Tag: dont

  • Don’t Wait for Permission to Write for the Public

    Don’t Wait for Permission to Write for the Public

    Welcome to the first installment of my monthly column, “The Public Scholar,” in which I invite academics and other experts to step forward—thoughtfully, clearly and with purpose—to help shape public conversations that matter. In this space, I’ll offer practical, field-tested strategies for turning academic expertise into public impact, including how to know if an idea is op-ed–worthy, how to turn a classroom anecdote into publishable prose, how to know when it’s time to query a literary agent about your book idea and more.

    I’m Susan D’Agostino, a mathematician whose stories have been published in The Atlantic, the BBC, Scientific American, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, Wired, Quanta and other leading publications. (You may recall that I wrote with some frequency about math and technology for Inside Higher Ed a couple of years ago.) My last book, How to Free Your Inner Mathematician (Oxford University Press, 2020), won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Book Prize for an exceptionally well-written book with a positive impact on the public’s view of math. My next book, How Math Will Save Your Life, to be published by W. W. Norton, makes the case for harnessing mathematical thinking in the face of personal and global crises.

    But none of that came easily or automatically. A decade ago, I was a tenured mathematics professor who had spent years honing proofs and lectures. Yet amid lagging public math literacy, I felt an unshakable urge to reach beyond the walls of academia and write for the public. Still, I hesitated. Was my voice or expertise welcome outside of peer-reviewed journals? Did I have the authority to write for readers I could not picture in a seminar room? Did I even know how?

    That transition—from academic to public scholar—was bumpy. I made mistakes. I received more rejections than I care to count. (Stay tuned for a future column about all those rejections!) I had to unlearn some academic habits and relearn how to communicate with clarity for broad audiences. But step by step, I found my way.

    You don’t need to leave higher ed to write for the public. And you certainly don’t need permission. Academia often trains scholars to seek approval—through grants, press offices and peer-reviewed publications. But the reality is that institutional support often follows after a scholar gains visibility. You already have the credentials to write for the public in your area of expertise. Now you need the courage and practical tips for doing so.

    Maybe you’re a historian who sees how your field illuminates today’s political divides. Or a scientist concerned about climate change, misinformation or public health. Or an artist reflecting on what the arts can—and do—offer society. Or a literary scholar exploring how stories shape our moral imaginations. Or an educator with hard-won insights into what learning looks like in today’s classrooms. If you feel the tug to engage beyond campus gates, this column is for you.

    Many academics assume that public writing takes time away from scholarship. But making your work accessible to a wide audience forces you to think harder, not less. How can you distill the central argument of your research so that an intelligent friend with no training in your field can understand? Why should they care? Honing translation skills is an art. Your goal is to show up with clarity and generosity.

    As a bonus, crafting the occasional op-ed can energize your research and teaching—not distract from it. You can clarify your ideas and receive real-time feedback on your argument and may even attract collaborators. Public writing can also be personally restorative. It reconnects you with the real-world questions that made you fall for your field. Your op-ed may even catch the eye of a literary agent or editor who’s interested in discussing book ideas. Also, your willingness to be a novice again may offer credibility among students, as that’s what many are wrestling with in your classroom.

    When I began writing in public-facing newspapers and magazines, I felt newly connected to issues that mattered beyond academia. While campus conversations are vital and intellectually rich, I found that engaging the broader public offered a different kind of clarity and urgency—to respond to a moment unfolding in real time and to make research relevant to people’s lives.

    Scholars across disciplines have watched with rising unease as the Trump administration has terminated research grants, dismissed government scientists without cause and wielded funding as a cudgel against universities. In this atmosphere, it can be tempting to self-censor or to wait for more hospitable times.

    But the cost of silence must be weighed against the consequences of inaction. Public conversations—about health care, history, science, democracy, libraries, public art and education—unfold every day, with or without scholars who can offer nuance, evidence and context.

    “Opinions are most malleable before they are fully formed,” wrote Lisa Fazio, a psychology professor at Vanderbilt whose federal grant for misinformation research was terminated. “We must not shy away from the spotlight.”

    Fazio’s warning is especially resonant now, as academics face mounting pressure from funding threats to political scrutiny. These pressures are real, and they are unevenly distributed. As University of Washington computer scientist Kate Starbird, also a target for her work on misinformation, told Science magazine, “I never had the option of keeping my head down.”

    And yet: Sharing knowledge, humanizing data and contextualizing history are profound acts of public service in consequential times. The OpEd Project puts it plainly: “If you say things of consequence, there may be consequences. The alternative is to be inconsequential.”

    Here’s some good news: Editors at newspapers and magazines want academic voices in the mix, and they’re often willing collaborators in helping your ideas rise above the noise. Editors want assurance that you are trained in your area of expertise, but they are less concerned with titles or tenure than your academic colleagues. Whether you’re a graduate student, an adjunct, new on the tenure track or a full professor, what matters is your voice, your argument and your ability to meet the moment.

    Ready to begin? Here are a few prompts to spark your first (or next) op-ed:

    • What’s one thing people misunderstand about your field, and why does it matter?
    • What recent news headline made you think, “If only they understood this about my field …?”
    • What conversation is already happening in the news, online or in your community that your research can help reframe, complicate or clarify?
    • What’s one counterintuitive idea from your work that could shift how people think?
    • Has your research or teaching ever changed how you see the world, and could it do the same for others?
    • Where is your field falling short in meeting a public need, and what would it take to change that?

    You don’t need to have all the answers. Often, a strong op-ed starts with one sharp insight, thoughtfully delivered and timed to the news cycle.

    Try drafting a few notes in your phone during your commute, between classes or even while multitasking in that faculty meeting (I won’t tell). Write as if you’re talking to a smart, curious friend. Make it clear, specific and real. Proofread like your reputation depends on it, because for the editor you’re pitching, it does. Make it short, too! Aim for 800 words max.

    And if you’d like more help along the way, sign up for my monthly newsletter. You’ll get notice of each new article in “The Public Scholar,” practical writing tips, behind-the-scenes insights from my work and inspiration from other academics finding their voice in public spaces. Your expertise is hard-won. What might happen if you shared what you know more broadly?

    Susan D’Agostino is a mathematician whose stories have been published in The Atlantic, the BBC, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Wired, The Financial Times, Quanta and other leading publications. Her last book, How to Free Your Inner Mathematician (Oxford University Press, 2020) won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Book Prize for an exceptionally well-written book with a positive impact on the public’s view of math. Her next book, How Math Will Save Your Life, will be published by W. W. Norton. She has been a journalism fellow at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Mila-Quebec AI Institute. For notice of each new article in Susan’s Inside Higher Ed column, “The Public Scholar,” practical writing tips, behind-the-scenes insights from her work and inspiration from other academics finding their voice in public spaces, sign up for her free, monthly newsletter here.

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  • The Numbers Don’t Lie: HSI Funding Delivers Results

    The Numbers Don’t Lie: HSI Funding Delivers Results

     Dr. William Casey Boland A lawsuit challenging Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) federal funding represents another figurative bomb lobbed in the current war on U.S. higher education. Galvanized by the President’s blitzkrieg on social funding and education, this assault on the alleged reverse racism of HSI funding reflects the ugly political tenor of the times in the U.S. It also conveniently ignores the evidence of the positive impact of such governmental support. 

    l’ll acknowledge my bias: I teach at a large urban college that recently received an HSI grant. Nearly all my students are students of color, with roughly half being Hispanic. Many are the first in their families to enroll in college. Most of their parents were not born in the U.S.  We are amongst the 20% of all colleges in the U.S. that are eligible to apply for an HSI grant, which are made available through the Higher Education Act of 1965 (Title III and Title V). 

    Why did we apply for this grant? State funding per student to public HSIs is $6,396.59 compared to $15,526.13 for non-HSIs. The ongoing disparities in postsecondary educational attainment based on race and ethnicity reveal more about a deficit in public policy to address the equitable distribution of resources and less about the ability of students of color to obtain a college degree. Despite modest gains over time, gaps in attainment continue. 28% of the Hispanic population in the U.S. received an associate degree or higher compared to 48% of the white population. The average graduation rate in four-year postsecondary institutions was 52% for Hispanic students compared to 65% for white students. HSI grants are made available in part to narrow this gap in college outcomes amongst Hispanic students.

    What is my college doing with its HSI grant? To advance retention, persistence, and specific course completion, the grant will improve the First Year Seminar, provide professional develop with a focus on culturally responsive pedagogy, integrate tutoring, peer mentoring, academic and career coaching, and target intervention in gateway courses.

    Many HSI-eligible colleges look like mine, but not all. They are two and four-year public and private non-profit institutions that are under-resourced, become eligible to apply when their undergraduate enrollment reaches 25% Hispanic and at minimum 50% receive some form of financial aid. The rising number of colleges eligible for HSI grants reflects the growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S. Between 2010 and 2022, the Hispanic population accounted for 34 percent of the overall increase in the U.S. population. Hispanic participation in colleges and universities rose from 14 percent in 2010 to 20 percent in 2022.

    Several characteristics are common across institutions designated as HSIs. First, Hispanics tend to enroll in HSI-designated colleges more than non-HSIs. This is largely due to Hispanic students wanting to enroll in a college close to their community. Second, Hispanic students attending HSIs are often the first in their family to seek a college degree. Third, Hispanic students enrolled in HSIs on average graduated from high schools with large classroom sizes, disproportionate levels of racially minoritized student populations, and lower standardized test scores. Many argue that HSIs offer such students an opportunity to participate in postsecondary education that they would not otherwise have.

    Evidence-based research demonstrates the ROI on the federal government’s investment in HSIs. When colleges receive HSI grants, there is a positive effect on Hispanic students. I found that grant receipt increases Hispanic bachelor’s degree completion by nearly 30 percent and associate degrees by almost 25 percent. In another study, we found a 10% increase in Hispanic students obtaining STEM associate’s degrees. We also found benefits for non-Hispanic students, with an 11% increase in the number of those students receiving STEM associate’s degrees. This echoes another study focusing on the initial year HSI STEM grants were awarded with the authors finding HSI STEM grant receipt directly led to an 8% increase in Hispanic students receiving such degrees in community colleges. 

    I doubt the architects of this recent lawsuit challenging HSI funding have ever spoken to someone who graduated from an HSI. I teach a graduate course on minority serving institutions (MSIs). Nearly all my students are students of color from the New York City metropolitan area. Most attended different MSIs as undergraduates. While experiences vary, most extol the virtues of having attended an MSI. They speak to the level of support they received, the power of being surrounded my others who shared their background, the willingness of HSIs and other MSIs to welcome students’ families and community to campus, amongst many other characteristics that made them glad they chose an HSI or MSI over a PWI.

    It is important to evaluate the effectiveness of postsecondary programs funded through tax-payer dollars. Yet recent political antagonism directed towards higher education looks more like red meat being tossed to appease the red base as opposed to thoughtful, evidence-based decision-making. Acknowledging the effectiveness of HSI funding and similar efforts would weaken the core animating principle of the current Republican mission to decimate political support for such programs and reduce the existence of government more broadly.

    Dr. William Casey Boland is an assistant professor in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College-City University of New York.

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  • Don’t believe the hype: the Government and state school admissions to Oxford University

    Don’t believe the hype: the Government and state school admissions to Oxford University

    • HEPI Director, Nick Hillman, looks at the latest row on admissions to the University of Oxford.

    In a speech on Friday, the Minister for Skills, Baroness Smith, strongly chastised her alma mater, the University of Oxford, for taking a third of their entrants from the 6% of kids that go to private schools.

    In a section of the speech entitled ‘Challenging Oxford’, we were told the situation is ‘absurd’, ‘arcane’ and ‘can’t continue’:

    Oxford recently released their state school admissions data for 2024.

    And the results were poor.

    66.2% – the lowest entry rate since 2019.

    I want to be clear, speaking at an Oxford college today, that this is unacceptable.

    The university must do better.

    The independent sector educates around 6% of school children in the UK.

    But they make-up 33.8% of Oxford entrants.

    Do you really think you’re finding the cream of the crop, if a third of your students come from 6% of the population?

    It’s absurd.

    Arcane, even.

    And it can’t continue.

    It’s because I care about Oxford and I understand the difference that it can make to people’s lives that I’m challenging you to do better.  But it certainly isn’t only Oxford that has much further to go in ensuring access.

    This language reminded me of the Laura Spence affair, which produced so much heat and so little light in the Blair / Brown years and which may even have set back sensible conversations on broadening access to selective higher education.

    I wrote in a blog over the weekend that the Government are at risk of forgetting the benefit of education for education’s sake. That represents a political hole that Ministers should do everything to avoid as it could come to define them. Ill-thought through attacks on the most elite universities for their finely-grained admissions decisions represent a similar hole best avoided. Just imagine if the Minister had set out plans to tackle a really big access problem, like boys’ educational underachievement, instead. The Trump/Harvard spat is something any progressive government should seek to avoid, not copy.

    The latest chastisement is poorly formed for at least three specific reasons: the 6% is wrong in this context; the 33.8% number does not tell us what people tend to think it does; and Oxford’s current position of not closely monitoring the state/independent split is actually in line with the regulator’s guidance.

    1. 6% represents only half the proportion (12%) of school leavers educated at independent schools. In other words, the 6% number is a snapshot for the proportion of all young people in private schools right now; it tells us nothing about those at the end of their schooling and on the cusp of higher education.
    2. The 33.8% number is unhelpful because 20%+ of Oxford’s new undergraduates hail from overseas and they are entirely ignored in the calculation. If you include the (over) one in five Oxford undergraduate entrants educated overseas, the proportion of Oxford’s intake that is made up of UK private school kids falls from from something like one-third to more like one-quarter. This matters in part because the number of international students at Oxford has grown, meaning there are fewer places for home students of all backgrounds. In 2024, Oxford admitted 100 more undergraduate students than in 2006, but there were 250 more international students – and consequently fewer Brits. We seem to be obsessed with the backgrounds of home students and, because we want their money, entirely uninterested in the backgrounds of international students.
    3. The Office for Students dislikes the state/private metric. This is because of the differences within these two categories: in other words, there are high-performing state schools and less high-performing independent schools. Last year, when the University of Cambridge said they planned to move away from a simplistic state/independent school target, John Blake, the Director of Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students, confirmed to the BBC, ‘we do not require a target on the proportion of pupils from state schools entering a particular university.’ So universities have typically shied away from this measure in recent times. If Ministers think it is a key metric after all and if they really do wish to condemn individual institutions for their state/independent split, it would have made sense to have had a conversation with the Office for Students and to have encouraged them to put out new guidance first. At the moment, the Minister and the regulator are saying different things on an important issue of high media attention.

    Are independently educated pupils overrepresented at Oxbridge? Quite possibly, but the Minister’s stick/schtick, while at one with the Government’s wider negative approach to independent schools, seems a sub-optimal way to engineer a conversation on the issue. Perhaps Whitehall wanted a headline more than it wanted to get under the skin of the issue?

    we do not require a target on the proportion of pupils from state schools entering a particular university

    John Blake, Director for Fair access and participation

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  • Don’t Fall for Trump’s Trade School Trojan Horse (opinion)

    Don’t Fall for Trump’s Trade School Trojan Horse (opinion)

    In one of his all-too-frequent rants on Truth Social last month, President Trump posted, “I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land.” It’s a transparent and cynical ploy: pit one segment of the education community against another—rich Harvard versus poor “trade schools”—and watch the divisions take hold. But make no mistake: This strategy only works if institutions, elite or otherwise, fall for the bait.

    We’re not sure what the president means by “trade schools” but suspect he’s referring to the nation’s 1,000-plus community and technical colleges— institutions that educate about a third of all U.S. undergraduates. We’ve both spent our careers making the case for greater investment in these colleges, including through the Project on Workforce, the cross-Harvard initiative we helped found six years ago to forge better pathways between education and good jobs.

    (And for the record: Trump’s accusation that Harvard is “very antisemitic” rings hollow coming from the man who hosted a Holocaust-denying white nationalist at Mar-a-Lago. It’s certainly unrecognizable to us—two Jews who, between us, have spent more than 40 years as Harvard students, staff and faculty.)

    If Trump actually cared about funding “trade schools,” he would start by telling congressional leaders to strip the provision in his so-called Big Beautiful Bill that raises the credit-hour threshold for Pell Grant eligibility. Community colleges serve the bulk of low-income students, and most of them have to work while in school. This proposed change proffered by the House, which was not included in the Senate version of the reconciliation bill, could cut off aid for 400,000 students a year and force many to drop out.

    But the threat isn’t just in proposed legislation: Community colleges are already the targets of Trump’s politically motivated grant cancellations. For example, just last month, his administration revoked awards from six Tech Hubs, created by bipartisan legislation to boost innovation, job creation and national security. These included projects in Alabama, where a community college would expand biotech training; in Idaho, where a community college planned to train aerospace workers; and in Vermont, where a community college was preparing a new semiconductor workforce.

    And the cuts don’t stop there. If the president was really serious about supporting the U.S. skilled technical workforce, he would expand, not gut, programs like the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education initiative, which has provided $1.5 billion to more than 500 community and technical colleges to develop cutting-edge training in fields like advanced manufacturing and robotics. Instead, his budget proposes cutting NSF by 55 percent, including deep reductions to education and workforce programs. The president’s budget also proposes eliminating all Perkins Act funding for community colleges (approximately $400 million), limiting the funding to middle and high schools and thereby cutting off a key source of federal support for technical training beyond secondary school.

    If by “trade schools” Trump means education for trades jobs, his hostility toward immigrants undermines the very students he claims to support. Eight percent of community college students are not U.S. citizens, with much higher shares on some campuses. They are just as vital to America’s future as the researchers in Harvard’s labs. In 2024, immigrants made up more than 30 percent of construction trades workers and 20 percent of U.S. manufacturing workers. Closing America’s doors won’t just harm colleges: It will weaken our ability to build, make and compete.

    Last week, we joined more than 12,000 Harvard alumni in signing an amicus brief to pledge our commitment to defend not only Harvard but the broader higher education enterprise from the Trump administration’s bullying attacks. Over the past month, we also spoke with community college leaders from around the country whose work we profiled in our 2023 book, America’s Hidden Economic Engines. Without exception, these leaders expressed deep concern, understanding that if Harvard, with all of its resources, could be forced to bend to the will of a tyrannical government, what chance would less resourced institutions have to defend academic freedom and maintain independence from governmental intrusion?

    If elite universities and community and technical colleges stand together, we can defend not just education, but democracy itself. Challenging as it will be for Harvard to weather this unprecedented assault on its independence, and that of higher education, it has no choice but to stand firm. Unlike many more vulnerable victims of Trump’s bullying—immigrants, civil servants, USAID grantees, the trans community—Harvard has the resources to fight back. Ultimately its rights, along with the rights of others targeted, will likely be vindicated by the courts. But in the interim, a lot of needless damage will be done to the lives of affected people and institutions. Most Americans may not speak often of such abstractions as academic freedom, due process and the fate of democracy. But they know a bully when they see one.

    Rachel Lipson, a co-founder of the Harvard Project on Workforce, was a senior adviser on workforce at the CHIPS Program Office at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She recently returned to Harvard Kennedy School as a research fellow.

    Robert Schwartz is a professor of practice emeritus at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 1996, he had a long career in education and government.

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  • People want AI regulation — but they don’t trust the regulators

    People want AI regulation — but they don’t trust the regulators

    Generative AI is changing the way we learn, think, discover, and create. Researchers at UC San Diego are using generative AI technology to accelerate climate modeling. Scientists at Harvard Medical School have developed a chatbot that can help diagnose cancers. In Belarus, Venezuela, and Russia, political dissidents and embattled journalists have created AI tools to bypass censorship.

    Despite these benefits, a recent global survey from The Future of Free Speech, a think tank where I am the executive director, finds that people around the world support strict guardrails — whether imposed by companies or governments — on the types of content that AI can create.

    These findings were part of a broader survey that ranked 33 countries on overall support for free speech, including on controversial but legal topics. In every country, even high-scoring ones, fewer than half supported AI generating content that, for instance, might offend religious beliefs or insult the national flag — speech that would be protected in most democracies. While some people might find these topics beyond reproach, the ability to question these orthodoxies is a fundamental freedom that underpins free and open societies.

    This tension reflects two competing approaches for how societies should harness AI’s power. The first, “User Empowerment,” sees generative AI as a powerful but neutral tool. Harm lies not in the tool itself, but in how it’s used and by whom. This approach affirms that free expression includes not just the right to speak, but the right to access information across borders and media — a collective good essential to informed choice and democratic life. Laws should prohibit using AI to commit fraud or harassment, not ban AI from discussing controversial political topics.

    The second, “Preemptive Safetyism,” treats some speech as inherently harmful and seeks to block it before it’s even created. While this instinct may seem appealing given the potential for using AI to supercharge harm production, it risks turning AI into a tool of censorship and control, especially in the hands of powerful corporate or political actors.

    As AI becomes an integrated operating system in our everyday life, it is critical that we not cut off access to ideas and information that may challenge us. Otherwise, we risk limiting human creativity and stifling scientific discovery.

    Concerns over AI moderation

    In 2024, The Future of Free Speech analyzed the policies of six major chatbots and tested 268 prompts to see how they handled controversial but legal topics, such as the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports and the “lab-leak” theory. We found that chatbots refused to generate content for more than 40% of prompts. This year, we repeated our tests and found that refusal rates dropped significantly to about 25% of the time.

    Despite these positive developments, our survey’s findings indicate that people are comfortable with companies and governments erecting strict guardrails on what their AI chatbots can generate, which may result in large-scale government-mandated corporate control of users’ access to information and ideas.

    Overwhelming opposition to political deepfakes

    Unsurprisingly, the category of AI content that received the lowest support across the board in our survey was deepfakes of politicians. No more than 38% of respondents in any country expressed approval of political deepfakes. This finding aligns with a surge of legislative activity in both the U.S. and abroad as policymakers rush to regulate the use of AI deepfakes in elections.

    At least 40 U.S. states introduced deepfake-related bills in the 2024 legislative session alone, with more than 50 bills already enacted. China, the EU, and others are all scrambling to pass laws requiring the detection, disclosure, and/or removal of deepfakes. Europe’s AI Act requires platforms to mitigate nebulous and ill-defined “systemic risks to society,” which could lead companies to preemptively remove lawful but controversial speech like deepfakes critical of politicians.

    Although deepfakes can have real-world consequences, First Amendment advocates who have challenged deepfake regulations in the U.S. rightly argue that laws targeting political deepfakes open the door for governments to censor lawful dissent, criticism, or satire of candidates, a vital function of the democratic process. This is not a merely speculative risk.

    An open society cannot thrive if its digital architecture is built to exclude dissent by design.

    The editor of a far-right German media outlet was sentenced to a seven-month suspended prison sentence for sharing a fake meme of the Interior Minister holding a sign that ironically read, “I hate freedom of speech.” For much of 2024, Google restricted Gemini’s ability to generate factual responses about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the Indian government accused the company of breaking the law when its chatbot responded that Modi had been “accused of implementing policies some experts characterized as fascist.”

    And despite panic over AI-driven disinformation undermining global elections in 2024, studies from Princeton, the EU, and the Alan Turing Institute found no evidence that a wave of deepfakes affected election results in places like the U.S., Europe, or India.

    People want regulation but don’t trust regulators

    A recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly six in 10 U.S. adults believed the government would not adequately regulate AI. Our survey confirms these findings on a global scale. In all countries surveyed except Taiwan, at least a plurality supported dual regulation by both governments and tech companies.

    Indeed, a 2023 Pew survey found that 55% of Americans supported government restrictions on false information online, even if it limited free expression. But a 2024 Axios poll found that more Americans fear misinformation from politicians than from AI, foreign governments, or social media. In other words, the public appears willing to empower those they distrust most with policing online and AI misinformation.

    A new FIRE poll, conducted in May 2025, underscores this tension. Although about 47% of respondents said they prioritize protecting free speech in politics, even if that means tolerating some deceptive content, 41% said it’s more important to protect people from misinformation than to protect free speech. Even so, 69% said they were “moderately” to “extremely” concerned that the government might use AI rules to silence criticism of elected officials.

    In a democracy, public opinion matters — and The Future of Free Speech survey suggests that people around the world, including in liberal democracies, favor regulating AI to suppress offensive or controversial content. But democracies are not mere megaphones for majorities. They must still safeguard the very freedoms — like the right to access information, question orthodoxy, and challenge those in power — that make self-government possible.

    We should avoid Preemptive Safetyism

    The dangers of Preemptive Safetyism are most vividly on display in China, where AI tools like DeepSeek must enforce “core socialist values,” avoiding topics like Taiwan, Xinjiang, or Tiananmen, even when released in the West. What looks like a safety net can easily become a dragnet for dissent.

    Speech being generated by a machine does not negate the human right to receive it, especially as those algorithms become central to the very search engines, email clients, and word processors that we use as an interface for the exchange of ideas and information in the digital age.

    The greatest danger to speech often arises not from what is said, but from the fear of what might be said. An open society cannot thrive if its digital architecture is built to exclude dissent by design.

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  • They Don’t Want to Learn About the Middle East (opinion)

    They Don’t Want to Learn About the Middle East (opinion)

    Being arrested by armed riot police on my own campus was not, somehow, the most jarring thing that has happened to me since the spring of 2024. More disturbing was the experience of being canceled by my hometown.

    In June 2024, I was supposed to give the second of two lectures in a series entitled “History of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” at the public library in San Anselmo, Calif., a leafy suburb of San Francisco best known as the longtime home of George Lucas.

    I grew up in San Anselmo during the Sept. 11 era and vividly remember how stereotypes and misperceptions of the Middle East were used to justify war in Iraq and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims at home. I was shaped by the commonplace refrains of that moment, especially that Americans needed to learn more about the Middle East. So, I did. I learned Arabic and Farsi and spent years abroad living across the region. I earned a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history and am now a professor at a public university in Colorado. I see teaching as a means of countering the misrepresentations that generate conflict.

    But as the second lecture approached, I began receiving alarmed messages from the San Anselmo town librarian. She told me of a campaign to cancel the lecture so intense that discussions about how to respond involved the town’s elected officials, including the mayor. I was warned that “every word you utter tomorrow night will be scrutinized, dissected and used against you and the library” and that she had become “concerned for everyone’s well-being.” Just hours before it was scheduled to begin, the lecture was canceled.

    I later learned more about what had transpired. At a subsequent town council meeting, the librarian described a campaign of harassment and intimidation that included “increasingly aggressive emails” and “coordinated in-person visits” so threatening that she felt that they undermined the safe working environment of library staff.

    In Middle Eastern studies, such stories have become routine. A handful have received public attention—the instructor suspended for booking a room on behalf of a pro-Palestinian student organization, or the Jewish scholar of social movements investigated by Harvard University for supposed antisemitism. Professors have lost job offers or been fired. Even tenure is no protection. These well-publicized examples are accompanied by innumerable others which will likely never be known. In recent months, I have heard harrowing stories from colleagues: strangers showing up to classes and sitting menacingly in the back of the room; pressure groups contacting university administrators to demand that they be fired; visits from the FBI; a deluge of racist hate mail and death threats. It is no surprise that a recent survey of faculty in the field of Middle East Studies found that 98 percent of assistant professors self-censor when discussing Israel-Palestine.

    Compared to the professors losing their jobs and the student demonstrators facing expulsion—and even deportation—my experience is insignificant. It is nothing compared to the scholasticide in Gaza, where Israeli forces have systematically demolished the educational infrastructure and killed untold numbers of academics and students. But the contrast between my anodyne actions and the backlash they have generated illustrates the remarkable breadth of the censorship that permeates American society. The mainstream discourse has been purged not just of Palestinian voices, but of scholarly ones. Most significantly, censorship at home justifies violence abroad. Americans are once again living in an alternate reality—with terribly real consequences.

    On Oct. 7, 2023, it was clear that a deadly reprisal was coming. It was equally evident that no amount of force could free Israeli captives, let alone “defeat Hamas.” I contacted my university media office in hopes of providing valuable context. I had never given a TV interview before, so I spent hours preparing for a thoughtful discussion. Instead, I was asked if this was “Israel’s Pearl Harbor.”

    Well, no, I explained. It was the tragic and predictable result of a so-called peace process that has, for 30 years and with U.S. complicity, done little more than provide cover for the expansion of Israeli settlements. Violence erupts when negotiation fails. Only by understanding why people turn to violence can we end it. I watched the story after it aired. Nearly the whole interview was cut.

    I accepted or passed to colleagues all the interview requests that I received. But they soon dried up. Instead, I began receiving hate mail.

    It quickly became clear that I had to take the initiative to engage with the public. I held a series of historical teach-ins on campus. The audience was attentive, but small. I reached out to a local school district where I had previously provided curriculum advice. I never heard back. I contacted my high school alma mater and offered to speak there. They were too afraid of backlash. I was eventually invited to speak at two libraries, including San Anselmo’s. Everyone else turned me down.

    In April 2024, the Denver chapter of Students for a Democratic Society organized yet another protest in their campaign to pressure the University of Colorado to divest from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation. This event would be different. As one of the students spoke, others erected tents, launching what would become one of the longest-lasting encampments in the country.

    There was no cause for panic. The encampment did not interfere with classes or even block the walkway around the quad. Instead, it became the kind of community space that is all too hard to build on a commuter campus. It hosted speakers, prayer meetings and craft circles. But as I left a faculty meeting the day after the start of the encampment, I sensed that something was wrong. I arrived on the quad to find a phalanx of armed riot police facing down a short row of students standing hand in hand on the lawn.

    Fearing what would happen next, two colleagues and I joined the students and sat down, hoping to de-escalate the situation and avoid violence. The police surrounded us, preventing any escape. Then they were themselves surrounded by faculty, students and community members who were clearly outraged by their presence. We sat under the sun for nearly two hours as chaos swirled around us. The protesters cleared away the tents to demonstrate their compliance. It made no difference. Forty of us were arrested, zip-tied and jailed. I was charged with interference and trespassing. Others faced more serious charges. I was detained for more than 12 hours, until 3:00 in the morning.

    The arrests backfired. When the police departed, the protesters returned, invigorated by an outpouring of community support. I visited the encampment regularly over the following weeks. When the threat of war with Iran loomed, I gave a talk about Iranian history. When the activists organized their own graduation, they invited me to give a commencement address. I spoke about their accomplishments: that they had taken real risks, made real sacrifices and faced real consequences in order to do what was right. The encampment became the place where I could speak most freely, on campus or off.

    While the encampment came to an end in May, the prosecutions did not. The city offered me deferred prosecution, meaning that the matter would be dropped if I did not break the law for six months. I am not, to put it lightly, a seasoned lawbreaker, so the deal would have effectively made everything disappear. I turned it down. Accepting the offer would have prevented me from challenging the legality of the arrests, and I was determined to do what I could to prevent armed riot police from ever again suppressing a peaceful student demonstration. It was a matter of principle and precedent. A civil rights attorney agreed to represent me pro bono. I would fight the charges.

    During my pretrial hearings, I learned more about the cancellation of my lecture in San Anselmo. A local ceasefire group served the town with a freedom of information request that yielded hundreds of pages of emails. Two days before the talk was scheduled, one local resident sent an “all hands on deck” email that called for a coordinated campaign against my lecture “in hopes of getting it canceled.” A less technologically savvy recipient forwarded the message on to the library, providing an inside view.

    The denunciations presented a version of myself that I did not recognize. The letters relied on innuendo and misrepresentation. Many claimed that I was “pro-Hamas” or accused me of antisemitism, which they invariably conflated with criticism of Israeli policy. Several expressed concern about what I might say, rather than anything I have ever actually said, while others misquoted me. Fodder for the campaign came largely from media reports of my arrest and video of my commencement address, both taken out of context. One claimed that the talk was “a violation of multiple Federal and California Statutes.” Another claimed that I “seemed to promote ongoing violence”—the lawyerly use of the word “seemed” betraying the lack of evidence behind the accusation.

    Perhaps the most popular claim was that I am biased, an activist rather than a scholar. My opponents seemed especially offended by my use of the word “genocide.” But genocide is not an epithet—it is an analytical term that represents the consensus in my field. A survey of Middle East studies scholars conducted in the weeks surrounding the talk found that 75 percent viewed Israeli actions in Gaza as either “genocide” or “major war crimes akin to genocide.”

    I was most struck by how many people objected to the idea of contextualizing the Oct. 7 attack; one even called it “insulting.” But contextualization is not justification. Placing events in a wider frame is central to the study of history—indeed, it is why history matters. If violence is not explained by the twists and turns of events, it can only be understood as the product of intrinsic qualities—that certain people, or groups of people, are inherently violent or uncivilized. In the absence of context, bigotry reigns.

    I did what I could to fight back against the censorship campaign. After reading the library emails, I reached out to journalists at several local news outlets to inform them about the incident. None followed up. The only report ever published was written by an independent journalist on Substack.

    In the weeks leading up to my trial, I wrote an op-ed calling for the charges to be dropped. I noted that the protest was entirely peaceful until the police arrived. I asked how our students, especially our undocumented students or students of color, can feel safe on campus when the authorities respond to peaceful demonstrations by calling the police. I sent the article to a local paper. I never heard back. I sent it to a second. Then a third. None responded. It was never published.

    In October, prosecutors dropped the charges against me. The official order of dismissal stated that they did not believe that they had a reasonable likelihood of conviction. I have now joined a civil lawsuit against the campus police in the hope that it will make the authorities think twice before turning to the police to arrest student demonstrators.

    Scholars of the Middle East are caught in an inescapable bind. Activist spaces are the only ones left open to us, but we are dismissed as biased when we use them. We are invited to share our insights only if they are deemed uncontroversial by the self-appointed gatekeepers of the conventional wisdom. If we condemn—or even just name—the genocide unfolding before our eyes, we are deplatformed and silenced. The logic is circular and impenetrable. It is also poison to the body politic. It rests on a nonsensical conception of objectivity that privileges power over truth. This catch-22 is no novel creation of the new administration. The institutions most complicit in its creation are the pillars of society ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of justice—the press, the courts and the academy itself. They have constricted the boundaries of respectable discourse until they fit comfortably within the Beltway consensus. Rather than confronting reality, they have become apologists for genocide and architects of the post-truth world. They have learned nothing from Iraq. Nor do they want to. They don’t want to learn about the Middle East.

    Alex Boodrookas is an assistant professor of history at Metropolitan State University of Denver. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not represent those of his employer.

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  • As Recession Risk Rises, Don’t Expect 2008 Repeat (opinion)

    As Recession Risk Rises, Don’t Expect 2008 Repeat (opinion)

    Months into the second Trump administration, clear trends are reshaping the higher education landscape. Economic uncertainty stemming from inconsistent tariff policies has left businesses and consumers grappling with unpredictability. Meanwhile, efforts by the administration and congressional leadership to overhaul federal funding for higher education, including cuts to research grants and proposed cuts to Pell Grants and student loans, have created significant challenges for the sector.

    The U.S. economy contracted slightly in the first quarter of 2025, with the administration’s erratic and unpredictable policies amplifying recession risks. These fluctuations have led some to draw comparisons to the 2008 Great Recession, particularly regarding public higher education. While some lessons of that recession for higher education, such as those related to state appropriations, remain relevant, others may not apply due to the administration’s unique policies and priorities.

    Since the 1980s, economic downturns have increasingly impacted public higher education, primarily due to state budget cuts. During the 1980 recession, state educational appropriations per full-time-equivalent student dropped by 6 percent but recovered to pre-recession levels by 1985. In contrast, during the 2008 Great Recession, funding fell by nearly 26 percent, and most states never fully restored funding to pre-recession levels before the COVID-19 pandemic once again disrupted budgets in 2020. This prolonged recovery left public institutions financially weakened, with reduced capacity to support students.

    More than a decade after the Great Recession, public institutions were struggling to regain the level of state funding they once received. This prolonged recovery significantly affected student loan borrowing. The Great Recession weakened higher education systems as states shifted funds to mandatory expenses and relied on the federal student loan system and Pell Grants to cover a growing share of students’ educational costs. As a result, when states reduce funding, students and their families shoulder more financial responsibility, leading to greater student loan debt.

    During the Great Recession, public institutions were operating with reduced funding and downsizing, even as rising joblessness drove more people to enroll in college. Before 2008, total enrollment in degree-granting institutions was about 18.3 million, but by 2011–12, it exceeded 21 million. This period marked the emergence of the modern student loan crisis. Public institutions, already strained by reduced funding, faced the dual challenge of accommodating more students while maintaining quality. For many students, especially those pursuing graduate degrees, borrowing became a necessity. The economic downturn exacerbated these trends, further entrenching reliance on debt to finance education.

    A future recession could have an even more pronounced impact on public higher education, particularly in terms of state funding. The recently passed House budget bill, which proposes substantial cuts to higher education and Medicaid, exacerbates this risk by forcing states to prioritize addressing these funding shortfalls. Consequently, as legislatures shift resources to more immediate needs, both states and students may find themselves unable to rely on federal aid to support education. Long-standing research indicates that states will prioritize health-care funding over higher education. This pattern suggests that recent state investments in higher education could be rolled back or significantly reduced, even before a recession takes hold.

    The financial pressures on public institutions are already evident. Some systems are considering closing branch campuses, while others are cutting programs, laying off staff or grappling with declining enrollments. In addition, public regional institutions are particularly at risk, as they depend heavily on state funding and serve many of the students most vulnerable to financial challenges. If a recession occurs, these institutions may face severe and rapid downsizing.

    Following downsizing, a key consideration is whether a future recession will lead to an enrollment rebound similar to that seen during the Great Recession. This issue can be analyzed through two key factors: (1) the severity of joblessness and (2) the availability of grants, scholarships and loans, as well as the repayment structures of those loans.

    During the 2008 crisis, unemployment peaked at 10 percent, double the pre-recession rate, with a loss of 8.6 million jobs. Higher unemployment historically benefits higher education as individuals seek to retool their skills during economic downturns. Economists predict that under the current administration, unemployment could rise from 4.1 percent to between 4.7 percent and 7.5 percent, though projections are uncertain due to volatile policies. While higher unemployment might lead more people to consider enrolling in college, proposed changes to financial aid policies could significantly dampen such trends.

    The House’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act introduces stricter eligibility requirements for Pell Grants, such as tying awards to minimum credit-hour thresholds. Students would need to enroll in at least 30 credit hours per year for maximum awards and at least 15 credit hours per year to qualify at all. Furthermore, the bill eliminates subsidized student loans, meaning students would accrue interest while still in school. This change could add an estimated $6,000 in debt per undergraduate borrower, increasing the financial burden on students and potentially deterring enrollment.

    On the repayment side, the proposed Repayment Assistance Plan would replace existing income-driven repayment options. Unlike current plans, RAP bases payments on adjusted gross income rather than discretionary income, resulting in higher monthly payments for lower-income borrowers. Although RAP ensures borrowers do not face negative amortization—which is important for borrowers’ financial and mental distress—the 30-year forgiveness timeline is longer than that of current IDR plans, and the lack of inflation adjustments makes it less appealing than current IDR plans. Together, these changes could discourage potential students, particularly those from low-income or disadvantaged backgrounds, and depress graduate student enrollment.

    The bill also introduces a risk-sharing framework that requires institutions to repay the federal government for a portion of unpaid student loans. This framework, based on factors such as student retention and default rates, could influence enrollment decisions. Institutions might avoid admitting students who pose financial risks, such as those from low-income backgrounds, with lower precollege performance or nonwhite students, thereby restricting access and perpetuating inequities. Alternatively, some institutions may opt out of the student loan system entirely, further limiting opportunities for those who rely on federal aid.

    Recent executive actions pausing international student visa interviews will hinder the ability to recruit international students and eliminate the potential for these students to help subsidize low-income domestic students. As a result, institutions have fewer resources to support key groups in the administration’s electoral base without burdening American taxpayers. These actions not only increase the cost of higher education but also appear inconsistent with a fiscally conservative ideology.

    Mass layoffs in the Department of Education have delayed financial aid processing and compliance and hindered institutions’ ability to support more low-income students during an economic downturn. These personnel play a critical role in ensuring that state higher education systems receive the funding needed to expand access for low-income students. During the last recession, their efforts were essential to fostering student success, but under the current administration, the federal government continues to be an unreliable partner.

    While lessons from the Great Recession may offer some insight for public higher education during a future recession, the financial context and the priorities of the administration and congressional majority leadership differ significantly. Unlike the Great Recession, the next economic downturn may not lead to a surge in higher education enrollment. Without proactive measures to protect funding, expand financial aid and increase opportunity, public higher education risks reduced capacity and declining student outcomes. These changes will likely undermine higher education’s role as a pathway to economic mobility and societal progress.

    Daniel A. Collier is an assistant professor of higher and adult education at the University of Memphis. His work focuses on higher education policy, leadership and issues like student loan debt and financial aid; recent work has focused on Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Connect with Daniel on Bluesky at @dcollier74.bsky.social.

    Michael Kofoed is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests include the economics of education, higher education finance and the economics of financial aid; recent work has focused on online learning during COVID. Connect with Mike on X at @mikekofoed.

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  • A big reason why students with math anxiety underperform — they just don’t do enough math

    A big reason why students with math anxiety underperform — they just don’t do enough math

    Math anxiety isn’t just about feeling nervous before a math test. It’s been well-known for decades that students who are anxious about math tend to do worse on math tests and in math classes.

    But recently, some of us who research math anxiety have started to realize that we may have overlooked a simple yet important reason why students who are anxious about math underperform: They don’t like doing math, and as a result, they don’t do enough of it.

    We wanted to get a better idea of just what kind of impact math anxiety could have on academic choices and academic success throughout college. In one of our studies, we measured math anxiety levels right when students started their postsecondary education. We then followed them throughout their college career, tracking what classes they took and how well they did in them.

    We found that highly math-anxious students went on to perform worse not just in math classes, but also in STEM classes more broadly. This means that math anxiety is not something that only math teachers need to care about — science, technology and engineering educators need to have math anxiety on their radar, too.

    We also found that students who were anxious about math tended to avoid taking STEM classes altogether if they could. They would get their math and science general education credits out of the way early on in college and never look at another STEM class again. So not only is math anxiety affecting how well students do when they step into a STEM classroom, it makes it less likely that they’ll step into that classroom in the first place.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    This means that math anxiety is causing many students to self-sort out of the STEM career pipeline early, closing off career paths that would likely be fulfilling (and lucrative).

    Our study’s third major finding was the most surprising. When it came to predicting how well students would do in STEM classes, math anxiety mattered even more than math ability. Our results showed that if you were a freshman in college and you wanted to do well in your STEM classes, you would likely be better off reducing your math anxiety than improving your math ability.

    We wondered: How could that be? How could math anxiety — how you feel about math — matter more for your academic performance than how good you are at it? Our best guess: avoidance.

    If something makes you anxious, you tend to avoid doing it if you can. Both in our research and in that of other researchers, there’s been a growing understanding that in addition to its other effects, math anxiety means that you’ll do your very best to engage with math as little as possible in situations where you can’t avoid it entirely.

    This might mean putting in less effort during a math test, paying less attention in math class and doing fewer practice problems while studying. In the case of adults, this kind of math avoidance might look like pulling out a calculator whenever the need to do math arises just to avoid doing it yourself.

    In some of our other work, we found that math-anxious students were less interested in doing everyday activities precisely to the degree that they thought those activities involved math. The more a math-anxious student thought an activity involved math, the less they wanted to do it.

    If math anxiety is causing students to consistently avoid spending time and effort on their classes that involve math, this would explain why their STEM grades suffer.

    What does all of this mean for educators? Teachers need to be aware that students who are anxious about math are less likely to engage with math during class, and they’re less likely to put in the effort to study effectively. All of this avoidance means missed opportunities for practice, and that may be the key reason why many math-anxious students struggle not only in math class, but also in science and engineering classes that require some math.

    Related: Experts share the latest research on how teachers can overcome math anxiety

    Math anxiety researchers are at the very beginning of our journey to understand ways to make students who are anxious about math stop avoiding it but have already made some promising suggestions for how teachers can help. One study showed that a direct focus on study skills could help math-anxious students.

    Giving students clear structure on how they should be studying (trying lots of practice problems) and how often they should be studying (spaced out over multiple days, not just the night before a test) was effective at helping students overcome their math anxiety and perform better.

    Especially heartening was the fact that the effects seen during the study persisted in semesters beyond the intervention; these students tended to make use of the new skills into the future.

    Math anxiety researchers will continue to explore new ways to help math-anxious students fight their math-avoidant proclivities. In the meantime, educators should do what they can to help their students struggling with math anxiety overcome this avoidance tendency — it could be one of the most powerful ways a math teacher can help shape their students’ futures.

    Rich Daker is a researcher and founder of Pinpoint Learning, an education company that makes research-backed tools to help educators identify why their students make mistakes. Ian Lyons is an associate professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Psychology and principal investigator for the Math Brain Lab.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about math anxiety was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • No thank you, AI, I am not interested. You don’t get my data. #shorts

    No thank you, AI, I am not interested. You don’t get my data. #shorts

    No thank you, AI, I am not interested. You don’t get my data. #shorts

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  • Don’t let Texas criminalize free political speech in the name of AI regulation

    Don’t let Texas criminalize free political speech in the name of AI regulation

    This essay was originally published by the Austin American-Statesman on May 2, 2025.

    Texans aren’t exactly shy about speaking their minds — whether it’s at city hall, in the town square, or all over social media. But a slate of bills now moving through the Texas Legislature threatens to make that proud tradition a criminal offense.

    In the name of regulating artificial intelligence, lawmakers are proposing bills that could turn political memes, commentary and satire into crimes.

    Senate Bills 893 and 228, and House Bills 366 and 556, might be attempting to protect election integrity, but these bills actually impose sweeping restrictions that could silence ordinary Texans just trying to express their opinions.

    Take SB 893 and its companion HB 2795. These would make it a crime to create and share AI-generated images, audio recordings, or videos if done with the intent to “deceive” and “influence the result of an election.” The bill offers a limited safeguard: If you want to share any images covered by the bill, you must edit them to add a government-mandated warning label.

    But the bills never define what counts as “deceptive,” handing prosecutors a blank check to decide what speech crosses the line. That’s a recipe for selective enforcement and criminalizing unpopular opinions. And SB 893 has already passed the Senate.

    Vague laws and open-ended definitions shouldn’t dictate what Texans can say, how they can say it, or which tools they’re allowed to use.

    HB 366, which just passed the House, goes even further. It would require a disclaimer on any political ad that contains “altered media,” even when the content isn’t misleading. With the provisions applying to anyone spending at least $100 on political advertising, which is easily the amount a person could spend to boost a social media post or to print some flyers, a private citizen could be subject to the law.

    Once this threshold is met, an AI-generated meme, a five-second clip on social media, or a goofy Photoshop that gives the opponent a giant cartoon head would all suddenly need a legal warning label. No exceptions for satire, parody or commentary are included. If it didn’t happen in real life, you’re legally obligated to slap a disclaimer on it.

    HB 556 and SB 228 take a similarly broad approach, treating all generative AI as suspect and criminalizing creative political expression.

    These proposals aren’t just overkill, they’re unconstitutional. Courts have long held that parody, satire and even sharp political attacks are protected speech. Requiring Texans to add disclaimers to their opinions simply because they used modern tools to express them is not transparency. It’s compelled speech.

    Besides, Texas already has laws on the books to address defamation, fraud and election interference. What these bills do is expand government control over how Texans express themselves while turning political expression into a legal minefield.

    Fighting deception at the ballot box shouldn’t mean criminalizing creativity or chilling free speech online. Texans shouldn’t need a lawyer to know whether they can post a meme they made on social media or make a joke about a candidate.

    Political life in Texas has been known to be colorful, rowdy and fiercely independent — and that’s how it should stay. Vague laws and open-ended definitions shouldn’t dictate what Texans can say, how they can say it, or which tools they’re allowed to use.

    The Texas Legislature should scrap these overbroad AI bills and defend the Lone Star state’s real legacy: fearless, unapologetic free speech.

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