Tag: Brown

  • Brown fires new salvo in war against student journalist over list of DEI admins

    Brown fires new salvo in war against student journalist over list of DEI admins

    After news surfaced that the Trump administration plans to pull $510 million in federal funding from Brown University over its DEI programs, student journalist Alex Shieh had the chutzpah to identify administrators who appear to work in DEI through student newspaper The Brown Spectator. The university — which had already been investigating Shieh for the crime of publishing an interactive organizational chart — took aim at him again.

    Brown threatened Shieh with sanctions over his journalism, claiming the report on federal funding was “false” because the government had not yet told Brown of its plans.

    This, just weeks after Brown President Christina Paxson promised “Brown will always defend academic freedom and freedom of expression.”

    Making matters worse, this wasn’t the first time Brown came after Shieh for his journalism. On March 15, Shieh sent each of Brown’s 3,805 administrators a personalized DOGE-style email asking them what they’d done in the past week. He also asked them to explain how Brown students, who pay nearly $100,000 to attend, would be impacted if their role was cut. Ever since, Brown has had Shieh in its crosshairs.

    Tell Brown to Stop Railroading Alex Shieh

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    First, Brown launched a preliminary review into Shieh’s reporting, threatening him with a litany of charges, including one for “emotional harm” to the administrators on his email — an exceedingly broad and vague charge that runs roughshod over First Amendment principles. Brown also demanded he return “confidential information” he allegedly accessed without permission, while refusing to tell him what in his reporting was confidential.

    On April 7, just one day after he published the list of possible DEI administrators, Brown officially charged him with “misrepresentation” and “violation of operational rules.” How did he misrepresent himself? By identifying himself as a reporter in the email. Brown’s logic was that because it did not recognize The Spectator as an official student organization, anyone holding themselves out to be a journalist at The Spectator is a liar.

    The second charge was no better. The university argued Shieh had violated rules by accessing a university system and obtaining a report showing reporting relationships, both of which he was allowed to do. That report, Brown claims, included “non-public” information that no student is permitted to publish. How this should be a mystery is itself a mystery, as Google reveals org charts that are publicly available.

    FIRE wrote Brown a letter demanding it drop the misrepresentation charge and produce real evidence that Shieh accessed “non-public” information. We argued that the university’s refusal to abide by its own due process guarantees makes clear that what it really wants is to silence journalism it doesn’t like.

    In a testament to how little Brown values its own promises, the university replied that this targeted investigation into a student journalist was not a free speech issue. But despite this less-than-credible response, Brown actually did drop the misrepresentation charge. Good news, right? Not so fast.

    Rather than produce the requested evidence that Shieh had accessed private information, the university added a new charge, alleging Shieh violated its trademark policy by including the word “Brown” in the name The Brown Spectator, which he and others were helping to restart in April 2025 after it ceased publishing in 2014.

    Brown needs to cut its losses, drop the charges, and stop this chilling investigation into protected student expression.

    On May 2, FIRE wrote Brown a second letter, telling the school to knock it off.

    We explained that this new charge misrepresents trademark law and violates Brown’s free speech promises by attempting to use fair trade practices as a tool to censor non-commercial journalism about news and events taking place at Brown University. It is settled law that trademarks don’t trump the First Amendment or provide infinite control over a word (in this case, literally the word for a color), indeed, mark owners cannot stop the non-commercial use of their mark in a noncompeting industry. And nobody would mistake Shieh or The Brown Spectator for the official voice of Brown University.  

    Brown’s vendetta against Shieh has officially passed the point of Ivy League parody. Brown needs to cut its losses, drop the charges, and stop this chilling investigation into protected student expression. The university’s own promises demand it.

    Join us in calling for Brown to uphold the free press on campus.

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  • Brown Takes Out $300 Million Loan

    Brown Takes Out $300 Million Loan

    Brown University is borrowing $300 million from an unspecified lender, according to a regulatory filing—a move that comes as other wealthy universities have tapped the bond market recently.

    The Trump administration has frozen $510 million in federal research funding to Brown over alleged antisemitism on campus related to pro-Palestinian protests.

    “Given the volatility in the capital markets and the uncertainty regarding future federal policy related to research and other important priorities of Brown, the University is fortunate to have a number of sources of liquidity, including commercial paper programs, bank lines and the private and public debt markets that are available to help us manage our finances and priorities during this period,” Brown spokesperson Amanda McGregor wrote to Inside Higher Ed by email.

    She added that Brown “chose to negotiate directly with a lender in order to tailor the loan to our particular objectives,” rather than leverage bonds, as some other institutions have done recently. Beyond threats to its federal funding, the university also announced last year that it had a $46 million budget deficit.

    Both Harvard University and Princeton University announced in recent weeks that they were issuing bonds. Harvard, which is issuing $750 million in bonds, told Inside Higher Ed the move was about “contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” Harvard recently had $2.2 billion frozen by the Trump administration after it rejected a series of demands. President Alan Garber argued that the government was asking Harvard to surrender its autonomy, calling such a demand “unconstitutional.”

    Princeton, which has clashed with the administration over academic freedom, also announced plans to issue $320 million in bonds but offered little specificity about the purpose of the funds.

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  • Brown University targets student journalist for sending DOGE-like emails

    Brown University targets student journalist for sending DOGE-like emails

    “Describe what tasks you performed in the past week.” 

    That’s what student journalist Alex Shieh asked 3,805 administrators at Brown University in a March 18 email. The backlash was swift. 

    Just two days later, Brown told Shieh it was reviewing his DOGE-inspired email — based on allegations that he had “emotionally harmed” several employees and “misrepresented” himself by saying he was a reporter for the conservative student newspaper The Brown Spectator, which he was. 

    Elon Musk, de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), wields a chainsaw at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference.

    In Brown’s letter, officials also claimed he violated operational procedures and demanded he “return any confidential information,” warning that his access to university data systems could be restricted.

    Days later, Associate Dean and Associate Director of Student Conduct & Community Standards Kirsten Wolfe threatened to charge Shieh with “failure to comply” unless he provided evidence that he had deleted unspecified confidential information that Brown alleged he may have accessed. Wolfe also demanded Shieh keep even the existence of this investigation private. Nor has Brown revealed what confidential information they believe he published, and Shieh denies having taken any confidential information.

    He pointed out that even if he did have any confidential information — an allegation the university has not begun to substantiate — providing evidence that he deleted it would also provide Brown incriminating evidence that he had the information in the first place — violating Brown’s promise that students have a right against self-incrimination. 

    Brown’s response here flies in the face of its due process and free expression guarantees, and threatens to chill student reporting on campus. Due process is essential not just to guarantee defendants a fair shake, but to uphold the legitimacy of campus disciplinary proceedings. It also acts as a bulwark protecting students’ individual liberties. As FIRE has said before, universities that guarantee their students free expression cannot base investigations on the very speech they promise to protect — and for good reason. 

    Telling someone they are the target of an investigation can have a chilling effect on speech, especially in cases like this one, where universities also can’t use chilling investigations as fishing expeditions. Brown’s effort to get Shieh himself to substantiate its assertions against him by providing evidence he thinks could relate to the allegations against him flips the disciplinary process on its head. ​​

    Fundamental fairness requires that the university bear the burden of proving the allegations, not the student to prove his innocence.

    Moreover, Brown’s threats also burden newsgathering practices protected by the university’s guarantee of press freedom. Certainly, administrators are within their rights to investigate actual breaches of confidentiality policies. But investigating journalism, offbeat though it may be, is a far cry from that.

    University President Christina Paxson declared in a recent letter that Brown will defend free expression against encroachments from the federal government. Shieh’s case suggests that her promise does not extend to Brown’s own encroachments on free expression.

    FIRE defends the rights of students and faculty members — no matter their views — at public and private universities and colleges in the United States. If you are a student or a faculty member facing investigation or punishment for your speech, submit your case to FIRE today. If you’re a faculty member at a public college or university, call the Faculty Legal Defense Fund 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533). If you’re a college journalist facing censorship or a media law question, call the Student Press Freedom Initiative 24-hour hotline at 717-734-SPFI (7734).

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  • Brown faces $46 million budget deficit

    Brown faces $46 million budget deficit

    Brown University, one of the nation’s wealthiest institutions, is facing a $46 million structural deficit, prompting efforts to limit growth in hiring and doctoral programs.

    “Without changes to the way Brown operates, the structural deficit is expected to continue to deepen significantly, including a deficit next year that would grow to more than $90 million, with steady increases in subsequent years. Although the current deficit of $46 million is only 3% of Brown’s total operating budget, increases in the deficit over time are not sustainable,” Provost Francis J. Doyle III and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham announced in a letter to the community on Dec. 17.

    Officials noted a range of factors driving the deficit, including flat undergraduate tuition revenue growth, increased financial aid, inflation and rising salaries and benefits.

    Brown announced a four-pronged plan to “constrain the deficit.”

    First, the institution will “hold faculty headcount growth to 1%” and limit the growth of staff members “not fully funded externally by grants and gifts” at zero percent, according to the letter from administrators. In addition, Brown will reduce admissions targets for Ph.D. programs, which have grown rapidly in recent years. The university also plans to “hold growth in unrestricted operating expenses to 3%.” Finally, the letter noted the university will work to “continue to grow master’s [program] revenue, ultimately doubling the number of residential master’s students and increasing online learners to 2,000 in five years.”

    While officials did not announce job cuts as they grapple with the yawning budget deficit, the message noted Brown will review vacancies “to determine if they will be refilled.”

    Brown is among the richest universities in the U.S. with an endowment valued at $7.2 billion. Last year, a study of endowments put Brown just beyond the top 25 wealthiest institutions.

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