Tag: abuse

  • Child Abuse Deaths Spur Clash Over Homeschool Regulation – The 74

    Child Abuse Deaths Spur Clash Over Homeschool Regulation – The 74


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    When Rachel Marshall was growing up in Virginia, her parents kept a magnet on the refrigerator from a national homeschooling advocacy group, with a phone number to call if local school officials tried to interfere with their decision to educate their children at home.

    “You tell [the organization] the state’s after you, and they will come in with their lawyers and defend your right to homeschool and do what you want with your kids,” said Marshall, now a licensed counselor in Utah. “The state should be hands-off, that was their goal.”

    Marshall wishes the state had been more hands-on. When she was a child, she said, her education and her safety were at the mercy of her parents, who struggled with mental illness and addiction.

    “It was an ugly situation,” Marshall told Stateline. “But I think had there been some sort of regulation, some expectations from the state, I would not have been exposed to that as much.”

    As homeschool enrollment has risen in recent years, so have concerns about oversight.

    Recent high-profile child abuse deaths in several states have led to renewed calls from lawmakers for stronger regulations. They warn that some abusers claim they are homeschooling their kids when they pull them out of school, but really want to hide their crimes from teachers and other so-called mandatory reporters in public schools. Mandatory reporters are legally obligated to speak up about abuse if they suspect it.

    But the push has inflamed a broader debate over parental rights and galvanized hundreds of homeschool groups to rally at statehouses around the country.

    In every state, parents or guardians can withdraw their children from public or private school to be homeschooled. States allow this even if the caregiver has been the subject of a substantiated child welfare investigation, according to the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an advocacy group. Nearly every state allows parents to withdraw children in the middle of an active investigation, and most states don’t prevent people convicted of crimes against children from homeschooling their kids.

    Lawmakers in states such as Connecticut, Illinois and West Virginia have attempted to pass additional reporting requirements to guard against child abuse in homeschool settings.

    They’re running up against parents’ rights groups and homeschooling advocates who argue that such regulations treat all homeschooling parents as potential criminals and aren’t necessary because many children in such situations are already on the radar of social service agencies. They say the additional requirements don’t address problems inside child protection agencies that allow such abuse to go unaddressed.

    “When bad things happen, people feel compelled to do something, whether it makes a difference or not,” said Connecticut state Rep. Anne Dauphinais, a Republican who opposes homeschool regulation. “It’s often overreach of government, just because [lawmakers] want to feel good about doing something.”

    In West Virginia, Democratic state Del. Shawn Fluharty said in an interview that he’d lost track of how many times he’s tried to get a bill passed that would prevent a parent from pulling a child out of public school to homeschool if social services is investigating the parent for possible child abuse or neglect. According to Stateline’s sister publication, West Virginia Watch, this year will mark the seventh year he’s tried.

    Fluharty calls his bill “Raylee’s Law,” after an 8-year-old girl who died from severe abuse and neglect in 2018. Before her death, her abusers had pulled her out of public school after teachers and school administrators began noticing signs of abuse.

    “At this point, I’m just pissed off,” Fluharty told Stateline. “We’ve had at least two other circumstances very similar to Raylee’s situation since I’ve been pushing this legislation.”

    Fluharty said he’s considering revising the law’s name to also memorialize Kyneddi Miller, a West Virginia 14-year-old who starved to death in 2024. Her mother had pulled her from public school in 2021 to homeschool her.

    The bill passed the House twice in recent years, with bipartisan support, but died in a Senate committee each time. It faces opposition from homeschooling advocates in the legislature, he said, as well as lobbying efforts from national homeschool groups.

    “It’s not a complex situation,” said Fluharty. “It’s a glaring loophole that needs to be closed. The longer it stays open, the more vulnerable children are in West Virginia.”

    Homeschool explosion

    But interest is on the rise. In recent years, the 30 states that publicly report homeschool participation have seen those numbers grow. More than a third of those states recorded their highest homeschool enrollment ever in the 2024-2025 school year, even exceeding pandemic-era peaks, according to a study published in November.

    Homeschooling has increasingly been framed as a political and cultural choice, particularly in conservative circles where it’s promoted as a way to exercise control over children’s education amid anger over how schools address racial equity, gender identity and sexuality, school violence and vaccine requirements. Homeschool supporters praise its flexibility and safety. Others warn that minimal regulation can leave some children isolated from the visibility and protections built into public school systems.

    Before the COVID-19 pandemic, homeschool participation hovered around 2-3% of K-12 students. It exploded during the pandemic to a high of 11% of families, as learning outside of traditional schools became normalized. Now about 6% of school-age children in the United States are homeschooled, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

    The issue doesn’t always fall neatly along party lines. In Georgia, the 2018 deaths of two siblings prompted a Republican-sponsored bill that prohibits caregivers from withdrawing a child from school for the purpose of evading detection of child abuse and neglect. It became law in 2019.

    In Hawaii, Republican state Sen. Kurt Fevella filed a resolution in 2024 calling for the state to conduct a wellness visit for any child removed from school to be homeschooled. He was motivated by the deaths of two unrelated children in Hawaii who had been taken out of school for homeschooling. It died in committee.

    Last year, Rachel Marshall gave testimony before Utah legislators who were considering a controversial bill that would remove part of a 2023 law requiring parents to attest they’ve never been convicted of child abuse before they’re allowed to homeschool their children.

    Marshall opposed the bill, worried the state was erasing one more safeguard protecting the small subset of homeschooled children who are at risk of abuse or neglect. But as she sat listening to the homeschooling parents speaking in favor of it, their words sounded familiar.

    “I could hear the fear and rage that someone would take away your rights,” she said. “But I think if you are being investigated by [child protective services], you should not be allowed to withdraw your children from daily mandated reporters like schoolteachers.”

    The bill’s chief sponsor, Republican state Rep. Nicholeen Peck, said her goal was to remove a portion of state homeschooling law that was ineffective, had created confusion for school districts, and unfairly stigmatized homeschooling families.

    The Utah legislature passed the bill and it was signed into law last spring.

    Statehouse rallies

    Studies are mixed on whether children who are homeschooled are more likely to be victims of abuse.

    A 2022 survey of homeschooled and conventionally schooled adults found homeschooled children aren’t necessarily more likely to report experiencing abuse or neglect.

    But among abuse victims, isolation from mandated reporters — like school teachers — is a common thread. A 2014 study found that nearly half of child torture victims had been pulled from school to be homeschooled to evade suspicions of abuse. Withdrawal from school to homeschool under suspicious circumstances is a red flag for abuse and is associated with higher risk factors for abuse, according to a report from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

    More than 1 in 5 children withdrawn from school for homeschooling in Connecticut lived in families with at least one substantiated report from the state’s child services agency, according to a report released last year from Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate. The office based its findings on a sample of more than 700 children aged 7-11 who were withdrawn from school for homeschooling between July 2021 and June 2024.

    For homeschooling families who’ve been providing their children with a high-quality education without oversight, “I can understand why they might feel they don’t need to be regulated,” said Christina Ghio, Connecticut’s child advocate.

    “But as a state, we have an obligation to all children,” she told Stateline. “We know there are children whose parents say they’re homeschooling who are not. The challenge is, there’s one set of rules that has to apply to everybody.”

    Her office’s report recommended state lawmakers create requirements for annual assessments of homeschoolers.

    The report was issued in the wake of a high-profile abuse case: A Connecticut man was rescued in February 2025 after authorities say he’d been held captive and abused for two decades. His stepmother had pulled him from public school in fourth grade after school officials contacted authorities with concerns he was being abused.

    But when lawmakers gathered for hearings on homeschooling regulation last May, after Ghio’s report, more than 2,000 people, most of them homeschool families, flooded the state’s Legislative Office Building to protest, according to the CT Mirror.

    In Illinois, Democratic lawmakers introduced a sweeping homeschool regulation bill last year that, among other things, would have banned those convicted of sexual abuse crimes from homeschooling. It was prompted by an investigation from Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica into the state’s nearly nonexistent homeschool regulation.

    But while the bill cleared its committee, hundreds of homeschool families and supporters packed the Illinois State Capitol to oppose it. It never made it to a full vote in the House.

    Despite pushback, Connecticut House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Democrat, has signaled his interest in revisiting some kind of oversight during this legislative session.

    “I don’t think this is a fight about homeschooling,” he said during a public Q&A earlier this month, citing cases like the highly publicized death of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia.

    In October, the girl’s remains were found on an abandoned property in Connecticut. The family had prior history with the state’s social services, but her mother emailed school officials in July 2024 to tell them she planned to homeschool her daughter. Authorities say that less than two months later, the girl was dead. An autopsy confirmed her death was caused by abuse and starvation.

    Dauphinais, the Connecticut Republican, told Stateline she doesn’t believe any of the proposed homeschool requirements she’s heard from her Democratic colleagues would have saved children like Mimi Torres-Garcia.

    “If you want to abuse your child, you’re going to abuse your child and you are never going to show up for any kind of annual evaluation,” she said. “They will game the system. We’re not talking about the 99.9% of homeschoolers doing it genuinely. We’re talking about people doing evil things.”

    Ritter said families that have been investigated by child protective services or law enforcement need more follow-up. But he was candid about the long road that regulation might face: “That might get really ugly, Republican versus Democrat. I think it depends on how it gets drafted.”

    National advocacy

    In Utah, some of the speakers supporting removing reporting requirements from state law included representatives from the same organization that was on Marshall’s family’s refrigerator magnet: the Home School Legal Defense Association.

    It’s one of the most visible homeschooling organizations in statehouses around the nation, fighting homeschool regulation of all kinds.

    The group argues that the intent behind such regulation is good, but misplaced, and that such regulations unfairly burden homeschooling families without meaningfully overhauling the systems — like social services agencies — that are tasked with protecting kids from abuse.

    Homeschool families struggle with “being treated as though they were being lumped in with felons, being lumped in with kidnappers, being lumped in with people who had harmed their children,” said Peter Kamakawiwoole, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, during a Utah House committee hearing last January.

    Also tracking such legislation are groups like the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which was founded by former homeschoolers and advocates for oversight and accountability in homeschooling. The group drafted a model bill it calls the Make Homeschool Safe Act that proposes certain state reporting requirements for homeschooling families. The Home School Legal Defense Association opposes it.

    Fluharty, the West Virginia lawmaker, said that when he’s accused of “going after homeschoolers,” he encourages them to read the bill. He believes the national homeschooling lobbyists are lying to families about what his legislation really does.

    The goal of such regulation isn’t to take away homeschoolers’ rights, said Marshall. It’s not even necessarily for the kids whose cases wind up in front of child protective services. Instead, she said, it’s for the kids that no one can see.

    “These kids are invisible,” she said. “Homeschooling is inherently isolating. Other kids are going to school and have teachers in their lives, a bus driver in their life.”

    But for homeschooled kids, “If you are being abused or your education is being neglected, your parents aren’t telling others that. Nobody knows. It feels like the state doesn’t care.”


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  • How schools still abuse ‘institutional neutrality’ to silence speech

    How schools still abuse ‘institutional neutrality’ to silence speech

    Defending the rights of students and faculty to speak freely has been part and parcel of FIRE’s mission for 26 years. We’ve seen universities try all sorts of ways to restrict expression, from free speech zones and excessive security fees to extensive pre-approval requirements for events. But one technique is particularly disturbing — using ostensibly pro-free speech policies to chill student and faculty expression. 

    As my colleague Graham Piro recently wrote, colleges and universities regularly claim to embrace “institutional neutrality” — an institution’s commitment to refrain from speaking out on the issues of the day — only to silence speech in the principle’s name. Under a genuine policy of institutional neutrality, students and faculty are empowered to debate such issues, without feeling as if the school administration has declared the matter settled.

    As the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report famously warned, a university “cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness. There is no mechanism by which it can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives.”

    Institutional neutrality must not be used to prevent student groups or the wider campus community from expressing their views.

    FIRE is quick to celebrate whenever a college or university adopts a policy substantially similar to the Kalven Report, which is the gold standard of institutional neutrality statements. Schools that make this commitment are rewarded in our College Free Speech Rankings and recognized on our Official Adoptions page. But as Graham explained, adopting the report doesn’t automatically translate to neutrality in practice. FIRE is concerned not only with colleges improperly applying institutional neutrality to infringe on free speech, but also with imperfect adoptions that leave wiggle room in the policy language for universities to apply standards unevenly.

    To the first concern, UT Austin used institutional neutrality to stop its Graduate Student Assembly from considering resolutions expressing opposition to a state law that ended university DEI programs.

    An administrator claimed the resolution constituted “political speech that is not permitted to be issued by a sponsored student organization in their official capacity.” But as FIRE and the ACLU of Texas explained in a letter to UT Austin, institutional neutrality must not be used to prevent student groups or the wider campus community from expressing their views. UT Austin didn’t stop in response to our letter, prompting FIRE and the ACLU of Texas to write another letter urging the university to apply its institutional neutrality rules to itself, not student speech.

    Unfortunately, UT Austin is not alone. At North Carolina State, Palestinian-American author and publisher Hannah Moushabeck was initially barred from reading her children’s book at an event in the name of institutional neutrality. North Carolina State Libraries had invited Moushabeck to participate in various campus events — including “storytime” sessions for local families and students. NC State, under the impression that its duty to neutrality “regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action” extended to speakers coming to campus, blocked the reading. 

    UNC System Vice President for Communications Jane Stancill told Heterodox Academy’s Free the Inquiry blog that the decision at NC State was “to expand the scope of a proposed event to accommodate more voices,” and that “the author was welcomed to campus and read from her book, along with other authors in attendance.” She further clarified that “nothing in the UNC System’s neutrality policy should be interpreted as constraining individual faculty or visiting speakers.” 

    Indeed, institutional neutrality does not create an obligation for events to give equal time to every perspective on an issue — it merely requires that university leadership refrain from endorsing one perspective. FIRE is pleased to see that the UNC System clarified this point. But the example serves as a reminder for institutions to give clear guidance to those applying institutional neutrality on the ground, and to ensure neutrality is not construed to silence protected expression.

    Meanwhile, a University of Florida “Institutional Neutrality” policy threatens to put leaders’ thumbs on the scales of debate and chill faculty and student voices: 

    UF institutional and unit leadership teams may not make statements or proclamations regarding Social Issues or other issues not directly related to UF’s mission, governance, or operations . . . The authority to make any such statement or proclamation is limited to the President in consultation with the Board Chair. 

    This seems to imply that the president can make statements about issues not directly related to UF’s mission, governance, or operations. To be fair, a message from Interim President Donald Landry does seem to help. Writing to employees, he said the president should only speak out on issues tied to the university’s core mission. Great. But unless that language is actually written into the policy, it doesn’t solve the real problem. The policy still leaves people guessing about when leadership can speak out on issues of the day. 

    The policy also includes a footnote disclaiming that it does not prohibit incidental personal use of communication resources for statements on social issues. While this is an important clarification, UF’s email signature rules, mentioned in the policy, are confusing because they ban personal quotes, statements, and links to personal websites in university emails. UF should clarify that, even though there is an official email signature format, faculty and staff are free to include personal statements, quotes, or links in their emails, even if they touch on social issues.

    When universities attempt to avoid controversy by restricting discussion of social issues, they undermine academic freedom and interfere with meaningful debate.

    FIRE is also concerned that the policy treats “instructional activities” as “university business,” which must avoid all statements on social issues. Such an overly broad prohibition could discourage faculty from teaching controversial but important topics. Faculty should be free to teach their students as they see fit, provided the material is pedagogically relevant and follows the law and university policy. They should also have the academic freedom to make fleeting, non-disruptive personal remarks — even controversial ones — without fear of punishment.

    When universities attempt to avoid controversy by restricting discussion of social issues, they undermine academic freedom and interfere with meaningful debate. Narrowly tailored guidance, as outlined in the Kalven Report, offers a better path forward. By protecting open inquiry and expression, universities can avoid silencing speech while preserving their role as forums for intellectual discovery.

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  • Virginia Giuffre’s Memoir Details Sex Abuse by Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew (Democracy Now!)

    Virginia Giuffre’s Memoir Details Sex Abuse by Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew (Democracy Now!)

     

    Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumous memoir has just been released, detailing how she was groomed by Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, whom she met at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort. In Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, she writes that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times, beginning when she was 17, and was beaten and raped by a “well-known prime minister.” Virginia Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year in Australia at age 41. 

    Democracy Now! speaks with Amy Wallace, Giuffre’s ghostwriter, who says Giuffre experienced the “depths of hell” with Maxwell and Epstein. “It’s not just a catalog of horrors. It’s a woman who is terribly abused as a child, escapes from that terrible abuse … and then becomes an advocate,” says Wallace.

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  • Small District to Pay $7.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over Sexual Abuse Decades Ago – The 74

    Small District to Pay $7.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over Sexual Abuse Decades Ago – The 74


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    On the eve of what was expected to be a long and gut-wrenching trial, a small school district in Santa Barbara County has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $7.5 million with two brothers, now 65 and 68 years old, who claimed a long-dead principal molested them in the 1970s.  

    The brothers had sought $35 million for the harm they said they suffered, an attorney for the youngest brother said.

    The settlement equals about 40% of the 350-student district’s 2025-26 budget, although the district did not disclose the terms and timetable for the payment. The district’s superintendent acknowledged in a statement that there would be an impact on the budget. 

    Board members of the Montecito Union School District announced the settlement over the weekend. The trial was scheduled to start Monday.

    The case was brought under a 2019 state law, Assembly Bill 218, that removed a statute of limitations for filing claims that employees of public agencies, including school districts and city and county governments, sexually abused children placed in their care.

    Estimates suggest settlements and jury awards could cost California school districts as much as $3 billion by one projection, and possibly a lot more. Los Angeles County alone has agreed to pay $4 billion to settle abuse claims with more pending, mostly involving plaintiffs who were once in foster care.

    With many larger lawsuits with multiple victims yet to be settled or go to trial, the financial impacts are hard to predict. Small districts are worried that multimillion-dollar verdicts could devastate budgets, if not lead to insolvency. Insurance costs, meanwhile, have soared by more than 200% in five years, according to a survey of districts.

    In the Montecito case, the brothers were seeking $35 million in damages combined, John Richards, a lawyer representing one of them, said outside of court Monday.

    Montecito is not alone in facing decades-old accusations. The San Francisco Unified School District is embroiled in an ongoing suit involving a teacher who allegedly molested a student in the mid-1960s, records show.

    School boards association helps with legal fees

    The Montecito case drew the attention of the California School Boards Association, which gave the district a $50,000 grant to help with legal costs, said spokesman Troy Flint.

    Flint said Montecito Union Superintendent Anthony Ranii has “been a staunch advocate for AB 218 reform because he understands how this well-intentioned law carries such significant unintended consequences that compromise the educational experience of current and future students.”

    Montecito Union “is just one example of what potentially awaits school districts and county offices of education statewide,” Flint added.

    The settlement came just weeks after state Assembly members let a measure that would have restored a statute of limitations to such cases, Senate Bill 577, go without a vote in the final days of the legislative session. Its sponsor, Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said he would bring it back next year.

    At a brief hearing Monday, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Anderle called the Montecito matter “a case of real consequence.” He had scheduled 17 days for trial, court records show. The district’s lawyers did not attend the hearing.

    The brothers’ lawsuit was filed in 2022 and alleged that Montecito Union’s former superintendent and principal, Stanford Kerr, molested them in the early 1970s, including raping one of them. Kerr died in 2013 at 89. He never faced criminal charges.

    A third plaintiff who also claimed Kerr abused him settled earlier with the district for $1 million. He had described a full range of abuse covering many types of conduct, which included rape, court filings state.

    Just recompense for years of suffering

    The brothers, identified in court documents as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, pushed forward, Richards said, hoping to be compensated for years of agony. The younger of the two, Richards said, has suffered a lifetime of substance abuse, which is blamed on Kerr’s assaults. 

    “The money is nice,” Richards said, but the younger brother also seeks “social acknowledgment that what happened to (him) was terrible. He has a long way to go,” in recovering.

    The district admitted no liability in making the settlement.

    Montecito Union has no insurance coverage going back to the period the brothers said the abuse occurred — 1972 to 1978, Ranii said in a statement.

    “We were prepared to mount a vigorous defense,” he said. But the possibility of a jury awarding far more than the district could afford pushed the idea of a settlement after years of pretrial maneuvering.

    The superintendent’s statement did not directly address the brothers’ claims. It also did not mention Kerr.

    “We are deeply mindful of the enduring pain caused by sexual abuse and feel for any person who has experienced such abuse,” Ranii said in the statement.

    A large award in the event of a trial would have “diminished our ability to serve students now and well into the future,” Ranii said. “Continued litigation created exceptional financial vulnerability. Settling now allows us to stabilize operations and remain focused on today’s students.”

    Montecito is an unincorporated oceanfront community just south of Santa Barbara in the shadows of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Its residents include Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The district is one of the state’s richest, with more than $40,000 per student in funding due to tax receipts from high-value properties. 

    The district will manage the costs through a hiring freeze, staff reductions “when natural attrition occurs,” and redirecting “funds previously designated for capital repair,” Ranii said. The settlement allows the district to avoid layoffs, he said.

    The brothers’ case was built around the testimony they would have given about Kerr’s abuses, Richards said. There was no physical evidence. At one point, a district employee went to the brothers’ home and forced their parents to sign a document requiring them to make sure the boys came right home after school and avoided Kerr, according to court filings.

    Richards said the district did not produce such a document in discovery. It had no records that the boys ever attended the school, he said, although their photos appear in yearbooks. The district also had no records that Kerr ever faced accusations of abuse or sexual misconduct.

    Two school board members from Kerr’s time as superintendent said in depositions taken for the brothers’ suit that they would have taken action had they known he was abusing students, Richards said. But with the case settled, the elderly former members won’t be called to testify.

    All that remains is a final hearing that the judge scheduled for Nov. 19 to make sure the payment has been received “and that the check’s been cashed,” he said.

    Editor-at-Large John Festerwald contributed to this story.

    This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.


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  • US proposes visa time limit rule to end “abuse” of system

    US proposes visa time limit rule to end “abuse” of system

    The proposed rule, announced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on August 27, would upend the longstanding “duration of status” policy and enforce additional restrictions on students changing programs and institutions.  

    If finalised, the new rule would limit the length of time international students, professors and other visa holders can stay in the US, which DHS claims would curb “visa abuse” and increase the department’s “ability to vet and oversee these individuals”.  

    Trump initially put forward the proposal during his first administration, only for it to be withdrawn under Biden. In recent weeks, a rehashed version of the plans has been moving closer towards final approval.  

    Yesterday’s publication of the finalised proposal in the Federal Register was met with immediate denunciation by stakeholders who say it would place an undue administrative burden on students as well as representing a “dangerous government overreach”. Now the proposal is under a 30-day public comment period.  

    “These changes will only serve to force aspiring students and scholars into a sea of administrative delays at best, and at worst, into unlawful presence status – leaving them vulnerable to punitive actions through no fault of their own,” said NAFSA CEO Fanta Aw.  

    Under the rule, students could only remain in the US on a student visa for a maximum of four years and would have to apply for a DHS extension to stay longer.  

    The policy document reasons that 79% of students in the US are studying undergraduate or master’s degrees which are generally two or four-year programs, thus: “a four-year period of admission would not pose an undue burden to most nonimmigrant students”.  

    And yet, stakeholders have previously pointed out that the average time taken to complete an undergraduate degree – for both domestic and international students – exceeds four years, meaning that the majority of students would have to file for an extension to complete their studies.  

    Meanwhile, this reasoning does not consider postgraduate students on longer programs or the many students that go onto Optional Practical Training (OPT), who would have to apply for a visa extension as well as the work permit itself. 

    If finalised, master’s students would no longer be able to change their program of study, and first year students would be unable to transfer from the institution that issued their visa documents.   

    Alarmingly, the rule would hand power to the government to determine academic progress, with “a student’s repeated inability or unwillingness” to complete their degree, deemed an “unacceptable” reason for program extensions.  

    It would also limit English-language students to a visa period of less than 24 months, and the grace period for F-1 students, post-completion, would be reduced from 60 to 30 days.  

    Such far reaching provisions amount to “a dangerous overreach by government into academia,” said Aw, pointing out that international students and exchange visitors are already “the most closely monitored non-immigrants in the country.”  

    Government interference into the academic realm in this way introduces a wholly unnecessary and new level of uncertainty to international student experience

    Fanta Aw, NAFSA

    “For too long, past administrations have allowed foreign students and other visa holders to remain in the US virtually indefinitely, posing safety risks, costing untold amount of taxpayer dollars, and disadvantaging US citizens,” DHS said in a statement.  

    Framing the issue as one of national security, the department said it had identified 2,100 F-1 visa holders who arrived between 2000 and 2010 and have remained in status, becoming what DHS called “forever” students “taking advantage of US generosity”.  

    Putting this in perspective, commentators have highlighted that in 2023 alone there were 1.6 million F-1 visa holders in the US.  

    As well as imposing significant burdens on students and intruding on academic decision-making, the proposal would also place strain on federal agencies and increase the existing immigration backlog, warned Miriam Feldblum, CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

    “International students deserve assurance that their admission period to the US will conform to the requirements of their academic programs,” said Feldblum, issuing a grave warning that the rule would further deter international students and “diminish” US competitiveness.  

    “At a time when the US is already facing declines in international student enrolment, we must do everything we can to keep the door open to these individuals, who are essential to our future prosperity,” she continued, alluding to recent falls in US visa issuance.  

    Since coming to office, a barrage of hostile policies from the Trump administration have erected unprecedented barriers for students hoping to study in the US, with a near-month long visa interview suspension earlier this summer still wreaking havoc on visa appointment availability around the world. 

    The latest government data revealed a 30% drop in student arrivals this July, with colleges bracing for a drastic drop in international student numbers for the upcoming year. If the decline continues, experts have warned of USD $7bn in damages to the US economy.  

    According to Aw, the proposed rule would “certainly” deter international students further, “without any evidence that the changes would solve any of the real problems that exist in our outdated immigration system”. 

    Appealing to Trump’s recent remarks pushing for a more-than doubling of the Chinese student population in the US, Aw urged the government to engage with the sector to ensure the US remained the “premier destination” for global talent while keeping the country “safe and prosperous”. 

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  • OfS free-speech absolutism allows abuse, harassment, and bullying

    OfS free-speech absolutism allows abuse, harassment, and bullying

    • By Professor Sasha Roseneil FAcSS PFHEA, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex.

    On 26 March 2025, after a three-and-a-half-year long, deeply flawed, investigation into freedom of speech and academic freedom at the University of Sussex, the Office for Students issued the unprecedently high fine of £585,000, and decreed a form of free-speech absolutism as the new golden rule for universities.  Henceforth, it would appear that universities can only control a very narrowly defined version of unlawful speech that ignores our broader legal and ethical obligations to students and staff. It is an unworkable and highly detrimental decision for the whole higher education sector.

    The investigation was initiated in October 2021 in the context of protests against gender-critical philosopher Professor Kathleen Stock, around the time that she decided to resign from her position at Sussex. Much of the media and public reaction to the OfS’s decision has seen it as vindication of Kathleen Stock, and indeed the OfS itself gives as a reason for publishing the decision, that it would be ‘likely to make Professor Stock feel vindicated and may also vindicate her in public perception’. Indeed, the only person interviewed in the investigation was Kathleen Stock. This is despite the OfS acknowledging that it did not have the power to act on behalf of any individual, and that it has not investigated the circumstances relating to Kathleen Stock.

    Many commentators also regard the outcome as vindication of the gender-critical beliefs that Kathleen Stock professed during her time at Sussex and since. But again, the investigation was not a judgement in the toxic disputes about sex and gender, and the identities and rights associated with each. It is not the OfS’s role to make such judgements – in its own words it is ‘viewpoint neutral’ – just as it not the role of a university, or a Vice-Chancellor, to do so.

    Universities are arenas in which the most controversial ideas of the day are contested – and recent years have seen waves of protest and unrest on campuses across the world about a number of fiercely disputed issues. It is the job of university leaders to facilitate and contain that contestation so that it serves to advance the purpose of universities – the education and development of students and the advancement of knowledge and understanding. Continual efforts to promote and protect overlapping but not identical liberties – freedom of speech and academic freedom – are vital in this. So too are actions to ensure the absence of intimidation and bullying, and to create inclusive, supportive, and respectful learning and working environments, in which people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and identities can succeed as individuals and come together in productive dialogue, however vehemently they might disagree. Indeed, the exercise of academic freedom and freedom of speech depends on this. Freedom of speech cannot mean the ability to shout the loudest or to abuse and frighten less powerful opponents into silence.

    The OfS’s has just made this work of universities infinitely harder, if not impossible. The single short offending document identified by the OfS, on which the weight of its findings rest, was designed to protect the welfare of trans and non-binary staff and students, a student group the OfS itself identifies as at particular risk in relation to access to and participation in higher education. When adopted at Sussex in 2018 – around the same time as at many other universities across the country – thinking about how best to support trans and non-binary people within universities was just beginning, and gender-critical beliefs had not yet been recognised as ‘protected philosophical beliefs’ under the 2010 Equality Act.   

    If the OfS is ‘viewpoint neutral’, its findings about a policy statement seeking to support trans and non-binary staff and students must be understood to apply to all staff and students – whatever their beliefs and identities. A thought experiment helps make the point: replace the trans and non-binary people with whose protection the offending document is concerned with members of other minoritised and marginalised groups – Jewish, Black, Muslim or Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, disabled people, or lesbians and gay men, for instance.

    The implications of the OfS decision are wide ranging and highly corrosive of attempts to create diverse, inclusive, and equal working and learning environments, and threaten university autonomy. Under the OfS’s ruling, it would seem that universities cannot seek to prevent our curricula from relying on or reinforcing stereotypical assumptions about (for example) Jews or Black people, because to do otherwise could limit lawful speech. Universities cannot, from now on, remove antisemitic or racist propaganda from campus unless what it says is unlawful – again, extremely narrowly defined. And universities should not discipline anyone who engages in abuse, harassment or bullying unless that abuse, harassment or bullying meets the legal definition of harassment or hate speech – even if it breaches a range of other duties and obligations.

    In effect, the decision implies that universities cannot have policies that aim to reduce abuse, bullying and harassment – whether motivated by transphobia, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, or sexism – beyond simply reproducing existing restrictions in law (which restrictions the OfS appears not to understand – for example, it does not appreciate that abuse, bullying and harassment are restricted by the Public Order Act 1986).

    It is, I fear, a charter that risks giving free rein to antisemitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic, racist, sexist, and anti-trans speech and expression in universities, as long as it stays just on the right side of the law.

    Moreover, the decision could be significantly at odds both with the wider legal obligations of universities in relation to equalities, and with the OfS’s own regulatory expectations regarding equality of opportunity for students, the quality and standards of the academic experience, and the soon to be introduced requirement to take steps to protect students from harassment and sexual misconduct.

    The OfS’s regressive and dangerous decision threatens the cohesion and governability of each of England’s diverse and vibrant universities, and it must be set aside. Today Sussex is publishing our pre-action protocol letter, which sets out the grounds of our legal challenge. I invite the OfS to respond positively, and to become a regulator that seeks collaboration and open dialogue with universities rather than punishment.

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