketing strategy that moves students from awareness to enrollment.
Speakers: Sarah Russell, Vice President of Marketing, EducationDynamics. Register Here
Uncover the psychological and strategic factors that influence student decision-making and engagement. Learn how to craft messaging and brands that resonate, inspire, and build lasting relationships.
Speakers: Kelly Ratliff, Director of Client Success and Solutions, RW Jones Agency, and Renee Daly, VP of Brand Strategy, RW Jones Agency. Register Here
On February 28, the Department of Labor (DOL) filed an appeal in Flint Avenue, LLC v. U.S. Department of Labor, which previously led a district court to strike down the agency’s overtime final rule set forth under the Biden administration. The action is the second pending appeal from DOL with respect to cases involving the Biden administration’s overtime rule and may be acting as a placeholder to provide time for the Trump administration to determine how they want to move forward with the Biden administration’s overtime rule.
Background
As a reminder, the Biden administration’s final rule implemented a phase-in approach to increasing the minimum salary threshold under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime regulations. Specifically, the rule increased the minimum salary threshold, effective July 1, 2024, from the previous level of $684 per week ($35,568 per year) to a new level at $844 per week ($43,888 per year). This first increase used the same methodology set by the first Trump administration’s 2019 overtime rule to determine the new salary threshold level. The rule also aimed to increase the threshold a second time effective January 1, 2025; however, the Biden overtime rule was struck down in federal court before the second increase could take effect. This increase would have changed the minimum salary threshold again to $1,128 per week ($58,656 per year). Finally, the rule adopted automatic updates to the minimum salary threshold that would occur every three years.
Shortly after the Biden overtime rule was published, lawsuits were filed challenging the final rule. These lawsuits resulted in two district court orders to vacate the final rule. On November 15, 2024, a federal judge in the Eastern District Court of Texas ruled to vacate the Biden administration’s FLSA overtime final rule in State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Labor. Similarly, on December 30, 2024, another federal judge in the Northern District Court of Texas ruled to vacate the Biden administration’s overtime rule in Flint Avenue, LLC. Both rulings vacated all components of the rule, meaning both the July and January salary thresholds set under the final rule were no longer in effect and automatic updates to the minimum salary threshold would not take place.
DOL’s Appeals
Soon after the federal judge ruled in the State of Texas case, the Biden administration’s DOL filed an appeal. The appeal was filed in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where it remained through the presidential transition. On February 24, the Department of Labor under the Trump administration requested an extension to file its opening brief in the State of Texas appeal. The 5th Circuit Court agreed to the extension, allowing for opening briefs to be filed by May 6, 2025.
Soon after, on February 28, DOL filed its second appeal to the 5th Circuit Court in the Flint Avenue case. Both actions may be intended to give time to newly confirmed Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer to settle into her new role and determine how the Trump administration will move forward with litigation and the Biden administration’s rulemaking.
CUPA-HR will continue to keep members apprised of legal updates regarding the overtime regulations.
Our most recent research into the working lives of faculty gave us some interesting takeaways about higher education’s relationship with AI. While every faculty member’s thoughts about AI differ and no two experiences are the same, the general trend we’ve seen is that faculty have moved from fear to acceptance. A good deal of faculty were initially concerned about AI’s arrival on campus. This concern was amplified by a perceived rise in AI-enabled cheating and plagiarism among students. Despite that, many faculty have come to accept that AI is here to stay. Some have developed working strategies to ensure that they and their students know the boundaries of AI usage in the classroom.
Early-adopting educators aren’t just navigating around AI. They have embraced and integrated it into their working lives. Some have learned to use AI tools to save time and make their working lives easier. In fact, over half of instructors reported that they wanted to use AI for administrative tasks and 10% were already doing so. (Find the highlights here.) As more faculty are seeing the potential in AI, that number has likely risen. So, in what ways are faculty already using AI to lighten the load of professional life? Here are three use-cases we learned about from education professionals:
AI to jumpstart ideas and conversations
“Give me a list of 10 German pop songs that contain irregular verbs.”
“Summarize the five most contentious legal battles happening in U.S. media law today.”
“Create a set of flashcards that review the diagnostic procedure and standard treatment protocol for asthma.”
The possibilities (and the prompts!) are endless. AI is well-placed to assist with idea generation, conversation-starters and lesson materials for educators on any topic. It’s worth noting that AI tends to prove most helpful as a starting point for teaching and learning fodder, rather than for providing fully-baked responses and ideas. Those who expect the latter may be disappointed, as the quality of AI results can vary widely depending on the topic. Educators can and should, of course, always be the final determinants and reviewers of the accuracy of anything shared in class.
AI to differentiate instruction
Faculty have told us that they spend a hefty proportion (around 28%) of their time on course preparation. Differentiating instruction for the various learning styles and levels in any given class constitutes a big part of that prep work. A particular lesson may land well with a struggling student, but might feel monotonous for an advanced student who has already mastered the material. To that end, some faculty are using AI to readily differentiate lesson plans. For example, an English literature instructor might enter a prompt like, “I need two versions of a lesson plan about ‘The Canterbury Tales;’ one for fluent English speakers and one for emergent English speakers.” This simple step can save faculty hours of manual lesson plan differentiation.
An instructor in Kansas shared with Cengage their plans to let AI help in this area, “I plan to use AI to evaluate students’ knowledge levels and learning abilities and create personalized training content. For example, AI will assess all the students at the beginning of the semester and divide them into ‘math-strong’ and ‘math-weak’ groups based on their mathematical aptitude, and then automatically assign math-related materials, readings and lecture notes to help the ‘math-weak’ students.”
When used in this way, AI can be a powerful tool that gives students of all backgrounds an equal edge in understanding and retaining difficult information.
AI to provide feedback
Reviewing the work of dozens or hundreds of students and finding common threads and weak spots is tedious work, and seems an obvious area for a little algorithmic assistance.
Again, faculty should remain in control of the feedback they provide to students. After all, students fully expect faculty members to review and critique their work authentically. However, using AI to more deeply understand areas where a student’s logic may be consistently flawed, or types of work on which they repeatedly make mistakes, can be a game-changer, both for educators and students.
An instructor in Iowa told Cengage, “I don’t want to automate my feedback completely, but having AI suggest areas of exigence in students’ work, or supply me with feedback options based on my own past feedback, could be useful.”
Some faculty may even choose to have students ask AI for feedback themselves as part of a critical thinking or review exercise. Ethan and Lilach Mollick of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania share in an Harvard Business Publishing Education article, “Though AI-generated feedback cannot replicate the grounded knowledge that teachers have about their students, it can be given quickly and at scale and it can help students consider their work from an outside perspective. Students can then evaluate the feedback, decide what they want to incorporate, and continue to iterate on their drafts.”
AI is not a “fix-all” for the administrative side of higher education. However, many faculty members are gaining an advantage and getting some time back by using it as something of a virtual assistant.
Are you using AI in the classroom?
In a future piece, we’ll share 3 more ways in which faculty are using AI to make their working lives easier. In the meantime, you can fully explore our research here:
The Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms, is investigating the unintended consequences of AI-powered surveillance at schools. Members of the Collaborative are AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times.
One student asked a search engine, “Why does my boyfriend hit me?” Another threatened suicide in an email to an unrequited love. A gay teen opened up in an online diary about struggles with homophobic parents, writing they just wanted to be themselves.
In each case and thousands of others, surveillance software powered by artificial intelligence immediately alerted Vancouver Public Schools staff in Washington state.
Vancouver and many other districts around the country have turned to technology to monitor school-issued devices 24/7 for any signs of danger as they grapple with a student mental health crisis and the threat of shootings.
The goal is to keep children safe, but these tools raise serious questions about privacy and security – as proven when Seattle Times and Associated Press reporters inadvertently received access to almost 3,500 sensitive, unredacted student documents through a records request about the district’s surveillance technology.
The released documents show students use these laptops for more than just schoolwork; they are coping with angst in their personal lives.
Tim Reiland, 42, center, the parent of daughter Zoe Reiland, 17, right, and Anakin Reiland, 15, photographed in Clinton, Miss., Monday, March 10, 2025, said he had no idea their previous schools, in Oklahoma, were using surveillance technology to monitor the students. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Students wrote about depression, heartbreak, suicide, addiction, bullying and eating disorders. There are poems, college essays and excerpts from role-play sessions with AI chatbots.
Vancouver school staff and anyone else with links to the files could read everything. Firewalls or passwords didn’t protect the documents, and student names were not redacted, which cybersecurity experts warned was a massive security risk.
The monitoring tools often helped counselors reach out to students who might have otherwise struggled in silence. But the Vancouver case is a stark reminder of surveillance technology’s unintended consequences in American schools.
In some cases, the technology has outed LGBTQ+ children and eroded trust between students and school staff, while failing to keep schools completely safe.
Gaggle, the company that developed the software that tracks Vancouver schools students’ online activity, believes not monitoring children is like letting them loose on “a digital playground without fences or recess monitors,” CEO and founder Jeff Patterson said.
Roughly 1,500 school districts nationwide use Gaggle’s software to track the online activity of approximately 6 million students. It’s one of many companies, like GoGuardian and Securly, that promise to keep kids safe through AI-assisted web surveillance.
Vancouver schools apologized for releasing the documents. Still, the district emphasizes Gaggle is necessary to protect students’ well-being.
“I don’t think we could ever put a price on protecting students,” said Andy Meyer, principal of Vancouver’s Skyview High School. “Anytime we learn of something like that and we can intervene, we feel that is very positive.”
Dacia Foster, a parent in the district, commended the efforts to keep students safe but worries about privacy violations.
“That’s not good at all,” Foster said after learning the district inadvertently released the records. “But what are my options? What do I do? Pull my kid out of school?”
Foster says she’d be upset if her daughter’s private information was compromised.
“At the same time,” she said, “I would like to avoid a school shooting or suicide.”
Gaggle uses a machine learning algorithm to scan what students search or write online via a school-issued laptop or tablet 24 hours a day, or whenever they log into their school account on a personal device. The latest contract Vancouver signed, in summer 2024, shows a price of $328,036 for three school years – approximately the cost of employing one extra counselor.
The algorithm detects potential indicators of problems like bullying, self-harm, suicide or school violence and then sends a screenshot to human reviewers. If Gaggle employees confirm the issue might be serious, the company alerts the school. In cases of imminent danger, Gaggle calls school officials directly. In rare instances where no one answers, Gaggle may contact law enforcement for a welfare check.
A Vancouver school counselor who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation said they receive three or four student Gaggle alerts per month. In about half the cases, the district contacts parents immediately.
“A lot of times, families don’t know. We open that door for that help,” the counselor said. Gaggle is “good for catching suicide and self-harm, but students find a workaround once they know they are getting flagged.”
Related: Have you had experience with school surveillance tech? Tell us about it
Seattle Times and AP reporters saw what kind of writing set off Gaggle’s alerts after requesting information about the type of content flagged. Gaggle saved screenshots of activity that set off each alert, and school officials accidentally provided links to them, not realizing they weren’t protected by a password.
After learning about the records inadvertently released to reporters, Gaggle updated its system. Now, after 72 hours, only those logged into a Gaggle account can view the screenshots. Gaggle said this feature was already in the works but had not yet been rolled out to every customer.
The company says the links must be accessible without a login during those 72 hours so emergency contacts—who often receive these alerts late at night on their phones—can respond quickly.
In Vancouver, the monitoring technology flagged more than 1,000 documents for suicide and nearly 800 for threats of violence. While many alerts were serious, many others turned out to be false alarms, like a student essay about the importance of consent or a goofy chat between friends.
Foster’s daughter Bryn, a Vancouver School of Arts and Academics sophomore, was one such false alarm. She was called into the principal’s office after writing a short story featuring a scene with mildly violent imagery.
“I’m glad they’re being safe about it, but I also think it can be a bit much,” Bryn said.
School officials maintain alerts are warranted even in less severe cases or false alarms, ensuring potential issues are addressed promptly.
“It allows me the opportunity to meet with a student I maybe haven’t met before and build that relationship,” said Chele Pierce, a Skyview High School counselor.
Between October 2023 and October 2024, nearly 2,200 students, about 10% of the district’s enrollment, were the subject of a Gaggle alert. At the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, where Bryn is a student, about 1 in 4 students had communications that triggered a Gaggle alert.
While schools continue to use surveillance technology, its long-term effects on student safety are unclear. There’s no independent research showing it measurably lowers student suicide rates or reduces violence.
A 2023 RAND study found only “scant evidence” of either benefits or risks from AI surveillance, concluding: “No research to date has comprehensively examined how these programs affect youth suicide prevention.”
“If you don’t have the right number of mental health counselors, issuing more alerts is not actually going to improve suicide prevention,” said report co-author Benjamin Boudreaux, an AI ethics researcher.
In the screenshots released by Vancouver schools, at least six students were potentially outed to school officials after writing about being gay, trans or struggling with gender dysphoria.
LGBTQ+ students are more likely than their peers to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts, and turn to the internet for support.
“We know that gay youth, especially those in more isolated environments, absolutely use the internet as a life preserver,” said Katy Pearce, a University of Washington professor who researches technology in authoritarian states.
In one screenshot, a Vancouver high schooler wrote in a Google survey form they’d been subject to trans slurs and racist bullying. Who created this survey is unclear, but the person behind it had falsely promised confidentiality: “I am not a mandated reporter, please tell me the whole truth.”
When North Carolina’s Durham Public Schools piloted Gaggle in 2021, surveys showed most staff members found it helpful.
But community members raised concerns. An LGBTQ+ advocate reported to the Board of Education that a Gaggle alert about self-harm had led to a student being outed to their family, who were not supportive.
Glenn Thompson, a Durham School of the Arts graduate, poses in front of the school in Durham, N.C., Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)
Glenn Thompson, a Durham School of the Arts graduate, spoke up at a board meeting during his senior year. One of his teachers promised a student confidentiality for an assignment related to mental health. A classmate was then “blindsided” when Gaggle alerted school officials about something private they’d disclosed. Thompson said no one in the class, including the teacher, knew the school was piloting Gaggle.
“You can’t just (surveil) people and not tell them. That’s a horrible breach of security and trust,” said Thompson, now a college student, in an interview.
After hearing about these experiences, the Durham Board of Education voted to stop using Gaggle in 2023. The district ultimately decided it was not worth the risk of outing students or eroding relationships with adults.
The debate over privacy and security is complicated, and parents are often unaware it’s even an issue. Pearce, the University of Washington professor, doesn’t remember reading about Securly, the surveillance software Seattle Public Schools uses, when she signed the district’s responsible use form before her son received a school laptop.
Even when families learn about school surveillance, they may be unable to opt out. Owasso Public Schools in Oklahoma has used Gaggle since 2016 to monitor students outside of class.
For years, Tim Reiland, the parent of two teenagers, had no idea the district was using Gaggle. He found out only after asking if his daughter could bring her personal laptop to school instead of being forced to use a district one because of privacy concerns.
The district refused Reiland’s request.
When his daughter, Zoe, found out about Gaggle, she says she felt so “freaked out” that she stopped Googling anything personal on her Chromebook, even questions about her menstrual period. She didn’t want to get called into the office for “searching up lady parts.”
“I was too scared to be curious,” she said.
School officials say they don’t track metrics measuring the technology’s efficacy but believe it has saved lives.
Yet technology alone doesn’t create a safe space for all students. In 2024, a nonbinary teenager at Owasso High School named Nex Benedict died by suicide after relentless bullying from classmates. A subsequent U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights investigation found the district responded with “deliberate indifference” to some families’ reports of sexual harassment, mainly in the form of homophobic bullying.
During the 2023-24 school year, the Owasso schools received close to 1,000 Gaggle alerts, including 168 alerts for harassment and 281 for suicide.
When asked why bullying remained a problem despite surveillance, Russell Thornton, the district’s executive director of technology responded: “This is one tool used by administrators. Obviously, one tool is not going to solve the world’s problems and bullying.”
Despite the risks, surveillance technology can help teachers intervene before a tragedy.
A middle school student in the Seattle-area Highline School District who was potentially being trafficked used Gaggle to communicate with campus staff, said former superintendent Susan Enfield.
“They knew that the staff member was reading what they were writing,” Enfield said. “It was, in essence, that student’s way of asking for help.”
Still, developmental psychology research shows it is vital for teens to have private spaces online to explore their thoughts and seek support.
“The idea that kids are constantly under surveillance by adults — I think that would make it hard to develop a private life, a space to make mistakes, a space to go through hard feelings without adults jumping in,” said Boudreaux, the AI ethics researcher.
Gaggle’s Patterson says school-issued devices are not the appropriate place for unlimited self-exploration. If that exploration takes a dark turn, such as making a threat, “the school’s going to be held liable,” he said. “If you’re looking for that open free expression, it really can’t happen on the school system’s computers.”
Claire Bryan is an education reporter for The Seattle Times. Sharon Lurye is an education data reporter for The Associated Press.
Contact Hechinger managing editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, on Signal at CarolineP.83 or via email at [email protected].
This story about AI-powered surveillance at schools was produced by the Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms that includes AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
The captives were taken to a centre where masked Algerian informers picked out suspected rebels. “Those were detained, interrogated, with a lot of violence. The rest were released.”
Worse followed. Kihn was on guard duty when he first saw a suspect being tortured with electricity from a hand-cranked generator. “It was unbearable. The man was yelling, jerking around. I had tears in my eyes,” he said, his eyes filling again as he re-lived the moment.
When he was discharged, no one in his village wanted to hear his war stories, so for decades he clammed up. But memories, nightmares and panic attacks kept tormenting him. When he was 70, a film-maker cajoled him into an interview. He later wrote a book and found a measure of relief.
Kihn, disgusted by his experiences, would not touch his military pension. Instead, he and some other former soldiers send the money to local NGOs in Algeria.
“What we need is recognition of the truth,” he said. “Yes, we were criminals in Algeria.”
France has tried to turn the page, but the past will not die.
It took France until 1999 to recognise formally that its struggle in Algeria had been a “war,” even though it had mobilised up to two million conscripts for “operations to restore order” against the independence-seeking fighters of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN).
The French campaign led to widespread torture, the forced displacement of two million civilians to cut the FLN from its rural base and countless summary executions and “disappearances.”
The FLN was ruthless, too, terrorising French and Algerian civilians and eliminating its political rivals and eventually factions within its own ranks.
The conflict, which brought violence to both sides of the Mediterranean, exposed deep divisions within France, toppled the country’s Fourth Republic and raised the spectre of civil war.
After President Charles de Gaulle set Algeria on course for independence with a 1961 referendum, some French die-hards formed the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), an armed group that mounted bomb attacks and assassinations, including at least one attempt to kill the French leader.
OAS members eventually benefited from sweeping post-war amnesties. France sought to draw a veil and forget, but the past refused to die.
Keeping the past alive
Suzy Simon-Nicaise, 67, who heads one of the main associations of pieds-noirs, is determined to preserve a particular vision of the lost world of French Algeria, its culture, history and lifestyle.
In her memory, it was a cosmopolitan place where Europeans mixed freely with Muslims based on mutual respect, where the French colonists had promoted development from the ground up.
France, she concedes, may have committed some “not very glorious” deeds early on in its conquest of Algeria. “But Algeria did some things that were just as unbearable, if not more so,” she said.
At a memorial event in Perpignan, Simon-Nicaise, wearing a dress as bright as her red hair, recounted a massacre of pieds-noirs in the mainly European city of Oran on July 5, 1962, the day Algeria became independent.
She said 700 to 1,200 people were killed that day while French troops, in their barracks since the ceasefire in March, stood by with orders not to intervene. An exact toll has never been established. Macron, in his address to the pieds-noirs this year, said “hundreds” had died.
Simon-Nicaise’s family had planned to stay on after independence, but an Algerian friend working with her father warned them to leave urgently, advice driven home by a French official who told her father that his name was on an FLN death-list. The family raced to the port with four suitcases.
Around 800,000 pieds-noirs, the vast majority of the Europeans living in Algeria, also voted with their feet, believing their only choice was “la valise ou le cercueil (the suitcase or the coffin).”
The French government had not anticipated such an exodus, and the flood of new arrivals met a chaotic and chilly reception.
“We were treated worse than foreigners,” Simon-Nicaise said, recalling how she, then five, and her family were put up in a holiday village. “My family was crying, and everyone else was dancing the twist.”
Later, her family had to share a cramped, squalid apartment with another family in Le Havre. Simon-Nicaise went to school there, where she heard a classmate declare: “Don’t talk to her. She’s a dirty pied-noir.”
France’s rejected allies in Algeria
If the pieds-noirs were mostly unwelcome in France, the harkis — Algerians who had served with the French military — were doubly so. De Gaulle had rejected any idea of taking them in, effectively abandoning tens of thousands of men and their families to FLN vengeance.
Nevertheless, up to 90,000 harkis made it to France, many helped by their French commanders. They were consigned to grim army camps behind barbed wire, most of them for many years.
“There were no toilets, one washbasin for 10 families,” said Abdelkrim Sid, who was six on arrival and spent the next 15 years with his sprawling family in isolated camps.
His father, like many other harkis, was later put to work in forestry settlements on the minimum wage but never fully integrated into the wider economy.
“My father was a spahi (cavalryman). He really believed in France,” said Sid at the bleak Rivesaltes camp near Perpignan.
In Rivesaltes, a museum now commemorates successive waves of inmates dumped there from 1939 onwards, among them refugees from the Spanish civil war, Gypsies and Jews interned by the wartime Vichy régime, German prisoners of war and then harkis.
Sid, a burly retired truck-driver, says he can’t forget how shamefully the harkis were treated in the camps, which he likened to pens for animals. “It was as if we had the plague.”
Troubled identity
The war deeply marked the Algerian diaspora, swelled by migration that also drew in Moroccans and Tunisians whose labour was in demand as the French economy revived after World War Two.
North Africans today make up the bulk of France’s estimated 5-6 million Muslim citizens, roughly 8% of its total population, the biggest ratio in any European country.
France, which prides itself on its principle of laïcité, which makes the secular state neutral towards religion, has found it difficult to come to terms with its Muslim minority. The complex relationship is made no easier by mutual mistrust that has lingered since the colonial venture in Algeria.
Magyd Cherfi has tried hard to integrate in his native France, with outward success as a musician and songwriter, a devotee of French literature and an author in his own right.
Yet as he explained at a café in a mostly Arab quarter of Toulouse, the city where he grew up, he has never felt fully accepted as French. Ironically, he knows that many in the deprived milieu of his childhood resent him as a traitor to his origins.
“It’s as if being French is a mountaintop. You climb and climb, and it’s never far enough,” he said.
“In the street, they ask, ‘Oh, where are you from?’ That means you are not French, because if you are, no one asks that question.”
Cherfi’s father, a building worker, fled to France after four of his brothers were killed fighting in the maquis, or underground, during the Algeria war. “He only told us fragments of what happened then, about bad things the French did to his family, girls raped, cousins killed, imprisoned, tortured.”
So Cherfi grew up with an uneasy sense of difference from his French chums because France had been the enemy in Algeria. Yet when his parents decided to stay in France, when he was about 15, they told him, “You must respect the French. They give us work. They feed us.”
He admires much of what France offers, notably freedom and secularism, but says it fails to honour its own principles when it comes to its non-white citizens.
“That’s the big rip-off of the republic. France is unable to build a narrative that is anything other than exclusively white. We barely exist in French history,” he said.
“So France is still sausages, accordions, traditions, villages, and now, with millions of Muslims here, you feel they cling to this even more. So it’s quick, get out the accordions!”
Questions to consider:
• What was Algeria’s relationship to France before it gained independence in 1962?
• How were the post-war experiences of the pieds-noirs and harkis similar and different?
• Why do you think it took until 1999 for France to recognize the conflict over Algeria as a war?
• What would you do to improve the integration of France’s Arab/African-origin citizens?
Since OpenAI first released ChatGPT in November 2022, early adopters have been informing the public that artificial intelligence will shake up the world of work, with everything from recruitment to retirement left unrecognizable. Ever more cautious than the private sector, higher ed has been slow to respond to AI technologies. Such caution has opened a divide within the academy, with the debate often positioned as AI optimism versus pessimism—a narrow aperture that leaves little room for realistic discussion about how AI is shaping student experience.
In relation to graduate outcomes (simply put, where students end up after completing their degrees, with a general focus on careers and employability), universities are about to grapple with the initial wave of graduates seriously impacted by AI. The Class of 2025 will be the first to have widespread access to large language models (LLMs) for the majority of their student lives. If, as we have been repeatedly told, we believe that AI will be the “great leveler” for students by transforming their access to learning, then it follows that graduate outcomes will be significantly impacted. Most importantly, we should expect to see more students entering careers that meaningfully engage with their studies.
The reality on the ground presents a stark difference. Many professionals working in career advice and guidance are struggling with the opposite effect: Rather than acting as the great leveler, AI tools are only deepening existing divides.
Trust Issues: Student Overreliance on AI Tools
Much has been said about educators’ ability to trust student work in a post-LLM landscape. Yet, when it comes to student outcomes, a more pressing concern is students’ trust in AI tools. As international studies show, a broad range of sectors is already placing too much faith in AI, failing to put proper checks and balances in place. If businesses beholden to regulatory bodies and investors are left vulnerable, then time-poor students seeking out quick-fix solutions are faring worse.
This is reflected in what we are seeing on the ground. We were both schoolteachers when ChatGPT launched and both now work in student employability. As is common, the issues we first witnessed in the school system are now being borne out in higher ed: Students often implicitly trust that AI will perform tasks better than they are able to. This means graduates are using AI to write CVs, cover letters and other digital documentation without first understanding why such documentation is needed. Although we are seeing a generally higher (albeit more generic) caliber of writing, when students are pressed to expand upon their answers, they struggle to do so. Overreliance on AI tools is deskilling students by preventing them from understanding the purpose of their writing, thereby creating a split between what a candidate looks like on paper and how they present in real life. Students can only mask a lack of skills for so long.
Such a skills gap is tangible when working with students. Those who already present high levels of critical thinking and independence can use AI tools in an agile manner, writing more effective prompts before tailoring and enhancing answers. Conversely, those who struggle with literacy are often unable to properly evaluate how appropriate the answers provided by AI are.
What we are seeing is high-performing students using AI to generate more effective results, outpacing their peers and further entrenching the divide. Without intervention, the schoolchildren who couldn’t answer comprehensions questions such as “What does this word mean?” about their own AI-generated homework are set to become the graduates left marooned at interview where they can no longer hide behind writing. The pandemic has already drawn economic battle lines for students in terms of learning loss, attainment and the very awarding of student grades—if we are not vigilant, inequitable AI use is set to become a further barrier to entry for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Across many institutions, higher education career advice and guidance is poorly equipped to deal with such changes, still often rooted in an outdated model that is focused on traditional job markets and the presumption that students will follow a “one degree, one career” trajectory, when the reality is most students do not follow linear career progression. Without swift and effective changes that respond to how AI is disrupting students’ career journeys, we are unable to make targeted interventions that reflect the job market and therefore make a meaningful impact.
Nonetheless, such changes are where higher education career advice and guidance services can make the greatest impact. If we hope to continue leveling the playing field for students who face barriers to entry, we must tackle AI head-on by teaching students to use tools responsibly and critically, not in a general sense, but specifically to improve their career readiness.
Equally, career plans could be forward-thinking and linked to the careers created by AI, using market data to focus on which industries will grow. By evaluating student need on our campuses and responding to the movements of the current job market, we can create tailored training that allows students to successfully transition from higher education into a graduate-level career.
If we fail to achieve this and blindly accept platitudes around AI improving equity, we risk deepening structural imbalances among students that uphold long-standing issues in graduate outcomes.
Sean Richardson is a former educator and now the employability resources manager at London South Bank University.
Paul Redford is a former teacher, now working to equip young people with employability skills in television and media.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering a brutal retaliatory war in Gaza, at least 140 colleges and universities have adopted statements of institutional neutrality—up from just eight prior to the attacks, according to a new reportfrom Heterodox Academy, a nonprofit advocacy group seeking to promote viewpoint diversity on college campuses.
The vast majority of institutions—97 percent—cited the values of “community and inclusion” to justify their embrace of statement neutrality. “Free speech and academic freedom” and “public trust” were each referenced as a rationale by 88 percent of institutions; 64 percent attributed the move to “balancing rights and responsibilities.”
Of the institutions that have adopted neutrality statements since 2023, 78 percent are public and 22 percent private. Governing boards drove the change at 68 percent of the public institutions; at more than a quarter of those—including in Indiana, Utah and North Carolina—state legislatures mandated the shift. At private institutions, presidents and faculty were much more likely than governing boards to instigate the push for institutional neutrality.
“The rapid adoption of institutional statement neutrality policies marks a major shift in how colleges and universities engage with broader societal debates,” the Heterodox report reads. “Statement neutrality not only empowers students, faculty, and staff to engage in robust debate, it also reinforces the critical values of seeking truth and generating knowledge rather than advocating for partisan political positions. In an era of declining public confidence in higher education, these policies represent a critical step toward restoring universities as trusted spaces for free inquiry and intellectual growth.”
Native American student enrollment has been on the decline for the past decade, dropping 40 percent between 2010 and 2021, a loss of tens of thousands of students. Of the 15.4 million undergraduate students enrolled in fall 2021, only 107,000 were American Indian or Alaska Native, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Researchers argue that the small population is not as small as it seems, however, due in part to federal practices of collecting data on Native populations, according to a new report from the Brookings Institute, the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Urban Institute.
Federal measures of race and ethnicity in postsecondary education data undercount the total population of Native American students, in part due to insufficient sampling, lack of data on tribal affiliation and aggregation practices that erase Native identities, researchers wrote.
“For too long, Native American students have been severely undercounted in federal higher education data, with estimates suggesting that up to 80 percent are classified as a different race or ethnicity,” Kim Dancy, director of research and policy at IHEP, told Inside Higher Ed. “This chronic data collection failure renders Native students invisible in federal data systems and prevents clear assessments of the resources necessary to support student success.”
In May 2024, the federal government announced new standards for collecting data on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations, which would improve the inclusivity and accuracy of data for students from these groups.
The Obama administration introduced similar changes in 2016, but they were never implemented under the first Trump administration in 2017. Researchers worry a similar pattern may follow under the second Trump administration.
“The second Trump Administration has demonstrated reluctance to prioritize data transparency, which could further jeopardize these efforts and stall progress,” Dancy said. “Without strong implementation of these standards, Native students will continue to be overlooked in federal policy decisions.”
“It is critical that the Trump administration allow the revised SPD 15 standards to remain in effect, and for officials at ED and elsewhere throughout government to implement the standards in a way that provides Native American students and communities with the same high-quality data that all Americans should be able to access,” report authors wrote.
Data Analysis at Risk
The Education Department has canceled dozens of contracts in recent weeks, tied to the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. Many of these contracts related to student data analysis in both K-12 and postsecondary education.
State of play: Degree attainment for Native Americans is bleak, according to data presently available. Twenty-six percent of Native American adults in the U.S. hold an associate degree or higher, and only 16 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to 2024 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In comparison, bachelor’s degree attainment by all other races is higher: 20 percent for Latino, 25 percent for Black, 38 percent for multiracial, 40 percent for white and 61 percent for Asian American students.
Of the 58 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students who enrolled in higher education beginning in 2009, over half (55 percent) didn’t earn a credential. In 2023, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported six-year completion rates had fallen two percentage points among Native Americans, to 47.5 percent—21 percentage points lower than their white peers and 27 percentage points lower than Asian students in the 2016 cohort.
Data collection is not the only barrier to Native student representation and completion in higher education, researchers wrote, “but until data on Native American students are more accurate, accessible, and meaningful, it will prove difficult to address these issues,” which include affordability, disparities in access and retention, and a lack of culturally informed wraparound services.
Digging into data: Data collection at the U.S. Department of Education has several problems that disadvantage Native students more than other groups, according to the report. Native student data is often “topcoded” as Hispanic or Latino, essentially erasing Native student identities, filed under “more than one race” without further detail, or coded without tribal affiliation or citizenship.
While topcoding students as Latino or Hispanic or categorizing learners as more than one race applies to all racial categories, Native American individuals are categorized this way at a higher rate than any other major group, which diminishes their representation.
Additionally, ED independently makes decisions to not disaggregate or provide detailed data on racial and ethnic subgroups, such as topcoding Latino or Hispanic students, that is not modeled at other federal agencies, such as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The last time the Office of Management and Budget revised data-reporting processes for colleges and universities, which allowed individuals to identify as more than one racial group, final implementation took place in the 2010–11 academic year.
In the decade and a half since, Native American student enrollment has declined, and researchers say, “The limitations of ED’s student data made it challenging to discern whether this decline represented an actual change in enrollment trends or was due to the new reporting practices’ undercounting of Native college students.”
A lack of data impacts institutions, tribes and others tracking student outcomes, reducing opportunities to support learners, and the challenges may perpetuate continued misperceptions of Native students’ journeys through higher education.
New policies: In 2024, OMB created new federal standards around collecting data on race and ethnicity that would enhance data collection when it comes to Native populations. Federal agencies are required to create plans for implementation by September 2025 and be in full compliance by March 2029, leaving the Trump administration responsible for implementation of the revised standards.
OMB outlined three approaches for agencies on how they might consider presentation of aggregated data on multiracial populations:
Alone or in combination, which includes students who identify with more than one racial or ethnic group in all reporting categories.
Most frequent multiple responses, reporting on as many combinations of race and ethnicity as possible that meet population thresholds.
Combined multiracial or multiethnic respondents into a single category.
This third option would be most harmful to Native students, because it would perpetuate undercounts, researchers caution, and therefore policymakers should avoid it.
Moving forward, report authors recommend ED and Congress collect and publish disaggregated data on Native American students, partner with tribal governments to increase data transparency and provide guidance and resources to institutions to improve their quality of data.
“We encourage the Education Department to continue seeking input from Native communities, including voices that have been historically excluded from policy-development efforts,” Dancy said. “Accurate data alone won’t eliminate the structural inequities Native students face. But without the data, we cannot begin to dismantle the inequities.”
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