Tag: demands

  • Education Dept.’s Penn Demands Show Shift in Title IX

    Education Dept.’s Penn Demands Show Shift in Title IX

    The Department of Education’s demands that University of Pennsylvania “restore” swimming awards and honors that had been “misappropriated” to trans women athletes and apologize to the cisgender women who had lost to them offer a glimpse into how the second Trump administration could use Title IX to force certain changes at colleges, experts and attorneys say.

    The demands, issued April 28 in the form of a proposed resolution agreement, would resolve a civil rights investigation that found Penn violated Title IX by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.” The Office for Civil Rights didn’t offer specifics, but officials were likely referring to trans swimmer Lia Thomas, who competed on the university’s women’s team in the 2021–22 academic year.

    Today is the deadline for Penn to either agree to the proposed demands or potentially face consequences. Department officials said they would refer to the case to the Justice Department for possible enforcement—a process that could end with the university losing access to federal funding—if Penn didn’t comply. (Penn has already lost $175 million in federal funding over this issue, though White House officials said that decision was separate from the Office for Civil Rights inquiry.)

    Penn is among several colleges and K-12 schools, including San José State University, facing investigations over policies related to trans athletes, but Penn is the first college to be the target of such public demands. Experts say the speed of the investigation, OCR’s unusual demands and the fact that Penn was in compliance with Title IX at the time Thomas competed there reflect a shift toward a more aggressive use of Title IX to further President Donald Trump’s anti-trans agenda.

    The crazy part of all of this is they may be asking Penn to discriminate in doing so, because the Trump administration has its interpretation, but that’s not definitive.”

    —Brett Sokolow, former president of the Association of Title IX Administrators

    Opposing Interpretations

    The administration’s forceful attack on institutions that have been home to high-profile trans women athletes fits with its overall playbook, which includes using any tools at its disposal to advance Trump’s agenda.

    In the case of trans athletes’ participation in athletics, the weapon of choice is Title IX, the 52-year-old law passed to guarantee women equal opportunity to education, which has since been interpreted as a broad tool to address sex-based discrimination and harassment on campus.

    In recent years, though, the relationship between trans students’ rights and Title IX has become complicated. Those on the left argue that the nature of Title IX is to protect students from gender-based discrimination, and that includes discrimination against trans and nonbinary individuals. (Such protections were included in the Biden administration’s short-lived Title IX regulations.) But those on the right argue that allowing trans women to participate women’s sports and to use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms violates the rights of their cisgender teammates—a perspective the Trump administration squarely aligns with.

    “The previous administration trampled the rights of American women and girls—and ignored the indignities to which they were subjected in bathrooms and locker rooms—to promote a radical transgender ideology,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement when the Penn investigation was first announced.

    For those in the former camp, Trump’s demands of Penn are just another example of the president using any means possible to erode trans people’s rights.

    “The news out of Penn, to me, was just another example of the way they are, unfortunately, using [Title IX] as a battering ram to beat down safe and inclusive school environments for trans students,” said Emma Grasso Levine, senior manager of Title IX policy and programs at Advocates for Youth, a youth sexual health and LGBTQ+ equality advocacy organization.

    Conservative organizations, though, have applauded the proposed resolution agreement, with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that has repeatedly sued to prevent trans women from playing on women’s sports teams and using women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, calling it “another step in the right direction to restore fairness and safety in women’s sports.”

    An Aggressive Tack

    Since taking office in January, Trump has rolled back trans students’ rights, including signing an executive order banning trans student athletes from playing on the teams that align with their gender. That order prompted the Penn investigation, but at the time that Thomas was competing, trans women who met certain requirements related to hormone therapy—as Thomas did—were permitted by the NCAA and governmental regulations to compete on women’s teams.

    The NCAA has since changed that rule. But despite the NCAA’s stance and the executive order, current Title IX regulations do not disallow trans women from playing women’s sports. In fact, the regulations are the exact same set of rules, passed by the first Trump administration in 2020, that were in place when Thomas swam for Penn. This raises the question, experts say, of whether Penn should be penalized under Title IX despite the fact that the institution was following those regulations to the best of its ability.

    “That’s the interesting challenge, and probably where Penn will hang its hat if it fights this: ‘There was an interpretation of Title IX in place at the time that Penn followed. And there’s an interpretation of Title IX that’s different now. How is it fair to impose today’s interpretation of Title IX on a previous time period?’” said Brett Sokolow, former president of the Association of Title IX Administrators and chair of the crisis management consulting and law firm TNG Consulting.

    This is just one element of the aggressive tack the Trump administration appears to be taking against institutions that allowed trans women to play women’s sports. Multiple experts also pointed out the quick, almost dizzying timeline of OCR’s investigation into Penn.

    Timeline of Penn Investigation

    Feb. 5: Trump signs executive order prohibiting trans athletes from playing on teams that match their gender identity.

    Feb. 6: Trump launches investigation into Penn. NCAA ends policy allowing trans athletes to play on teams that match their gender identity.

    March 19: Trump administration pauses $175 million in federal funds to Penn.

    April 28: OCR says Penn violated Title IX and must “restore” swimming honors given to trans women.

    Ordinarily, investigations can take years to conclude—something that has often been a pain point for victims’ rights advocates, who argue that those timelines can seriously impede victims’ ability to complete their studies.

    But OCR launched this investigation within a month of Trump entering office—and just two days after he signed the EO related to trans athletes—and resolved it less than three months later.

    It’s also unusual for OCR to target a specific student with a resolution agreement, Sokolow said; most such agreements are stripped of names and identifying details. Although Thomas is not named in the department’s press release, it does call out her sport, swimming, and there have been no other out trans athletes at Penn.

    “It’s very indicative of this administration—and concerning—that they’re targeting one person and demonizing them,” he said.

    Experts also say the demands marks a sharp contrast from how OCR has resolved such cases in the past. Levine said that the requirements in resolution agreements are meant to “meaningfully impact a culture of sex-based harassment,” but she feels that OCR’s demands wouldn’t do that—if such a culture even exists at Penn.

    Title IX ‘Pendulum Swing’

    If Penn fights the demands, the case could put the war between those who seek to protect trans athletes from discrimination and those who want to see them excised from their sports teams to the test. And until courts settle the question, students and institutions will be in limbo.

    “The crazy part of all of this is they may be asking Penn to discriminate in doing so, because the Trump administration has its interpretation, but that’s not definitive,” Sokolow said. “It does not have the force of law. If a court were to rule on this that Lia Thomas had rightfully won whatever competition the Trump administration is concerned about, any move to force to Penn to remove those victories could be discriminatory against a person who’s trans.”

    Lia Thomas, a swimmer at University of Pennsylvania, left, and Riley Gaines of the University of Kentucky tied for fifth place in the 200 freestyle at the NCAA swimming championships in March 2022.

    Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty Images

    Patricia Hamill, co-chair of the Title IX and campus discipline practice at Clark Hill, a Washington law firm, told Inside Higher Ed via email that the case “highlights the pendulum swing of Title IX in its enforcement and interpretation as well as in the government priorities over the last decade. Institutions are continuously being challenged on how to best to handle these very difficult situations on ground that continues to shift both because of Administration changes but also because of societal changes.”

    Penn had not publicly commented on the proposed resolution agreement as of Wednesday evening. When news broke that the government was suspending its federal funds, Penn officials stressed in a statement that its “athletic programs have always operated within the framework provided by the federal government, the NCAA and our conference.”

    Title IX experts expect that if the university does challenge the proposed agreement in court, it will focus on that very argument—that when Thomas was competing on Penn’s swim team, the university was, in fact, complying with NCAA rules and the department’s guidance.

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  • Demands of Harvard Are Blueprint for Repression (opinion)

    Demands of Harvard Are Blueprint for Repression (opinion)

    Harvard University’s courageous refusal to obey the demands of the Trump administration—and its subsequent filing of a lawsuit this week seeking restoration of its federal funding—has inspired praise across academia. But there has been less attention to just how terrible those demands were. No government entity in the United States has ever proposed such repressive measures against a college. By making outrageous demands a condition of federal funding—and freezing $2.2 billion in funds because Harvard refused to obey—the Trump administration is setting a precedent for threatening the same authoritarian measures against every college in America.

    The April 11 letter to Harvard from Trump administration officials proposed a staggering level of control over a private college. Although at least one of the authors reported that the letter was sent in error while negotiations were still ongoing, this mistake didn’t stop the Trump administration from punishing Harvard for refusing to accept its dictates.

    After Harvard rejected the demands, Trump himself posted further threats to Harvard’s tax-exempt status on social media, even though federal law bars presidents from directly or indirectly requesting Internal Revenue Service investigations against specific targets: “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’” Of course, if Harvard obeyed the Trump regime’s orders to silence political speech, it would be pushing a right-wing ideological agenda.

    Among the stipulations in the April 11 letter, the Trump administration demanded the power to compel hiring based on political views to, in effect, give almost complete preference to political conservatives: “Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity.” Since most people who enter academia are liberal, as are most current academics, this demand for ideological balance would effectively ban the hiring of liberal professors in virtually all departments for many years.

    Decisions on how to measure the presence or lack of viewpoint diversity would be made by “an external party” hired by Harvard with the approval of the federal government (meaning Trump). Government-imposed discrimination based on viewpoint would also apply to students, since the letter requires the “external party … to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.” If every department “must be individually viewpoint diverse,” then students with underrepresented viewpoints (Nazis, perhaps?) must receive special preferences in admissions. This concept that every department’s students, faculty and staff must match the distribution of viewpoints of the general population is both repressive and crazy to imagine.

    The Trump administration letter also ordered Harvard to commission a Trump-approved consultant to report on “individual faculty members” who “incited students to violate Harvard’s rules following October 7”—and asserted that Harvard must “cooperate” with the federal government to “determine appropriate sanctions” for these professors. Retroactively punishing professors who violated no rules for allegedly encouraging student protesters is an extraordinary abuse of government power.

    Not to stop there, the Trump administration letter seeks to suppress the right to protest: “Discipline at Harvard must include immediate intervention and stoppage of disruptions … including by the Harvard police when necessary to stop a disruption.” Since the Trump administration seems to regard every protest as a “disruption” (and Harvard itself has wrongly banned silent protests), this could require immediate police intervention to stop a broad range of actions.

    The Trump administration also demanded unprecedented control over Harvard’s disciplinary system to order punishments of student protesters without due process. Among other specific steps, the Trump administration ordered Harvard to ban five specific student groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine and the National Lawyers Guild, and “discipline” all “active members of those student organizations,” including by banning them from serving as officers in any other student groups. And Harvard would be compelled to implement government-imposed punishments by “permanently expelling the students involved in the October 18 assault of an Israeli Harvard Business School student and suspending students involved in occupying university buildings.”

    Shared governance is another target of Trump and his minions. The Trump administration’s demands for Harvard included “reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty” and “reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship.” It’s bizarre to imagine that a university could be forced by the government to determine whether a professor is committed to “activism” before banning them from any position of power such as a department chair or committee member. The letter also demands “removing or reforming institutional bodies and practices that delay and obstruct enforcement [of campus rules governing protests], including the relevant Administrative Boards and FAS Faculty Council.”

    Not surprisingly, the Trump administration’s letter also demands a complete ban on diversity programs: “The University must immediately shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name.” This repression not only interferes with the ability of universities to run their own operations, but it is also designed to suppress speech on a massive scale by banning all programs anywhere in the university that address issues of diversity and equity, with no exceptions for academic programs.

    There’s more. Harvard would be forced to share “all hiring and related data” to permit endless ideological “audits.” A requirement that “all existing and prospective faculty shall be reviewed for plagiarism” could be used to purge controversial faculty. Perhaps the most ironic part of the letter to Harvard is its command for ideological control over foreign students: “the University must reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.” Trump’s regime is undermining the Constitution and shredding the Bill of Rights, while demanding that foreign students prove their devotion to the very documents that the Trump administration is destroying.

    The Trump administration’s letter to Harvard should shock and appall even those conservatives who previously expressed some sympathy with the desire to punish elite universities by any means necessary. This is fascism, pure and simple. It portends an effort to assert total government control over all public and private universities to compel them to obey orders about their hiring, admissions, discipline and other policies. It is an attempt to control virtually every aspect of colleges to suppress free expression, ban protests and impose a far-right agenda.

    It’s tempting to hope that the Trump administration merely wanted to target Harvard alone and freeze its funding by proposing a long series of absurdly evil demands, knowing that no college could possibly agree to obey.

    But the reality is that the letter to Harvard is a fascist blueprint for total control of all colleges in America, public and private. The demand for authoritarian control by the Trump administration is an assault on higher education and free speech in general. If Trump officials can impose repression on any college they target, then private corporations (as the assaults on private law firms have indicated) and state and local governments will soon follow.

    The government repression that began with Columbia University will not end with Harvard or the Ivy League institutions. These are the first volleys in a war against academic freedom, with the clear aim of suppressing free expression on campus or destroying colleges in the battle.

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  • Federal Education Cuts and Trump DEI Demands Leave States, Teachers in Limbo – The 74

    Federal Education Cuts and Trump DEI Demands Leave States, Teachers in Limbo – The 74


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    Early this month, the U.S. Department of Education issued an ultimatum to K-12 public schools and state education agencies: Certify that you are not engaging in discrimination under the banner of diversity, equity and inclusion, or risk losing federal funding — including billions in support for low-income students.

    The backlash was immediate. Some states with Democratic governors refused to comply, arguing that the directive lacks legal basis, fails to clearly define what constitutes “illegal DEI practices,” and threatens vital equity-based initiatives in their schools.

    After lawsuits from the National Education Association teachers union and the American Civil Liberties Union, the Department of Education agreed to delay enforcement until after April 24.

    But states across the country, both liberal- and conservative-led, are worried about losing other aid: the pandemic-era money that in some cases they’ve already spent or committed to spending.

    The Department of Education has long played a critical role in distributing federal funds to states for K-12 education, including Title I grants to boost staffing in schools with high percentages of low-income students, and emergency relief like that provided during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Conservative-led states — particularly Mississippi, South Dakota and Arkansas — rely the most heavily on these funds to sustain services in high-need districts.

    The 15 states with the highest percentage of their K-12 budget coming from federal funding in fiscal year 2022 — the latest year with data available from the National Center for Education Statistics — voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Similarly, 10 of the 15 states receiving the highest amounts of Title I funding in fiscal year 2024 also voted for Trump.

    Mississippi and Kentucky have sent letters to the Department of Education expressing concern over halted pandemic aid.

    The clash over federal funding comes even as the future of the Department of Education is murky, given President Donald Trump’s pledge to dismantle the department.

    DEI-related cuts

    In letters to the Department of Education, state officials and superintendents in Illinois, New York and Wisconsin pushed back against the DEI directive.

    New York officials said they would not provide additional certification beyond what the state already has done, asserting that there “are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.” Illinois Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote that he was concerned that the Department of Education was changing the conditions of federal funding without a formal administrative process. Wisconsin Superintendent Jill Underly questioned the legality of the order.

    New York State Department of Education Counsel and Deputy Commissioner Daniel Morton-Bentley noted that the federal department’s current stance on DEI starkly contrasts with its position during Trump’s first term, when then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos supported such efforts.

    Colorado and California also confirmed they would not comply with the Department of Education’s order.

    While some states with liberal leaders are gearing up for legal battles and possible revocation of funding, conservative-led states such as Florida have embraced the federal directive as part of a broader push to reshape public education.

    In Florida, anti-DEI laws have been in place dating back to 2023. In fact, many school districts and the state education department say they plan to follow the federal department’s directives, noting the similar state laws.

    Pandemic aid cancellations

    In March, the Department of Education abruptly rescinded previously approved extensions of pandemic-era aid, ending access to funds months ahead of the original March 2026 deadline.

    When the Massachusetts governor’s office voiced concern over that decision, the federal department’s reply on social media was blunt: “COVID is over.”

    Sixteen mostly Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education and Secretary Linda McMahon, challenging the abrupt rescission of previously approved extensions for spending COVID-19 education relief funds.

    But backlash against abrupt federal cuts to education has not been limited to blue states.

    Mississippi’s Department of Education warned the cuts would jeopardize more than $137 million in already obligated funds, slated for literacy initiatives, mental health services and infrastructure repairs. “The impact of this sudden reversal is detrimental to Mississippi students,” state Superintendent Lance Evans wrote in a letter to McMahon.

    The letter also outlines the state’s repeated — but unsuccessful — efforts to draw down millions in approved funds since February.

    Shanderia Minor, a spokesperson for the Mississippi education department, told Stateline the agency is awaiting next steps and direction about the funds and federal directives.

    In Kentucky, state Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher told districts — which stand to lose tens of millions in pandemic aid — that abrupt federal changes leave them “in a difficult position,” with schools already having committed funds to teacher training and facility upgrades.

    According to Kentucky Department of Education spokesperson Jennifer Ginn, the state has about $18 million in unspent pandemic aid funds left to distribute to districts. And districts have about $38 million in unspent funds, for a total $56 million that could be lost.

    Lauren Farrow, a former Florida public school teacher, told Stateline that schools that receive Title I money are already underfunded — and the federal threat only widens the gap.

    “Florida is pouring billions into education — but where is it going? Because we’re not seeing it in schools, especially not in Title I schools,” said Farrow. “I taught five minutes away from a wealthier school, and we didn’t even have pencils. Teachers were buying shoes for students. Why is that still happening?”

    Effects in the classroom

    Tafshier Cosby, senior director of the Center for Organizing and Partnerships at the National Parents Union, a parents advocacy group, told Stateline that while most families don’t fully understand the various school funding systems, they feel the impact of cuts in the classroom.

    Cosby said parents are worried about the loss of support services for students with disabilities, Title I impacts, and how debates about DEI may deflect from more urgent needs like literacy and teacher support.

    “We’ve been clear: DEI isn’t the federal government’s role — it’s up to states,” she said. “But the confusion is real. And the impact could be devastating.”

    Today, as a consultant working with teachers across Florida’s Orange County Public Schools — one of the largest districts in the country — Farrow says many educators are fearful and confused about how to support their students under changing DEI laws.

    “Teachers are asking, ‘Does this mean I can’t seat a student with glasses at the front of the room anymore?’ There’s so much fear around what we’re allowed to do now.”

    “There’s no one giving teachers guidance or even basic acknowledgment. We’re just left wondering what we’re allowed to say or do — and that’s dangerous.”

    Amanda Hernández contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

    Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.


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  • Harvard stands firm, rejects Trump administration’s unconstitutional demands

    Harvard stands firm, rejects Trump administration’s unconstitutional demands

    Last Friday, three federal agencies sent a demand letter to Harvard University laying out conditions for the university to continue receiving federal funds. The letter is unprecedented in its scope. It would essentially render Harvard a vassal institution, subjecting much of its corporate and academic governance to federal directives. 

    If Harvard acceded to these demands, faculty hiring, student admissions, student and faculty disciplinary procedures, university programming decisions, student group recognition processes, and much more would be transformed to align with the government’s ideological preferences.

    Among other things, the university would be required to:

    • Abolish ideological litmus tests in hiring and admissions practices and take steps to ensure viewpoint diversity in the faculty and student body. How Harvard can take both steps simultaneously and also commit to merit-based hiring and admissions, another directive, is unclear. FIRE opposes ideological litmus tests, but you can’t abolish them by trading one litmus test for another.
    • Deny admission to international students who are “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.” These values go undefined. And, as any historian or Supreme Court observer would know, they’re subject to intense debate and varied interpretations. Ironically, this is also an ideological litmus test of the sort prohibited by the directive that Harvard abolish such tests.
    • Audit certain disfavored academic departments. The mandatory audit would include investigations into individual faculty members and would require Harvard to work hand in glove with the government to sanction faculty members who allegedly engaged in anti-Semitic discrimination or otherwise “incited students to violate Harvard’s rules.” The federal government’s definition of anti-Semitism incorporates the IHRA definition, which Harvard recently adopted and FIRE has long criticized as violating First Amendment standards.
    • Discontinue DEI. This would include shuttering all “programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives” relating to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” These terms also go undefined in the letter, and while FIRE has been critical of many university DEI programs for their tendency to chill and censor speech, not all of them do, and many programs are within a university’s prerogative to create. This is especially true at private institutions.
    • Reform student disciplinary processes and procedures. The letter demands Harvard not fund or recognize any student group that “endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment.” This amounts to a federal requirement of viewpoint discrimination. While many would find these categories of speech abhorrent, the categories go undefined and would nevertheless be protected by the First Amendment so long as the speech stays confined to endorsement and promotion and the student groups do not themselves engage in any criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment. The letter also identifies specific student groups that must lose recognition and funding.
    • Implement a comprehensive mask ban. Masks can be used by criminals to commit crimes, the sick to stay healthy, and, yes, protesters to remain anonymous. A blanket mask ban is an overbroad requirement that infringes on individuals’ constitutional right to anonymous speech.
    • Risk double jeopardy. The letter demands that Harvard “carry out meaningful discipline for all violations that occurred during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years.” To the extent any student was already tried for these alleged violations, this requirement would amount to “double jeopardy,” violating the venerated and centuries-old principle of fundamental fairness, enshrined in the Fifth Amendment, that says no individual should be tried for the same infraction twice.
    • Generally reform corporate governance structure and practices, including by “reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty” in its current structure. How Harvard governs its academic programs, and who should have a say in that governance, is up to Harvard, not the federal government. The First Amendment and basic principles of academic freedom require no less.

    In addition to these demands, the university would be required to undergo frequent and highly intrusive audits to ensure compliance. In short, the federal government would effectively serve as president and provost of Harvard University.

    The ostensible justification for these demands stems from the government’s belief that Harvard has allowed for a hostile environment for Jewish students in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. But federal law also dictates specific procedures for adjudicating alleged noncompliance — procedures the government circumvented here. 

    If allowed to stand, the government could revoke federal funding from any institution regardless of the merit of the government’s allegations. This processless approach is a loaded gun for partisan administrations to target institutions and individuals that dissent from administration policies and priorities.

    What Harvard does — for better or worse — others follow. Those of us who support free inquiry, academic freedom, and fair procedures on campus — not to mention institutional autonomy — can hope that maybe its action will inspire other institutions to grow a backbone.

    It’s true that institutions take federal funding voluntarily. But it’s also true that the government cannot condition federal funding on institutions giving up their autonomy and constitutional rights. A requirement that Harvard relinquish its authority to guide core academic programs certainly violates its free speech and academic freedom rights, as well as those of its students and faculty.

    It’s also true that Harvard doesn’t have clean hands. For the past two years, it has sat at the bottom of FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings, and it may well have violated Title VI by failing to meaningfully respond to conduct creating a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus. But just as with individuals, we don’t punish institutions based on allegations alone. And we cannot restore free speech with censorship.

    This isn’t the first time FIRE has objected to a presidential administration using federal civil rights law to violate rights. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, the federal government weaponized Title IX to erode campus due process and free speech protections. The fight over the Obama/Biden rules lasted over a decade, and has been largely resolved (for now) in court and with President Trump’s Department of Education promulgating federal rules that protect free speech and due process rights in campus sexual misconduct investigations.

    That’s why we’re deeply concerned that the administration doesn’t recognize that what was wrong and unlawful in the Title IX context is also wrong and unlawful in the Title VI context. Indeed, these federal requirements go even further than what we saw in the Title IX context.

    Fortunately, Harvard is fighting back. Yesterday, Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in an open letter:

    The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.

    Garber’s response didn’t sit well with the federal government, which soon announced it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants to the university. The fight will continue.

    What Harvard does — for better or worse — others follow. Those of us who support free inquiry, academic freedom, and fair procedures on campus — not to mention institutional autonomy — can hope that maybe its action will inspire other institutions to grow a backbone.

    There is some evidence of that already. On the same day Harvard announced it was rejecting the administration’s demands, Columbia University’s new acting president announced Columbia would not agree to any federal demands that “require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution.”

    In addition to Columbia, the administration also froze grants at Cornell University and Northwestern University and is investigating nearly 60 other universities.

    Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. Until more universities stand alongside Harvard in opposing the government’s unconstitutional demands, we can be sure these demands won’t be the last.

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  • Harvard Resists Trump’s Demands

    Harvard Resists Trump’s Demands

    Protesters in Cambridge urged Harvard to resist Trump’s demands at a Saturday rally.

    Erin Clark/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

    Harvard University is pushing back on demands from the Trump administration calling for a long list of institutional reforms in response to alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations on campus.

    Nearly $9 billion in federal contracts and grants hang in the balance at the institution amid a review the administration announced last month, alleging the university has mishandled instances of antisemitic harassment on campus.

    President Alan Garber said Monday that the institution will not accept the administration’s agreement, writing that Harvard “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

    Hours later, the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a freeze on $2.2 billion in multiyear grant funding for the institution and $60 million in multiyear contracts.

    The Trump administration presented Harvard with at least two demand letters, the first on April 3 and another on Friday. The letters call for changes to governance, hiring and admissions, a ban on masks, and more, including greater scrutiny of international applicants to exclude “students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,” according to one letter.

    “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment. But we appreciate your expression of commitment to repairing those failures and welcome your collaboration in restoring the University to its promise,” top officials at the General Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wrote in Friday’s letter to Harvard leadership.

    Friday’s letter also called for a mask ban; a shutdown of all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and the reformation of multiple programs “with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.” Targets include Harvard’s Divinity School, Graduate School of Education, School of Public Health, Medical School, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic and several others.

    The administration also called for the university to “commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.”

    In a public letter to the Harvard community, Garber rejected the sweeping demands.

    “Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to ‘maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.’ It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner,” Garber wrote. “Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”

    Garber’s letter rejecting Trump’s demands also included a link to the legal response sent to the federal government, which noted changes to campus policies and “new accountability procedures” introduced at the university over the course of the last 15 months.

    “It is unfortunate, then, that your letter disregards Harvard’s efforts and instead presents demands that, in contravention of the First Amendment, invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court,” lawyers representing the university wrote in response.

    In addition to freezing more than $2 billion in federal funding, the joint task force responded to the institution’s rejection, saying, “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges—that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”

    Harvard’s pushback is a rare repudiation of Trump from an individual institution. While various associations and faculty groups have spoken up on the federal government’s attacks on higher education, most college presidents have been silent, even at targeted institutions. (Only a few, such as Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, have publicly expressed concerns.)

    Last month Columbia University yielded to a sweeping list of similar demands, despite concerns by various legal scholars, as the Trump administration froze $400 million in federal research funding. Since then, Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong has stepped down and the U.S. National Institutes of Health have frozen another $250 million in funding, despite the agreement. While Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said Columbia is on the “right track” to restore funding, that hasn’t happened yet, and the federal government is reportedly seeking more oversight.

    Dozens of colleges across the nation—including others in the Ivy League—are also facing investigations into alleged antisemitism and other issues, including race-based programs or scholarships and the participation of transgender athletes in intercollegiate athletics.

    Universities that have had their federal funding targeted include Cornell University (more than $1 billion), Northwestern University ($790 million), Brown University ($510 million), Princeton University ($210 million) and the University of Pennsylvania ($175 million).

    Harvard’s rebuttal to the federal government comes as the university plans to issue $750 million in bonds, which a spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed was “part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” Princeton is also issuing $320 million in bonds this spring.

    Harvard faculty have also taken legal action against the Trump administration.

    The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday alleging that the review of Harvard’s funds was an illegal exploitation of the Civil Rights Act and an effort to impose political views upon the institution.

    The lawsuit alleged that the Trump administration’s “unlawful actions have already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting academic research and inquiry at Harvard, including in areas that have no relation whatsoever to charges of antisemitism or other civil rights violations.”

    Harvard’s AAUP chapter also signed a lawsuit last month with other faculty groups pushing back on the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest and deport pro-Palestinian student activists.

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  • Trump Sets Demands Harvard Must Meet to Regain Federal Funds

    Trump Sets Demands Harvard Must Meet to Regain Federal Funds

    The Trump administration presented Harvard University with a letter Thursday outlining “immediate next steps” the institution must take in order to have a “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” The Boston Globe reported and Inside Higher Ed confirmed.

    The ultimatum came just three days after the president’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism notified the university it had been placed under review for its alleged failure to protect Jewish students and faculty from discrimination. If the case follows the precedent set at other universities, Harvard and its affiliate medical institutions could lose up to $9 billion in federal grants and contracts if they do not comply.

    Sources say the move is driven less by true concern about antisemitism on campus than by the government’s desire to abolish diversity efforts and hobble higher ed institutions it deems too “woke.” This week alone, the administration has retracted funds from Brown and Princeton Universities. Before that, it targeted the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University and opened dozens of civil rights investigations at other colleges, all of which are ongoing.

    Many of the task force’s demands for Harvard mirror those presented to Columbia last month, including mandates to reform antisemitism accountability programs on campus, ban masks for nonmedical purposes, review certain academic departments and reshape admissions policies. The main difference: Columbia’s letter targeted specific departments and programs, while Harvard’s was broader.

    For example, while the letter received by Columbia called for one specific Middle Eastern studies department to be placed under receivership, Harvard’s letter called more generally for “oversight and accountability for biased programs [and departments] that fuel antisemitism.”

    Inside Higher Ed requested a copy of the letter from Harvard, which declined to send it but confirmed that they had received it. Inside Higher Ed later received a copy from a different source.

    Some higher education advocates speculate that the Trump administration’s latest demands were deliberately vague in the hopes that colleges will overcomply.

    “What I’ve learned from various experiences with higher ed law is that it’s unusual to be general in legal documents,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement for the American Council on Education. Trump’s “open-ended” letter “starts to look like a fishing expedition,” he added. “‘We want you to throw everything open to us so that we get to determine how you do this.’”

    But conservative higher ed analysts believe the demands—even when broadened—are justified.

    “Many of these are extremely reasonable—restricting demonstrations inside academic buildings, requiring participants and demonstrations to identify themselves when asked, committing to antidiscrimination policies, intellectual diversity and institutional neutrality,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

    Still, he raised questions about how certain mandates in the letter will be enforced.

    “When you see this in the context of the federal government trying to use funding as a lever to force some of these reforms, that’s where one might raise some legitimate concern,” he said. “For instance, trying to ensure viewpoint diversity is a very laudable goal, but if the federal government is trying to … decide what constitutes viewpoint diversity, there is a case to be made that that is a violation of the First Amendment.”

    What Does the Letter Say?

    The demands made of Harvard Thursday largely target the same aspects of higher ed that Trump has focused on since taking office in January.

    Some center on pro-Palestinian protests, like the requirements to hold allegedly antisemitic programs accountable, reform discipline procedures and review all “antisemitic rule violations” since Oct. 7, 2023.

    Others focus on enforcing Trump’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on affirmative action; the university must make “durable” merit-based changes to its admissions and hiring practices and shut down all diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the administration believes promote making “snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes.”

    The letter was signed by the same three task force members who signed Columbia’s demand letter: Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service; Sean Keveney, acting general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services; and Thomas Wheeler, acting general counsel for the Department of Education.

    The most notable difference in Harvard’s letter is that the task force is demanding “full cooperation” with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That department and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have been arresting and revoking visas from international students and scholars who, the government says, are supporting terrorist groups by participating in pro-Palestinian protests.

    Will Harvard Capitulate?

    Harvard already appears to be taking steps to comply. On Wednesday, the university put a pro-Palestinian student group on probation. The week before, a dean removed two top leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, which has been accused of biased teaching about Israel.

    A letter to the campus community from university president Alan Garber also suggested capitulation is likely.

    “If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation,” Garber wrote following the task force’s review. “We will engage with members of the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism.”

    But Fansmith noted such actions may not be enough to predict whether Harvard will fully acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands.

    “If you look at all of these institutions over the last two years, they’ve been making a number of changes in policies, procedures, personnel and everything else,” he said. “And a lot of that was happening and was at pace before this administration took office and started sending letters.”

    Harvard was one of the first three universities that the House Committee on Education and the Workforce grilled about antisemitism on campus in December 2023. Shortly after, then-president Claudine Gay—the first Black woman to lead Harvard—resigned. The university has since been working to make changes at the campus level.

    Both Fansmith and Cooper pointed to Trump’s mandates regarding curriculum as the most likely to face opposition, as was the case at Columbia.

    A little over a week after the Trump administration laid out its ultimatum, Columbia capitulated and agreed to all but one demand: The university refused to put its department of Middle Eastern studies into receivership, a form of academic probation that involves hiring an outside department chair. Instead, it placed the department under internal review and announced it would hire a new senior vice provost to oversee the academic program.

    “You need to be making sure that Jewish students are not subject to harassment,” Cooper said. But “where that crosses the line is if the federal government is telling the universities … ‘this is how you have to appoint somebody to put an academic department into receivership,’ as was the original demand made of Columbia.”

    Regardless of how Harvard responds, one thing seems likely: There are more funding freezes to come.

    “A lot of folks were expecting Columbia to file a legal challenge, and when that didn’t happen, that might have emboldened the administration a bit to go after some of these other institutions,” Cooper said. But sooner than later, “one of these institutions might say, ‘We’re not going to make the reforms.’”

    “I don’t have a great guess as to which institution that will be,” he added, “but I would expect we probably will see a lawsuit at some point.”

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  • Columbia Agrees to Trump’s Demands

    Columbia Agrees to Trump’s Demands

    Acquiescing to demands from the Trump administration to address alleged antisemitism on campus, Columbia University has agreed to overhaul disciplinary processes, ban masks at protests, add 36 officers with the authority to make arrests and appoint a new senior vice provost to oversee academic programs focused on the Middle East, among other changes.

    The decision, announced Friday afternoon, is the latest move in Columbia’s ongoing face-off with the federal government over last year’s pro-Palestinian protests, which spawned the nationwide encampment movement. Columbia yielded despite concerns about the legality of the demands, as well as of an associated effort by the Trump administration to strip the university of $400 million in research funding.

    “We have worked hard to address the legitimate concerns raised both from within and without our Columbia community, including by our regulators, with respect to the discrimination, harassment, and antisemitic acts our Jewish community has faced in the wake of October 7, 2023,” university officials said in a Friday statement.

    The acknowledgment is a rare admission of antisemitism on campus, despite the fact that a Title VI investigation by the Department of Education has not yet been completed.

    Columbia announced additional efforts that the Trump administration didn’t request, including advancing the university’s Tel Aviv Center (though initial details are sparse) and creating a K-12 curriculum “focused on topics such as how to have difficult conversations, create classrooms that foster open inquiry, dialogue across difference and topics related to antisemitism.” That curriculum will be free for schools.

    Columbia did not place the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies Department into “academic receivership” for a minimum of five years, as the Trump administration demanded, but the parties appeared to reach a compromise. A new senior vice provost will review a broader range of programs, expanding beyond the department targeted by Trump to include “the Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; the Middle East Institute; the Tel Aviv and Amman global hubs; [and] the School of International and Public Affairs Middle East Policy major,” according to the university.

    The new senior provost, who has not yet been named, will review programs “to ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced” and evaluate “all aspects of leadership and curriculum” among other changes, which may include academic restructuring.

    The full list of changes can be found here.

    Interim president Katrina Armstrong announced the move in a statement titled “Sharing Progress on Our Priorities,” calling it “a privilege to share our progress and plans” after a difficult year of protests and scrutiny.

    “At all times, we are guided by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open inquiry, and respect for all at the fore of every decision we make,” Armstrong wrote in the message posted Friday afternoon, which she signed, “Standing together for Columbia.”

    Critics, however, have argued that yielding to the Trump administration undermines academic freedom and urged Columbia to fight the demands.

    Legal scholars at Columbia and in conservative circles have noted that the Trump administration’s demands were likely unlawful. However, it seemed the university had no desire for a protracted legal fight.

    After the news broke—first reported by The Wall Street Journal—many critics panned the move.

    In a Friday press call, American Association of University Professors President Todd Wolfson blasted Columbia for failing to stand up to Trump.

    “This is not the outcome we wanted to see we wanted to see Columbia stand up for their rights for academic freedom and freedom of speech on their campus and we did not expect for them to not only capitulate to the demands of the federal government but actually go beyond the initial demands as far as we can tell,” Wolfson said.

    “This is an unprecedented intervention into academic freedom—never before in Columbia’s 250+ years has the federal government tried to exert control over a department before. And Trump et al. are only getting started,” Columbia history professor Karl Jacoby wrote on Bluesky.

    Outside experts pointed to the likelihood that more universities will give in to Trump’s threats now that Columbia has yielded.

    “Trump gets exactly what he wants from Columbia. Next up: most of the big-name institutions in American higher education. This is a turning point in the history of our industry,” Robert Kelchen, a professor of education and head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, wrote in a Bluesky post.

    (Ryan Quinn contributed to this report.)

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  • Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

    Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

    The American Association of University Professors chapter at Columbia University is urging officials there to reject the Trump administration’s demands, which include putting an academic department under receivership, abolishing the University Judicial Board and giving security employees arrest authority.

    “Compliance would make Columbia complicit in its own destruction, stripping shared control of academic and student affairs from the faculty and administration and replacing the deliberative practices and structures of the university with peremptory fiats from outside the institution,” the AAUP chapter said in a statement Tuesday. “We see no evidence that compliance would assuage the hostility of the White House.”

    The Trump administration announced March 7 it was canceling about $400 million in federal grants and contracts for Columbia due to what it claims is the university’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Then, in a letter last week, federal officials listed “next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” They set a March 20 deadline for complying with the demands, which also include a mask ban, a plan for changing admissions and more.

    The Columbia AAUP’s statement said, “The government’s demands read like a ransom letter, dictating to the university what principles it must sacrifice and what ideological positions it must adopt to restore research funding.” As for the justification of fighting antisemitism, the AAUP chapter said the university took “many actions over the last year to accommodate its Jewish students, sometimes at the expense of the grievances of other campus groups.”

    The AAUP chapter said this “assault on Columbia will serve as a model for attacks on other universities across the nation” and urged colleagues to speak out and “march in the streets.”

    The White House didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday.

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  • Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

    Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

    If Columbia University wants a financial relationship with the federal government, the Ivy League institution will need to overhaul its discipline process, ban masks, expel some students, put an academic department under review, give its campus security “full law enforcement authority” and reform its admissions practices.

    Those are just some of the sweeping and unprecedented demands the Trump administration made Thursday in a letter to the Manhattan-based institution. They come less than a week after the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts at the university. Columbia has until March 20 to respond.

    “We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,” three Trump officials wrote. “After which we hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”

    The demands escalate an already precarious situation for Columbia as it simultaneously faces pressure from the White House to comply and pressure from students and faculty to fight back.

    “We are in a state of shock and disbelief, and we are working with our administration to … reaffirm free speech and shared governance on campus, and to resist all Trump efforts to take academic decisions out of the hands of academics,” said Jean Howard, a member of the executive committee of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “Our administration has been cautious in dealing with Trump up to now. We’re hoping they will take a more aggressive posture in the future.”

    A Columbia spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that officials are reviewing the letter but didn’t say Friday whether the university will comply with the demands. Several free speech and higher ed policy experts say the letter amounts to an unprecedented assault on higher education that could threaten foundational principles such as academic freedom. The demands, which don’t appear rooted in any specific legal authority, also offer yet another hint at how President Trump could reshape higher education.

    “The subjugation of universities to official power is a hallmark of autocracy,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, said in a statement. “No one should be under any illusions about what’s going on here.”

    But the Trump administration says canceling the grants and contracts is necessary due to Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” In the letter, officials said that the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence.”

    Building Tensions

    Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, criticized the letter as an “outrageous” example of “extreme federal overreach,” adding that institutional autonomy is a critical part of American higher education.

    “It’s perfectly reasonable for the federal government to hold all of those institutions accountable to civil rights laws, and we expect that,” he said. “But for the government to prescribe changes in academic structure, changes essentially in curriculum and to curtail research, that’s beyond the pale.”

    One of the letter’s 12 demands is for Columbia to put its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under academic receivership for at least five years. This would mean that faculty lose control of the department and the university puts an outside chair in charge. The letter didn’t specify why officials focused on this particular department. But it’s worth noting the academic division is home to Joseph Massad, a controversial tenured professor whom lawmakers have accused of making anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements over the years.

    Federal scrutiny of colleges and universities, especially by Republicans, ratcheted up after the wave of pro-Palestinian protests in fall 2023 and spring 2024. But the Trump administration has only added to the pressure on colleges since it took office in January, quickly moving to cut funding to programs and institutions seemingly at odds with the president’s priorities.

    Columbia has been at the epicenter of the scrutiny, particularly after an encampment popped up on the small Manhattan campus’s central lawn last April. The protests culminated in early May, when students occupied a campus building and New York City police officers eventually stormed the hall, arresting those inside.

    Although other colleges faced protests and were accused of mishandling reports of antisemitic harassment and discrimination, Columbia took a hard line with protesters and was one of the few to bring in law enforcement. But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from targeting the university, nor has it led Columbia to draw a line and start fighting back.

    On Thursday, the same day the letter was sent, Columbia handed down student sanctions related to the building occupation. The sentences ranged from multiyear suspensions and expulsions to temporary degree revocations for graduates.

    Professors and other experts have warned that federal scrutiny—including high-profile grillings and subpoenas from Capitol Hill—could have damaging consequences for colleges. But alarm escalated significantly last week when the Trump administration bypassed the typical investigation process for civil rights violations and slashed Columbia’s access to grants and contracts.

    The cuts, made by Trump’s novel multidepartment antisemitism task force, are the first but likely not the last.

    The task force has already said at least 10 other universities are under review, including Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights is investigating allegations related to antisemitism at at least 60 colleges.

    Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, said Columbia needs to reject the demands and other universities need to speak up now in defense of higher education. If left on its own, Columbia could fail to defend itself, he said.

    “Other universities have an imperative to come to the defense of Columbia, because this is not just about Columbia,” Enos said. “The Trump administration is trying to attack all of higher education, and Columbia cannot try to mount a defense on its own.”

    Frustrations Abound

    Outside policy analysts and scholars on both sides of the political spectrum are frustrated with the situation—but for different reasons.

    Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, described Columbia’s handling of antisemitism on campus over the course of the past year as “egregious” and a “clear violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity or national origin. But at the same time, he said the Trump administration’s unclear process for determining a remedy is problematic.

    “Some of the things on the list I find pretty facially plausible. Others require a much higher standard of justification,” he said. “But because they have not been transparent and … there has not been any back-and-forth, there has not been a proper demonstration of the misconduct, which would be necessary to convince me that these specific remedies are called for.”

    Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies American politics and Jewish history, sees the situation as one of “competing truths.”

    “The Columbia administration has needed for a long time to act against antisemitic demonstrators and vandals on the campus,” Ginsberg said, noting that arrests without indictments or suspensions are not enough. But at the same time, “the Trump administration has overreached by threatening Columbia with dire consequences,” he added.

    He noted that the situation presents Columbia administrators with an opportunity.

    “Sure, the [Trump] administration has overstepped. It’s threatening to fire a cannon, drop a nuclear bomb,” Ginsberg said. “But as I say, that threat gives the Columbia administration an opportunity to do things that it has needed to do and probably wanted to do for some time.”

    He added that though he’s certainly hesitant when the government tries to dictate what departments are valid, in this instance, higher education has failed in its responsibility to its students. He also trusts that the Trump administration will be satisfied so long as Columbia carries out disciplinary action against students who disrupt academic life and threaten others’ safety.

    “Anytime the federal government tells the university how to organize its admissions processes, or which, if any, academic departments are valid and legitimate, of course I’m concerned,” Ginsberg said. “But my guess is that nothing will come of those particular demands. I mean, I hope the university won’t cave in.”

    On the other hand, Eddy Conroy, a senior education policy manager at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said all the Trump administration’s recent actions should be “deeply troubling.”

    Columbia has already demonstrated an aggressive response to student protests, which should be protected by the First Amendment, Conroy said, and it’s not up to the federal government to determine whether those disciplinary procedures were adequate.

    “We have an important history of peaceful protest in the United States, and sit-ins are part of that. Columbia can choose if it wants to deal with those things through its own disciplinary procedure or by pursuing trespassing charges,” he said. But to Trump, this “is a test case of how far we can push things when it comes to suppressing speech.”

    Conroy believes that the president is trying to make an example of Columbia in the hops that other institutions will then capitulate without fight, and the university’s response as a test dummy isn’t helping.

    “The [Trump] administration hits Columbia, and Columbia cowers and says, ‘Please hit us harder,’” he said.

    To Howard, the Columbia AAUP representative, Trump’s actions are a threat to the gemstone that is American higher education.

    We’ve become “the greatest university system in the world. But that requires independence. It requires the free expression of differing viewpoints,” she said. Trump’s demands are “so undemocratic, so against the norms and conventions of university life, that to comply would just destroy the heart of the institution.”

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  • FIRE demands answers from Trump admin officials on arrest of Mahmoud Khalil

    FIRE demands answers from Trump admin officials on arrest of Mahmoud Khalil

    FIRE Letter to Trump Administration Officials on Detention of Mahmoud Khalil

    March 10, 2025

    The Honorable Marco Rubio
    Secretary of State
    U.S. Department of State
    2201 C St., NW
    Washington, DC 20520

    The Honorable Kristi Noem
    Secretary of Homeland Security
    U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    Office of the Executive Secretary 
    Mail Stop 0525  
    Washington, DC 20528 

    The Honorable Pamela Bondi
    Attorney General
    U.S. Department of Justice
    950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
    Washington, DC 20530

    Mr. Todd Lyons
    Acting Director, ICE Leadership
    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
    500 12th St., SW 
    Washington, DC 20536

    Dear Secretary Rubio, Attorney General Bondi, Secretary Noem, and Acting Director Lyons:

    On March 8, agents from the Department of Homeland Security arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the United States who has been involved in activism related to the current conflict in Gaza.[1] According to Mr. Khalil’s attorney, the agents who arrested him initially said his visa had been revoked.[2] Upon being informed that Mr. Khalil is a lawful permanent resident, whose status therefore cannot be revoked by unilateral DHS action, the agents arrested him anyway. When Mr. Khalil’s attorney asked to see a warrant for his arrest, DHS declined to produce one.[3] As of this writing, Mr. Khalil remains in DHS detention.

    Mr. Khalil recently received a graduate degree from Columbia University, where he has participated in student protests intended to express opposition to policies of the U.S. and Israeli governments. On March 9, DHS stated that Mr. Khalil’s arrest was made “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism,” and that “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”[4] Secretary Rubio, alluding to Mr. Khalil’s arrest, stated, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”[5] On March 10, President Trump remarked on Mr. Khalil’s arrest, noting that the government intends to seek removal of any foreign students who engage in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”[6]

    Demonstrations occurring on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7, 2023, have included both constitutionally protected speech and unlawful conduct, but the government has not made clear the factual or legal basis for Mr. Khalil’s arrest. The statements the government has released suggest its decision may be based on his constitutionally protected speech. This lack of clarity is chilling protected expression, as other permanent residents cannot know whether their lawful speech could be deemed to “align to” a terrorist organization and jeopardize their immigration status.

    The federal government must not use immigration enforcement to punish and filter out ideas disfavored by the administration. It must also afford due process to anyone facing arrest and detention, and must be clear and transparent about the basis for its actions, to avoid chilling protected speech. To that end, we request answers to the following questions: 

    • What was the specific legal and factual basis for Mr. Khalil’s arrest on March 8?
    • What is the specific legal and factual basis for Mr. Khalil’s detention?
    • What is the specific legal and factual basis on which you are seeking revocation of Mr. Khalil’s green card?
    • Will Mr. Khalil be afforded the due process protections required by U.S. law?
    • Is it your intention to seek the revocation of lawful immigration status on the basis of speech protected by the First Amendment?[7]

    We request a substantive response to this letter no later than close of business on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. Any delay in resolving these questions risks further chilling protected speech.

    Sincerely,

    Carolyn Iodice
    Legislative and Policy Director
    Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    Notes

    [1] Ginger Adams Otis, ICE Arrests Columbia Student Who Helped Lead Pro-Palestinian Protests, Wall St. J. (March 9, 2025, 10:07 pm), https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/dhs-detains-columbia-student-who-helped-lead-pro-palestinian-protests-fbbd8196.

    [2] Eliza Shapiro, Immigration Authorities Arrest Pro-Palestinian Activist at Columbia, N.Y. Times (March 9, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/nyregion/ice-arrests-palestinian-activist-columbia-protests.html.

    [3] Canada’s New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget, NPR (March 10, 2025, 6:05 AM), https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1237260282.

    [4] Homeland Security (@DHSgov), X (March 9, 2025, 9:29PM), https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1898908955675357314.

    [5] Marco Rubio (@marcorubio), X (March 9, 6:10PM), https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1898858967532441945.

    [6] Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social (March 10, 2025, 1:05PM), https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114139222625284782.

    [7] Note there is no categorical exception to the First Amendment for speech that “aligns to” or even expresses explicit support for a foreign terrorist organization.

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