Purdue University has ended a long-standing partnership with its independent student newspaper, The Purdue Exponent, and will no longer distribute papers, give student journalists free parking passes or allow them to use the word “Purdue” for commercial purposes.
The Purdue Student Publishing Foundation board (PSPF), the nonprofit group that oversees The Exponent—the largest collegiate newspaper in Indiana—said the changes came without warning.
On May 30, PSPF received an email from Purdue’s Office of Legal Counsel notifying the group that their contract had expired more than a decade ago and the university would not participate in newspaper distribution or give the students exclusive access to newspaper racks on campus.
In addition, the message said, the university will not enter into a new contract for facility use with the paper to remain consistent with the administration’s stated policy on institutional neutrality.
According to a statement from the university, it is not consistent “with principles of freedom of expression, institutional neutrality and fairness to provide the services and accommodations described in the letter to one media organization but not others.”
The Exponent is the only student newspaper, though Purdue also has two student news channels, FastTrack News and BoilerTV.
Legal counsel also asked The Exponent to keep “Purdue” off the masthead and out of the paper’s URL because “The Foundation should not associate its own speech with the University.” PSPF says it has a trademark on “The Purdue Exponent” until 2029.
PSPF and Purdue have held distribution agreements since 1975, in which Exponent staff would drop papers off at various locations across campus and staff would then place them on newspaper racks.
In 2014, the Exponent delivered the university a new contract to renew the agreement for the next five years, according to paper staff. The contract was never signed, but the terms of the agreement continued until Monday, June 2.
Now, The Exponent is permitted to distribute papers themselves and have nonexclusive access to newspaper stands on campus, according to the university; students said they don’t have early access to many of the buildings the way staff do.
“Purdue’s moves are unacceptable and represent not only a distortion of trademark law but a betrayal of the university’s First Amendment obligations to uphold free expression,” Dominic Coletti, a student press program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Exponent. “Breaking long-standing practice to hinder student journalism is not a sign of institutional neutrality; it is a sign of institutional cowardice.”
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The Trump administration’s decision to gut federal programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education and lay off half of the agency’s staff in an attempt to increase its efficiency has been met with resistance from lawmakers and, most recently, a federal judge whose court order brought efforts to close the department to an abrupt halt.
In an update required by a May 22 court order, the Education Department posted on its website that it has notified its employees of the court-ordered reversal of the reduction in force that left the agency with only about 2,183 out of 4,133 employees. The department on May 27 acknowledged its being compelled by the order in State of New York v. McMahon“to restore the Department to the status quo such that it is able to carry out its statutory functions.”
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, in temporarily reversing the reduction in force, said gutting the department would lead to “irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”
“This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself,” Joun said in his decision.
The Education Department appealed Joun’s ruling the same day it was issued. The agency did not respond to K-12 Dive’s request for comment.
Delays in distributing grant funds
The decision came on the heels of a May 16 letter sent by Democratic lawmakers to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon. They claimed the Education Department was delayed in distributing grant funding for the 2025-26 school year. The delay gives states and districts less time to allocate funds meant to help students experiencing homelessness and other underserved students the grants are meant to help, they said.
“States and school districts are best able to plan to most effectively use federal funds with advance knowledge of expected funding, as Congress intends by providing funds on a forward-funded basis,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut in the letter.
Murray is vice chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, of which Baldwin is also a member. DeLauro is ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee.
“We believe you need to immediately change course and work in partnership with states and school districts to help them effectively use federal funds,” the lawmakers wrote in their reprimand of the department’s delay.
By the lawmakers’ count, the department took three times as long under this administration to distribute Title I-A grants than under the Biden administration. Whereas the former administration took two weeks to distribute the funds after the appropriate law was signed in 2024, the current administration took more than 50 days after the enactment of the 2025 appropriations law to distribute Title I-A funds. The program provides $18.4 billion by formula to more than 80% of the nation’s school districts.
The department also delayed applications for the Rural Education Achievement Program, which funds more than 6,000 rural school districts. It opened applications to REAP’s Small, Rural Schools Assistance program nearly two months later than the Biden administration, and gave districts half the time to apply — just 30 days compared to 60 in FY 2024.
AASA, The School Superintendents Association, said it was aware of this delay. “We understand this release date is significantly later than usual coupled with a shortened application window, so it is important to ensure all eligible districts are aware of this change,” the association said in a May 7 post, prior to the application’s release on May 14. The deadline for program applications is June 13.
These delays in funding distribution and last week’s letter from Democrats come as the department bumped funding for charter schools by $60 million this month.
In April, the department also abruptly canceled billions in federal pandemic aid reimbursements for COVID-19 spending, a move that was met with pushback from Democratic lawmakers and states. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia sued for access to the funds and scored a victory earlier this month when a judge ordered a temporary reversal of the administration’s cancellation as the litigation is pending.
The lawmakers blasted the department’s reduction in force as the culprit behind the delays. “We were told your Department’s work would be efficient, particularly after the reduction in force in which you reduced half of the Department’s workforce, but that does not appear to be the case here,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
Following the layoffs, education policy experts worried the department’s efforts to prevent waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating key federal programs and employees would backfire, as a reduced workforce could lead to less oversight and delayed support for states and districts.
However, the department has repeatedly said its decision to push out nearly 1,900 employees would not impact its ability to deliver on its responsibilities required by law.
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The Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy allowing ICE raids on school grounds and other sensitive locations was challenged in a lawsuit filed this week on behalf of an Oregon-based Latinx organization and faith groups from other states.
The lawsuit cites ICE activity at two Los Angeles elementary schools last month, as well as parents’ fears of sending their children to school in other locations across the country.
“Teachers cited attendance rates have dropped in half and school administrators saw an influx of parents picking their children up from school in the middle of the day after hearing reports that immigration officials were in the area,” said the lawsuit filed April 28 by the Justice Action Center and the Innovation Law Lab. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District Court of Oregon’s Eugene Division.
The two organizations filed on behalf of Oregon’s farmworker union Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, whose members say they are “afraid to send their children to school,” per the draft complaint. The farmworker union’s members, especially those who are mothers, say their livelihood depends on sending their children to school during the day while they work.
“They now must choose between facing the risk of immigration detention or staying at home with their children and forfeiting their income,” the lawsuit said. One of the members of the union said her children were “afraid of ICE showing up and separating their family.”
The lawsuit challenges a Department of Homeland Security directive, issued one day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, that undid three decades of DHS policy that prevented ICE from raiding sensitive locations like schools, hospitals and churches.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a DHS spokesperson said in a January statement on the order. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
When asked for comment on the lawsuit, an ICE spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
Monday’s lawsuit and others filed against the directive say the change in policy is impacting students’ learning and districts’ ability to carry out their jobs.
A lawsuit filed in February by Denver Public Schools said the DHS order “gives federal agents virtually unchecked authority to enforce immigration laws in formerly protected areas, including schools.” It sought a temporary restraining order prohibiting ICE and Customs and Border Protection from enforcing the policy.
According to the American Immigration Council, over 4 million U.S. citizen children under 18 years of age lived with at least one undocumented parent as of 2018. A 2010 study cited by the council found that immigration-related parental arrests led to children experiencing at least four adverse behavioral changes in the six months following the incidents.
Another study cited by the organization, conducted in 2020, found that school districts in communities with a large number of deportations saw worsened educational outcomes for Latino students.