Tag: Department

  • Education Department Accuses 51 Colleges of Discrimination

    Education Department Accuses 51 Colleges of Discrimination

    The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights launched investigations into 51 colleges on Friday, accusing them of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and flouting guidance put forth in the department’s Dear Colleague Letter last month, which warned colleges that all race-conscious programs and policies would be considered unlawful.

    “The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote in a statement. “Today’s announcement expands our efforts to ensure universities are not discriminating against their students based on race and race stereotypes.”

    According to the department’s statement, all but six of the investigations revolve around colleges’ partnerships or support for The PhD Project, a nonprofit organization that connects prospective business doctoral candidates from underrepresented backgrounds with academic networks and hosts recruitment events for business school faculty. In its statement, the Education Department said the organization “limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”

    A spokesperson for the PhD Project told Inside Higher Ed the organization works “to create a broader talent pipeline of current and future business leaders…through networking, mentorship, and unique events.” 

    The spokesperson also said they changed their membership requirements “this year” to include “anyone who shares that vision,” but did not say exactly when the change was made. Snapshots of the organization’s website, captured on the WayBack Machine, show different language as recently as two weeks ago, including a section on the homepage titled “we believe inclusion is critical,” which has since been scrubbed.

    The OCR is also investigating five additional colleges for allegedly using race in scholarship eligibility requirements. One institution, the department said, was included for “administering a program that segregates students on the basis of race.”

    Representatives for the education department did not respond to multiple questions from Inside Higher Ed in time for publication. 

    Inside Higher Ed also contacted the two dozen institutions under investigation, and their responses varied. The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Carnegie Mellon University said they had yet to be formally notified of any complaint by the OCR, and were awaiting more information to determine how to comply with an investigation.

    A spokesperson for the University of Notre Dame, which is still listed as a PhD Project partner, said the university “follows the law and in no way practices or condones discrimination.”

    “As a Catholic university, we are fully committed to defending the dignity of every human person and ensuring that every person can flourish,” the spokesperson added. 

    At least one university on the list has already terminated its partnership with the PhD Project. A spokesperson for Arizona State University said the business school “would not be supporting [faculty] travel to the upcoming PhD Project Conference.”

    “The school also this year is not financially supporting the PhD Project organization,” the spokesperson added. 

    A spokesperson for Ithaca College, one of the five institutions accused of limiting scholarship eligibility based on race, denied that the scholarships the department cited violated Title VI. The department targeted two scholarships, the spokesperson said: the African Latino Society Memorial Scholarship and the Rashad G. Richardson “I Can Achieve” Memorial Scholarship. Both recognize students who work with the college’s BIPOC Unity Center, but don’t list any racial eligibility requirements on their respective webpages. 

    The Dear Colleague Letter released by the OCR last month aimed to greatly expand the scope of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, from one squarely focused on the policies and practices of admission offices to a sweeping decree on the illegality of all educational programs that consider race. 

    In its aftermath, colleges have struggled to understand how to comply with such a broad mandate—or whether they are even legally required to. Many have made surface-level changes, altering the names of programs and scrubbing websites of language associated with diversity, equity and inclusion. Some have gone further, eliminating DEI offices, shuttering residential housing for student groups or cutting race-based scholarships. 

    Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, said the investigations were “cause for concern” among higher ed institutions that may have thought they were in compliance with the Dear Colleague Letter. But he said institutions shouldn’t panic yet. 

    “This is very clearly [the administration’s] first effort to try and enforce their interpretation of SFFA, as opposed to what most legal scholars accept that case means,” Fansmith said. “I think that schools understand, especially post-SFFA, what constitutes an impermissible benefit to a student based on race…it seems to me that they will probably be on solid ground defending their actions in these cases.”

    Recruitment in the Crosshairs

    The PhD Project has been a target of conservative activists in the past. In January, Christopher Rufo—a stalwart anti-DEI crusader who Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the board of New College in 2023—brought attention to institutions attending the organization’s annual recruiting conference. 

    In a tweet, Rufo showed screenshots of the organization’s eligibility requirements for attendance, which stated that applicants had to be Black, Hispanic or Indigenous. Shortly after, Texas A&M University announced it would not send business faculty to the conference, following a threat by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to fire the university president. Rufo did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.

    On Friday morning, the PhD Project website included a list of all university partners, accessible via drop-down menu. By that evening, the list had disappeared from the site. A spokesperson for the organization did not say why it was removed. 

    Inside Higher Ed catalogued the list before its removal. Of the 45 institutions that the department alleges violated civil rights by partnering with the PhD Project, 31 were listed as partners on the organization’s website Friday morning, including ASU. It’s not apparent what connection the other 14 institutions have to the PhD Project, and the education department did not respond to requests for clarification. But more than half of the 97 U.S. partner colleges the organization had listed on its website are not included in the OCR’s investigation. Its unclear why some PhD Project partners are under investigation while others are not.

    A spokesperson for Boise State University, which is under OCR investigation but not on the PhD Project’s list of partners, told Inside Higher Ed the institution is “working with our general counsel’s office to look into the matter.” A spokesperson for the California State University system, which has two campuses under investigation—CSU San Bernadino and Cal Poly Humboldt—said the system “continues to comply with longstanding applicable federal and state laws.” A spokesperson from the University of North Texas, also under investigation, said they are “fully cooperating” with investigations but are “not affiliated with the PhD Project.” 

    The PhD Project’s annual conference is set to start next week in Chicago. A spokesperson for the organization did not say how many universities have pulled their support for attendees, or if they’d seen an uptick in requests to cancel registrations. 

    Fansmith said that initiatives to recruit a more diverse applicant pool shouldn’t be viewed as discriminatory—especially in academic fields that have struggled to diversify. Only 35 percent of doctoral candidates in business, and 26 percent of business school faculty, are people of color, according to a 2023 report from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. 

    “There’s lots of admissions initiatives seeking to put institutions in front of groups of students so they become aware of the programs they offer. Those are not discriminatory,” Fansmith said. “The reason these programs exist is because there are categories of students who are underrepresented in many fields… it would be a shame to see schools walk away from them.”

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  • Education Department launches probes into over 50 colleges after anti-DEI guidance

    Education Department launches probes into over 50 colleges after anti-DEI guidance

    Dive Brief: 

    • The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched investigations into more than 50 colleges Friday over allegations that their programs and scholarships have race-based restrictions, a move in line with the agency’s broad crackdown on diversity initiatives. 
    • The civil rights investigations include prominent private colleges, such as Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as dozens of large public institutions, including Arizona State University and University of California, Berkeley. 
    • The investigations follow the Education Department’s Dear Colleague letter last month that says colleges are barred from considering race in their programs and policies. The guidance has drawn at least two lawsuits that accuse the letter of being unconstitutional. 

    Dive Insight: 

    The new investigations are just one of the aggressive moves the Education Department has taken to carry out President Donald Trump’s policy priorities to reshape higher education. 

    Trump and his administration’s top officials have not only threatened to pull funding from colleges over their diversity initiatives but also over the way they handle student protests and if they allow transgender women to play on teams corresponding with their gender identity. 

    Friday’s announcement escalates the Trump administration’s threats to pull federal funding over diversity efforts. 

    The Education Department said it is investigating allegations that 45 colleges have partnered with an organization for doctoral students that has race-based eligibility criteria. It is also looking into allegations that six have race-based scholarships and that one has a “program that segregates students on the basis of race.”

    The probes follow the Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter, which interpreted the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision against race-conscious admissions to also mean that colleges were prohibited from considering race in their policies and programs, including scholarships and housing. 

    The letter panned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, describing them as discriminatory practices aimed at “smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.” The guidance threatened to pull federal funding from colleges that didn’t comply with the Education Department’s interpretation of civil rights law. 

    At least two lawsuits have challenged the legality of the guidance, arguing that the letter is unconstitutionally vague, undermines academic freedom and violates free speech rights. 

    The plaintiffs and other critics have pointed out that the 2023 Supreme Court decision only touched on admissions. 

    “OCR’s letter goes beyond that in a way that is simply off-base, encompassing virtually all programs at schools and universities, including race-neutral policies,” researchers at The Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank, said in a post this week. 

    Both The Century Foundation and some legal scholars have cautioned colleges to not overly comply with the letter.

    “It is important to ensure that educational policy is not changed based on a letter that oversteps legal boundaries,” Liliana Garces, an educational leadership and policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote in a February op-ed for The Chronicle for Education.

    Two weeks later after the Education Department issued the Dear Colleague letter — amid widespread outcry — the agency appeared to walk back some of the most contested provisions of the guidance in a Q&A. 

    For instance, the Education Department said using words like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” would not necessarily mean colleges are violating civil rights law. The agency also noted that it doesn’t have the power to control classroom instruction. 

    Yet the American Federation of Teachers, one of the groups suing over the guidance, said the Q&A only made the letter “murkier.”

    The Education Department’s new round of investigations also follow dramatic cuts at the agency, which eliminated nearly half its workforce through mass firings and voluntary buyouts. Department leaders concentrated many of the cuts in OCR, the very division responsible for carrying out the new civil rights investigations.

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  • This week in 5 numbers: Education Department puts 60 colleges on notice

    This week in 5 numbers: Education Department puts 60 colleges on notice

    The number of colleges put on notice this week by the Education Department over allegations of antisemitism. The agency warned the institutions via letters that it could take enforcement action against them if it determines that they aren’t sufficiently protecting Jewish students from discrimination, including by providing “uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities.”

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  • States File Lawsuit Challenging Education Department Cuts

    States File Lawsuit Challenging Education Department Cuts

    Twenty Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Trump administration for its massive job cuts at the Education Department, seeking to block what they say is “an effective dismantling” of the department. 

    The suit argues that by eliminating half the staff, the department is essentially abdicating its responsibility to deliver statutorily mandated programs, like federal student aid and civil rights investigations—many of which also affect state programs. 

    “This massive reduction in force is equivalent to incapacitating key, statutorily-mandated functions of the Department, causing immense damage to Plaintiff States and their educational systems,” the suit reads.

    The plaintiffs include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

    The lawsuit is at least the eighth to be filed against the Trump administration over its education policies in the past month. Follow Inside Higher Ed’s Trump Lawsuit Tracker for updates on the case.

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  • U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    The U.S. Department of Education announced March 11 that it’s cutting its workforce nearly in half–a move that Education Secretary Linda McMahon said is a first step toward eliminating the department.

    Roughly a third of staff will lose their jobs through a “reduction in force,” the department said in a press release. Combined with voluntary buyouts, the Education Department will have just under 2,200 employees by the end of the month, compared with 4,133 when President Donald Trump took office with promises to shutter the department.

    The layoffs represent a significant escalation of Trump’s efforts to reduce the department’s role in education, which is mostly run by states and school districts. Already, the administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts that paid for education research, technical assistance to states and school districts, and teacher training programs.

    Affected staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21, the department said. Ahead of the announcement, workers were told to leave the office by 6 p.m. Tuesday and that the office would remain closed until Thursday “for security reasons.” McMahon later said this was standard corporate process when layoffs occur.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” McMahon said in a press release. “I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Department. This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

    The Education Department administers major federal funding programs such as Title I, which provides extra money to high-poverty schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which supports special education. It also investigates civil rights complaints and oversees an accountability system that pushes states to identify low-performing schools and provide them with additional resources.

    Exactly how the layoffs will affect specific programs was not immediately clear. A former Education Department staffer, who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information, said the entire Office for Civil Rights teams based in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Boston and New York were let go. That represents half of regional civil rights offices.

    The department said all divisions are affected but did not describe specific positions that were eliminated. In the press release, department officials said all functions required by law will continue.

    Only Congress can eliminate the department, but such deep cuts could leave the department a shell of its former self.

    Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News shortly after the layoffs were announced, McMahon said Trump had given her a clear mandate to shutter the department. She said she would work with Congress to do that. Immediately cutting these positions would help the federal government send more money to the states, she said.

    “I said ‘OK we have to identify where the bloat is, where the bureaucracy is, and we’re going to start there,’ McMahon said. “We need to make sure that that money does get to the states.”

    Trump is expected to sign an executive order to start the process of eliminating the department, but has not yet done so. Conservatives say that for decades the department has failed to adequately address low academic performance and is a bloated bureaucracy.

    On Fox, McMahon reassured viewers that programs such as IDEA would still be funded through congressional appropriations. Asked what IDEA stood for, McMahon responded, “I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for except that it’s programs for disabled needs. It’s my fifth day on the job, and I’m really trying to learn quickly.”

    Conservative state school chiefs said in a letter to McMahon last month that they need more flexibility in how to use federal money, rather than following complex rules that ensure specific funding streams benefit certain student groups.

    Public education advocates fear that if money flows unrestricted to states, there’s no guarantee it will help the most vulnerable students. Even without an executive order, they worry that administrative changes could affect the department’s ability to perform basic functions.

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemned the layoffs.

    “Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it,” she said in a statement. “The massive reduction in force at the Education Department is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country.”

    Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employee Local 252, which represents 2,800 Education Department employees, said the union will fight back against the layoffs and against what she called a misinformation campaign about the department’s work.

    “We must ask our fellow Americans: do you want your and your children’s rights enforced in school? Do you want your children to have the ability to play sports in their school districts? Do you need financial aid for college? Are you a fellow civil servant that relies on student loan forgiveness? Does your school district offset property taxes with federal funding?” she said in a statement.

    “If yes, then you rely on the Department of Education, and the services you rely on and the employees who support them are under attack.”

    Shortly after she was confirmed, McMahon sent a message to Education Department staff describing a “final mission” that would affect staffing, budgets, and agency operations.

    Department staff were given one-time offers of up to $25,000 to retire or resign in advance of a “very significant reduction in force.” More than 500 employees took some form of buy out.

    Another 1,300 employees are losing their jobs through the reduction in force, McMahon announced.

    Employees who are laid off will be paid through June 9.

    This story has been updated to include comments from Linda McMahon on Fox News, reaction to the layoffs, and additional information about affected offices.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    For more on education policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub.

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  • Half of OCR eliminated after Trump Education Department layoffs

    Half of OCR eliminated after Trump Education Department layoffs

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    The U.S. Department of Education has let go of hundreds of its employees charged with protecting the civil rights of students and educators. The agency also shuttered seven of its 12 civil rights enforcement offices, according to former department employees.

    Offices in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston and Cleveland have been closed. Those in Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City and Seattle remain open, as well as the OCR headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

    In total, the seven closed offices of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights oversaw half of the nation’s states, impacting nearly 60,000 public schools and over 30 million K-12 students.

    Those fired include scores of civil rights attorneys, according to an internal memo from the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. The union represents nearly 1,000 of the roughly 1,300 Education Department employees laid off Tuesday evening as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to gut the department, including at least 240 OCR staff.

    More than 6,000 investigations impacted

    “The Department of Education has turned its back on civil rights in schools,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led OCR under the Biden administration. “It’s not possible to resolve cases… effectively with fewer than half the investigative staff that the office had had two days ago” 

    The agency’s civil rights enforcement arm is responsible for implementing protections for all students, including underserved students. It is tasked with ensuring that, among others, students with disabilities, students from all racial backgrounds, and sexual assault survivors have equal access to education. 

    Doing so requires investigations of alleged civil rights violations and compliance reviews of school systems that sometimes take years — even with all 12 offices operating and fully staffed. The offices that were closed were in charge of many of those cases. 

    “You’re talking about cases being in the middle of mediation right now,” said Victoria DeLano, who worked for the Atlanta office as an equal opportunity specialist prior to her termination. 

    The cases OCR settles with schools and universities often set the tone for civil rights policies and practices in schools nationwide. The seven offices shuttered had over 6,000 open investigations as of Jan. 14, according to OCR’s website that was last updated under the Biden administration.

    With the abrupt closures and layoffs, however, much of that is up in the air.

    “I can’t even comprehend it — the fallout that this is going to have,” said DeLano.

    Offices close as complaints climb

    In the past few years, the office’s caseload had been steadily climbing. In fiscal year 2023, the office received 19,201 complaints, representing a 2% increase from 2022 and nearly triple the number of complaints in 2009.

    Prior to the new administration and its sweeping layoffs, each OCR investigative staff was juggling a caseload of about 50 complaints, which Lhamon already considered “untenable.” In fact, the high number of cases and slim number of investigators at the time had prompted former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to request more funding from Congress, which would have helped hire additional OCR staff. 

    In contrast, the Trump administration has cited a desire to reduce the Education Department’s budget as part of the reason driving the sweeping layoffs.

    Some of those cut as part of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s effort to “end bureaucratic bloat” were onboarded just months before being fired without notice, according to DeLano, who was hired in December under the former administration and then terminated in February. 

    DeLano realized she was out of a job after being locked out of her government laptop, and she only received a formal notice of termination after six days of being denied access.

    “It was done just completely heartless,” DeLano said. “I cannot believe that 50% of OCR is gone.”

    The massive cuts come after the administration told OCR staff to hit pause on its open investigations, and — instead of addressing public complaints — directed its resources to addressing the president’s priorities, like scaling back Title IX to exclude LGBTQ+ rights. Following a Feb. 5 executive order barring transgender women from playing on sports teams aligning with their gender identities, the Education Department launched multiple investigations into athletic associations, colleges and schools over their sports policies.

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  • Education Department to cut nearly 1,300 employees as Trump vows to eliminate agency (PBS News Hour)

    Education Department to cut nearly 1,300 employees as Trump vows to eliminate agency (PBS News Hour)







    Higher Education Inquirer : Education Department to cut nearly 1,300 employees as Trump vows to eliminate agency (PBS News Hour)




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  • Education Department to reduce staff by nearly half

    Education Department to reduce staff by nearly half

    The Department of Education is expected to lay off nearly half its workforce as of Tuesday.

    J. David Ake/Getty Images

    The Education Department is moving to lay off nearly 50 percent of its more than 4,100 employees as of Tuesday evening, according to four sources inside the agency who were told about the plans.

    It’s not yet clear what specific departments or positions were affected, though officials planned to tell affected employees this evening, sources told Inside Higher Ed. The department previously offered employees buyouts to cut down the workforce. The goal to reduce staff by 50 percent includes prior reductions. Those affected will receive 90 days’ severance and will have 10 days to transfer their job duties to another staffer or political appointee, according to a longtime staffer with inside knowledge of the reduction-in-force details.

    The department said in its announcement that the employees will be placed on administrative leave, starting March 21, and that core programs such as distributing student loans and Pell Grants will continue.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

    The Washington Post reported that 1,315 employees would lose their jobs, in addition to the roughly 600 who took the buyouts. The reductions will bring the total workforce down to fewer than 2,200.

    Earlier on Tuesday, the department told staff that D.C. offices will be closed Wednesday and reopen Thursday for “security reasons,” according to an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed. One staffer said they were told by department officials that the closure was due to the reduction in force.

    The email instructed department staff to take their laptops home with them on Tuesday in order to telework Wednesday, and that they would “not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th, for any reason.”

    Some department staff were notified of the impending layoffs during meetings with top department officials—including an acting deputy secretary—on Tuesday afternoon, according to sources inside the department who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on background.

    Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents over 2,800 workers at the Department of Education, pledged to fight the cuts in a statement released Tuesday evening. Smith said that the Trump administration “has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serve their fellow Americans.”

    “We will not stand idly by while this regime pulls the wool over the eyes of the American people,” Smith added. “We will state the facts. Every employee at the U.S. Department of Education lives in your communities—we are your neighbors, your friends, your family. And we have spent our careers supporting services that you rely on.”

    The expected cuts are part of a governmentwide strategy to reduce the federal workforce. All federal agency officials were told last month to start preparing for a “large scale reduction in force” and to eliminate all “non-statutorily mandated functions.”

    While the government layoffs are far-reaching, President Trump has frequently targeted the Education Department for cuts, even vowing to shut down the agency. That would require congressional action, but Trump and McMahon can make deep cuts to the agency even if they don’t abolish it altogether.

    Trump is reportedly planning to sign an executive order directing McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to return authority over education to the states and facilitate closure of the Department of Education “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” according to draft text reviewed by Inside Higher Ed.

    Higher education groups and advocates have warned that cutting staff and programs at the department would be catastrophic for institutions and students, though critics say the agency is in need of a serious overhaul. State higher education officials, university administrators, nonprofit advocacy groups and students depend on the Education Department to oversee federal student aid, manage the student loan portfolio, investigate civil rights complaints and allocate billions of dollars in institutional aid, among other operations. The department, which has an $80 billion discretionary budget, issues about $100 billion in student loans every year and more than $30 billion in Pell Grants.

    The massive personnel cuts—the largest in the department’s history—will likely impact most agencies and offices in the department, including the Office of Federal Student Aid, sources say. Within FSA, the cuts will be most severe among teams that work directly on policy and higher education oversight, including the Ombudsman Office, which investigates complaints into student loan practices and financial aid.

    Staffers at the Education Department have been anticipating the reduction in force for the past week. Last Tuesday, department leaders called a meeting to discuss the impending layoffs but canceled at the last minute. Meanwhile, staff have been awaiting the executive order from Trump to close down the department since last Wednesday.

    “Everyone’s ready,” one exhausted staffer told Inside Higher Ed.

    Other federal agencies have started to lay off thousands of employees via a planned reduction in force, a process that should give them 60 days’ notice. At the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump expects 65 percent of the workforce to go, according to Government Executive, a trade publication tracking the layoffs. Last week, the Veterans Affairs Department said it was laying off 80,000 people.

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  • This week in 5 numbers: Education Department adds detail to DEI guidance

    This week in 5 numbers: Education Department adds detail to DEI guidance

    The value of the grant portfolio at Johns Hopkins University affected by an “unexpected stoppage” of funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the institution announced this week. The research university is bracing for cuts amid funding uncertainty caused by the Trump administration.

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  • State Department to use AI to revoke student visas

    State Department to use AI to revoke student visas

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to use artificial intelligence to review and revoke visas of foreign students who appear to be Hamas sympathizers, Axios reported Thursday, citing State Department officials.

    The “Catch and Revoke” initiative will use AI to review tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts, looking for signs that they supported Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. 

    If officials find a social media post from an international student that appears to endorse the attack and looks “pro-Hamas,” that could be grounds for visa revocation, an official told Axios. 

    Officials also plan to check news reports of anti-Israel demonstrations and lawsuits brought by Jewish students that might indicate a foreign national engaged in antisemitic activity. 

    Axios reported that to launch Catch and Revoke, the department examined a database of 100,000 people in the Student Exchange Visitor System since October 2023 to see if any visas had been revoked but the student was allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration. 

    “We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration,” a State Department official said, “which suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement.”

    The official said, “It would be negligent for the department that takes national security seriously to ignore publicly available information about [visa] applicants in terms of AI tools … AI is one of the resources available to the government that’s very different from where we were technologically decades ago.”

    “Under President Trump, the Immigration Nationality Act [sic] is great again,” the official added.

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