Tag: Congress

Can Congress subpoena a journalist for reporting a Delta Force commander’s name?

On Jan. 7, the House Oversight Committee approved a subpoena for Seth Harp, an investigative journalist and contributing editor at Rolling Stone, for posting information about a Delta Force commander. Congress has broad authority to issue subpoenas. But it must show far more restraint when aiming them at journalists without any evidence of wrongdoing.

In early January, Harp reposted a screenshot identifying a commander involved in the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s former dictator. X reportedly locked Harp’s account until he deleted the post. The House Oversight Committee then voted to approve a subpoena “for leaking classified information.” Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida’s 13th congressional district, who introduced the motion to subpoena Harp, said, “Putting a service member and their family in danger is dishonorable and feckless. Leaking classified information demands explanation and a criminal investigation.”

But publishing the news, even when the news contains classified information, is exactly the role of a journalist. And Rep. Luna did not cite any evidence that Harp broke the law to obtain the information.

Can Congress subpoena Harp over his reporting?

Congress has a broad subpoena power, subject to some constitutional limits.

Congress does have broad investigative authority tied to its legislative power, and subpoenas are a standard tool of that authority. It cannot investigate without the ability to compel people to share information.

But that authority still has limits. In Watkins v. United States (1957), a McCarthy-era congressional subpoena case, the Supreme Court held that while it is “unquestionably the duty” of citizens to cooperate with such subpoenas, the power to issue subpoenas at all “assumes that the constitutional rights of witnesses will be respected by the Congress as they are in a court of justice. The Bill of Rights is applicable to investigations as to all forms of governmental action.” The First Amendment prohibits government retaliation for engaging in protected speech. So under Watkins’ rationale, Congress should not subpoena a journalist merely because it dislikes their reporting.

If Congress abuses its subpoena power, will courts stop it?

In practice, the Speech or Debate Clause weakens Watkins’ constitutional limit on congressional subpoenas.

Even after Watkins, abusive congressional subpoenas are difficult to preemptively fight in court. One reason is the Speech or Debate Clause, which gives members of Congress immunity for legislative acts or statements, including subpoenas.

In Eastland v. U.S. Servicemen’s Fund (1975), the Senate investigated the defendant organization (including a subpoena for bank records) after it distributed anti-Vietnam war publications to the military. When the Servicemen’s Fund challenged the subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court, the Court held that the subpoena fell within Congress’s “legitimate legislative sphere” of investigating the “effect of subversive activities.” Because the committee acted within its investigatory powers, the Court concluded, the Speech or Debate Clause immunized the committee and its staff from suit. The subpoena remained on the books.

Eastland thus stands for the proposition that courts may not “look behind” a subpoena for constitutionally improper motives. It would be unconstitutional for Congress to investigate a nonprofit’s bank accounts, or a reporter’s sources, based on First Amendment-protected expression. But so long as Congress can prove it acted within the bounds of its power, any remedy for the constitutional violation must be found outside the courts.

Even if Congress can use its subpoena power to end-run around the First Amendment, should it?

Standardless subpoenas against reporters risk chilling journalism.

Even when Congress has facially legitimate (if arguably pretextual) grounds for its investigation, forced investigative questioning is a direct threat to the conditions that make journalistic inquiry possible. Freedom of the press — and of speech — requires the ability to pursue knowledge and ideas without fear of retribution. Otherwise, our knowledge grows stale, and our ability to assess the truth trends toward the state’s mandated line. As the Supreme Court noted in Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957), “scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust.” Replace “scholarship” with “protesting” or “reporting,” and the principle remains the same.

Floyd Abrams, who has spent his career litigating press cases, puts it plainly — such legal battles “cost an enormous amount of money, have enormous disruptive effects” and represent “an institutional threat to the behavior of a newspaper.” Subpoenas signal to sources that talking to the press could put them under a governmental spotlight. They force reporters and editors to ask: This story is accurate, but can we afford the cost of printing it?

FIRE’s recent work shows that when Congress goes overboard with investigations, it can scare people into silence — even when their speech is perfectly legal. Tyler Coward, lead government counsel at FIRE, condemned congressional investigations into student groups and nonprofits associated with pro-Palestine protests as “fishing expedition[s]” based on groups’ viewpoint.

Likewise, John Coleman, legislative counsel at FIRE, criticized the House’s investigation of Stanford researchers studying “misinformation.” Targeting protected academic inquiry might serve some legitimate congressional objective, Coleman argued, but such investigations deter future inquiry. For reporters, the same lesson is obvious: even if a subpoena is ultimately narrowed or withdrawn, if you want to avoid the risk, avoid the subject.

The issuance of speech-chilling subpoenas knows no partisan bounds, either. Republicans led the investigations into pro-Palestine groups and Stanford researchers. But in 2021, the House Select Committee on January 6th — chaired by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson — subpoenaed a photojournalist’s phone records from Verizon. At the time, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called on Thompson to withdraw the subpoena, calling it a “direct threat to newsgathering.” In Seth Harp’s case, the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia, supported Rep. Luna’s motion to subpoena, and it was approved unanimously.

If courts are unlikely to stop Congress, who will protect journalists?

Even if constitutional, Congress should refrain from issuing standardless subpoenas against journalists.

Despite the fact that the Speech or Debate Clause largely immunizes Congress when it issues subpoenas, Congress has an independent obligation to follow the Constitution. Recall that Eastland held that courts may not “look behind” a subpoena to test whether the real aim was retaliation or harassment. Facially legitimate subpoenas will stand, even if they’re arguably illegal. That means Congress itself is the main check on subpoenas meant to retaliate against or harass reporters. And Congress must better police its subpoena process — otherwise it imperils not only our free press, but also free speech and our collective pursuit of truth and knowledge.

Congress should keep Watkins in mind when crafting subpoenas. At a base level, that means Congress should not issue subpoenas to journalists for merely reporting the news. Beyond that, Congress should ensure that there are no other means to obtain the requested information. It should tailor requests to avoid sweeping in things like sources, editorial deliberations, or other discussions essential to the newsgathering process. These suggestions are modest but vital institutional firewalls against congressional abuse of its oversight power.

The public cannot be informed — cannot check officials, evaluate policy, or hold politicians accountable — without strong protections for the press freedom to share information and to criticize without retaliation. Alexander Hamilton warned that constitutional safeguards are often not enough. The freedom of the press, he wrote in Federalist No. 84, rested not in “fine declarations” but rather in the “general spirit of the people and of the government.”

Congress must take it upon itself, in Harp’s case and others, to embody that spirit of a free press and refrain from investigating journalists for merely doing their job.

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January 21, 2026
Congress Proposes Increasing NIH Budget, Maintaining ED

The House and Senate appropriations committees have jointly proposed legislation that would generally maintain the Education Department’s funding levels, plus increase the National Institutes of Health’s budget by more than $400 million this fiscal year. It’s the latest in a trend of bipartisan Congressional rebukes of President Trump’s call to slash agencies that support higher ed.

For the current fiscal year, Trump had asked Congress to cut the NIH by 40 percent and subtract $12 billion from ED’s budget. The president proposed eliminating multiple ED programs, including TRIO, GEAR UP and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, which all help low-income students attend college. He also proposed reducing the ED Office for Civil Rights budget by over a third.

But the proposed funding package senators and representatives released this week maintains funding for all of those programs.

“We were surprised to see the level of funding for the higher education programs actually be increased, in some regards—and be maintained,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. “We knew that level funding would be considered a win in this political environment.”

This latest set of appropriations bills is the final batch that Congress must approve to avert another government shutdown at the end of the month. Democrats have said passing actual appropriations bills, as opposed to another continuing resolution, is key to ensuring that federal agencies spend money as Congress wants.

Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told Inside Higher Ed that the NIH budget increase is essentially “flat funding,” considering inflation. But she said “this appropriations package once again demonstrates Congressional, bipartisan support for research and development and the importance of these investments, as well as rejecting the administration’s very dramatic cuts.”

Earlier this month, Congress largely rejected Trump’s massive proposed cuts to the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Energy Department, three significant higher ed research funders. These developments are adding up to a more encouraging 2026 funding picture for research and programs that support postsecondary students.

But Congress has just 10 days to pass this new funding package, and Trump must still sign both packages into law. A government shutdown will begin after Jan. 30 for those agencies without approved appropriations legislation.

Guillory noted that—despite the Justice Department declaring last month that minority-serving institution programs are unlawful because they “effectively [employ] a racial quota by limiting institutional eligibility to schools with a certain racial composition”—Congress still proposed funding these programs.

“Pretty much every single program that is a minority-serving institution program received an increase in funding,” he said.

The appropriators also want to send another roughly $790 million to the Institute of Education Sciences, compared to the $261 million Trump requested. Last year, his administration gutted IES, the federal government’s central education data collection and research funding agency. But, like the broader Education Department, laws passed by Congress continue to require it to exist.

Beyond the appropriations numbers, the proposed legislation to fund the NIH would also prevent the federal government from capping indirect research cost reimbursement rates for NIH grants at 15 percent, as the Trump administration has unsuccessfully tried to do. Indirect cost rates, which individual institutions have historically negotiated with the federal government, pay for research expenses that are difficult to pin to any single project, such as lab costs and patient safety.

The appropriations committees released an explanatory statement alongside the legislation that says “neither NIH, nor any other department or agency, may develop or implement any policy, guidance, or rule” that would change how “negotiated indirect cost rates have been implemented and applied under NIH regulations, as those regulations were in effect during the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.”

GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee didn’t say they were bucking the president in their news release on the proposal. Instead, they said the legislation demonstrates “the will of the American people who mandated new priorities and accountability in government, including priorities to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ and ‘Make America Skilled Again.’”

“Investments are directed to where they matter most: into lifesaving biomedical research and resilient medical supply chains, classrooms and training that prepare the next generation for success, and rural hospitals and primary care to end the chronic disease epidemic,” the release said.

Democrats claimed victory for Congress.

“This latest funding package continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump Administration,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, in a release.

“Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding,” DeLauro said. “Where the Administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels. Where President Trump and Budget Director Russ Vought sought broad discretion over federal spending, Congress, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, chose to reassert its power of the purse.”

Carney says she thinks passage is “highly likely.”

“Ostensibly, what they call the ‘four corners’—the chair and ranking members from both chambers and both parties—have come to this agreement on this package,” she said. So, barring “last-minute surprises,” she said, “it should be relatively smooth sailing.”

Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chair of the House appropriations committee, urged his fellow lawmakers to pass the legislation.

“At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities,” Cole said in a statement. “It’s time to get it across the finish line.”

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January 20, 2026
Congress moves to reject Trump plan to slash Education Department funding
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Dive Brief:
- Congressional lawmakers this week released a fiscal 2026 education budget proposal that rejects the Trump administration’s call to dramatically decrease funding for the U.S. Department of Education and to cut major financial aid programs.
- The Senate and House Appropriations committees jointly proposed allocating $79 billion in discretionary funding to the Education Department, up slightly from the $78.7 billion it received for the 2025 fiscal year. The Trump administration had proposed cutting the agency’s funding by 15.3%, to $66.7 billion.
- The bipartisan proposal would also keep funding level for a suite of student support and educational access programs that would have seen their funding slashed or been defunded altogether under President Donald Trump’s plan.
Dive Insight:

Trump has made shuttering the Education Department a policy goal, directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a March executive order to “take all necessary steps” to facilitate its closure. Only Congress can fully eliminate the department, but his administration has begun hollowing it out through mass layoffs, grant cancellations, and plans to transfer program management to other agencies.

The Trump administration sought to decrease the maximum Pell Grant award by about 23% to $5,710, an amount it said would “continue to cover the average published in-state tuition and fees for community college students.” Instead, lawmakers are looking to maintain the maximum Pell Grant award at $7,395 through the 2026-27 year.

Trump’s spending proposal for fiscal 2026 also sought to defund three key educational access programs: TRIO, the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, and Gear Up.

TRIO, which supports students from disadvantaged backgrounds from middle school to college, would receive $1.2 billion dollars under the lawmakers’ proposal. The FSEOG program, which assists undergraduates who demonstrate significant financial need, would receive $910 million. And Gear Up, which helps low-income students prepare for postsecondary education, would get $388 million.

Each program’s allocation would be on par with what it received in fiscal 2025.

The congressional plan would also maintain funding for Federal Work-Study, which provides part-time jobs to students who need help paying for college, at $1.2 billion. Trump’s plan would have slashed the program’s budget by roughly 80% to $250 million.

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights funding would continue at $140 million under the lawmakers’ proposal, according to a bill summary released by Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Trump had sought to cut the office’s budget by a third.

As part of Trump’s effort to dismantle the Education Department, administration officials have announced plans to outsource the programs to four other federal agencies.

However, lawmakers wrote in an explanatory statement accompanying their proposal that “no authorities exist for the Department of Education to transfer its fundamental responsibilities” and that it cannot transfer its congressionally allocated funds to another agency.

Democrats on the Senate committee argued in their bill summary that the Trump administration’s interagency agreements are illegal, create “new inefficiencies, costs, and risks to funding for states and schools” and threaten “educational outcomes.”

Under the budget proposal, the Education Department and the four agencies it struck agreements with would be required to make biweekly reports to legislators, according to the explanatory statement. Briefings would include information related to the interagency agreements, such as costs, staff transfers, “metrics on the delivery of services,” and “plans for maintaining high standards of quality and objectivity in grant competitions through multireviewer peer panels.”

Lawmakers have until Jan. 30 to pass the remaining appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, or they will face a partial federal government shutdown. Congress approved a stopgap funding measure in November to end the last government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history.
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January 20, 2026
College Costs, Accreditation Likely Top Focus for Congress

Lowering college costs, boosting accountability and reforming accreditation will likely be at the top of congressional Republicans’ to-do list for 2026. But as public approval ratings for President Trump continue to decline and midterm elections loom, higher education policy experts across the political spectrum say congressional conservatives could be running out of time.

The push for more affordable higher education has been gaining momentum for years, and while it was a common refrain at the committee level in 2025, complex and sweeping debates over tax dollars soaked up much of lawmakers’ attention.

First, the Republicans passed their signature piece of legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut taxes for wealthy individuals, increased them for elite universities and overhauled the student loan system. Then, they turned their attention to disagreements on the federal budget—an impasse that led to the record 43-day government shutdown.

But in the few cases where members of the GOP did get to home in on college cost issues, whether via legislation or hearings, an underlying theme emerged—holding colleges accountable for their students’ return on investment.

Higher education experts have no doubt that concern will continue in 2026, but Congress won’t have the time or the oxygen needed to nail down real changes unless they figure out how to fund the government, which runs out of money again Jan. 31.

“The Republican majority is very conscious that it may be on the clock, and this would argue for trying to move rapidly and get things done,” said Rick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “But with the narrow and fractious House majority, the way the budget is going to chew up time going into January and the pressure on the Senate to get judges confirmed, it’s just going to be a challenge for them to find much time to move further higher ed–related legislation.”

Legislative Actions

Republicans spent much of 2025 using their control of Congress and the White House to pass what many industry leaders have described as the largest overhaul to higher education policy in more than a decade—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And while policy experts were initially skeptical that this multi-issue package could pass given the complex, restrictive nature of a legislative process called reconciliation, the GOP found a way.

The final bill, signed into law July 4, served as a major win for the GOP, expanding federal aid for low-income students to include nontraditional short-term training programs, limiting loans for graduate students, consolidating the number of repayment plans and increasing taxes on wealthy colleges, among other provisions.

Conservative policy experts like Hess praised the overhaul as “a much-needed and positive set of changes.”

“There’s certainly more that can be done, but I think it moved us in a substantially better direction than we’ve been,” he added.

But aside from OBBBA, little legislation concerning colleges and universities advanced. Only one bill tracked by Inside Higher Ed, the Laken Riley Act, reached the president’s desk. That law gave state attorneys general increased power over visas that could affect some international students and scholars. Others, including the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, a bill that forbids trans women from participating in women’s sports, and the DETERRENT Act, a bill designed to restrict foreign academic partnerships, made it out of the House in a matter of weeks but then got stuck in the Senate.

The story of 2025 in higher ed is a big, dramatic one, but it’s almost entirely one of executive branch activity.”

—Rick Hess, AEI

So when asked what congressional accomplishments stood out from 2025, progressive policy experts told Inside Higher Ed they didn’t see much. The things that did happen, they added, hurt students and institutions more than they helped.

“‘Accomplishments’ is not really the word I would use considering the challenges that higher education faced this year,” said Jared Bass, senior vice president of education at the Center for American Progress. “I don’t think that Congress actually met the moment for affordability or defending and preserving higher education.”

Instead, he said, legislators placed the burden of cost on the backs of students.

“The Republican argument is by cutting access to these loans they’ll actually drive down costs. But we’ll have to wait and see if that happens,” he explained. “But I would say it didn’t actually make college more affordable. It just made resources less available.”

Hearings Highlight Priorities

Congress did, however, hold a number of higher ed–related hearings to dive into their priorities, which included improving the transparency of financial aid offers, establishing stronger records of the skills students gain and elevating ideological concerns like allegedly illegal use of diversity, equity and inclusion practices and liberal biases in the Truman Scholarship program.

Although the House Committee on Education and Workforce hosted a greater number of higher ed hearings, some of the more notable panels came from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“They actually wanted to put the ‘E’ back in HELP and focus on education issues,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, a leading higher ed lobbying group. “That wasn’t really the case under prior leadership. So that was good.”

Chairman Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, right, and ranking member Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, lead the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Tom Williams/CQ–Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

Much of the shift in interest, Guillory added, was likely tied to new leadership. This was the first year that Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, held the gavel. In the last Congress, Cassidy had served as ranking member.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce also had new leadership, as Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina handed the baton to Rep. Tim Walberg from Michigan. But it was the Senate’s tactics that led to more meaningful legislative progress in ACE’s view.

“Mr. Walberg may have pushed a slightly more aggressive agenda. The House definitely had more hearings in the higher ed space and tackled more hard-punching issues, but in the Senate they took a different approach,” Guillory said. “When it came to those difficult issues and conversations, the Senate chose to discuss those a bit more quietly and really work on solutions with stakeholder groups and ask, ‘How can we be influential with actual legislation?’”

Chairman Tim Walberg took over the House Education and Workforce Committee in 2025.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

When asked for their reflections on the year, Cassidy and Walberg pointed to OBBBA, which they touted as a historic reform to drive down college costs and limit students from taking on insurmountable debt. But while Walberg then looked back to the ongoing antisemitism discussions and concerns about “hostile learning environments,” Cassidy touted his legislation aimed at helping students better understand the cost of college.

“College is one of the largest financial investments many Americans make, but there is little information to ensure students make the right decision,” he said. “That is why I introduced the College Transparency Act to empower families with better information so they can decide which schools and programs of study are best suited to fit their unique needs and desired outcomes.”

Democrats Fight Back

Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers said they were forced to spend much of their time and attention maintaining the Department of Education, an agency they say is needed to do much of the work to fulfill Republicans’ priorities, be it addressing antisemitism and other civil rights issues or driving down college costs.

From his early days on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump has promised to dismantle the department, and starting in March of 2025, he began doing so—all without congressional approval.

First, the president laid off nearly half of the agency’s staff. Then, just a week later, he signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to close down the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

Later, he tried to slash federal spending, redistribute grant dollars and use the government shutdown to lay off even more employees. Most recently, Trump approved a series of six interagency agreements that reallocate many of ED’s responsibilities to other agencies.

Through it all, the Democrats repeatedly decried his “attack” on higher ed. They used statements, town halls and demonstrations outside the department to draw attention to decisions they said would be “detrimental” to “students, teachers and educators.”

Lawmakers tried to access the Education Department in February but were denied entry.

Katherine Knott/Inside Higher Ed

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House education committee, said he has spent much of his year in defense mode, pushing back against each of these actions.

“The administration has been dismantling the Department of Education, making access to education much less available,” he said. “And we’ve been trying to keep it together.”

But both Scott and Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat and former educator, acknowledged that as members of the minority, they can only do so much. A few Republicans have joined them in voicing concern about specific issues, but not enough, they say.

“We’ve had some successes—forcing some funding to be restored and rejecting, for example, President Trump’s push to slash Pell Grants by half in our draft funding bill for the coming year—but ultimately, we need a whole lot more bipartisan outrage and pushback from Republicans to truly start to undo the sweeping damage Trump has already caused,” Murray said.

And it wasn’t just Democrats who raised concerns.

“Congress has done very little to ask important questions, to ask the executive branch to justify some of the actions it is taking,” said Hess from AEI. “Hill Republicans are very much marching in lockstep to what the White House asks. The story of 2025 in higher ed is a big, dramatic one, but it’s almost entirely one of executive branch activity.”

What’s Ahead in 2026?

Now that congressional Republicans have completed a number of the tasks they set for themselves back in January 2025, most experts say two remaining items—college cost and accreditation reform—will be top priorities in 2026.

Most sources Inside Higher Ed spoke with anticipated that college cost reduction and transparency would be addressed first, largely because related bills made it out of a House committee in December and senators held a hearing on the topic. The bills, which would standardize financial aid offers and create a universal net price calculator, have already gained some significant bipartisan support.

Meanwhile, many remain skeptical of Republicans’ proposals for accreditation. Although no exact legislative language has been released, GOP lawmakers and Trump officials at the Department of Education have called for a major overhaul to not only ensure better student outcomes but also to deconstruct a what they see as a systemic liberal bias.

“I would hope to see a focus on accreditors taking an active role and not just sort of a check-the-box approach to quality assurance,” said Carolyn Fast, director of higher education policy at the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank. “What I’m concerned about is some of the efforts to reform accreditation don’t seem necessarily as concerned about making sure that the system is working in terms of their role as gatekeepers of federal funds … but more about political and cultural war issues.”

Bass from CAP said that he will be keeping a close eye on the midterm election campaign trail for a pulse on higher ed policy in general this year, as it gives the public a chance to speak up and direct change.

“I’m curious to see how conversations about affordability play out, not just for higher education or education over all, but just for the country,” he said. “There are going to be over 30 gubernatorial races next year, and the debate gets shaped over key issues like higher education, like college costs, like affordability. So it will be very interesting to see how both parties are going to show up.”

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January 5, 2026
Education Exchange Replay: “Congress Swung for the Fences on School Choice and Hit a Single”

In this replay episode of the Education Exchange, Robert Enlow, the President and CEO of EdChoice, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the tax credit scholarship provision that was part of budget reconciliation bill, which was passed by Congress and signed into law on July 4, 2025.

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December 29, 2025
International Archives Congress Feels Like the Olympics for Archivists – SJSU

Published: November 13, 2025
by Kelly Famuliner

Attending and presenting at the International Archives Congress
in Barcelona, Spain––an event that feels like the Olympics for
archivists!––was a transformative experience. I am incredibly
honored to have had the opportunity to represent Team Ukraine and
the SJSU iSchool, bringing awareness about the impactful
partnership between the Ukrainian Library Association and library
and information science professionals and scholars from around
the U.S., united in solidarity towards the creation of a digital
archives documenting the destruction of Ukrainian libraries
during the ongoing war.

The archives, Ukrainian Libraries During Wartime, will
offer insight into how damage to libraries and the materials they
hold transcend their physical nature to contribute to the loss of
collective memory and cultural identity. Towards this end, in
addition to providing access to the hundreds of images and
descriptions of destruction we have received from the Ukrainian
Library Association, the archives will contribute to cementing
each library’s legacy within their communities; bearing witness
to what was lost and the resilience of Ukrainian librarians as
they continue to diligently serve their communities during
wartime. In this way, it is our hope that the archives can
contribute to the collective memory of the nation of Ukraine.

In addition to presenting, I was afforded the incredible
opportunity to attend numerous impactful sessions and workshops
and meet archivists from around the world. From learning about
archiving initiatives in Palestine, the application of
decolonization principles within archival processes (from
appraisal to exhibition), real world examples of archival
repatriation, and recent developments regarding rules for
describing photographic and audiovisual archives (as created by
the Photographic and Audiovisual Expert Group of the
International Council on Archives), I can honestly say that
I left the Congress with an expanded view of the archival
profession, as well as my future role as archivist.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Ukrainian Library
Association (ULA) for providing the U.S.-based team with the
opportunity to partner with your vital organization and
librarians across Ukraine on this impactful project; to Dr. Ulia
Gossart (SJSU) for encouraging me to attend the ICA Congress (and
for serving as my mentor!); to the ULA and Team Ukraine for
trusting me to represent this project at the Congress, including
Oksana Brui (Deputy Director General at Yaroslav Mudryi National
Library of Ukraine and ULA President); Dr. Rhonda Clark (PennWest
Clarion), Emily Brennen (Rocky Vista University), Claire Williams
(SJSU), Rebecca Short (SJSU), and Sarah Schwartz (SJSU); and to
the SJSU School of Information for their provision of a travel
grant that enabled me to present at and attend the ICA Congress.

For more information about the Ukrainian Libraries During
Wartime archives project, please visit our website:
https://ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu/community-engagement/ukrainian-libraries-in-wartime/

Editor’s Note: The SJSU iSchool highly encourages students to
attend professional conferences but also realizes that it can be
cost prohibitive. Travel grants are
available to eligible students to help lessen the financial
burden and increase conference participation. iSchool student
Kelly Famuliner received one of these travel
grants.

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November 13, 2025
Congress Accuses GMU President of Lying About DEI Efforts

House Republicans have accused George Mason University President Gregory Washington of lying to Congress about diversity practices at his institution, ratcheting up pressure on the president to step down.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee alleged in a report released Thursday night that Washington made “multiple false statements to Congress” in testimony about diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at GMU. The public university has been under fire for months over allegedly illegal DEI practices as the Trump administration has sought to crack down on such initiatives, claiming they are discriminatory and violate federal civil rights law. The Judiciary Committee report also alleged that the university “likely violated federal civil rights law by discriminating based on race in its hiring practices to advance Dr. Washington’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.”

Washington has denied breaking the law through efforts to diversify GMU’s faculty and staff, telling Congress that the university did not practice illegal discrimination under his leadership.

The report is the latest salvo from Republicans who have launched federal investigations into GMU over its hiring policies, including demands that the embattled president apologize for allegedly discriminatory practices, which he has refused to do as he denies any wrongdoing.

What’s in the Report

The House Judiciary Committee’s report zoomed in on an effort by GMU, launched shortly after Washington took office in July 2020, to diversify employee ranks. The Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative the president introduced aimed to make faculty and staff “mirror student Demographics” at GMU, which is among the most diverse institutions in the country. As part of that effort, GMU tasked schools and departments with hiring more underrepresented individuals.

But in Congressional testimony, Washington denied the initiative was a strict mandate.

“These are overall goals and they’re aspirational in focus,” Washington said, according to a transcript of his Sept. 17 interview released by the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

Though the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative stemmed from his office, Washington told Congress that faculty in each department developed plans for their unit. He also cast the creation of such plans as optional, telling Congress “if units did not want to develop a plan, they did not have to.”

But the House Judiciary Committee claimed Washington lied about that.

“Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee … show that Dr. Washington and his deputies actively sought to punish schools that did not comply with his racial discrimination mandates,” the committee report states. “A senior GMU official told the Committee that GMU financially punished any school that resisted Dr. Washington’s unconstitutional initiative.”

Congress pointed to testimony from Ken Randall, the dean of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, as evidence that Washington lied about the plan being optional.

“You’d get fired if you didn’t have a plan,” Randall said, according to an interview transcript.

Washington also denied the administration formally reviewed plans to diversify faculty hiring. Republicans accused him of lying about that, too, pointing to internal remarks from then-vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sharnnia Artis (who now has a different title), in which she said the DEI team “consistently reviewed, monitored, and supported” such plans.

“Again, the evidence contradicts Dr. Washington’s testimony,” the report states.

However, Douglas Gansler, a lawyer representing the GMU president sharply disrupted claims that his client lied to Congress, which he accused of carrying out a “political lynching” in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed.

“The political theater of the politicians accusing Dr. Washington of misrepresenting anything to them is unadulterated nonsense. Dr. Washington has never discriminated against anybody for any reason and did not utter one syllable of anything not verifiably completely true,” Gansler wrote.

What Happens Next

The GMU Board of Visitors has said little in the immediate aftermath of the report.

“Today, the Board of Visitors received an interim staff report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. We are reviewing the report and consulting with University counsel and counsel for Dr. Washington,” board members wrote in a brief statement. “The Board remains focused on serving our students, faculty and the Commonwealth, ensuring full compliance with federal law and positioning GMU for continued excellence.”

While the board is reviewing the report, it appears unlikely members would be able to take action against Washington. GMU’s board, which is stocked with GOP donors and political figures appointed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, is currently without a quorum after Virginia Democrats blocked multiple appointments in recent months. Now a legal battle over those blocked appointments is slowly winding its way through the judicial system. While the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last month, it has yet to issue a ruling on the matter. In the meantime, with only six of its 16 seats filled, GMU’s board is hobbled.

Youngkin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

The George Mason chapter of the American Association of University Professors offered a fiery defense of Washington, arguing in a statement the committee was carrying out a politically motivated attack designed to erode institutional autonomy and impose partisan control over the public university.

“The Committee’s unfounded accusations, dependence on clearly compromised sources, and selective presentation of ‘evidence’ represent an unprecedented abuse of congressional power—designed not to find the truth, but to silence leadership that refuses to yield to political pressure,” the GMU-AAUP chapter wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed.

GMU students, employees and community members rallied in support of president Gregory Washington earlier this year, amid concerns the board would fire him.

With Washington under pressure from Congress, state and national Democrats have rallied to his defense, accusing the GOP of waging an ideological war on universities and hypocrisy by focusing on the GMU president’s alleged dishonesty while federal officials brazenly lie in court.

“In Donald Trump’s Gangster State, they pick the target first and figure out the charges later,” House Judiciary Democrats wrote on X. “Today’s target: GMU President Gregory Washington. The Trump Education Department failed to find evidence of employment discrimination at GMU. So [House Judiciary committee] Chairman [Jim] Jordan opened his own investigation. When that one only confirmed Dr. Washington followed Virginia law, Jordan pivoted and conjured up an absurd and convoluted criminal referral based on an alleged lie that takes 8 pages to explain.”

Representative James Walkinshaw—a Democrat in Virginia’s 11th district, which includes GMU—called Washington “an exemplary leader” in a biting statement posted on Bluesky.

“Make no mistake, this is an attack on free speech and academic freedom,” Walkinshaw wrote. “It’s cancel culture at its worst and the American people are tired of right-wing snowflakes like Jim Jordan trying to silence anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to their bizarre MAGA ideology.”

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November 7, 2025
Congress Tackles College Cost Transparency

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, advocated for his own legislation, the College Transparency Act, as potential solution to the issue.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

After passing a sweeping higher ed overhaul in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress now has its sights set on reforming college cost transparency. In a hearing Thursday, members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions questioned experts on how to make college pricing—and how costs compare to student outcomes—more understandable to families.

“You don’t buy a car without comparing prices, quality and finance options. The same is true for buying a home. Why can we not do this for higher ed?” asked Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee and recently issued a request for information about the cost of higher education.

The hearing follows a House hearing in September on the same topic—and including one repeat witness, Justin Draeger, senior vice president of affordability for Strada Education Foundation.

Cost transparency has long been a pain point for both students and institutions, who have attempted to clarify via marketing campaigns, improved price calculator tools and tuition resets that their costs of attendance are often lower than their sticker price would indicate. Students, meanwhile, struggle to find reliable information about the costs of their prospective institutions, leaving them without the financial information they need to decide what institution to attend.

Now, Congressional Republicans are taking notice—and are tying efforts to improve affordability and cost transparency in with their existing focus on the return on investment for students and taxpayers.

At Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers and witnesses alike stressed how little information is available to students about the price of college, with research showing that most students overestimate the price of a public college education. Witnesses also brought up parents’ and families’ confusion about aid offer letters, which the Government Accountability Office has found often understate or fail to include the net price students will actually be paying.

Cassidy stressed the need for transparency as it relates to outcomes and return on investment. Students should be able to compare graduation rates and projected incomes of earning a degree at two different institutions, he said, to give families an accurate picture of what they’re paying for when they pay tuition.

The two Democratic witnesses, meanwhile, argued that college cost transparency is ineffective without also focusing on college affordability—something that is being worsened not only by increasing tuition costs but also by the larger cost-of-living crisis. Nontuition costs, said Mark Huelsman, Director of Policy and Advocacy at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, make up the bulk of the cost of attendance. He added that if student aren’t able to afford food or housing, that can severely impact their ability to succeed in college.

“I urge this committee not just to find ways to increase clarity, but to do everything in its power to lower the price that students pay,” he said.

Bipartisan Solutions?

Legislators pointed toward several potential legislative solutions that they said had support on both sides of the aisle. That list included Cassidy’s College Transparency Act, a bill that would provide more detailed information on costs, academic outcomes and career outcomes of specific programs and majors. Cassidy has championed the bill for years, alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, CTA’s other lead author, but Rep. Virginia Foxx opposed the measure when she led the House education committee. Foxx, who ultimately proposed her own effort to track students’ outcomes, resisted CTA due to privacy concerns. Cassidy noted during the hearing that the bill includes strict data security standards.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, also touted his bill with fellow Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama—the Debt, Earnings, and Cost Information Disclosure for Education Act—which would make changes to the Department of Education’s College Scorecard. It would require the resource to include information on average loan amounts in a given academic program, as well as default rates, how long it takes graduates to pay off their loans and how that debt compares to their earnings.

That information would help prospective students “know exactly what they’re getting themselves into before they make a decision to make a huge, huge investment,” Husted said.

Witnesses enumerated their own cost transparency wish lists.

Draeger said, among other things, that the federal government should regulate financial aid offers to use straightforward and standardized language. Huelsman, on the other hand, argued that the “simplest way, and the most powerful way” to make college costs transparent is to make college tuition- or debt-free. He also said that the Trump administration appears to be working against, not toward, cost transparency in higher ed.

“Many of the bipartisan reforms being discussed today require staffing capacity at the Department of Education that frankly, at this moment, do not exist, including at the Institute for Education Sciences,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration has worked to dismantle the CFPB, which provides oversight and essential information to borrowers, and conducts essential research on the student loan market. Sadly, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act takes us in the wrong direction on both affordability and transparency.”

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November 7, 2025
How the FY25 funding freeze impacts students across America
This press release originally appeared online.

Key points:

Communities across the nation began the budget process for the 2025-2026 school year after Congress passed the FY25 Continuing Resolution on March 14, 2025. Historically, states receive these funds on July 1, enabling them to allocate resources to local districts at the start of the fiscal year.

Even though these funds were approved by Congress, the Administration froze the distribution on June 30. Since that time, AASA, The School Superintendents Association, has advocated for their release, including organizing hundreds of superintendents to meet with offices on the Hill to share information about its impact, the week of July 7.

On July 16, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that Title IV-B or 21st Century funds (afterschool funds) would be released. AASA’s Executive Director issued a statement about the billions of dollars that remain frozen.

To gather more information about the real-world effects on students across America, AASA conducted a survey with its members.

From July 11th to July 18th, AASA received responses from 628 superintendents in 43 states.

Eighty-five percent of respondents said they have existing contracts paid with federal funds that are currently being withheld, and now have to cover those costs with local dollars.

Respondents shared what will be cut to cover this forced cost shift:
- Nearly three out of four respondents said they will have to eliminate academic services for students. The programs include targeted literacy and math coaches, before and after school programming, tutoring, credit recovery, CTE and dual enrollment opportunities.
- Half of respondents reported they will have to lay off teachers and personnel. These personnel include those who work specifically with English-language learners and special education students, as well as staff who provide targeted reading and math interventions to struggling students.
- Half of respondents said they will have to reduce afterschool and extracurricular offerings for students. These programs provide STEM/STEAM opportunities, performing arts and music programs, and AP coursework. 
- Four out of five respondents indicated they will be forced to reduce or eliminate professional development offerings for educators. These funds are used to build teachers’ expertise such as training in the science of reading, teaching math, and the use of AI in the classroom. They are also used to ensure new teachers have the mentors and coaching they need to be successful. 
As federal funding is still being withheld, 23 percent of respondents have been forced to make tough choices about how to reallocate funding, and many districts are rapidly approaching similar inflection points.

Notably, 29 percent of districts indicated that they must have access to these funds by August 1 to avoid cutting critical programs and services for students. Twenty-one percent of districts will have to notify parents and educators about the loss of programs and services by August 15.

Without timely disbursement of funding, the risk of disruption to essential educational supports for children grows significantly.

As one superintendent who completed the survey said, “This isn’t a future problem; it’s happening now. Our budget was set with these funds in mind. Their sudden withholding has thrown us into chaos, forcing drastic measures that will negatively impact every student, classroom, and school in our district. We urgently need these funds released to prevent irreparable harm to our educational programs and ensure our students get the quality education they deserve.” 

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July 24, 2025
Congress Shows Resistance to Trump’s Science Budget Cuts

Researchers and the academic community may have reason to be hopeful about the future of federal funding. Early indications from the appropriations process suggest that both the House and Senate will diverge significantly from the president’s federal budget proposal for science and technology for the next fiscal year.

In May, the White House released its budget proposal that aims to reduce federal research and development funding by nearly a quarter, according to an analysis from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It also proposed eliminating funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Congress still has months of negotiations before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 but, so far, funding for science has received bipartisan support in appropriations meetings—though the House appears more willing to make significant cuts than the Senate.

In a July 10 Senate Appropriations Committee meeting, legislators put forth a cut to the National Science Foundation (NSF) of only $16 million compared to the more than $5 billion proposed by Trump. Four days later, a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee suggested slashing $2 billion—less than half of Trump’s proposal.

Alessandra Zimmermann, budget analyst and senior manager for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s R&D Budget and Policy Program, highlighted in a statement the Senate’s proposal and noted that the House’s over 20 percent proposed cut to NSF is still “a much smaller decrease than the Administration’s initial request.”

“This shows that there is bipartisan support for investing in basic research, and putting the U.S. on track for FY26,” Zimmermann said. “The story of the future of science is still being written, and we appreciate the strong support from Congress.”

The House has also suggested increasing by $160 million funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science—rejecting the White House’s planned 14 percent cut. The House has floated cutting NASA’s Science Mission Directorate by $1.3 billion, or 18 percent, but that’s still better than Trump’s proposal to nearly halve that budget. The House also proposed $288 million for the Fulbright scholarship, a highly selective cultural exchange program that Trump had recommended eliminating.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

Bipartisan Support for R&D

Congressional Republicans have remained in lock step with the second Trump administration. Early grumbles about the One Big Beautiful Bill were silent when the House passed it into law July 3, cutting nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, eliminating a loan program for graduate students and much more.

Still, observers say there is reason for science and research communities to have some optimism that Republicans will step out of line on budget proposals.

“Neither bill goes to the extreme of the president’s budget,” said Debbie Altenburg, vice president of research policy and advocacy at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. “We are pleased that both the House and the Senate have marked up bills that are above what the president called for.”

She noted that Republicans, who want the federal government to have a smaller footprint, control Congress and the White House.

“We will be lucky if we get that flat funding” that senators have proposed, she said.

The House and Senate have to agree on a dozen appropriations bills to pass the federal budget by Sept. 30 or risk a government shutdown.

“It’s a very tense political situation,” she said. “It will be hard for Congress to complete all of these bills by the end of September.”

Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, noted that “this is not the first time that Congress, on science-technology policy issues, has pushed back on the Trump administration.” It happened during Trump’s first term. And, going back to the 1970s and ’80s, research and development “has been a strong bipartisan area of agreement.”

“R&D money goes all over the country,” Pielke said. “… It does kind of have a built-in support structure.”

He said the NSF, which focuses on basic research, may be more insulated from political fights than agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which deals with climate science, and the National Institutes of Health, which deals with vaccines. The congressional appropriations committees haven’t yet indicated what they plan to do with Trump’s proposed 38 percent cut to the NIH.

But, Pielke noted, “in this day and age, everything can be politicized.”

‘Scientific Supremacy’

While House Republicans appear more willing to protect spending for science than the president, Democratic members of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee have criticized the bill. Representative Grace Meng, a New York Democrat and the subcommittee’s ranking member, said a proposed cut to the NSF and NASA “disinvests in the scientific research that drives American innovation, technological leadership and economic competitiveness.”

“As other countries are racing forward in space exploration and climate science, this bill would cause the U.S. to fall behind by cutting NASA’s science account by over $1.3 billion,” Meng said.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee, said the bill “continues Republicans’ senseless attacks on America’s scientific supremacy.”

“They have fired hundreds of scientists, including scientists who monitor extreme weather and who advance our scientific goals in space,” DeLauro said, referencing the mass layoffs at federal research agencies. “Why on Earth are we forfeiting America’s scientific supremacy? What would you do differently if you were America’s adversary and wanted to undermine everything that made us a superpower?”

In the Senate, where Republicans need Democratic support to get to 60 votes to pass their bill, proposed spending cuts have been more modest.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during its July 10 meeting that the NSF and NASA appropriations bill “funds research in critical scientific and technological fields.” She said another appropriations bill “supports much-needed investments in agricultural research in animal and plant health that were requested by nearly every member in this room.”

Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat and ranking member of the Senate committee, said “these compromise bills offer a far better outcome for families back home than the alternatives of either the House or another disastrous CR [continuing resolution].”

She cautioned, though, that rescissions legislation—like the bill passed by Congress last week that claws back $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding–could undermine consensus on a budget.

“We cannot allow bipartisan bills with partisan rescission packages,” she said, asking, “if we start passing partisan cuts to bipartisan deals, how are we ever supposed to work together?”

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July 21, 2025