Tag: bars

  • Trump bars Harvard from enrolling international students in alarming crackdown on speech

    Trump bars Harvard from enrolling international students in alarming crackdown on speech

    Today, the Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students.

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered her department to end Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, citing the university’s failure to hand over the behavioral records of student visa holders.

    The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to escalate its assault against Harvard University by revoking its ability to enroll international students is retaliatory and unlawful.

    Secretary Noem’s letter warns that the Trump administration seeks to “root out the evils of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in society and campuses.” But little is more un-American than a federal bureaucrat demanding that a private university demonstrate its ideological fealty to the government under pain of punishment.

    The Department’s demand that Harvard produce audio and video footage of all protest activity involving international students over the last five years is gravely alarming. This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected.

    The Department is already arresting and seeking to deport students for engaging in protected political activity it disfavors. Were Harvard to capitulate to Secretary Noem’s unlawful demands, more students could face such consequences. The administration’s demand for a surveillance state at Harvard is anathema to American freedom. 

    The administration seems hellbent on employing every means at its disposal — no matter how unlawful or unconstitutional — to retaliate against Harvard and other colleges and universities for speech it doesn’t like. This has to stop. 

    Since 1999, FIRE has fought for free speech and academic freedom at Harvard and campuses nationwide, and we will continue to do so. We know there is work to do. Whatever Harvard’s past failings, core campus rights cannot and will not be secured by surveillance, retaliation, and censorship.

    No American should accept the federal government punishing its political opponents by demanding ideological conformity, surveilling and retaliating against protected speech, and violating the First Amendment.

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  • UT Dallas bars FIRE from speaking at student event

    UT Dallas bars FIRE from speaking at student event

    UT Dallas is at war with its student journalists.

    After the longtime student newspaper The Mercury published unflattering coverage of the university’s response to pro-Palestinian protests on campus, administrators began a months-long campaign of retaliation. They fired the editor-in-chief, refused to pay journalists as agreed, and even took down articles on the Mercury website.

    And as everybody but a college administrator would expect, their efforts to keep the paper silent and the student body ignorant of the school’s misdeeds have only backfired.

    Undeterred, the student staff of The Mercury created The Retrograde, a wholly independent publication. But when the Retrograde tried to distribute its new issues around campus, administrators ripped out the newsstands that would be used to distribute it. That’s why FIRE went to campus, in person, to hand out copies of the paper and tell students about the school’s sordid efforts to quash student expression.

    FIRE and The Retrograde planned to hold an event the following day to celebrate the triumph of these student journalists over censorship. And Texas has a law requiring public universities to allow student groups to bring in guest speakers. So Gutierrez told the university he planned to bring FIRE Program Officer Dominic Coletti as a guest speaker. The administrators, resistant to allowing any critical speech on campus, told Gutierrez that only registered student organizations could invite guest speakers. And since UT Dallas has conveniently refused to recognize The Retrograde, Coletti could not speak on campus.

    FIRE then hand-delivered a second letter to administrators, explaining that UT Dallas’ policy ignores and violates state law. The university ignored that letter, too. So at the event, Gutierrez read the address Coletti had planned to give, detailing UT Dallas’s abuses and The Retrograde’s resilience.

    This absurd affair illustrates the malicious impact censorship can have on freedom of expression. UT Dallas administrators seem determined to continue on their lawless power trip, but they cannot silence the voices of the campus’ determined student journalists. And as everybody but a college administrator would expect, their efforts to keep the paper silent and the student body ignorant of the school’s misdeeds have only backfired.

    Now, more students know of the university’s dirty dealings than ever before. And they’re letting administrators know censorship should not be bigger in Texas. You can, too.

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  • One Million Behind Bars Now Have Access to Academic Research Through JSTOR

    One Million Behind Bars Now Have Access to Academic Research Through JSTOR

    In a significant development for educational access in correctional facilities, the JSTOR Access in Prison (JAIP) program has reached a remarkable milestone, now serving over one million incarcerated learners across the United States. This achievement represents a doubling of the program’s reach in just over a year.

    The program, which provides incarcerated individuals with access to scholarly materials including academic journals, books, and research papers, crossed this threshold in December 2024. Two pivotal agreements helped fuel this expansion: a new partnership with the Federal Bureau of Prisons that introduced JSTOR to two federal facilities, and an expansion of an existing arrangement with the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR).

    The ADCRR agreement is particularly noteworthy as it evolved from initially serving approximately 3,000 people enrolled in higher education programs to now reaching nearly 40,000 individuals in Arizona’s prison system, regardless of their educational enrollment status.

    “People in prisons use JSTOR the same way as people on the outside,” said Stacy Burnett, senior manager for the Access in Prison program. She explained that while many users pursue structured educational goals like degrees and certificates, others engage in self-directed learning, highlighting the diverse educational needs being met.

    The impact of this access extends far beyond traditional education. Users have reported that JSTOR has helped them build community connections, save money on research-related expenses, and gain new perspectives on their circumstances. In one remarkable case, research conducted through JSTOR led an incarcerated individual to request a health screening that ultimately saved that individual’s life.

    Some users have even leveraged their research to draft legislation supporting prison reentry programs, with one such proposal currently under consideration in North Carolina’s legislature.

    These success stories underscore the program’s value in developing academic research and analytical skills that can serve as important bridges to life after incarceration. “It’s a valuable reentry tool for civic engagement. It gets people to think more deeply,” Burnett explained.

    Since 2019, the program has seen dramatic growth, supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Ascendium Education Group. Today, more than 95% of U.S. state and federal prison facilities provide access to JSTOR, with the program active in 24 countries worldwide.

    Building on this momentum, the JSTOR Access in Prison program has secured $800,000 in new funding commitments to support expansion into U.S. jails, which typically operate at local rather than state or federal levels.

    Despite the impressive one million user milestone, Burnett emphasizes that this represents just half of the incarcerated population in the United States and only 10% of those incarcerated globally. ITHAKA, JSTOR’s parent organization, has stated its ambition to eventually make educational resources available to all incarcerated individuals worldwide.

    As the program continues to grow, supporters add that it’s a powerful example of how access to educational resources can transform lives, even within the constraints of incarceration.

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  • Federal judge bars DOGE from accessing student data

    Federal judge bars DOGE from accessing student data

    A federal judge temporarily barred Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive student data on Monday, after the American Federation of Teachers sued over privacy concerns. 

    The judge, Deborah Boardman of the District Court of Maryland, said the federal government had not provided convincing evidence that DOGE needed the information to achieve its goals. Last week, in a separate case brought by the University of California Student Association against the Education Department, a different judge declined to bar DOGE from accessing student data, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t shown any harm done. But Boardman, a Biden appointee, argued that DOGE staff being given access was enough to merit the injunction. 

    Education Department staff and student advocates raised concerns about DOGE employees’ access to student loan and financial aid data, which includes troves of uniquely sensitive, personally identifiable information. The injunction prevents the office from executing what Musk has referred to as an “audit” of the student loan system for at least two weeks while the lawsuit is ongoing, as well as from accessing financial aid data.

    “We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government—namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan—they expect that data to be protected,” AFT president Randi Weingarten wrote in a statement. 

    The court-ordered stoppage is the latest in a string of injunctions issued against Musk and the Trump administration in recent weeks, as lawsuits pile up against the administration’s attempts to swiftly upend the federal bureaucracy. On Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump from enforcing large parts of his executive order against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

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