Tag: administration

George Mason University’s board looks to negotiate with Trump administration
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Dive Brief:
- George Mason University’s governing board said late last week that it wants to negotiate with the Trump administration to resolve allegations that it violated civil rights law.
- In late August, the U.S. Department of Education alleged that George Mason has illegally used race and other protected characteristics in hiring and promotions, a conclusion reached just six weeks after the agency announced a probe into the university.
- An attorney for university President Gregory Washington, who is at the center of the probe, has repudiated the agency’s allegations, describing them as “a legal fiction.” Washington’s attorney will also be involved in talks with the Education Department, according to the board’s statement.
Dive Insight:

Over a period of weeks this summer, the Trump administration ramped up pressure on George Mason. The departments of Education and Justice opened at least four probes between them into the university, often citing comment from Washington in support of diversity initiatives.

Washington’s attorney, Douglas Gansler, took the Education Department to task for how quickly it determined George Mason violated the law.

“It is glaringly apparent that the OCR investigation process has been cut short, and ‘findings’ have been made in spite of a very incomplete fact-finding process, including only two interviews with university academic deans,” Gansler wrote.

The attorney also described some of the evidence cited by the Education Department as “gross mischaracterizations of statements made by Dr. Washington” that didn’t lead to policy changes.

For example, when the Education Department concluded that George Mason violated civil rights law, it linked to a statement Washington made in 2021 in support of having faculty reflect the diversity of the student body and broader community. The department took the statement as expressing “support for racial preferencing” in hiring.

But, as Gansler highlighted, Washington specifically said in the statement that the diversity principles he was promoting were “not code for establishing a quota system.”

Gansler also warned the university’s board against requiring Washington to apologize, which was among the demands made by the Education Department. The lawyer pointed out that such an apology could open the university up to liability.

Through all of this, George Mason’s board of visitors — headed by Charles Stimson, who holds leadership positions at The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank — has been relatively quiet.

To represent it in dealings with the Trump administration, the board hired Torridon Law, which was co-founded by William Barr, formerly U.S. attorney general during the first Trump administration. The firm also has several prominent Republican lawyers on staff.

In July, the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors voted no confidence in the board and called its response to the Trump administration’s actions to that point “inadequate and deeply troubling.”

And yet, in August — at a meeting that the AAUP chapter warned could set the stage for Washington’s ouster — George Mason’s board voted to give the leader a raise.

Since then, Democrat members of a Virginia Senate committee have blocked six appointees to George Mason’s board picked by the state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin. The move has left the board of visitors without a quorum for conducting official business.

In announcing plans to negotiate with the Education Department, the board said Friday that it “remains committed to ensuring that George Mason complies with all federal civil rights law and remains hopeful that a favorable resolution can be reached.”

George Mason is just the latest in an expanding set of colleges targeted by the Trump administration over allegations related to racial preferencing, campus antisemitism and policies supporting transgender student athletes.

Some universities, including Columbia and Brown, have paid hefty sums to settle allegations and have at least some of their federal research funding restored. The administration is also seeking some $500 million from Harvard University and $1 billion from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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September 3, 2025
100 Ways the Trump Administration Has Undermined the Environment, Human Rights, World and Domestic Peace, Labor, and Knowledge
The Trump administration, since returning to power in 2025, has escalated attacks on the foundations of democracy, the environment, world peace, human rights, and intellectual inquiry. While the administration has marketed itself as “America First,” its policies have more often meant profits for the ultra-wealthy, repression for the working majority, and escalating dangers for the planet.

Below is a running list of 100 of the most dangerous actions and policies—a record of how quickly a government can dismantle hard-won protections for people, peace, and the planet.

I. Attacks on the Environment
1. Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement—again.
2. Dismantling the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
3. Opening federal lands and national parks to oil, gas, and mining leases.
4. Gutting protections for endangered species.
5. Allowing coal companies to dump mining waste in rivers and streams.
6. Rolling back vehicle fuel efficiency standards.
7. Subsidizing fossil fuel companies while defunding renewable energy programs.
8. Suppressing climate science at federal agencies.
9. Greenlighting pipelines that threaten Indigenous lands and water supplies.
10. Promoting offshore drilling in fragile ecosystems.
11. Weakening Clean Water Act enforcement.
12. Dismantling environmental justice programs that protect poor communities.
13. Politicizing NOAA and censoring weather/climate warnings.
14. Undermining international climate cooperation at the UN.
15. Allowing pesticides banned in Europe to return to U.S. farms.
II. Undermining World Peace and Global Stability
1. Threatening military action against Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea.
2. Expanding the nuclear arsenal instead of pursuing arms control.
3. Cutting funding for diplomacy and the State Department.
4. Withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO).
5. Weakening NATO alliances with inflammatory rhetoric.
6. Escalating drone strikes and loosening rules of engagement.
7. Providing cover for authoritarian leaders worldwide.
8. Walking away from peace negotiations in the Middle East.
9. Blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, Yemen, and other war-torn areas.
10. Expanding weapons sales to Saudi Arabia despite human rights abuses.
11. Using tariffs and sanctions as blunt instruments against allies.
12. Politicizing intelligence briefings to justify military adventurism.
13. Abandoning refugee protections and asylum agreements.
14. Treating climate refugees as security threats.
15. Reducing U.S. participation in the United Nations.
III. Attacks on Human Rights and the Rule of Law
1. Expanding family separation policies at the border.
2. Targeting asylum seekers for indefinite detention.
3. Militarizing immigration enforcement with National Guard troops.
4. Attacking reproductive rights and defunding women’s health programs.
5. Rolling back LGBTQ+ protections in schools and workplaces.
6. Reinstating bans on transgender service members in the military.
7. Undermining voting rights through purges and voter ID laws.
8. Packing the courts with extremist judges hostile to civil rights.
9. Weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents.
10. Expanding surveillance powers with little oversight.
11. Encouraging police crackdowns on protests.
12. Expanding use of federal troops in U.S. cities.
13. Weakening consent decrees against abusive police departments.
14. Refusing to investigate hate crimes tied to far-right violence.
15. Deporting long-term immigrants with no criminal record.
IV. Attacks on Domestic Peace and Tranquility
1. Encouraging militias and extremist groups with dog whistles.
2. Using inflammatory rhetoric that stokes racial and religious hatred.
3. Equating journalists with “enemies of the people.”
4. Cutting funds for community-based violence prevention.
5. Politicizing natural disaster relief.
6. Treating peaceful protests as national security threats.
7. Expanding federal use of facial recognition surveillance.
8. Undermining local control with federal overreach.
9. Stigmatizing entire religious and ethnic groups.
10. Promoting conspiracy theories from the presidential podium.
11. Encouraging violent crackdowns on labor strikes.
12. Undermining pandemic preparedness and response.
13. Allowing corporations to sidestep workplace safety rules.
14. Shutting down diversity and inclusion training across agencies.
15. Promoting vigilante violence through online platforms.
V. Attacks on Labor Rights and the Working Class
1. Weakening the Department of Labor’s enforcement of wage theft.
2. Blocking attempts to raise the federal minimum wage.
3. Undermining collective bargaining rights for federal workers.
4. Supporting right-to-work laws across states.
5. Allowing employers to misclassify gig workers as “independent contractors.”
6. Blocking new OSHA safety standards.
7. Expanding exemptions for overtime pay.
8. Weakening rules on child labor in agriculture.
9. Cutting unemployment benefits during economic downturns.
10. Favoring union-busting corporations in federal contracts.
11. Rolling back protections for striking workers.
12. Encouraging outsourcing of jobs overseas.
13. Weakening enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in workplaces.
14. Cutting funding for worker retraining programs.
15. Promoting unpaid internships as a “pathway” to jobs.
VI. Attacks on Intellectualism and Knowledge
1. Defunding the Department of Education in favor of privatization.
2. Attacking public universities as “woke indoctrination centers.”
3. Promoting for-profit colleges with predatory practices.
4. Restricting student loan forgiveness programs.
5. Undermining Title IX protections for sexual harassment.
6. Defunding libraries and public broadcasting.
7. Politicizing scientific research grants.
8. Firing federal scientists who contradict administration narratives.
9. Suppressing research on gun violence.
10. Censoring federal climate and environmental data.
11. Promoting creationism and Christian nationalism in schools.
12. Expanding surveillance of student activists.
13. Encouraging book bans in schools and libraries.
14. Undermining accreditation standards for higher education.
15. Attacking historians who challenge nationalist myths.
16. Cutting humanities funding in favor of military research.
17. Encouraging political litmus tests for professors.
18. Treating journalists as combatants in a “culture war.”
19. Promoting AI-driven “robocolleges” with no faculty oversight.
20. Gutting federal student aid programs.
21. Allowing corporate donors to dictate university policy.
22. Discouraging international students from studying in the U.S.
23. Criminalizing whistleblowers who reveal government misconduct.
24. Promoting conspiracy theories over peer-reviewed science.
25. Normalizing ignorance as a political strategy.
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September 1, 2025
Trump administration proposes 4-year cap on international student visas
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Dive Brief:
- The Trump administration on Thursday proposed capping the length of time international students can stay in the U.S. at four years, regardless of the length of their studies, per a plan published in the Federal Register.
- International student visas, known as F visas, typically allows them to stay in the U.S. for as long as it takes to finish their programs. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees are typically designed to be completed in four years or less, but many Ph.D. programs tend to run longer.
- The new rule would also affect J visas, which cover certain international students, as well as short-term college instructors and researchers. If finalized, holders of both types of visas would need to apply for extensions and undergo “regular assessments” by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stay in the country after four years.
Dive Insight:

Restricting the flow of noncitizens into the U.S. — international students included — is not a new focus for the Trump administration. During the last year of President Donald Trump’s first term, the agencies proposed the same cap on F and J visas. The Biden administration withdrew the proposal the following year.

DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement argued Thursday that neither program gives federal authorities enough oversight over how long visa holders remain in the country.

In the proposed rule, the agencies alleged that the lack of a fixed end date for F and J visas incentivizes fraud, and DHS said it has identified “many examples of students and exchange visitors staying for decades.” As of April, over 2,100 international students who first entered the country between 2000 and 2010 still hold an active F visa, DHS said.

That’s a tiny share of the total number of international students the U.S. hosts. In 2023 alone, more than 1.6 million people entered the U.S. through F visas, according to DHS data. Over 500,000 people entered via J visas that year.

A DHS spokesperson on Wednesday accused international students of “posing safety risks” and “disadvantaging U.S. citizens” — and accused past administrations of allowing them to stay in the country “virtually indefinitely.”

“This new proposed rule would end that abuse once and for all by limiting the amount of time certain visa holders are allowed to remain in the U.S., easing the burden on the federal government to properly oversee foreign students and their history,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The proposal would also prohibit graduate students on F-1 visas from transferring to other institutions or “changing educational objectives,” along with adding similar restrictions for first-year students.

Student advocates quickly panned the Trump administration’s plan, saying it would increase bureaucratic backlogs, deter international students from attending U.S. colleges and harm the country’s advancement.

Fanta Aw, CEO and executive director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said Wednesday that the change would also give federal agencies oversight over decisions that “have long been the domain of academia.”

“This proposal will only increase the degree of government oversight without any evidence that the changes would solve any of the real problems that exist in our outdated immigration system,” Aw said in a statement.

Aw also decried the proposal as a poorly considered draft that represents a “dangerous overreach by government into academia.”

“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,” she said.

Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, called the proposed rule an “unnecessary and counterproductive action.”

She emphasized the increased paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles it would require of international students.

“The rule would force them to regularly and unnecessarily submit additional applications to be able to stay in the country and fulfill requirements of their academic programs, imposing significant burdens on students, colleges and universities, and federal agencies alike,” Feldblum said in a Wednesday statement.

Both Feldblum and Aw noted that international students are already one of the most closely monitored groups in the U.S.

The DHS spokesperson on Wednesday also alleged that international students cost an “untold amount of taxpayer money.”

Yet foreign students are often a financial boon for colleges — especially tuition-dependent ones — as they are more likely than U.S. residents to pay an institution’s full sticker price.

In 2023, international college students contributed more than $50 billion to the U.S. economy, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The proposal from DHS and ICE is open for public comment through Sept. 29.
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August 28, 2025
UCLA consolidates IT, pauses faculty hiring as Trump administration seeks $1B payment
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Dive Brief:
- The University of California, Los Angeles has paused faculty hiring for the next academic year and is consolidating its cross-campus information technology teams as the public institution weathers financial attacks from the Trump administration on top of existing budget woes.
- In a community message Wednesday, two top UCLA leaders said they will “be prudent in making organizational changes, and do so in close collaboration with leaders across campus.” UCLA did not immediately answer questions Thursday about whether the IT consolidation will include layoffs.
- The announcement follows a message late last week from Chancellor Julio Frenk, who noted the Trump administration is seeking $1 billion from the university over antisemitism allegations primarily related to a protest encampment on UCLA’s campus in 2024.
Dive Insight:

In their message, UCLA Provost Darnell Hunt and Chief Financial Officer Stephen Agostini said the university was working with University of California system leaders to restore some $584 million in research funding cut off by the Trump administration.

“Our immediate priority is to sustain the research enterprise,” the officials said. “We are doing this via a thorough review process, grant by grant, alongside campus deans and faculty members.”

The funding cut followed U.S. Department of Justice allegations that UCLA broke civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.

At the center of those allegations was a spring 2024 pro-Palestinian protest encampment that UCLA leaders initially allowed to continue amid efforts to balance speech rights and campus safety. Less than a week later, they called police to break up the encampment.

The Justice Department has also launched a probe into whether the UC system discriminates against employees by allowing an antisemitic, hostile work environment.

Since Columbia University agreed to pay the federal government $221 million to settle similar allegations related to antisemitism, the Trump administration has reportedly sought payments from other high-profile colleges in its crosshairs.

Frenk recently panned the government’s effort to extract $1 billion from UCLA.

“I want to be clear: The costs associated with this demand, if left to stand, would have far-reaching consequences,” Frenk said in a statement last week. “The impacts to society are very real, as it could threaten our ability to conduct life-saving and life-changing research. But the impacts to our university are just as real.”

Last week, a federal judge ordered the National Science Foundation to restore grant funding potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the cuts, made after the Justice Department announced its allegations, violated a prior court order in a lawsuit filed by UC researchers over mass grant terminations by the administration.

Even before the faceoff with the Trump administration, UCLA was shifting toward austerity as the wider UC system grappled with deficits. In fiscal 2024, UCLA posted an operating loss of $144.2 million, a sharp downturn from its positive operating income of $159.6 million the year before.

Hunt and Agostini noted the university had already cut administrative unit budgets by 10%, started a hiring review process and curtailed travel spending.

The officials said that existing efforts to streamline and save money in the university’s operations have become a subject of “immediate and urgent focus” given the financial environment.

The IT reorganization is part of those efforts. The move involves consolidating teams distributed across UCLA’s campus. The goal is to “boost our cybersecurity readiness; ensure more equitable access to high-quality IT services; and free up resources to elevate teaching, research and innovation,” Hunt and Agostini said.
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August 21, 2025
Trump Administration Proposes Restricting Public Service Loan Forgiveness for Organizations with ‘Illegal Purpose’

The Trump administration on Friday released a proposed rule that would exclude organizations deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose” from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a move that could disqualify thousands of borrowers working for advocacy and legal aid organizations from having their student debt canceled.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, published in the Federal Register and scheduled to take effect July 1, 2026, follows President Trump’s March executive order directing the Department of Education to revise PSLF eligibility criteria. The proposed changes would give the Secretary of Education broad authority to determine which employers qualify for the program that has provided loan forgiveness to more than one million public servants.

Under the proposed rule, organizations could lose PSLF eligibility for activities including “aiding or abetting violations of Federal immigration laws,” “engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination,” or “engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing Federal Government policy.” The Department would use a “preponderance of evidence” standard to make determinations, and employers found ineligible would face a 10-year waiting period before they could regain qualifying status.

The rule specifically targets several types of activities the administration considers problematic, including providing certain medical treatments to transgender minors, assisting with immigration cases, and various forms of protest activity that result in state law violations such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.

Kristin McGuire, President and CEO of Young Invincibles, characterized the proposal as “continuing its attacks on education, deliberately targeting advocacy organizations whose work doesn’t align with its ideological agenda.”

“By using a distorted and overly broad definition of ‘illegal activities,’ the Trump administration is exploiting the student loan system to attack political opponents,” McGuire said. “This is an illegal move by the administration; eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is defined by law, not political ideology.”

The proposed rule emerged from a contentious negotiated rulemaking process that concluded in July without consensus. According to the Department’s documentation, the negotiator representing civil rights organizations dissented from the draft regulations, preventing the committee from reaching agreement.

The Department of Education estimates the rule would result in budget savings of $1.537 billion over 10 years by reducing the number of borrowers who achieve loan forgiveness. Administrative documents suggest the changes could affect borrowers in multiple sectors, including legal services, healthcare, social work, and education.

Organizations operating under shared federal tax identification numbers could see entire agencies lose eligibility if one component is found to engage in disqualifying activities. The rule includes provisions allowing the Secretary to separate organizations under shared identifiers, but grants ultimate authority to the Department to make such determinations.

The proposed rule draws heavily on the Internal Revenue Service’s “illegality doctrine,” which denies tax-exempt status to organizations with substantial illegal purposes. The Department argues this approach ensures consistency across federal agencies and prevents taxpayer funds from subsidizing activities the government aims to prevent.

Employers would be required to certify on PSLF application forms that they do not engage in activities with substantial illegal purpose. Those who fail to provide such certification would immediately lose qualifying status.

The rule includes safeguards requiring notice and opportunity to respond before final determinations, and allows employers to maintain eligibility if they submit approved corrective action plans before losing qualification.

According to the Department’s regulatory impact analysis, implementation would cost between $1.5 million and $3 million annually during the first two years. The analysis acknowledges that compliance costs for employers would vary significantly, with larger organizations potentially facing higher expenses for legal consultation and operational adjustments.

The Department projects reduced confusion among borrowers due to clearer eligibility criteria, though it acknowledges potential disruptions during the transition period. The analysis notes that borrowers working for disqualified employers would need to find new positions with qualifying organizations to continue progress toward loan forgiveness.

The proposed rule will undergo a 30-day public comment period following publication in the Federal Register on August 18. The Department must review all submitted comments before issuing a final rule.

If implemented as proposed, the new eligibility requirements would apply only to activities occurring on or after July 1, 2026. Borrowers whose employers lose qualifying status would receive notification from the Department and would no longer earn qualifying payment credit while employed by those organizations.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, established in 2007, allows borrowers to have remaining federal student loan balances canceled after making 120 qualifying monthly payments while working full-time for eligible government agencies or qualified nonprofit organizations. The program has faced criticism and administrative challenges since its inception, with many borrowers initially denied forgiveness due to complex eligibility requirements.

Young Invincibles and other advocacy organizations indicated they plan to submit detailed comments opposing the rule and may pursue legal challenges if the final version proceeds as proposed.

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August 15, 2025
$584M on the line as University of California agrees to negotiate with Trump administration
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Dive Brief:
- The University of California system agreed this week to enter negotiations with the Trump administration in an attempt to have $584 million in suspended federal funding restored to the University of California, Los Angeles.
- The funding cut came after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged last week that UCLA broke civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. The agency also launched a probe into whether the UC system discriminates against employees by allowing an antisemitic, hostile work environment.
- In announcing the negotiations Wednesday, UC President James Milliken called the UCLA cuts “a death knell for innovative work” and pushed back on the Trump administration’s justification for the revoked funding. “These cuts do nothing to address antisemitism,” he said. “Moreover, the extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored.”
Dive Insight:

Many of the Justice Department’s allegations against UCLA stem from a pro-Palestinian encampment erected on its campus in the spring 2024 term.

University leaders allowed the encampment to remain for nearly a week, citing a need to balance safety with free speech protections. They ultimately asked the Los Angeles Police Department to clear the encampment following a violent night in which counterprotesters attempted to tear down the encampment’s barricades, launched fireworks into it and hit pro-Palestinian demonstrators with sticks and other objects.

The pro-Palestinian protesters at times fought back, though video footage from the night shows few instances of them initiating confrontations, according to reporting from The New York Times. When police arrived — hours after violence first broke out — they didn’t step in immediately.

According to the Justice Department, at least 11 complaints were filed with UCLA alleging that students experienced discrimination based on race, religion or national origin from encampment protesters.

The agency also cited a UCLA task force report that found some encampment protesters formed human blockades to stop people — including students wearing the Star of David or those who refused to denounce Zionism — from freely moving throughout Royce Quad.

Milliken noted in his statement that UCLA has taken several steps since then to tighten campus protest policies and combat antisemitism. The university instituted a systemwide ban on encampments and launched a campus initiative in March to fight antisemitism, including through training and an improved system for handling complaints.

UCLA also agreed last month to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who alleged the university violated their civil rights by allowing the encampment protesters to impede their access to the campus. Over one-third of the settlement payment will go toward organizations that fight antisemitism, The Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, the university is facing a separate lawsuit brought by about three dozen pro-Palestinian students, faculty and others who allege that UCLA’s leaders didn’t protect them from the counterprotesters and failed to uphold their right to free expression. The lawsuit also names the counterprotesters as defendants.

Their lawsuit says UCLA police merely “stood and watched” for hours while counterprotesters “ruthlessly attacked” the encampment demonstrators, alleging the group broke their bones, burned their eyes with chemicals, and hit them with metal rods and other weapons.

The next day, the LAPD and the California Highway Patrol cleared the encampment at the request of university leaders. According to the lawsuit, law enforcement “hurled flashbangs, shot powerful kinetic impact projectiles at peoples’ heads and faces, and used excessive physical force against and falsely arrested students, faculty, and concerned community members.”

Police arrested over 200 people while clearing the encampment. Those detained faced “invasive searches, false arrests, sexual assaults, and prolonged detentions,” and hijab-wearers were forced to remove their head coverings “infringing on their religious practices,” the lawsuit alleged.

The pro-Palestinian plaintiffs suing UCLA are seeking damages and for the judge to declare the clearing of the encampment illegal, among other measures.
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August 8, 2025
Trump administration illegally axed NIH grants, government watchdog says
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Dive Brief:
- The Trump administration acted illegally when it delayed and canceled billions of dollars of biomedical research grants, despite Congress appropriating funds to the National Institutes of Health, the Government Accountability Office said on Tuesday.
- Between February and June, the watchdog agency estimates the NIH awarded about $8 billion less in funds for research grants and awards compared to the prior year and cut more than 1,800 active grants as it attempted to follow President Donald Trump’s directive to weed out “equity-related” projects.
- The GAO’s report concludes the administration violated the Impoundment Control Act, which requires the president to provide notice before delaying or blocking congressionally directed spending. GAO can file a lawsuit in an attempt to restore the grants. However, the watchdog agency has not yet opted to do so in its dealings with Trump.
Dive Insight:

NIH grants came under scrutiny this winter following a series of executive orders directing federal agencies to terminate “equity-related” grants or contracts, federal funding of projects supporting “gender ideology” and DEI programs.

The NIH began carrying out these directives in February. In addition to the grant cuts, the agency also dragged its feet on approving new projects, GAO found. From late January to early March, the NIH paused grant reviews entirely, delaying funds from being allocated to hospitals and universities.

When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the HHS referred Healthcare Dive to the agency’s testimony to GAO. The testimony states that NIH has since “moved rapidly to reschedule and hold meetings impacted by the short pause, and to process grant applications.”

The HHS said between March 24 and June 30, NIH scheduled or held 837 peer review meetings — 186 more than for the same period the year prior.

Still, GAO said that the department hadn’t adequately explained its decision to pause the review process in the first place, despite its resumption of grant review.

“If the executive branch wishes to make changes to the appropriation provided to NIH, it must propose funds for rescission or otherwise propose legislation to make changes to the law for consideration by Congress,” the watchdog group wrote in its report. The HHS had done neither, the GAO said, adding: “In short, HHS has offered no evidence that it did not withhold amounts from obligation or expenditure, and it has not shown that the delay was a permissible programmatic one.”

The report also suggests the Trump administration may be continuing efforts to block NIH funds from flowing to medical research.

The office said the Office of Management and Budget asked NIH to “pause the issuing of grants, research contracts and training” in late July. There are reports that decision was later reversed, but GAO said it could not confirm whether the pause was lifted.

Following the release of the report, Democratic lawmakers called for the Trump administration to resume funding NIH grants as Congress specified, warning that medical research progress is at stake.

“Cutting off investments Congress has made into research that saves millions of lives is as backward and as inexcusable as it gets,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a statement. “It is critical President Trump reverse course, stop decimating the NIH, and get every last bit of this funding out.”

This report is not the first time Trump’s funding cuts have been challenged.

Researchers, unions and a coalition of 16 states sued over the NIH cuts, with academics saying they needed the funds to perform critical medical research, including learning about alcohol’s impact on Alzheimer’s risk and suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness. In June, a U.S. district judge ordered the NIH to reinstate the plaintiffs’ canceled funds. However, litigation remains ongoing after the Trump administration appealed that ruling.

GAO has the potential to bring its own suit against the NIH, but it will likely be a last resort, according to reporting by the New York Times. The watchdog group has previously found the administration violated the ICA on a range of topics and opted not to sue.
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August 7, 2025
The Trump administration doesn’t need to go to Brazil to find government censorship. It can look in a mirror.

Alexandre de Moraes, the polarizing Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, is no friend to free speech. Though he is a popular figure within Brazil among those who see him as a protector of democracy, he has aggressively wielded his authority to censor, especially on the internet, with little transparency.

From his position in Brazil’s Supreme Court, de Moraes has doggedly pursued wide swaths of speech and speakers off and on the internet, as well as the tech companies hosting them. In a highly public incident last year, Brazil blocked X — and even threatened VPN users accessing it with massive fines — over the company’s noncompliance with de Moraes’ orders.

The actions of de Moraes, and Brazil’s Supreme Court more broadly, have repeatedly drawn the ire of the Trump administration. But chief among President Trump’s grievances is the prosecution of his political ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of attempting a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

How has the Trump administration responded?

Last month, the administration enacted a series of punishments against Brazil’s leadership and de Moraes specifically. In a July 30 executive order, Trump announced tariffs and other sanctions due to Brazil’s prosecution of Bolsonaro and other actions that “conflict with and threaten the policy of the United States to promote free speech and free and fair elections at home and abroad.” The order follows Trump’s weeks-earlier threat of tariffs over the “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also revoked the visas of de Moraes “and his allies on the court” and their families. And under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, usually reserved for the most serious human rights abuses, the Department of the Treasury announced sanctions targeting any of de Moraes’s U.S. assets.

Unprincipled, partisan free speech advocacy is no free speech advocacy at all

There is plenty to debate about how to best protect free speech on the global internet, and around the world more generally, and what actions the United States can take in its defense. But, even though Brazil’s adversarial relationship with free expression is deeply alarming, it’s impossible to ignore the incongruity of the Trump administration putting itself in the position of diagnosing and treating government censorship.

Physician, heal thyself.

The opening months of Trump’s second term in office have offered a nonstop, headspinning bonanza of violations, threatened and enacted, against Americans’ First Amendment rights.

I write regularly in the Free Speech Dispatch about the myriad threats to freedom of expression, from Russia to the UK to India to Hong Kong. It’s painfully, brutally clear we need leadership to push back against the wave of global repression that threatens all of our rights. But that leadership must practice what it preaches and avoid simply using concerns about free speech as a pretext to fight partisan political battles. On both counts, this administration has failed.

You will make no converts to the free speech cause by proving right the critics who suspect its advocates are guided by partisan aims, not principled ones. Instead, you will breed cynicism and harm the very cause you claim to support.

This same posturing marred Vice President JD Vance’s objections to European censorship, an ugly trend that’s in dire need of principled critiques. Instead, Vance claimed that under Trump, the “new sheriff in town,” the administration “may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.”

Well, unless you’re CBS/Paramount, law firms, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Commanders, CNN, The New York Times, protesters, Media Matters, James Comey’s seashells, “propaganda,” academic and medical journals, pollster Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register, The Associated Press, international students, flag burners, Harvard, Columbia, or the many other universities and academics under threat.

The ugly reality is that the U.S. is rapidly ceding its moral authority to criticize foreign governments’ censorship, like that emanating from Brazil’s Supreme Court, when its own president and agencies are gleefully flouting the First Amendment and free speech principles day in and day out.

Perhaps most baffling was the administration’s objection to the Brazilian government’s targeting of Paulo Figueiredo, a Brazilian journalist, and “U.S. resident, for speech he made on U.S. soil.” Readers may also be able to think of some more government officials targeting immigrants legally residing in the U.S. for protected speech made on U.S. soil — and they’re doing so from our White House and State Department, not thousands of miles away.

Global censorship is a real challenge, and it’s only getting worse. But until the U.S. removes the censorial beam from its own eye, we may find that other nations are unmoved by our criticisms and cures. Or, they may perhaps even be interested in doling them out to us.

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August 4, 2025
Brown Strikes Deal With Trump Administration

Brown agreed to donate $50 million to workforce development programs in Rhode Island.

Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Brown University has struck a deal with the Trump administration to restore about $510 million in frozen federal research funds in exchange for various concessions but no payment, officials announced Wednesday.

The federal government will restore millions in frozen research funding and settle investigations over allegations of campus antisemitism, according to the agreement. While Brown will not pay out a settlement to resolve the complaints like its Ivy League counterpart Columbia University did, the university pledged $50 million over the next decade to state workforce development efforts in Rhode Island.

Brown is the second university to cut a deal with the Trump administration since Columbia reached a similar agreement last week. Trump officials said the Columbia settlement would be a template for their talks with other colleges, though other higher ed experts argued the deal was unlawful and represented a threat to the sector at large. (Harvard University, which has also been in the administration’s crosshairs over alleged antisemitism, has reportedly considered a settlement of up to $500 million to resolve its ongoing dispute.)

Still, Brown agreed to multiple other changes. They include adopting the Trump administration’s definitions of male and female, not performing gender-affirming surgeries on minors or prescribing them puberty blockers, providing admissions data to the federal government, and conducting a campus climate survey and sharing the results with the federal government. Brown also agreed to codify prior changes officials announced to combat discrimination on campus.

The deal does not include restrictions on campus curriculum or programs.

“At its core, the agreement preserves the integrity of Brown’s academic foundation, and it enables us as a community to move forward after a period of considerable uncertainty in a way that ensures Brown will continue to be the Brown that our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends have known for generations,” President Christina Paxson said in a statement.

Brown announced the agreement shortly after the university took out a $500 million loan, which could have helped plug research funding holes or fund a protracted legal battle. The university also borrowed $300 million in April after the Trump administration froze research funding over allegations of antisemitism connected to pro-Palestinian protests.

The funding freeze, along with other changes in federal policy, has hit the university hard, and officials warned in June of the potential for “deep financial losses.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon celebrated the deal, asserting in a statement that the agreement would protect Jewish students from antisemitism as well as women’s sports.

“Restoring our nation’s higher education institutions to places dedicated to truth-seeking, academic merit, and civil debate—where all students can learn free from discrimination and harassment—will be a lasting legacy of the Trump administration, one that will benefit students and American society for generations to come,” McMahon wrote in a social media post.

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July 30, 2025
Trump administration pauses Head Start immigration restrictions
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The Trump administration agreed Friday to temporarily pause enforcement of recent policy changes that restrict some education-related federal programs based on students’ immigration or citizenship status.

The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, was reached between the parties in a lawsuit brought last week by 20 states and the District of Columbia against multiple federal agencies, including the departments of Education and Health and Human Services.

Under the agreement, Head Start programs in those states won’t be required to verify the immigration or citizenship status of the children they enroll until at least Sept. 3, 2025. HHS, which administers Head Start, previously said the new policy requiring immigration status verification would take effect immediately.

The Department of Education, meanwhile, was set to enforce its new restrictions for some immigrants in programs like dual enrollment, adult education and career and technical training programs by Aug. 9. The Friday agreement would delay that by about a month.

As part of the agreement, states that sued cannot be held liable for admitting students without proper immigration status into the programs before Sept. 4. That means programs will not be retroactively penalized for enrolling all students regardless of their immigration status, as has been the norm for Head Start for decades.

“Today’s stipulation ensures that, for now, critical services will continue without disruption, and that families across New York and the nation will not be punished for seeking the help to which they are lawfully entitled,” the New York Attorney General’s office said in a Friday press release.

New York led the states filing the original lawsuit, and arguments are expected on or after Aug. 20. The District of Columbia joined the suit as did these states:
- Washington
- Rhode Island
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- Oregon
- Vermont
- Wisconsin
The U.S. Department of Education could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
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July 25, 2025