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  • What now for the US Department of Education?

    What now for the US Department of Education?

    What happens now with the US Department of Education now that Elon Musk claims that it no longer exists? It’s hard to know yet, and even more difficult after removing career government workers that we have known for years.  

    We are saddened to hear of contacts we know, hard working and capable people, in an agency that has been understaffed and politicized. 

    We also worry for the hundreds of thousands of student loan debtors who have borrower defense to repayment claims against schools that systematically defrauded them–and have not yet received justice.   

    And what about all those FAFSA (financial aid) forms for students starting and continuing their schooling? How will they be processed in a timely manner?

    Without funding and oversight, the Department of Education looks nearly dead. But with millions of poor and disabled children relying on Title I funding and IDEA and tens of millions more with federal student student loans, it’s hard to imagine those functions disappearing for good.  

    Let’s see how much slack is taken up by private enterprise and religious nonprofits who may benefit from the pain. With student loans, much of the work has already been contracted out. It would not be out of the question for the student loan portfolio to be sold off to corporations who could profit from it. And that may or may not require Congressional approval.  

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  • Facing Tighter Budget, Oklahoma Lawmakers Cast Doubt on Walters’ Budget Requests – The 74

    Facing Tighter Budget, Oklahoma Lawmakers Cast Doubt on Walters’ Budget Requests – The 74


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    OKLAHOMA CITY — As state officials anticipate a smaller budget in the next fiscal year, lawmakers on Tuesday appeared doubtful of requests to spend millions on Bibles for public schools and salary increases at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

    The agency’s leader, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, again asked for $3 million to purchase copies of the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to place in every public school classroom. He also requested $2.3 million for a 6% cost-of-living salary bump for Education Department employees, who last saw a pay raise in 2019.

    Although his total budget request would increase the agency’s funding by $113 million, Walters hinted at “potential staff cuts” to limit the Education Department’s operational expenses during a meeting Tuesday with the Senate Appropriations Committee.

    “I​​ do believe we can save $1.3 million in some of the costs that we’ve been able to absorb through rolling positions together, cutting positions that are duplicated in their services,” Walters said during the meeting.

    Members of the influential appropriations committee heard Walters’ budget requests for the 2026 fiscal year. The state is required to pay some of the projected expenses, such as an extra $88.6 million for the rising cost of health insurance for public school employees.

    Another $4 million would increase the teacher maternity leave fund, which Walters said is growing in popularity. He also asked for $500,000 to offer firearms training to teachers.

    Senators of both parties questioned Walters’ request for $3 million to buy 55,000 copies of the King James Version Bible, which they suggested could be donated to schools or found for free online.

    House lawmakers had similar questions during a hearing with Walters last week.

    The state superintendent has advocated for more instruction on the Bible to help contextualize American history and the beliefs of the country’s founding fathers. He said he doesn’t intend for schools to preach Christianity to students.

    Last year, he ordered all school districts in the state to incorporate the Bible into their lesson plans and proposed new academic standards for social studies that would mandate instruction on biblical stories. His agency already spent under $25,000 on 532 copies of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA Bible, which is informally known as the Trump Bible because it has the president’s endorsement.

    Walters’ Bible instruction mandate already faces a legal challenge on church-state separation grounds.

    Sen. Brenda Stanley, R-Midwest City, said she never encountered a classroom that didn’t have a Bible available to students during her 43-year career in education.

    Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, encouraged Walters to exhaust all resources for Bible donations before having the Legislature consider spending $3 million.

    “We could take the $3 million elsewhere, if somebody is willing to make those available to us at no cost,” Rader said during the hearing.

    The Senate committee also appeared dubious of funding a COLA increase for an agency that has lost dozens of employees over the past two years. Walters told the committee the Education Department employed 520 people when he took office in January 2023 and that it now counts 460 employees.

    “If you have decreased your (full-time employees), it would appear to me that there are already dollars inside your operating budget to offer salary increases,” Sen. Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond, told Walters during the hearing.

    Walters disagreed that staff departures would be enough to fund the increase. A complicating factor is the large number of federally funded salaries at the agency, he said.

    The department has considered reducing its staff even further after the state Board of Equalization projected the Legislature will have $119 million less to spend in the 2026 fiscal year, Walters said.

    The projection is preliminary, and the Board of Equalization will meet again this month for updated numbers.

    “After the last Board of Equalization meeting, we really went in and tried to do a deep dive into can we continue to see cuts, and we believe that we do need to be able to do that,” Walters said.

    Legislative leaders are preparing to limit expenses in light of the budget projections, especially as Gov. Kevin Stitt pushes for further tax cuts, flat agency budgets and “eliminating wasteful government spending.”

    The governor suggested no funding increases to public schools nor to the state Education Department in a budget proposal he released Monday.

    House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said Monday that he shares many of the governor’s priorities “as we seek to tighten our belt fiscally this year.” Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, echoed Stitt’s tax-cut message when he endorsed “improving the lives of Oklahomans by allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned money.”

    Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: [email protected].


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  • Higher ed leaders warn of dire consequences after NIH cut

    Higher ed leaders warn of dire consequences after NIH cut

    In a move that sparked swift outrage from the higher education sector, the National Institutes of Health announced late Friday that it is dramatically cutting funding for grant recipients’ “indirect costs” of conducting medical research at universities, including hazardous waste disposal, utilities and patient safety. 

    “It is difficult to overstate what a catastrophe this will be for the US research and education systems, (particularly) in biomedical fields,” Carl Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, posted on Bluesky. “It is deliberate and wanton devastation entirely out of scale with any concern about DEI activities on campuses. The goal is destroy US universities.”

    Effective Monday, the NIH is planning to cap funding of indirect costs at 15 percent of all grants, down from the average of 27 to 28 percent. The change means that colleges and universities are on the hook for millions of dollars. They’ll likely have to cut their budgets or reduce research activities to make up the difference.

    Republicans and President Trump have long sought to limit funding for indirect costs. The latest proposal is similar to a recommendation included in Project 2025, a conservative playbook for the second Trump administration that the president has disavowed. Project 2025 authors said the cap would “reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.”

    Historically, universities have been able to negotiate reimbursement rates for those indirect costs, with institutional reimbursements averaging nearly 28 percent. Some of the nation’s leading research institutions, including Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, receive reimbursements of more than 60 percent. NIH said in a social media post that it expects to save $4 billion from the change; an Inside Higher Ed analysis of fiscal year 2024 grant data shows that colleges would lose about $4.3 billion in NIH reimbursements if indirect costs were capped at 15 percent.

    Previously, if a college or university received a $5 million grant, they could also be reimbursed up to $1.4 million to pay for related costs, such as renting space for a lab. Under this new policy, that will be capped at $750,000.

    “The United States should have the best medical research in the world,” the NIH said in its announcement. “It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.”

    While the NIH said it has the authority to cap indirect costs, Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, said on social media Friday that the proposal is illegal.

    “It will mean shuttering labs across the country, layoffs in red & blue states, & derailing lifesaving research on everything from cancer to opioid addiction,” Murray wrote.

    Cuts to ‘Life-Saving’ Research

    While the NIH is casting indirect costs as a burden, Association of American Universities President Barbara R. Snyder said in a statement that they are “real and necessary costs of conducting the groundbreaking research that has led to countless breakthroughs in the past decades.”

    A $4 billion cut to reimbursements for NIH grants, she added, “is quite simply a cut to the life-saving medical research that helps countless American families.”

    NIH has worked feverishly in recent weeks to comply with President Trump’s executive orders to eliminate all support for diversity, equity and inclusion and “gender ideology.” Grant reviews stopped for two weeks, alarming researchers who rely on federal funding, and some scientists worried about the future of their funding under the agency.

    But researchers and their advocates say an abrupt $4 billion cut to NIH funding—which has not been approved by Congress—has dire implications for the future of the United State’s scientific research enterprise and will undermine the NIH’s stated goal of producing superior medical research.  

    “Cuts to reimbursement of these costs are cuts to medical research and represent the federal government stepping back from commitments it has made to world-leading researchers,” Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public Land Grant Universities, said in a statement. “This action will slow advances for millions of patients who desperately need critical breakthroughs and imperil the U.S.’s position as the world leader in biomedical innovation.”

    The NIH is the largest federal funding source for research universities, and has supported breakthroughs in medical technology and treatments for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. 

    Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said the decision was “short-sighted, naive, and dangerous.”

    “It will be celebrated wildly by our competitors, who will see this for what it is—a surrender of U.S. supremacy in medical research,” Mitchell said. “It is a self-inflicted wound that, if not reversed, will have dire consequences on U.S. jobs, global competitiveness, and the future growth of a skilled workforce.”



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  • Humane societies are thoughtful about how to promote equality, diversity and inclusion

    Humane societies are thoughtful about how to promote equality, diversity and inclusion

    We all knew that the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equality and inclusion would have ramifications in the UK, but we probably didn’t expect it to show up quite so quickly.

    This Saturday’s lead in The Times warned that – in tacit contrast to President Trump’s apparent intention that all federal funding should cease to organisations or projects that champion inclusion – UK universities could now lose public money if they do not.

    This refers, of course, to the ongoing consultation on the people, culture and environment measure in the 2029 Research Excellence Framework. Back in 2023, our tongues firmly in our cheeks, we held a panel session at our Festival of HE titled “Has REF gone woke?” That joke no longer looks so funny.

    DK has explained elsewhere on the site exactly what’s wrong with the claims about the REF in The Times, should you need ammunition to fire over the dinner party table. We should hardly be surprised by now to see half truths and scare tactics mobilised in this particular culture war. Its proponents are not in the main motivated by a concern for evidence as by animus against a particular set of values which it suits them to project as being in opposition to [delete as appropriate] common sense/free market economics/honest working people/standards in public services/The Meritocracy.

    While the spectacle in the US of wealthy white men openly deploying their enormous power against those who are minoritised and disenfranchised is truly horrifying, FT science columnist Anjana Ahuja last week pointed to a larger concern: that scientists, funders and research organisations would quietly divest from equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives, or deprioritise vital research into differential experiences of or outcomes from public health, provision of public services, justice, or education, consciously or unconsciously orienting the scientific endeavour towards the locus of power rather than towards truth or justice. Any such reorientation would have a serious impact, both through loss of talent in research, and loss of knowledge that could improve, and save, many lives.

    The politics in the UK

    You might feel that despite the tendency of part of the UK media to promulgate the culture wars, UK research is unlikely to experience anything like as serious as the US. And that is probably correct in the short term, given the current flavour of the Westminster and devolved governments. The temptation when there is a lot of noise but without much real likelihood of action, is to stay quiet, and wait for the noise to pass. That would be a mistake.

    Despite the size of the Labour government’s majority, the current political battle – including the Labour Party – is on the populist right. The Conservatives under opposition leader Kemi Badenoch are locked in a struggle with Reform, which is currently not only beating the Tories in the polls, but is also neck and neck with Labour as a chunk of (socially, if not necessarily economically) conservative voters become impatient with Labour but are not ready to turn back to the big-C Conservatives.

    None of this should be an immediate cause for concern – the next election is a long way off, and Farage remains a good distance from No 10. But it does appear to mean, unfortunately, that political discourse tends to gravitate to the populist right, as it is these potential Reform voters both parties hope to woo back. Badenoch – whose anti-woke credentials formed part of her appeal to Tory members – has called diversity and inclusion work “woke indoctrination.” Labour has been adamant on the need to cut net migration, a perennial Reform issue, despite the likely impact on its stated priority of economic growth. The next Westminster election may yet be fought on an “anti-woke” platform. And Labour may be a one-term government, as Biden was in the US.

    What could the response be?

    An instance last week in which Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting was asked about diversity, equality and inclusion activity in the NHS gives a sense of the issues higher education institutions will be working through in this space. Streeting’s measured answer acknowledged the cost of such activity in a time of economic constraint but robustly defended the importance of, for example, anti-racist bullying and harassment work in the NHS. He added that on occasion some “daft things” have been done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion – the part of his answer which inevitably formed the bulk of media headlines.

    On equality, diversity and inclusion there is a principle at stake and a “political fight” to be had, in Streeting’s words, in which organisations that operate in the public interest must continue to stand up for the idea that any just and humane society makes a meaningful effort to address systemic and structural inequality no matter the economic environment or the political backlash.

    But nor should external pressures dissuade the academic and scientific community, higher education institutions or students’ unions, from examining the evidence, and keeping the public conversation open about how such efforts are best accomplished in practice.

    The culture wars thrive on category slippage between principle and practice – when one or two examples of specific initiatives are held to stand for all forms of equality and inclusion work. Anyone may have doubts about the merits of any given approach, and the best way to engage with those doubts is through evidence and good-faith discussion. Higher education has a responsibility not simply to protect and defend its own practice but to subject equality, diversity and inclusion practice to thoughtful scrutiny in the interests of promoting that principle – to contribute to making the public conversation as informed as possible.

    Research England, in its extended consultation and discussion of its people, culture and environment measure, and its mobilisation of evidence, is therefore a shining exemplar of good practice. Inevitably some will feel that the resultant system puts too much weight on equality, while others will wish that the funding mechanisms would lean in harder.

    What is not really arguable is that our collective approach to the management of research and education – what is prioritised, who is supported – has real-world consequences that shape the future of our society. To suggest that it’s wrong for evidenced consideration of how equality, diversity, and inclusion manifests in the funding mechanisms that drive those decisions is simply absurd.

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  • DOGE’s access to Education Department data raises concerns

    DOGE’s access to Education Department data raises concerns

    Just last month, Lorena Tule-Romain was encouraging families with mixed citizenship to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. She and her staff at ImmSchools, a nonprofit dedicated to improving educational access for immigrants in Dallas, walked students and parents through the complicated federal aid process. Along the way, they offered reassurance that information revealing their undocumented status would be securely held by the Department of Education alone.

    Two weeks ago, ImmSchools stopped offering those services. And Tule-Romain said they’re no longer recommending families fill out the FAFSA. 

    That’s because the Department of Government Efficiency, a White House office run by Elon Musk, now has access to Education Department data systems, potentially including sensitive student loan and financial aid information for millions of students, according to sources both outside and within the department who spoke with Inside Higher Ed. 

    With immigration officers conducting a blitz of deportations over the past few weeks—and the new possibility of ICE raids at public schools and college campuses—Tule-Romain is worried that applying for federal aid could put undocumented families in jeopardy. Instead of answering parents’ questions about the FAFSA contributor form, she’s hosting Know Your Rights workshops to prepare them for ICE raids.

    “Before, we were doing all we could to encourage families to apply for federal aid, to empower students to break cycles and go to college,” she said. “Now we are not in a position to give that advice. It’s heartbreaking.”

    Student data is technically protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, which prevents departments from sharing personally identifying information unless strict exceptions are met or a law is passed to allow it. The FUTURE Act, for example, gave the IRS access to financial aid data to simplify the FAFSA process. 

    Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, told Inside Higher Ed that because DOGE has not said why they might be interested in department data or what data they have access to, it’s unclear if they’re acting in accordance with the law.

    In the past, that law has been strictly enforced for federal employees. In 2010, nine people were accused of accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records while employed for an Education Department contractor in Iowa. The charges levied against them in federal court were punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000, according to the Associated Press.   

    On Thursday, Democratic Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia wrote to the Government Accountability Office requesting a review of the Education Department’s information technology security and DOGE’s interventions in the department in order to determine their legality and the “potential impact on children.” On Friday, a group of students at the University of California sued department officials for allowing potential privacy act violations. 

    “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive, unprecedented, and dangerous,” the plaintiffs wrote. 

    In recent days, labor unions and other groups have sued to block DOGE”s access to databases at several federal agencies and have secured some wins. Early Saturday morning, a federal judge prohibited DOGE from accessing Treasury Department data, ordering Musk’s team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material” from the department’s systems.

    Concerns about DOGE’s use of private student data come as Musk and his staff take a hacksaw to agencies and departments across the federal government, seeking to cut spending and eliminate large portions of the federal workforce. The Trump administration has singled out the Education Department in particular, threatening to gut its administrative capacity or eliminate the department all together. 

    Spokespeople for DOGE did not respond to a list of questions from Inside Higher Ed. Madi Biederman, the Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, wrote in an email that DOGE staff “have the necessary background checks and clearances” to view department data and are “focused on making the department more cost-efficient, effective and accountable to the taxpayers.”

    “There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on,” she added. She did not respond to questions about what data DOGE has access to or how they plan to use it.

    A ‘Gaping Hole’ in Data Security 

    The Education Department’s student financial aid systems contain unique private information that families submit through FAFSA: not only social security numbers but also addresses of relatives, property taxes, sources of income and more. The National Student Loan Database, which tracks loan borrowers’ repayment history and which DOGE may also have access to, includes a wealth of personally identifying information for many more millions of current and former students. 

    A current department staffer provided Inside Higher Ed with a screenshot from the department’s email address catalog containing the names of 25 DOGE employees who may have access to student data—including a 19-year-old who, according to a Bloomberg report, was once fired by a cybersecurity firm for allegedly leaking internal data. And the Washington Post reported that DOGE employees fed sensitive education department data through artificial intelligence software.

    “It could become a gaping hole in our cybersecurity infrastructure,” a former department official said. “I cannot stress enough how unusual it is to just give people access willy-nilly.”

    Two former department officials told Inside Higher Ed it is unclear how the DOGE officials could have legally gained access to department data. McCarthy compared DOGE’s murky activity in the department to a “massive data breach within the federal government.”

    “Normally, there’d be a paper trail telling us what they’ve requested access to and why,” she said. “We don’t have that, so there’s a lot of uncertainty and fear.”

    A current department official told Inside Higher Ed that DOGE staff have been given access to PartnerConnect, which includes information about college programs that receive federal financial aid funding; and that they have read-only access to a financial system. Neither of those databases contain personally identifying information, but the official wasn’t sure DOGE’s access was limited to those sources—and said department staff are worried sensitive student information could be illegally accessed and disbursed. 

    “It just creates a kind of shadow over the work that everyone’s doing,” a prior department official said. 

    Fears of a FAFSA ‘Chilling Effect’

    Families with mixed citizenship status were some of the hardest hit by the error-riddled FAFSA rollout last year, with many reporting glitches that prevented them from applying for aid until late last summer. 

    Tule-Romain said mixed-status families in her community had only just begun to feel comfortable with the federal aid form. In the past few weeks that progress has evaporated, she said, and high school counselors working with ImmSchools report a concerning decline in requests for FAFSA consultations from mixed-status students. 

    “If they weren’t already hesitant, they are extremely hesitant now,” Tule-Romain said. 

    It’s not just mixed-status families who could be affected if data is shared or leaked. McCarthy said that concerns about privacy could have a wide-spread “chilling effect” on federal aid applications.

    “There have always been parents who are reluctant to share their information and the counterargument we always fall back on are the privacy laws,” she said. “A lot of Pell money could get left on the table, or students could be discouraged from going to college altogether.”

    Kim Cook, CEO of the National College Attainment Network, said that after last year’s bungled FAFSA rollout, community organizations and government officials had worked hard to rebuild trust in the system and get completion rates back to normal. She worries that fears about privacy could set back those efforts significantly. 

    “Chaos and uncertainty won’t give us the FAFSA rebound we need,” she said. 

    The confusion could also affect current college students who need to renew their FAFSA soon. Tule-Romain said one undocumented parent who filled out her first form with ImmSchools last year came back a few weeks ago asking for advice. 

    She was torn: on the one hand, she didn’t trust Musk and Trump’s White House not to use the information on the form to deport her. On the other, if her son didn’t receive federal aid, he’d have to drop out of college. Ultimately, she chose to renew the application.

    “If you came [to America] for a better life, you cannot let fear stop you from pursuing that,” Tule-Romain said. “Instead, you arm yourself with knowledge and you move forward—maybe with fear, but you move forward anyway.”

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  • Education Department to end internal “gender ideology” programs

    Education Department to end internal “gender ideology” programs

    The Department of Education is ordering an end to all spending and programs that “promote gender ideology,” according to an internal email sent to all department employees and obtained by Inside Higher Ed. 

    The email lays out steps the department will take to uphold President Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Those steps include a “thorough review and subsequent termination of Departmental programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations and internal practices that fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”

    The email also prohibits employee resource groups that “promote gender ideology” from meeting on government property or during work hours. 

    The email appears to be targeted primarily at internal department activities and spending, as opposed to schools and universities that receive federal funding. But the Trump administration has in recent days launched investigations into colleges over the participation of trans athletes in women’s sports, and Trump’s executive order attacking diversity, equity and inclusion could have wide-reaching effects on college programs and curricula.  

    A spokesperson for the department did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for clarification or comment in time for publication.

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  • Lev Tolstoy And His Search For Truth (Wise Daily Reflections)

    Lev Tolstoy And His Search For Truth (Wise Daily Reflections)







    Higher Education Inquirer : The Philosopher Who Discovered The Meaning Of Life: Lev Tolstoy And His Search For Truth (Wise Daily Reflections)




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  • The Power of Storytelling: Women Shaping Leadership and Change

    The Power of Storytelling: Women Shaping Leadership and Change

    By Dr Monika Nangia, Academic Registrar and Director of Student & Academic Services at Durham University.

    In a world increasingly aware of the value of diversity, the role of women in leadership is more critical – and undervalued – than ever. Despite encouraging strides, women, particularly women of colour, continue to face systemic barriers to advancement. This is a story of resilience, inequity, and hope.

    The conversation around diversity and inclusion is urgent, and storytelling has emerged as one of the most potent tools to address these challenges. It connects us on a human level, fosters empathy, and confronts biases. At its best, storytelling is transformational.

    In my career, I have witnessed the transformative power of storytelling in ushering in meaningful change. The stories we carry as women – of resilience, determination, and overcoming barriers – are far more powerful than any statistic or corporate policy. These personal narratives, shared boldly, have the potential to inspire, to challenge, and to reshape how we think about leadership.

    Why We Need Women in Leadership

    The benefits of gender-diverse leadership are unequivocal. According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends, organisations with inclusive cultures achieve 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee, 1.4 times more revenue, and are 120% more capable of meeting financial targets. Diverse boards, particularly those with greater gender and ethnic representation, also demonstrate better resilience and crisis management – evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    But beyond numbers lies the human impact. Women leaders bring ‘cognitive diversity’, which accelerates learning and performance in complex and uncertain situations. Their leadership fosters a sense of belonging, improves employee engagement, and reduces turnover.

    Yet, despite the clear advantages, women remain underrepresented at every level of leadership.

    The “Broken Rung” and Barriers to Progress

    The journey to leadership for women is fraught with challenges. The ‘broken rung’ effect—where women are less likely than men to be hired or promoted into entry-level managerial roles – creates a bottleneck that compounds over time. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women make the same leap, with even fewer opportunities for women of colour.

    Racial inequalities exacerbate this gap. McKinsey’s 2020 report highlights that women of colour face the steepest drop-off in career advancement at the transition from middle to senior management. Cultural expectations and resistance to authority further hinder their progress.

    These systemic inequities are reflected starkly in higher education. According to the HEPI Report 2020, Mind the Gap: Gender differences in HE, while women now constitute 55% of university staff in the UK, they occupy only 29% of vice-chancellor roles. Among professors, women account for 29.7%, but Black women make up less than 1%.

    The Power of Storytelling

    Stories have a unique ability to amplify voices, challenge biases, and inspire inclusivity. Neuroscience tells us that engaging narratives release oxytocin in the brain, promoting empathy and altruistic behaviour. More than data or policy, storytelling humanises diverse experiences and catalyses change.

    I’ve seen firsthand how storytelling transforms workplaces. Women leaders who share their personal journeys of resilience and ambition inspire others to envision new possibilities. Their stories break down preconceived notions, fostering an inclusive mindset that leads to behavioural change.

    One colleague who spoke candidly about her experience being the only woman of colour in a senior leadership team. She described how, despite excelling in her role, her authority was often questioned, and she had to work twice as hard to gain the same respect as her peers.

    Her story resonated deeply, not just because of the challenges she faced, but because of the hope and strength she embodied. By sharing her experience, she is creating a ripple effect – encouraging others to speak up, address inequities, and push for change.

    Storytelling is also about accountability. In fact, it is far more important to confront the untold stories, the contributions of women whose voices have been silenced or overlooked. This is especially true for women of colour, whose experiences often fall at the intersection of gender and race-based inequities.

    Mending the ‘Broken Rung’

    A combination of stories like hers, with corresponding datasets as evidence, expose the structural barriers that continue to hold women back. The ‘broken rung’ is a vivid example of this.

    Another story that sticks with me is from a woman in higher education, who spoke about being overlooked for a leadership role despite being the most qualified candidate. She later discovered that her ambition had been perceived as ‘sharp-elbowed’ and intimidating – a stark contrast to how her male counterparts were described.

    Hearing her story compelled me to reflect on how ambition in women is often misinterpreted, reinforcing stereotypes that undermine their credibility. At a recent workshop, a senior leader shared her journey of overcoming immense personal and professional obstacles to lead a major organisational transformation. Her authenticity and vulnerability moved the room, sparking conversations about resilience, leadership, and the need for systemic change.

    Building a Legacy of Inclusive Leadership

    The path to inclusive leadership requires intentionality. It means addressing both visible and invisible barriers, from hiring practices to cultural attitudes. The stories we share today will shape the leadership landscape of tomorrow. As women, we have the opportunity – and the responsibility – to use our narratives to drive change.

    Organisations with diverse leadership teams outperform their peers not just financially but also in innovation and problem-solving. The evidence is clear: diversity is not just a moral imperative – it is a strategic advantage. But the true value of diversity goes beyond metrics. It’s about creating workplaces where everyone feels they belong, where their contributions are valued, and where they can thrive.

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  • Elon Musk says US Department of Education no longer ‘exists’ (MSNBC)

    Elon Musk says US Department of Education no longer ‘exists’ (MSNBC)







    Higher Education Inquirer : Elon Musk says US Department of Education no longer ‘exists’ (MSNBC)




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  • Predictably bad education | Wonkhe

    Predictably bad education | Wonkhe

    The game is up, people. Pack away your research, close the seminar rooms, forget your marking, cancel all your meetings – the higher education scam has been blown wide open.

    Just one man has done what generations of revolutionaries have failed at – through the simple power of speaking his lived experience he has named and thus destroyed the secrets and lies that have underpinned higher education’s decades-long conspiracy to take over the world.

    As Matt Goodwin puts it in his introduction to Bad Education:

    There’s a sort of secret code of silence among professors and academics on campus – what the Mafia call omertà. No matter how bad things get, no matter how glaringly obvious the crisis becomes, no matter how visibly these once great institutions are failing our young people, you just never, ever tell people on the outside.

    Well, to hell with that. I’m going to tell you everything. I’m going to pull back the curtain, lift the lid, and show you why our universities are falling apart, and how this crisis is now trickling out of the universities to weaken our wider society – our politics, culture, institutions and ways of life.

    It’s quite the arresting premise – and for anyone familiar with UK higher education (the book is ostensibly about UK higher education, even though most of the over-familiar examples and references are from the US) it prompts the reader to consider the roots of the polycrisis the sector currently faces: is it a poor underpinning funding settlement that privileges meeting market needs over socio-economic needs, a failure to deal with the legacy of an elite system of prestige in an era of mass higher education, an overreliance on the journal article as a measure of academic esteem, or the long-lasting impact of the 2017 decision to allow universities unfettered access to the financial markets?

    Tears in rain

    Alas, no. The problem, as diagnosed by a newly-minted visiting professor at the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Heterodox Social Sciences, is diversity initiatives.

    In one glorious passage in the first chapter, we are treated to a range of “I’ve watched…” statements that serve as a thesis for the entire (short) book. He’s seen things you people wouldn’t believe:

    I’ve watched this divisive, dogmatic and dangerous ideology not only infect every facet of university life but deliver, fundamentally, a bad education to our students… I’ve watched its most hardened and committed followers draw on obscure academic theories to crudely declare that all Western nations are ‘institutionally racist’… I’ve watched its followers ‘decolonize’ reading lists… I’ve watched universities betray their students, families and taxpayers by encouraging the next generation to view highly complex, multi-ethnic societies in crude, simplistic and divisive ways… I’ve watched them capture and politicize the large and expanding university bureaucracy… I’ve watched them dumb down intellectual standards on campus… I’ve watched them impose this dark and dystopian worldview on our students… And And I’ve watched this movement sacrifice free speech and academic freedom on the altar of what its followers call ‘social justice’, or ‘diversity, equality and inclusion’ (DEI).

    If you were taken aback by some of the Americanisms in that short excerpt I must reassure you that – somewhat surprisingly for a book about the UK – they appear to be a deliberate stylistic choice. We’ve seen the beginnings of attacks like these before – not least from an actual minister of state (Michelle Donelan) on diversity initiatives (or things that look like diversity initiatives from a distance) at UKRI, Advance HE, and – somehow – the QAA. In those cases, the charges felt disproportionate and somehow removed from the life of UK higher education. Almost as if there was a global playbook. And, gosh, doesn’t that stuff about DEI and dogma hit differently the month that NASA was forced by the US government to remove positive language about women and minorities from its website as a “drop everything” request?

    To be clear, Goodwin isn’t against diversity initiatives in all forms – he is very keen, for example on political diversity where it results in the protection of the ability of academics to promote views he (and a few high profile fellow travellers: Goodhart, Kaufmann, Stokes, Stock…) agrees with. He applauds, seemingly without irony, the establishment of the usual list of places (the University of Austin Texas, Ralston College, the Peterson Academy, the Centre for Heterodox Social Sciences at Buckingham) that openly profess only the new orthodoxy he cleaves to.

    Grift to the mill

    Because the sadness in all this is that he isn’t saying anything new. You can hardly open a newspaper without seeing some newly “free” academic (or opportunistic politician) claim you literally can’t speak your mind on campus any more, that students and their opinions are mollycoddled, and that there are too many administrators. It must be comforting for him to see such views widely and confidently shared, and to see politicians speak and governments legislate in response to those views, but it does rather damage his self-image as a John Galt-esque lone figure speaking truth to power.

    As an expression of this particular transatlantic groupthink, Bad Education is far from the worst. He makes some (selective) use of evidence, though as anyone familiar with his “polling” will note his use of statistics isn’t great and there are some telling misreads of the data: no Matt, one in three UK academics is not on an “unstable fixed-term and zero-hours” contract in 2024, the correct figure is 0.8 per cent although you can get close to your 80,000 if you look at all (FT or PT) fixed term contracts. But the vagary suits the point he is making. He’s happy to cite thinkpieces and substacks, less keen – despite a promise to – cite data and evidence. Many of the journal articles and books he reaches for are over-familiar, and closer to journalism than research.

    To give you one example, we’re given what feels like a stern rebuttal of the BBC’s “Reality Check” investigation that found only six occasions where campus speakers have been banned between 2010 and 2018. You are midway through the expected language on the chilling effect before you recall that statistics collected by the actual higher education regulator show similar numbers for later years – and while it is fair to say that free speech is a preoccupation of those who hold minority views, the fact that you have to fish very deep to find any evidence at all that anyone outside of the groupsicles perceives a problem with the way things currently are. Appeals to a silent majority – or the two people that email Matt Goodwin every time he is called out online – don’t really cut it, whatever murky underpinnings he may implore the reader to see.

    Lived experience

    So far – so much “silenced academic speaks out.” What is different is Matt Goodwin’s career trajectory. He started off his academic life as a researcher focusing on radical right-wing movements – his current era, which could be characterised as making him look more like an apologist for many of the same movements, has raised more than a few eyebrows among his colleagues and contemporaries. Has the noted chronicaller of radicalisation been radicalised?

    Clearly academia did not turn out the way he expected:

    “ can even remember imagining at the start of my academic career that my life as a university professor would look something like Russell Crowe’s character in A Beautiful Mind – the mathematician John Nash, who spent his days advancing the frontiers of knowledge while wandering around leafy campuses with books under his arm and students hanging on his every word (though, to be fair, Nash later went completely insane).

    It’s his experience at the University of Kent (an institution he waspishly describes as “non-elite” and “teetering on the bridge of bankruptcy”) that seems to have done the damage – in particular his experience following the Brexit vote after putting forward a position he characterises as:

    when a majority of my fellow citizens did vote to leave the EU I thought it important to respect their view, not least to safeguard representative democracy

    Goodwin’s research shortly after the vote was focused primarily on the reasons people voted for Brexit – he’d argued before the vote that an “enthusiasm gap” (drawing on the passion of Brexit supporters being greater than the passion of Remain supporters for EU affiliation) would drive the outcome, and afterwards he worked with other researchers (in Brexit: Why Britain voted to leave the European Union) to identify immigration and identity as key drivers of the popular movement.

    After a few articles along these lines in the national press, and some perhaps less measured thoughts on social media, he began to feel persecuted by fellow academics.

    In the weeks, months and years that followed I experienced what I can now only describe as a sustained campaign of abuse, intimidation and harassment, equivalent to how a religious cult treats a heretic. I was accused of being an ‘apologist’ for the ‘far right’. I was denounced as a Tory stooge. I was called an extremist. Even my own head of school liked a tweet insulting me. I experienced coordinated social media ‘pile-ons’, ironically led by academics who proclaim themselves to be among the most ‘liberal’ of all.

    Gatekeepers and dissent

    It’s worth unpicking the pile-on narrative.

    What happens is that one or two ‘gatekeepers’ let it be known to more junior academics that somebody has fallen out of favour, that somebody has violated the orthodoxy. The green light is then given for academics to pile in, usually on social media, and a coordinated campaign to try and assassinate somebody’s character and reputation begins

    There is (or was, social media pile-ons feel like a moment of their time as much as social media now does) no planning involved. If you say something people believe to be unpleasant online, people will tell you that the thing you said is unpleasant, and in doing so spread your original thought to others who will also tell you that it is unpleasant. Such is the attention economics of the industry.

    And early Matt wasn’t particularly unpleasant or even over-serious – this is a man who, lest we forget, ate his own (actually pretty good) Brexit book live on Sky News. An early draft of the “what happened to you?” chapter from Bad Education doesn’t even mention social media as he blames the “radicalisation of the elite class” for his growing disenchantment with scholarly life. While he’s made a conscious decision to move away from the mainstream opinions held by people with a similar set of life experiences, the early phases feel more like senior common room drama than the work of a shadowy cabal. He only really got into full scale pile ons when he published the similarly slight Values, Voice, and Virtue back in 2023.

    That’s not to say that others (including some of those he approvingly cites) have had worse experiences online and offline. Clearly nobody should be receiving death threats or risks to their health as a result of their terrible opinions – though it is also clear that our right to describe opinions as “terrible” when we feel they are terrible is inalienable. But if your entire story is hung around the way you were ostracised and vilified just for speaking the truth it probably needs a bit more than just a few whines about how nobody wants to write academic papers with you any more since you gave up on any pretence of dispassionate academic rigour.

    My interest in this phenomenon isn’t in the ostracisation itself (for further information on academics falling out with each other please see the entire history of academia from the School of Athens onwards) but in the way a “safe space” has emerged for former academics of a particular political stripe to band together and secure funding and media opportunities for ventures of a particular ideological bent. If Matt had left his career behind because his concern that universities weren’t doing enough for disadvantaged groups or were not active enough in bringing about social and economic changes went against a prevailing orthodoxy that we should just rub along with anyone that wants to fund us he would not be welcome in that particular gang. He wouldn’t get past the gatekeepers.

    And a half-hour spent in the world he creates in his Substack, books, media appearances, and mainstream news commentary broadcast suggests that you don’t have to do much more to be in this group than to cry persecution and recirculate the same tired old tropes about liberal extremism. There’s very little sadder than a group of free-thinking iconoclasts that all say the same thing – and something as craven as Bad Education is a long way from what the old, research-focused, evidence-led Matt Goodwin once did.

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