Tag: Department

  • Education Department issues AI priorities. But what if the agency closes?

    Education Department issues AI priorities. But what if the agency closes?

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter on Tuesday to district and state leaders encouraging and guiding them on how to integrate artificial intelligence in schools through existing federal grants. 
    • The letter signed by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that grantees may use federal funds to use AI to enhance high-quality curriculum tools, high-impact tutoring, and college and career pathway advising.
    • The department briefly also outlined its principles for responsible AI use in schools. Those principles affirmed that AI K-12 initiatives should be educator-led, ethical, accessible for those with disabilities, transparent in the way new tools are rolled out, and in compliance with federal data privacy laws.

    Dive Insight:

    The department’s new AI guidance comes at a time when the future of federal oversight of ed tech and K-12 cybersecurity policies remains unclear, given that the Trump administration shuttered the Education Department’s Office of Educational Technology in March and has continued to move toward its plan to dismantle the agency.

    On Monday, the Education Department also published a proposed rule in the Federal Register regarding its priorities for using discretionary grant programs to support AI use in schools. The public comment period on the regulatory proposal is open until Aug. 20. 

    Under the proposal, those seeking federal grant funding for AI projects in schools would need to include a focus on at least one of the following goals:

    • Embed AI literacy skills into classroom lessons to ultimately improve students’ educational outcomes.
    • Provide educators with professional development in foundational skills for computer science and AI with instruction on how to responsibly use new technologies.
    • Partner with states or school districts to offer high school students dual enrollment credentialing opportunities for postsecondary or industry-recognized credentials in AI. 
    • Support and develop evidence for appropriate ways to integrate AI into education.
    • Use AI to support services for students with disabilities.
    • Tap into AI to improve teacher training and evaluation
    • Use AI tools to reduce time-intensive administrative tasks

    Meanwhile, over 400 school district leaders sent a letter to Congress last week asking for lawmakers to restore federal leadership for K-12 cybersecurity and ed tech.

    The letter, led by the Consortium for School Networking, pointed to funding cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that led to the discontinuation of K-12 cybersecurity programs offered through the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The move, they wrote, consequently took away “critical threat intelligence, incident response, and coordination services that many school systems depend on to protect against ransomware and other attacks.”

    OET’s closure also left a major hole in guidance for states and districts on key issues such as responsible AI use, digital design, digital access and cybersecurity strategy, the letter said. The district leaders also called for Congress to reinstate staffing for the office. 

    CoSN CEO Keith Krueger said district technology leaders are increasingly worried that AI will be used for cyberattacks against schools. He added that the demand for more K-12 resources to protect schools from cybersecurity threats is “incredible.”

    For instance, the Federal Communications Commission in November 2024 received $3.7 billion in requests for federal funds to help protect district networks. The applications were for a $200 million FCC cybersecurity pilot program.

    But the bottom line, Krueger said, is that if the Trump administration fulfills its promise to close the Education Department, “who exactly is going to help school districts with cybersecurity, for instance, or AI?”

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  • Union seeks delay in Education Department layoffs

    Union seeks delay in Education Department layoffs

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    U.S. Department of Education employees caught in the Trump administration’s reduction in force say they are being terminated against the terms of their bargaining agreement. The union representing them, American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, is seeking to delay the department’s termination date as a result. 

    It filed a grievance against the department on Wednesday, claiming the new Aug. 1 termination date only gives employees two weeks rather than the required 60-day notice. The department put in place the new termination date after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision greenlighting the layoffs.

    On July 14, the Supreme Court allowed the department to move forward with a mass termination of over 1,000 employees originally announced in March. The department, in turn, notified employees that their new separation date was Aug. 1 rather than the previously announced date of June 9 — which got delayed due to the legal challenges. 

    The union claims, however, that the department must re-start its RIF process — which requires longer notice than two weeks and a briefing — since it walked back its March RIF due to blocks from the lower courts.

    During that time, the department sent RIF’d employees multiple emails over the course of a few months saying they were planning for the employees’ reentry into the office, the AFGE Local 252 grievance document says. “We are actively assessing how to reintegrate you back to the office in the most seamless way possible,” a June 6 email from the department told employees on administrative leave. 

    The Education Department, however, says its termination date set two weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision complies with the 60-day notice period required within the collective bargaining agreement. 

    “The CBA does not specify that the agency must provide 60 consecutive days’ notice,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications, in an email to K-12 Dive. “ED is now providing affected employees with, in total, more than 60 days’ notice.” 

    The union’s grievance is the latest wrinkle in the Trump administration’s efforts to wind down the department, which have been met with resistance and criticism from former department employees, lawmakers and some public education advocates concerned about the agency’s effectiveness with only half of its staff remaining. 

    While these wrinkles unfold, the department has been spending $7 million in taxpayer dollars per month to pay workers on leave.

    That dollar amount is only for 833 of the 962 laid-off Education Department workers that the union represents and whom it was able to reach for its analysis. Thus, much more than $7 million is actually being spent per month to keep the more than 1,300 laid-off employees on payroll.

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  • Energy Department delays multiple rules after public pushback

    Energy Department delays multiple rules after public pushback

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    The U.S. Department of Energy delayed implementation of multiple rules that it had quietly set to go into effect this week for colleges and schools that receive funding from the agency. The move comes in response to public pushback to proposed policy changes.

    The department said it was extending the effective dates for several direct final rules from July 15 to Sept. 12, 2025. The proposals would have undone some student protections related to sex discrimination under Title IX, disability discrimination under Section 504, and racial discrimination under Title VI. 

    One direct final rule, for example, would have no longer required schools to offer girls tryouts for boys’ teams in noncontact sports if the school didn’t have an equivalent girls’ team. Another would have removed protections allowing gender-conscious after-school programs or college initiatives to provide women and girls opportunities they have historically been denied, such as in STEM fields or in technical training.   

    Had the public not responded to the direct final rules with “significant adverse comments,” the rules would have undone such protections within a 30-day period — a much shorter timeline than the typical rulemaking process, which requires federal agencies to consider public feedback and make changes to their policy proposals accordingly. 

    The Trump administration’s decision to undo civil rights protections for students using expedited rulemaking — a process usually reserved for rules agencies expect to be uncontroversial — alarmed many civil rights organizations.

    Kel O’Hara, senior attorney for policy and education equity at Equal Rights Advocate, called the move a “backdoor elimination of student protections.”

    “The Trump Administration tried to exploit an obscure regulatory loophole meant only for minor administrative updates to gut fundamental protections for female athletes and transgender students,” O’Hara said in a Wednesday statement.

    Typical rulemaking would require a public notice and comment period, and a second version of the rule that takes into consideration changes based on public feedback. That process also gives school districts more time to prepare for policy changes. 

    The rules were also atypical in that they were released by the Energy Department rather than the U.S. Department of Education — meaning only schools receiving Energy Department funding would have been impacted by this set of changes. The Energy Department gave 28 schools just over $160 million in fiscal year 2025, and provides over $2.5 billion annually to more than 300 colleges and universities to fund research.

    However, had significant adverse comments not been received and delayed these rules’ implementation, and had the Energy Department been successful in its approach, the administration could have replicated the expedited method through other federal agencies to set education policies in many more schools, education policy experts predicted. 

    “This is a paradigm shift on the part of how the federal government articulates and connects some of these tools to their education priorities,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University, when the direct final rules were announced. “Basically every single school, in practically every single school district, has some grants from one of the many agencies in the federal government.” 

    Most schools receive K-12 funding from multiple agencies, such as the Energy Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

    Because of the opposition to the rules, the Energy Department must now either withdraw them entirely or issue new final rules by September 12 that take the comments into account. 

    The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

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  • Energy Department delays multiple rules after public pushback

    Energy Department delays multiple rules after public pushback

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    The U.S. Department of Energy delayed implementation of multiple rules that it had quietly set to go into effect this week for schools that receive funding from the agency. The move comes in response to public pushback to proposed policy changes.

    The department said it was extending the effective dates for several direct final rules from July 15 to Sept. 12, 2025. The proposals would have undone some student protections related to sex discrimination under Title IX, disability discrimination under Section 504, and racial discrimination under Title VI. 

    One direct final rule, for example, would have no longer required schools to offer girls tryouts for boys’ teams in noncontact sports if the school didn’t have an equivalent girls’ team. Another would have removed protections allowing gender-conscious after-school programs or college initiatives to provide women and girls opportunities they have historically been denied, such as in STEM fields or in technical training.   

    Had the public not responded to the direct final rules with “significant adverse comments,” the rules would have undone such protections within a 30-day period — a much shorter timeline than the typical rulemaking process, which requires federal agencies to consider public feedback and make changes to their policy proposals accordingly. 

    The Trump administration’s decision to undo civil rights protections for students using expedited rulemaking — a process usually reserved for rules agencies expect to be uncontroversial — alarmed many civil rights organizations.

    Kel O’Hara, senior attorney for policy and education equity at Equal Rights Advocate, called the move a “backdoor elimination of student protections.”

    “The Trump Administration tried to exploit an obscure regulatory loophole meant only for minor administrative updates to gut fundamental protections for female athletes and transgender students,” O’Hara said in a Wednesday statement.

    Typical rulemaking would require a public notice and comment period, and a second version of the rule that takes into consideration changes based on public feedback. That process also gives school districts more time to prepare for policy changes. 

    The rules were also atypical in that they were released by the Energy Department rather than the U.S. Department of Education — meaning only schools receiving Energy Department funding would have been impacted by this set of changes. The Energy Department gave 28 schools just over $160 million in fiscal year 2025, and provides over $2.5 billion annually to more than 300 colleges and universities to fund research.

    However, had significant adverse comments not been received and delayed these rules’ implementation, and had the Energy Department been successful in its approach, the administration could have replicated the expedited method through other federal agencies to set education policies in many more schools, education policy experts predicted. 

    “This is a paradigm shift on the part of how the federal government articulates and connects some of these tools to their education priorities,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University, when the direct final rules were announced. “Basically every single school, in practically every single school district, has some grants from one of the many agencies in the federal government.” 

    Most schools receive K-12 funding from multiple agencies, such as the Energy Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

    Because of the opposition to the rules, the Energy Department must now either withdraw them entirely or issue new final rules by September 12 that take the comments into account. 

    The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

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  • Labor Department to take on day-to-day management of CTE programs

    Labor Department to take on day-to-day management of CTE programs

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    Dive Brief:

    • Management of key federal workforce development programs will begin shifting from the U.S. Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Labor under an interagency agreement signed in May, according to a joint announcement by the agencies Tuesday.
    • Adult education and family literacy programs under Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and career and technical education programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act will be managed by the Labor Department alongside Education Department staff, according to the agencies.
    • Tuesday’s announcement comes just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court stayed an injunction in McMahon v. New York, granting the Education Department the ability to move forward with a sweeping reduction in force. That decision meant the workforce development interagency agreement with the Labor Department could go forward.

    Dive Insight:

    Under the May 21 interagency agreement behind the workforce development partnership, the Labor Department will take on daily administration of the programs. The Education Department will continue statutory responsibilities, policy authority and program oversight.

    While the interagency agreement was stalled in court, leading organizations for CTE directors and professionals raised concerns over the contract. Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education predicted “far-reaching negative impacts on CTE programs and learners across the country” in a June 11 joint statement, adding that the agreement “directly circumvents existing statutory requirements” under the Perkins Act.

    These programs, the organizations said, “are not merely job training programs; these programs are comprehensive educational and career preparation programs that prepare secondary and postsecondary learners for lifelong success by connecting academic and technical learning with the real world skills that learners need to thrive.”

    The agreement, however, is in line with President Donald Trump’s April executive order, “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future. That order called, in part, for the secretaries of labor, commerce and education to find opportunities to integrate systems and realign resources to address critical workforce needs and in-demand skills in emerging industries, identify ineffective federal workforce development and education programs, and streamline information collection.

    “The current structure with various federal agencies each managing pieces of the federal workforce portfolio is inefficient and duplicative. Support from the Department of Labor in administering the Department of Education’s workforce programs is a commonsense step in streamlining these programs to better serve students, families, and educators,” said U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a Tuesday statement.

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  • SCOTUS Allows Mass Layoffs at Education Department

    SCOTUS Allows Mass Layoffs at Education Department

    Before Trump took office, the Education Department had 4,133 employees. After the mass layoffs, the department will have fewer than 2,200 staffers.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images | Matveev_Aleksandr and raweenuttapong/iStock/Getty Images

    The Supreme Court gave Education Secretary Linda McMahon the go-ahead Monday to proceed in firing half the department’s staff and transferring certain responsibilities to other agencies.

    The unsigned, one-paragraph order does not explain why a majority of justices decided to overturn a lower court injunction that an appeals court upheld. It did, however, explain that the injunction will remain blocked as lawsuits challenging mass layoffs at the department continue. The high court order represents a major step forward in President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle the 45-year-old agency.

    “Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement about the decision. The department will now “promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most—-to students, parents, and teachers.”

    The American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing the department’s staff, said the ruling was “deeply disappointing” and would allow the Trump administration to continue implementing an “anti-democratic” plan that is “misalign[ed] with the Constitution.” Sheria Smith, president of AFGE Local 252, added that just because McMahon can dismantle the department, that doesn’t mean she has to.

    “Let’s be clear,” Smith wrote, “despite this decision, the Department of Education has a choice—a choice to recommit to providing critical services for the American people and reject political agendas. The agency doesn’t have to move forward with this callous act of eliminating services and terminating dedicated workers.”

    The original ruling from a Maryland district judge required McMahon to reinstate more than 2,000 employees who were laid off in March. (As of July 8, 527 of those employees had already found other jobs.)

    Higher education policy advocates and laid-off staffers warned that the department was already struggling to keep up with the overload of civil rights complaints and financial aid applications. With half the workforce, they said, fulfilling those statutory duties would be nearly impossible.

    In addition to the layoffs, the lower court order prevented McMahon from carrying out Trump’s executive order to close the department to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” Department officials later revealed in court filings that the order blocked a plan to send funding for career and technical education programs to the Department of Labor.

    The departments reached an agreement in May regarding the CTE programs, but neither said anything about it publicly. CTE advocates worry that putting Labor in charge of about $2.7 billion in grants could sow confusion and diminish the quality of these secondary and postsecondary career-prep programs. Others see the shift as the beginning of the end of the Education Department. Democrats in Congress have objected to the plan, which can now move forward.

    After news of the Supreme Court order dropped Monday, education policy experts sounded the alarm and took issue with the lack of explanation.

    “The president can’t close down ED by fiat but Congress and SCOTUS sure can facilitate it,” Dominique Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, wrote on BlueSky.

    Daniel Collier, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Memphis, also chimed in, asking, “Am I in the minority by believing that all SCOTUS rulings should have a well detailed and written rationale attached and there should be no exceptions?”

    The Supreme Court’s order included a scathing 18-page dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan joined in full. Sotomayor noted that the department plays “a vital role” in the nation’s education system by “safeguarding equal access” and allocating billions of dollars in federal funding. Knowing this, she added, “only Congress has the power to abolish the department.”

    “When the executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Sotomayor wrote. “Two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the government to proceed with dismantling the department. That decision is indefensible.”

    Others, however, said the Supreme Court made the right call.

    “There is nothing unconstitutional about the executive branch trying to execute the law with fewer people, which is what the Trump administration is doing,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, who also contributed an opinion piece to Inside Higher Ed today. If the Trump administration wanted to eliminate the Department of Education unilaterally, he said, “It would have fired everyone. Not only did it not do that, but members of the administration have stated that it is ultimately Congress that must eliminate the department.”

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  • Supreme Court green-lights Education Department layoffs

    Supreme Court green-lights Education Department layoffs

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    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to proceed with laying off nearly half the U.S. Department of Education’s staff — a significant victory for the administration’s mission to dissolve the department to the greatest extent possible. 

    The decision in New York v. McMahon green-lights the department’s reduction in force initiated in March as the original question of the layoffs’ legality works its way through the lower courts. The layoffs closed department offices and spurred concerns from public school advocates that the education system would descend into chaos with little federal oversight. 

    The Monday order allowing the reduction in force to continue was met with dissent from liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who called the majority’s decision “indefensible” in their 18-page dissent. 

    “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” they said. 

    U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who was tasked with shutting down the department to the greatest extent “permitted by law,” celebrated the decision.

    “Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement.

    Until now, the department’s RIF had left staff — who were technically still employed but had been on administrative leave since March — in limbo. The Trump administration had planned to lay off employees June 9, but U.S. District Judge Myong Joun ruled in May that the layoffs left the department as “a shell of itself” and required that staff remain employed in a preliminary injunction.

    The layoffs leave the department with only about 2,183 employees out of its previous approximately 4,133.

    “A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” Joun wrote. In a separate case, the same judge last month also ordered that the department’s Office for Civil Rights be restored to its former self.

    Joun’s May order required the department to routinely report to the district court the steps it was taking to restore its staff — which it did by sending out multiple surveys to employees on administrative leave as a way of “actively assessing how to reintegrate you back to the office in the most seamless way possible.” At the same time, the department was appealing its case to the Supreme Court, hoping its RIF would be allowed through.

    The Monday order from the Supreme Court means those employees can be terminated even as the case over the legality of the layoffs proceeds in the lower court.

    The Supreme Court’s decision to allow the layoffs was preceded by another decision from the high court in April that also bolstered the Trump administration’s attempts to close the department. That ruling maintained a freeze on over $600 million in teacher training grants that the administration called “divisive.”

    It also follows a Supreme Court decision last week allowing mass terminations to move forward across other federal agencies.

    Are statutory obligations impacted?

    The department argued that depleting its staff by almost half — including closing down civil rights offices and leaving only a handful of employees in the office that administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress — does not impact its statutory obligations. McMahon has told concerned lawmakers that NAEP is administered through contracts that remain in place.

    In the meantime, however, former employees and Democratic lawmakers allege the department has already missed key deadlines on tasks that are required by law, and that no one remains in place to oversee the contracts and ensure the quality of the work.

    The annual Condition of Education report, for example, was due to Congress by June 1 — an obligation that the department missed “for the first time ever,” according to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

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  • Department of Education Blocks Undocumented Students from Career and Technical Programs

    Department of Education Blocks Undocumented Students from Career and Technical Programs

    The U.S. Department of Education announced it will no longer allow federal funds to support career, technical, and adult education programs for undocumented students, rescinding a nearly three-decade-old policy that permitted such access.

    The department said it is rescinding a 1997 “Dear Colleague Letter” from the Clinton administration that allowed undocumented immigrants to receive federal aid for career, technical, and adult education programs. The interpretive rule, published in the Federal Register, clarifies that federal programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act and the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act are “federal public benefits” subject to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that “under President Trump’s leadership, hardworking American taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for illegal aliens to participate in our career, technical, or adult education programs or activities”.

    The policy change affects access to dual enrollment programs, postsecondary career and technical education, and adult education programs. The department said it will send letters to postsecondary schools and adult education programs clarifying that undocumented immigrants cannot receive federal aid and may take enforcement actions against schools that do not comply by August 9.

    Augustus Mays, vice president of partnerships and engagement at EdTrust, a Washington-based education equity advocacy organization, condemned the decision.

    “This move is part of a broader, deeply disturbing trend,” Mays said. “Across the country, we’re seeing migrant communities targeted with sweeping raids, amplified surveillance, and fear-based rhetoric designed to divide and dehumanize.”

    Mays argued the change “derails individual aspirations and undercuts workforce development at a time when our nation is facing labor shortages in critical fields like healthcare, education, and skilled trades”. He noted the decision compounds existing barriers, as undocumented students are already prohibited from accessing federal financial aid including Pell Grants and student loans.

    The department maintains that the Clinton-era interpretation “mischaracterized the law by creating artificial distinctions between federal benefit programs based upon the method of assistance,” a distinction the department says Congress did not make in the 1996 welfare reform law.

    The change comes as President Trump proclaimed February 2025 as Career and Technical Education Month, stating his administration will “invest in the next generation and expand access to high-quality career and technical education for all Americans”.

    Career and technical education programs served approximately 11 million students in 2019-20, with about $1.3 billion in federal funds supporting such programs through the Department of Education in fiscal year 2021.

    The interpretive rule represents the department’s current enforcement position, though officials indicated they do not currently plan enforcement actions against programs serving undocumented students before August 9.

    EdTrust called on policymakers, education leaders, and community advocates to oppose the change. 

    “We must fight for a country where every student, regardless of where they were born, has access to the promise of education and the dignity of opportunity,” Mays said.

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  • Documents from US Department of Education (Federal Register)

    Documents from US Department of Education (Federal Register)

    Notices

    Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposals, Submissions, and Approvals:

    Streamlined Clearance Process for Discretionary Grants
    FR Document: 2025-13011
    Citation: 90 FR 30895    		 PDF Pages 30895-30896 (2 pages)
    Permalink
    Abstract: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the Department is proposing an extension without change of a currently approved information collection request (ICR).

    Clarification of Federal Public Benefits under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

    FR Document: 2025-12925
    Citation: 90 FR 30896    		 PDF Pages 30896-30901 (6 pages)
    Permalink
    Abstract: The U.S. Department of Education (Department) issues this interpretation to revise and clarify its position on the classification of certain Department programs providing “Federal public benefits,” as defined in Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Public Law 104-193. The Department concludes that the postsecondary education programs and “other similar benefit” programs described within this interpretive rule, including adult…

    Notices

    Hearings, Meetings, Proceedings, etc.:

    Committee and Quarterly Board
    FR Document: 2025-13008
    Citation: 90 FR 30893    		 PDF Pages 30893-30895 (3 pages)
    Permalink
    Abstract: This notice sets forth the agenda, time, and instructions to access the National Assessment Governing Board’s (hereafter referred to as the Board or Governing Board) standing committee meetings and quarterly Governing Board meeting. This notice provides information to members of the public who may be interested in attending the meetings and/or providing written comments related to the work of the Governing Board. The meetings will be held either in person and/or virtually, as noted below….

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  • Los Angeles Community College District Claims to Be Facing State Takeover Amid Allegations of Fraud and Censorship in LAVC Media Arts Department (LACCD Whistleblower)

    Los Angeles Community College District Claims to Be Facing State Takeover Amid Allegations of Fraud and Censorship in LAVC Media Arts Department (LACCD Whistleblower)

    The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) may be facing state takeover within two years due to overextended hiring and budget mismanagement, as discussed during a May 2025 meeting of the Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) Academic Senate. Faculty warned that the looming financial crisis could result in mass layoffs—including tenured staff—and sweeping program cuts.

    Start Minutes LAVC Academic Senate

    “R. Christian-Brougham: other campuses have brand new presidents doing strange things. If we don’t do things differently as a district, from the mouth of the president in two years we’ll be bankrupt and go into negative.
     Chancellor has responsibility
    C. Sustin  asks for confirmation that it is the Chancellor that can and should step in to curb campus budgets and hirings.
    R. Christian-Brougham: the Chancellor bears responsibility, but in the takeover scenario, the Board of Trustees – all of them – would get fired
    E. Perez: which happened in San Francisco
    C. Sustin: hiring is in the purview of campuses, so they can’t directly determine job positions that move forward?
    R. Christian-Brougham: Chancellor and BoT could step in and fire the Campus Presidents, though.
    E. Perez: in next consultation with Chancellor, bringing this up.
    C. Maddren: Gribbons is not sitting back; he’s acting laterally and going upward
    E. Thornton: looping back to the example of City College of San Francisco: when the takeover happened there the reductions in force extended to multiple long-since-tenured members of a number of disciplines, including English. For this and so many other reasons, it was a reign of terror sort of situation. So we really need to push the Chancellor.”

    End Minutes Academic Senate

    https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/laccd/Board.nsf/vpublic?open#

    The dire financial outlook comes as new scrutiny falls on LAVC’s Media Arts Department, already under fire for years of alleged fraud, resume fabrication, and manipulation of public perception. Central to these concerns is the department’s chair, Eric Swelstad, who also oversees a $40,000 Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globe) grant for LAVC students—a role now drawing sharp criticism in light of mounting questions about his credentials and conduct.

    Over the past two months, a troubling wave of digital censorship has quietly erased years of documented allegations. In May 2025, nearly two years’ worth of investigative reporting—comprising emails, legal filings, and accreditation complaints—were scrubbed from the independent news site IndyBay. The removed content accused Swelstad of deceiving students and the public for over two decades about the quality and viability of the Media Arts program, as well as about his own professional qualifications.

    In June 2025, a negative student review about Swelstad—posted by a disabled student—disappeared from Rate My Professor. These incidents form part of what appears to be a years-long campaign of online reputation management and public deception.

    An AI-driven analysis of Rate My Professor entries for long-serving Media Arts faculty—including Swelstad, Arantxa Rodriguez, Chad Sustin, Dan Watanabe, and Jason Beaton—suggests that the majority of positive reviews were written by a single individual or a small group. The analysis cited “Identical Phrasing Across Profiles,” “Unusually Consistent Tag Patterns,” and a “Homogeneous Tone and Style” as evidence:

    “It is very likely that many (possibly a majority) of the positive reviews across these faculty pages were written by one person or a small group using similar templates, tone, and strategy… The presence of clearly distinct voices, especially in the negative reviews, shows that not all content comes from the same source.”

    A now-deleted IndyBay article also revealed emails dating back to 2016 between LAVC students and Los Angeles Daily News journalist Dana Bartholomew, who reportedly received detailed complaints from at least a dozen students—but failed to publish the story. Instead, Bartholomew later authored two glowing articles featuring Swelstad and celebrating the approval of LAVC’s $78.5 million Valley Academic and Cultural Center:

    * *”L.A. Valley College’s new performing arts center may be put on hold as costs rise,”* Dana Bartholomew, August 28, 2017.

      [https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/09/la-valley-colleges-new-performing-arts-center-may-be-put-on-hold-as-costs-rise/amp/](https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/09/la-valley-colleges-new-performing-arts-center-may-be-put-on-hold-as-costs-rise/amp/)

    * *”L.A. Valley College’s $78.5-million arts complex approved in dramatic downtown vote,”* Dana Bartholomew, August 11, 2016.
      [https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/11/la-valley-colleges-785-million-arts-complex-approved-in-dramatic-downtown-vote/](https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/11/la-valley-colleges-785-million-arts-complex-approved-in-dramatic-downtown-vote/)

    Among the most explosive allegations is that Swelstad misrepresented himself as a member of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA), a claim contradicted by official WGA-West membership records, according to another redacted IndyBay report.

    This appears to be the tip of the iceberg according to other also scrubbed IndyBay articles

    Other questionable appointments, payments, and student ‘success stories’ in the Los Angeles Valley College Media Arts Department include:

    * **Jo Ann Rivas**, a YouTube personality and former Building Oversight Committee member, was paid as a trainer and presenter despite reportedly only working as a casting assistant on the LAVC student-produced film *Canaan Land*.

    (https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/los-angeles-district/jo-ann-rivas/)

    * **Robert Reber**, a student filmmaker, was paid as a cinematography expert.

    (https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2017/los-angeles-district/robert-reber/)

    * **Diana Deville**, a radio host and LAVC alumna with media credits, served as Unit Production Manager on *Canaan Land*, but her resume claims high-profile studio affiliations including DreamWorks, MGM, and OWN.

    (https://www.tnentertainment.com/directory/view/diana-deville-13338)

    The film *Canaan Land*, made by LAVC Media Arts students, has itself raised eyebrows. Filmmaker Richard Rossi claimed that both it and his earlier student film *Clemente* had received personal endorsements from the late Pope Francis. These assertions were echoed on *Canaan Land*’s GoFundMe page, prompting public denials and clarifications from the Vatican in *The Washington Post* and *New York Post*:

    [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/08/17/after-july-miracle-pope-francis-reportedly-moves-roberto-clemente-closer-to-sainthood/]
    * [https://nypost.com/2017/08/17/the-complicated-battle-over-roberto-clementes-sainthood/]

    Censorship efforts appear to have intensified following the publication of a now-removed article advising students how to apply for student loan discharge based on misleading or fraudulent education at LAVC’s Media Arts Department. If successful, such filings could expose the department—and the district—to financial liability.

    But the highest-profile financial concern is the 2020 establishment of the **Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s $40,000 grant** for LAVC Media Arts students, administered by Swelstad:

    * [HFPA Endowed Scholarship Announcement (PDF)](https://www.lavc.edu/sites/lavc.edu/files/2022-08/lavc_press_release-hfpa-endowed-scholarship-for-lavc-film-tv-students.pdf)
    * [LAVC Grant History Document](https://services.laccd.edu/districtsite/Accreditation/lavc/Standard%20IVA/IVA1-02_Grants_History.pdf)

    As a disreputable academic administrator with a documented history of professional fraud spanning two decades and multiple student success stories that aren’t, future grant donors may reconsider supporting the Department programs – further pushing the Los Angeles Valley College and by extension the district as a whole towards financial insolvency. 

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