Tag: DOJ

  • DOJ Sues California Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    DOJ Sues California Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of California on Thursday, challenging a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. The lawsuit also targets the California Dream Act, which offers state financial aid to undocumented students who meet certain requirements.

    The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of California, targets the state, Governor Gavin Newsom, state attorney general Rob Bonta, the University of California Board of Regents, the California State University Board of Trustees and the California Community Colleges’ Board of Governors.

    “California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

    California marks the sixth state the federal government has sued over such policies, but unlike some of the others, California plans to fight back. The state is home to more than 102,000 undocumented students, who have been permitted to pay in-state tuition rates since 2001 if they met certain requirements. Undocumented students have also been allowed to access state financial aid for more than a decade, according to the Higher Education Immigration Portal.

    Newsom has repeatedly pushed back on the Trump administration’s policies, including immigration crackdowns. The DOJ filed another lawsuit against the state on Monday, after Newsom signed a bill banning face coverings for federal immigration agents. The DOJ also recently sued Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber over the state’s redistricting plan.

    Bondi said in her statement that the DOJ will “continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”

    But Newsom isn’t backing down.

    “The DOJ has now filed three meritless, politically motivated lawsuits against California in a single week,” Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “Good luck, Trump. We’ll see you in court.”

    By contrast, Texas and Oklahoma, faced with similar lawsuits this summer, swiftly sided with the DOJ, quashing in-state tuition benefits for their undocumented students. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education also agreed to stop offering in-state tuition to noncitizens in September, a few months after the DOJ sued, but the legal battle is ongoing. A judge recently allowed a group of Kentucky undocumented students, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to intervene in the case. Legal fights in Minnesota and Illinois have also continued as the states defend their in-state tuition policies against DOJ challenges.

    The government argues that such laws violate a federal statutory provision that says undocumented people can’t receive higher ed benefits unless citizens are also eligible. The DOJ has asserted that states can’t permit undocumented students in a state to pay lower tuition rates while denying out-of-state citizens the same benefit. Proponents of California’s current policy argue it allows any nonresident who meets certain requirements—including spending three years in a California high school—to access in-state tuition, not just undocumented students.

    Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the University of California system, said system leaders believe they’ve acted within the law.

    “For decades, the University of California has followed applicable state and federal laws regarding eligibility for in-state tuition, financial aid, and scholarships,” Zaentz said in a statement sent to Inside Higher Ed. “While we will, of course, comply with the law as determined by the courts, we believe our policies and practices are consistent with current legal standards.”

    California Community Colleges Chancellor Sonya Christian said in a similar memo that the system “will follow all legal obligations and fully participate in the judicial process alongside our state partners” but “statutes referenced in the lawsuit have been in place for many years and have been implemented in accordance with long-standing legal guidance.”

    “Although we cannot comment on ongoing litigation, our commitment remains unchanged: we will continue to ensure that all students who qualify under state law have access to an affordable, high-quality education,” Christian said. “We will also continue to comply fully with all current federal and state requirements.”

    Iliana Perez, executive director of the advocacy organization Immigrants Rising, called the latest lawsuit an “an affront to the decades of hard-fought student-led advocacy for equitable access to postsecondary education.” She also noted the challenge comes just a week before college applications are due at public four-year institutions in the state.

    “This challenge is a callous attempt to have students second-guess their dreams,” Perez said in a statement. “We have one message for this Administration; we will not be deterred!”

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  • DOJ targets college access for undocumented students in 6th lawsuit

    DOJ targets college access for undocumented students in 6th lawsuit

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Justice has sued six states over laws that allow in-state tuition rates and scholarships for students regardless of their immigration status. The latest legal challenge was filed Thursday against California for its “California Dream Act.”
    • The lawsuit seeks to enjoin California laws that allow state residents to receive in-state tuition regardless of immigration status. The lawsuits — also filed against Minnesota, Texas, Kentucky, Illinois and Oklahoma — could impact tuition for dual enrollment, adult education, and career and technical education training programs. 
    • “Federal law prohibits aliens illegally present in the United States from receiving in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens,” the Justice Department said in its lawsuit, which is challenging the states under the supremacy clause. “There are no exceptions.” 

    Dive Insight:

    The lawsuits come in light of a February executive order prohibiting federal resources for undocumented immigrants and as the U.S. Department of Education has implemented the order to restrict education-related programs. 

    As part of those restrictions, which were part of a coordinated effort across agencies, students could be required to undergo a citizenship and immigration status check to qualify for tuition for dual enrollment and similar early college programs for high-schoolers. 

    According to the Trump administration, that’s “because those programs provide individualized payments or assistance beyond that of a basic public education.” 

    The administration’s implementation of the executive order also restricted Head Start, the federal early childhood education program meant to level the playing field for low-income families, to “American citizens.” That policy change was successfully challenged in court in multiple lawsuits and is currently on pause in states that sued the government.

    However, other program areas impacted by the Education Department’s enforcement of the order are still in effect in some places, including high school students’ eligibility for college-level and career courses.

    “California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a Thursday statement, adding that her department “will continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, however, called the DOJ’s efforts “meritless, politically motivated lawsuits.” 

    “Good luck, Trump,” said Marissa Saldivar, Newsom’s spokesperson, in an email to K-12 Dive. “We’ll see you in court.”

    The office maintains that its tuition exemption applies to all residents who meet the criteria, regardless of where they were born, and it is not discriminating against U.S. citizens. 

    Out of the states sued so far, Texas and Oklahoma have complied, with Texas suddenly ending a 24-year-old law within hours of the Justice Department filing a lawsuit in June. 

    Prior to the Justice Department’s lawsuits, 25 states and the District of Columbia allowed in-state tuition for undocumented students, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, which tracks the issue. That number has fallen to 22 in addition to Washington, D.C.

    There are an estimated 620,000 undocumented K-12 students in the United States, with most states home to thousands of such students, according to 2021 data from Fwd.us. 

    According to federal data, nearly 2.5 million high school students were enrolled in at least one dual enrollment course from a college or university in 2022-23.

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  • DOJ sues California over in-state tuition for undocumented students

    DOJ sues California over in-state tuition for undocumented students

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Justice is suing California over its laws allowing certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and receive state-administered scholarships.
    • In a Thursday court filing, the agency argued that in-state tuition rates for undocumented students illegally provide benefits not offered to all U.S. citizens and asked a federal judge to rule California’s laws unconstitutional.
    • The lawsuit, which also names as defendants Gov. Gavin Newsom and the governing boards of California’s three public college systems, marks the sixth the DOJ has brought against states with in-state tuition policies for certain undocumented students.

    Dive Insight:

    California is home to roughly 103,000 undocumented residents enrolled in higher education — accounting for about a fifth of some 510,000 undocumented students in the U.S. — according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

    Since 2001, a California law known as AB 540 has allowed students to pay in-state tuition at its three public higher ed systems if they attended a state high school for at least three years and earned their high school diploma or equivalent in California. Undocumented students must also sign an affidavit saying they have either filed an application to gain legal status or plan to once they are eligible.

    A 2017 law broadened that eligibility and permits students to reach the three-year attendance threshold by combining any time spent at a California high school, community college, adult school or carceral education program.

    It also allows students who completed at least three years full-time high school coursework anywhere to qualify for the waiver if they attended at least three years of their K-12 education in California.

    Leaders from the state’s public college systems — the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges — supported the expansion of the in-state tuition policy.

    Both laws apply to both U.S. citizens and immigrants without legal status.

    But U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Thursday statement that policies are “illegally discriminating against American students and families” and that California is demonstrating “flagrant disregard for federal law.”

    Since 1998, U.S. law has prohibited immigrants without legal status from receiving any higher education benefit based on their residency, “unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit … without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”

    The agency’s lawsuit is not the first time California’s in-state tuition law has faced legal opposition. One challenge to AB 540 that similarly argued the policy violated federal law made it to the California Supreme Court in 2010.

    However, the court upheld AB 540, ruling it did not violate federal law because students seeking in-state tuition status did not need to be California residents.

    The DOJ argued Thursday that this decision was incorrect and that federal courts should reject it. 

    “Allocating lower tuition rates on the basis of high school attendance is a proxy for residence,” running afoul of federal law, the agency said.

    Using the same argument, the DOJ lawsuit also targets a 2011 law permitting AB 540-eligible undocumented students to receive state-administered scholarships and aid and a law passed in 2014 establishing a student loan program for them.

    Gaining an in-state tuition waiver for California can have big cost implications for prospective students, as the state’s public colleges charge some of the highest out-of-state tuition premiums in the U.S., according to the College Board.

    The University of California published tuition and fees for out-of-state students who started in 2025-26 were $37,602 more a year than for their in-state counterparts.

    At the University of California, Berkeley, that means out-of-state, full-time undergraduates who first enrolled this fall would pay $55,080 if they did not receive financial aid or scholarships — more than double the $17,478 their in-state counterparts would pay sans aid.

    Even with aid and institutional scholarships, out-of-state students saw a stark difference. U.S. News & World Report estimated that the average total cost of attendance at UC Berkeley for those receiving need-based aid was $16,636 for in-state students and $66,625 for those from outside of California.

    The Cal State system’s published tuition and fees for out-of-state are also higher than for in-state students. Its 23 campuses charge a base rate of $6,450 for in-state undergraduate tuition and fees for the 2025-26 academic year. This year, out-of-state students pay at least $444 more per credit.

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  • UC Berkeley TPUSA Event Protests Spark Arrests, DOJ Probe

    UC Berkeley TPUSA Event Protests Spark Arrests, DOJ Probe

    Protesters confronted police outside a Turning Point USA event on UC Berkeley’s campus Nov. 10.

    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    Protests of a Turning Point USA event at the University of California, Berkeley, campus Monday sparked arrests and investigation announcements from top U.S. Department of Justice officials, who alleged “Antifa” involvement. The DOJ was already investigating the UC system over various allegations, and the Trump administration has demanded UCLA pay $1.2 billion and make other concessions.

    “Antifa is an existential threat to our nation,” Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X Tuesday. “The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

    Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general supervising the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, also said her division will investigate. “I see several issues of serious concern regarding campus and local security and Antifa’s ability to operate with impunity in CA,” she wrote on X.

    Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesperson, told Inside Higher Ed Wednesday that there was only one reported incident of violence: A person with a ticket to the event was hit in the head by a glass bottle or jar thrown from a crowd of protesters. The victim was transported to Highland Hospital by ambulance but was “upright and conscious,” Mogulof said, adding that police are reviewing videos to see who might have thrown the object.

    In an incident that Mogulof said people mistakenly believed was connected to the protest, the City of Berkeley Police Department said its officers were monitoring the protest when they saw a fight between two men. Police determined one of them had stolen a chain from the other and the other was attempting to reclaim it, and the man who allegedly stole the chain was arrested on suspicion of robbery and battery resulting in injury.

    Mogulof also said campus police arrested two people for allegedly failing to comply with directions and, the night before the protest, arrested four students for alleged felony vandalism for trying to hang something on the historic Sather Gate. At the protest itself, Mogulof said, there were people who “self-identified as Antifa,” but he didn’t know whether they were part of an organized group.

    In a statement, the university said, “There is no place at UC Berkeley for attempts to use violence or intimidation to prevent lawful expression or chill free speech. The University is conducting a full investigation and intends to fully cooperate with and assist any federal investigations.”

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  • DOJ Sues Illinois Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    DOJ Sues Illinois Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    The U.S. Department of Justice sued Illinois on Tuesday over its policy to allow in-state tuition rates for undocumented students. Illinois is the fifth state targeted by such a lawsuit.

    The DOJ filed a complaint in the Southern District of Illinois against the state, Gov. JB Pritzker, the state attorney general and boards of trustees of state universities. The complaint argues that it’s illegal to offer lower tuition rates to undocumented students if out-of-state citizens can’t also benefit.

    Illinois passed a law in 2003 that grants in-state tuition to undocumented students who meet certain criteria. To qualify, students need to reside and attend high school in the state for three years, graduate from an Illinois high school, and sign an affidavit promising to apply to become a permanent resident as soon as possible. Pritzker then signed a bill into law last year that would loosen these criteria, starting in July 2026. Students will be able to pay in-state tuition rates if they meet one of two sets of requirements, including attending an Illinois high school for at least two years or a combination of high school and community college in the state for at least three years.

    “Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release. “This Department of Justice has already filed multiple lawsuits to prevent U.S. students from being treated like second-class citizens—Illinois now joins the list of states where we are relentlessly fighting to vindicate federal law.”

    In Texas and Oklahoma, the DOJ successfully ended in-state tuition for undocumented students; attorneys general in the two red states swiftly sided with the federal government’s legal challenges. Lawsuits against Kentucky and Minnesota are still ongoing.

    This latest lawsuit will likely escalate the Trump administration’s battle with the state of Illinois. President Donald Trump has said he wants to send the National Guard to Chicago, a move that Pritzker forcefully pushed back on. Since Trump took office, Pritzker has been an outspoken critic.

    April McLaren, deputy press secretary for the Illinois attorney general’s office, said officials are reviewing the case and have “no further comment.” Representatives at Eastern Illinois University, Northeastern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University, whose boards were among those named in the lawsuit, similarly told Inside Higher Ed that they can’t comment on pending litigation.

    A spokesperson for the governor’s office defended the state’s policy and called the lawsuit “yet another blatant attempt to strip Illinoisans of resources and opportunities.” 

    “While the Trump Administration strips away federal resources from all Americans, Illinois provides consistent and inclusive educational pathways for all students—including immigrants and first-generation students—to access support and contribute to our state,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “All Illinoisans deserve a fair shot to obtain an education, and our programs and policies are consistent with federal laws.” 

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  • DOJ sues Illinois over in-state tuition for undocumented students

    DOJ sues Illinois over in-state tuition for undocumented students

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Illinois over state laws allowing certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and receive state-administered scholarships.
    • Under Illinois law, an undocumented student is eligible for in-state tuition if they attended a high school in the state for at least three years, graduated from high school or earned a GED in Illinois, and sign an affidavit saying they will apply to become a permanent U.S. resident as soon as possible.
    • U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi on Tuesday argued that in-state tuition rates for undocumented students illegally provide benefits not offered to all U.S. citizens. A spokesperson for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s office defended the policy on Wednesday, saying it is consistent with federal law.

    Dive Insight:

    As of May, Illinois was one of at least 25 states that, along with Washington, D.C., had policies making undocumented students eligible to pay in-state rates at some or all public colleges.

    Over 27,600 undocumented students attended Illinois colleges in 2023, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

    Illinois has had its in-state tuition policy for eligible undocumented students in place since 2003. And in 2011, the state General Assembly established the Illinois DREAM Fund Commission, which raises private donations to fund scholarships for those students.

    Since June, the DOJ has sued at least five states, including Illinois, over the practice.

    The same day the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Texas, the state attorney general’s office partnered with the department to ask the court to strike down the policy. A federal judge declared it unconstitutional shortly afterward, though civil rights groups are seeking to intervene and challenge the ruling.

    In Oklahoma, the state attorney general similarly worked with the DOJ to end its policy, a request approved by a federal judge on Friday. Florida repealed its policy through legislation this year independent of federal intervention.

    “This Department of Justice has already filed multiple lawsuits to prevent U.S. students from being treated like second-class citizens — Illinois now joins the list of states where we are relentlessly fighting to vindicate federal law,” Bondi said in a Tuesday statement.

    Steven Weinhoeft, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, similarly alleged that Illinois’ law unlawfully disadvantages the state’s citizens and uses tax funding to incentivize illegal immigration.

    “Illinois has an apparent desire to win a ‘race to the bottom’ as the country’s leading sanctuary state,” he said in a statement. “Illinois citizens deserve better.”

    Sanctuary jurisdictions, such as cities and states, are generally considered areas with policies limiting local authorities’ cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts. Bondi has promised to “eradicate” such policies across the country.

    Weinhoeft in February took over as the district’s attorney for Rachelle Aud Crowe, following Trump’s promise to fire all U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Joe Biden.

    Unlike Texas and Oklahoma, Illinois is a solidly blue state, with Democratic control over the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the Legislature. And Pritzker has been one of the most outspoken opponents of President Donald Trump.

    A spokesperson for the governor’s office called the lawsuit “yet another blatant attempt to strip Illinoisans of resources and opportunities.” 

    “While the Trump Administration strips away federal resources from all Americans, Illinois provides consistent and inclusive educational pathways for all students — including immigrants and first-generation students — to access support and contribute to our state,” the spokesperson said in an email Wednesday. “All Illinoisans deserve a fair shot to obtain an education, and our programs and policies are consistent with federal laws.”

    The DOJ’s lawsuit names as defendants: 

    • The state of Illinois.
    • Pritzker.
    • Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
    • Southern Illinois University’s board of trustees.
    • Rend Lake College’s board of trustees.
    • The University of Illinois’ board of trustees.
    • Chicago State University’s board of trustees.
    • Eastern Illinois University’s board of trustees.
    • Illinois State University’s board of trustees.
    • Northeastern Illinois University’s board of trustees.
    • Illinois Student Assistance Commission.
    • Illinois DREAM Fund Commission.

    The University of Illinois system said Wednesday it is reviewing the complaint and had no comment. Chicago State said it does not comment on pending litigation. And Rend Lake declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing ongoing talks with its legal counsel.

    The remaining colleges did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

    The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition can be substantial.

    In-state students who enrolled full time at Illinois State in fall 2025 paid $12,066 for a year of tuition. For out-of-state students, the cost was $24,132.

    At Chicago State, new in-state students paid $352 per credit hour, while incoming out-of-state students paid $697.

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  • DOJ Deems Definition of HSIs Unconstitutional, Won’t Defend

    DOJ Deems Definition of HSIs Unconstitutional, Won’t Defend

    Arizona State University (left) and the University of California, San Diego, are two HSIs.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | InnaPoka and yongyuan/iStock/Getty Images

    The country’s roughly 600 Hispanic-serving institutions are in peril of losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the federal government, after the Department of Justice said it won’t defend the program against a lawsuit alleging the way HSIs are currently defined is unconstitutional. The suit challenges the requirement that a college or university’s undergraduate population must be at least a quarter Hispanic to receive HSI funding.

    U.S. solicitor general D. John Sauer wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson July 25 that the DOJ “has determined that those provisions violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.” Federal law requires DOJ officers to notify Congress when they decide to refrain from defending a law on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional.

    Citing the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned affirmative action in student admissions, Sauer wrote that “the Supreme Court has explained that ‘[o]utright racial balancing’ is ‘patently unconstitutional’” and said “its precedents make clear that the government lacks any legitimate interest in differentiating among universities based on whether ‘a specified number of seats in each class’ are occupied by ‘individuals from the preferred ethnic groups.’” 

    The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet, first reported on the letter Friday. The DOJ subsequently provided Inside Higher Ed with the letter but gave no further comment or interviews.

    The Free Beacon wrote that “the letter likely spells the end for the HSI grants, which the Trump administration is now taking steps to wind down.” The Education Department wrote in an email, “We can confirm the Free Beacon’s reporting,” but didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview or answer further written questions. 

    Just because the executive branch has given up defending the program doesn’t necessarily mean it’s over—or that the group Students for Fair Admissions and the state of Tennessee have won the lawsuit they filed in June. The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities moved to intervene in the case late last month, asking U.S. District Court judge Katherine A. Crytzer to add the group as a defendant. She has yet to rule, but the Education Department and education secretary Linda McMahon, the current defendants, didn’t oppose this intervention. 

    The legal complaint from Students for Fair Admissions and Tennessee  asks Crytzer to declare the program’s ethnicity-based requirements unconstitutional, but not necessarily to end the program altogether. Students for Fair Admissions is the group whose suits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill yielded the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in admissions. In the suit over the HSI program, that group and Tennessee’s attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, now argue that the admissions ruling means Tennessee colleges and universities can’t use affirmative action to increase Hispanic student enrollments in order to qualify for HSI funding. 

    Deborah Santiago, co-founder and chief executive officer of Excelencia in Education, which promotes Latino student success, said Friday that the Education Department in June “opened a competition to award grants for this fiscal year for HSIs.”

    “There are proposals to the Department of Education right now that they said they were going to allocate,” Santiago said, noting that the program was set to dole out more than $350 million this fiscal year—money that institutions use for faculty development, facilities and other purposes. 

    “The program doesn’t require that any of the money go to Hispanics at all,” she said. For a college or university to qualify for the program, at least half of the student body must be low-income, in addition to the requirement that a quarter be Hispanic. 

    “The value of a program like this has really been investing in institutions that have a high concentration of low-income, first generation students,” Santiago said. 

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  • DOJ sets sights on George Washington University

    DOJ sets sights on George Washington University

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    The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday accused George Washington University of being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment of Jewish, American-Israeli and Israeli students and faculty. 

    The Justice Department, in an agency notice, cited a pro-Palestinian encampment on GWU’s University Yard for two weeks during the spring 2024 term. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department cleared the encampment on May 8, arresting nearly three dozen people in the process. 

    About a week earlier, MPD had refused the university’s request to clear the encampment, and Police Chief Pamela Smith said the department had no plans to remove the demonstrators as long as they were peaceful. When police eventually cleared out the encampment, MPD cited a “gradual escalation in the volatility of the protest.”

    The Justice Department has now accused GWU of violating Title VI, which bars federally funded institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin. 

    GWU is the latest university under fire from the Trump administration for allegedly not doing enough to protect students and employees from antisemitism. 

    These accusations are often followed by threats that colleges will lose vast swaths of their federal funding unless they adopt sweeping policy changes. Some Jewish lawmakers have accused President Donald Trump of weaponizing antisemitism to attack colleges. 

    The Trump administration is looking to negotiate with GWU, as it has with other institutions in its crosshairs. The notice of violation states that the Justice Department is offering to enter a “voluntary resolution agreement” with the university. 

    In the notice, the Justice Department alleges GWU leaders were deliberately indifferent to several incidents. 

    It says one Jewish student described “being surrounded, harassed, threatened, and then ordered to leave the area immediately by antisemitic protesters.” In another instance, the notice says a Jewish student holding up an Israeli flag near the encampment was surrounded by protesters who had linked arms “for the purpose of restricting the Jewish student’s movements.”

    In a public statement on Tuesday, GWU said it is reviewing the Justice Department’s notice. 

    “GW condemns antisemitism, which has absolutely no place on our campuses or in our civil society,” the university said in the statement. “Moreover, our actions clearly demonstrate our commitment to addressing antisemitic actions and promoting an inclusive campus environment by upholding a safe, respectful, and accountable environment.”

    The Trump administration recently hit the University of California, Los Angeles with similar accusations. 

    In late July, the Justice Department alleged that UCLA had also violated civil rights law. Like with GWU, Trump administration officials pointed to a pro-Palestinian encampment erected in the spring 2024 term that university officials cleared after about a week. 

    The Trump administration quickly suspended $584 million in federal funding, a move that brought University of California system leaders to the negotiating table in hopes of restoring the money. 

    However, UC President James Milliken said in a statement on Aug. 6 that the funding cuts “do nothing to address antisemitism” and accused the Trump administration of ignoring both the system and UCLA’s efforts to combat antisemitism. 

    Just two days later, the Justice Department proposed a settlement with the university — a whopping $1 billion penalty. 

    Milliken issued a quick and blunt rebuke. “As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” he said in an Aug. 8 statement.

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  • After DOJ Sues, Okla. Ends In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    After DOJ Sues, Okla. Ends In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Oklahoma Tuesday over a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. Oklahoma is now the fourth state the DOJ has sued for having such a policy.

    The state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, swiftly sided with the federal government and filed a joint motion in support of quashing the law. He said in a statement that it’s “discriminatory and unlawful” to offer noncitizens lower in-state tuition rates “that are not made available to out-of-state Americans.”

    “Today marks the end of a longstanding exploitation of Oklahoma taxpayers, who for many years have subsidized colleges and universities as they provide unlawful benefits to illegal immigrants in the form of in-state tuition,” Drummond said.

    Now the state and the DOJ await a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

    Oklahoma’s quick support for the legal challenge is reminiscent of what happened in Texas when the DOJ sued the state in June: Within hours of the lawsuit, Texas sided with the Justice Department and a judge ruled in favor of a permanent injunction, ending in-state tuition for noncitizens. The DOJ then filed similar lawsuits against Kentucky and Minnesota, though those legal fights are still ongoing.

    The lawsuits follow an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in April calling for a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities and state laws unlawfully “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens,” citing in-state tuition benefits for noncitizens as an example.

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  • DOJ Says UCLA Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights

    DOJ Says UCLA Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights

    The U.S. Department of Justice issued a notice to the University of California, Los Angeles, on Tuesday alleging that it violated civil rights law. The move came just hours after the university announced a $6.45 million settlement to end a lawsuit brought by Jewish students over allegations of antisemitism last year.  

    “The Department has concluded that UCLA’s response to the protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024 was deliberately indifferent to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI,” the notice read. It also said an investigation into the University of California system is ongoing.

    The message made no mention of the settlement; UCLA divided the funds between the plaintiffs and Jewish advocacy and community organizations. The settlement also said the university cannot exclude Jewish students or staff from educational facilities and opportunities “based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.” (Jewish student plaintiffs argued they were barred by pro-Palestinian protesters from entering certain areas of campus.)

    According to the federal notice, UCLA now has until Aug. 5 to contact the DOJ to seek a voluntary resolution agreement “to ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence.” DOJ officials said they’re prepared to file a complaint in federal district court by Sept. 2 “unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement in this matter.”

    “Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.”

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