Tag: Education

China Aims for “Quality” Overseas Students With Entry Exam

China’s introduction of a standardized admissions exam for international students shows that efforts to build a world-class university system matter more to the country than increasing enrollments, according to experts.

Beginning with the 2026 intake, most international applicants will be required to take the China Scholastic Competency Assessment (CSCA), a centrally designed test intended to benchmark students from different education systems against a common academic standard.

The exam will be compulsory for recipients of Chinese government scholarships starting this year and later phased in more widely, becoming mandatory for all international undergraduate applicants by 2028.

It will be delivered primarily as an online, remotely proctored test, with some countries also offering off-line test centers.

Richard Coward, CEO at Global Admissions, an agency that helps international students apply to universities, said the policy was “one of the biggest changes” he had seen for international students studying in China.

“This is more about the shift in focus away from quantity to quality, which is happening all over the world. Previously China had the target of 500,000 students; now the target is towards world-class universities by 2050 with the double first-class initiative.”

“There is a great deal of variation in students with different academic backgrounds and it can be challenging to assess,” Coward said. “There are also many countries that don’t have the equivalent level of maths compared with China. This change aims to make all international applicants have the same standard so they’ll be able to follow the education at Chinese universities and so they are at least at the same level as local students.”

Under the new framework, mathematics will be compulsory for all applicants, including those applying for arts and humanities degrees.

Coward said this reflected “the Chinese educational philosophy that quantitative reasoning is a fundamental baseline for any university-level scholar.”

Those applying to Chinese-taught programs must also sit for a “professional Chinese” paper, offered in humanities and STEM versions. Physics and chemistry are optional, depending on program requirements. Mathematics, physics and chemistry can be taken in either Chinese or English.

Gerard Postiglione, professor emeritus at the University of Hong Kong, said the CSCA should be understood as part of a broader shift in China’s approach to internationalization.

“The increasing narrative in China in all areas is to focus on quality,” he said. “That also means in higher education. If China has the plan by 2035 to become an education system that is globally influential, there’s going to be more emphasis on quality.”

Postiglione added that the move also reflected how China approaches admissions locally.

“If you look at how China selects students domestically, there is no back door,” he said, pointing to the importance of the gaokao, China’s national university admissions test taken by local students. “The gaokao is the gaokao, and I don’t think there will be much of a back door for international students, either.”

He cautioned, however, that the framework may favor applicants with certain backgrounds.

“Language proficiency and subject preparation will inevitably advantage some students over others,” he said. “Students who have already studied in Chinese, or who come from systems with stronger mathematics preparation, may find it easier to meet the requirements.”

While the exam framework is centrally set, Postiglione said, individual universities are likely to retain autonomy over admissions decisions.

“The Ministry of Education will provide a framework and guidelines,” he said, “but it would be very difficult for a central agency to make individual admissions decisions across the entire system.”

Pass thresholds have not yet been standardized, and Coward said that in the future, universities may set minimum score requirements, but this is not in place yet.

He added that the additional requirement was unlikely to reduce demand. “Some more casual students may be deterred,” he said. “But for top-tier universities, it reduces administrative burden by filtering for quality early.”

In the longer term, though, “it signals that a Chinese degree is becoming more prestigious, which may actually increase demand from high-caliber students.”

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January 15, 2026
Indiana University Cancels MLK Celebration Dinner

The Black Student Union held an annual dinner, first convened in 1969, honoring Martin Luther King Jr., that has been canceled this year.

Indiana University in Indianapolis canceled a dinner in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. hosted annually in January by the Black Student Union, Mirror Indy reported. This year’s would have been the 57th consecutive annual MLK dinner, which was first convened in 1969.

Officials in the Division of Student Affairs told the Black Student Union the event was canceled at the end of the fall semester, citing “budget constraints,” according to a letter the Black Student Union executive council posted on Instagram.

“For months prior, we had been diligently seeking guidance and confirmation on whether the dinner would be approved, funded and supported,” the executive council wrote. “This is not just about a dinner. This is about the erosion of Black traditions under vague justifications. This is about institutional decisions being made without Black voices at the table.”

In a letter to campus Tuesday, IU Indianapolis chancellor Latha Ramchand said, “The MLK Dinner is not going away—rather we are in a moment of transition,” and described a new task force that will “help us reimagine our affinity dinners and related events.” The task force will complete its work by April 10, she said.

In their response letter to the Division of Student Affairs, the Black Student Union’s executive council questioned whether the current political climate may have influenced administrators’ decision to cancel the dinner. The university in May closed its diversity, equity and inclusion office, which included the Multicultural Center and the LGBTQ+ Center; student organizations within the office were transferred to the Office of Student Involvement. A student with the Queer Student Union told Mirror Indy that the Harvey Milk Dinner, typically held in October, was also canceled this academic year.

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January 15, 2026
Questions About Youth Perceptions of Access to American Dream

An impressively brilliant African American 14-year-old sent a thoughtful response to the column I published yesterday on the policing of Black men in America. He began by characterizing what I had written as “fascinating,” which could have meant a multitude of things coming from a teenager. He then explained that his eighth-grade English class included recent discussions about immigrant pursuits of the American dream. Accordingly, one major takeaway from those conversations with his teacher and peers was that many people come to the U.S. because it is perceived as a land of opportunity. My article complicated this presumption for him.

In addition to the racial profiling, harassment, abuse and police killings of unarmed Black Americans that I wrote about yesterday, this middle schooler’s perspective has me wondering how other youth his age, as well as collegians in the U.S. and abroad are thinking about the possibility of the American dream at this time for themselves and others. I am especially interested in knowing how attainable it feels among Asian, Black, Latino and Indigenous youth here and elsewhere across the globe. Juxtapositions of their perspectives with those of their white counterparts also fascinate me.

The Trump administration includes few people of color in leadership roles—certainly much, much fewer than in the Obama and Biden administrations. Programs and policies that were designed to ensure equitable opportunities for citizens who make our nation diverse have been ravaged (in some instances outlawed) during Donald Trump’s second presidential term.

Black, Latino and international student enrollments at Harvard University and other elite institutions have declined since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled race-conscious admissions practices unconstitutional. Immigrants are being threatened, terrorized and deported. It is possible that these challenges and realities have done little to erode immigrants’ and prospective international students’ faith in U.S. structures and systems. This is a researchable topic.

It would also be good for social scientists and education researchers to study how students in K–12 schools and on college campuses across the U.S. are appraising the equitable availability of the American dream to all citizens. Results collected via surveys and other research methods should be disaggregated by race, socioeconomic status, gender and gender identity, citizenship and documentation status, sexual orientation, religion, state and geographic region, political party, and other demographic variables. Those findings should be compared within and across groups. Furthermore, sophisticated analyses should be done at the intersection of identities (for example, perceptions of Asian American transgender immigrant youth).

In another column published earlier this week, I wrote about what I teach students in my classrooms. One statement therein seems worthy of amplification here: “To be absolutely sure, I have never instructed [students] to hate or in any way despise America.” I do, however, teach them truths about our nation’s racial past and present. Those lessons are not based on my opinions or so-called divisive ideologies, but instead rigorous statistics and other forms of high-quality, trustworthy data substantiate my teachings. As a responsible educator and citizen, I understand that the problem of inequitable access to the American dream requires a lot, including but not limited to consciousness raising, truth telling, reparations and restorative justice, and the implementation of equity-minded public policies, to name a few.

I want youth of color to love our country. I want immigrants who believe in the availability of the American dream to come here. But I also want access to the American dream to be fair and equitable. I want our nation to disable and permanently destroy structures and systems that cyclically reproduce disparate outcomes that disadvantage people who make our country beautifully diverse. I got a very real sense that the Black teenage boy who thoughtfully responded to what I wrote yesterday wants the same thing, too. Again, I think it would be “fascinating” to know how other adolescents and young adults, including those who are white, are thinking about who has full access to the American dream at this time.

Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. His most recent book is titled Let’s Talk About DEI: Productive Disagreements About America’s Most Polarizing Topics.

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January 15, 2026
N.C. Elections Board Rejects Campus Polling Centers

Some students protested the decision.

David Walter Banks/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Ahead of the 2026 primaries, the North Carolina State Board of Elections rejected a plan Tuesday to open an early-voting center on the Greensboro campus of North Carolina A&T State University, according to NC Newsline.

The Republican-controlled board also voted to close the existing early-voting centers at Elon University and Western Carolina University.

After the vote, a group of N.C. A&T students who traveled to Raleigh for the board meeting gathered in the boardroom, protesting the decision. But Francis De Luca, chair of the board, threatened to call the cops if they didn’t leave, according to the news outlet.

De Luca, who voted against the early-voting sites, said he’s not in favor of them for numerous reasons. “There’s no parking,” he said. “They may set aside parking; if it’s filled, you’re going to get a ticket. We don’t put sites where there’s no parking anywhere else.”

But Siobhan Millen, a Democratic member of the board who voted for the voting centers, said the move puts “student voting is in the crosshairs.”

Without voting sites on campus, students—including many who don’t own cars—will have to travel to off-campus precincts, though some in favor of axing campus polling centers have described them as redundant. Zayveon Davis, a voter engagement leader at N.C. A&T, said the HBCU would provide shuttles to take students to the nearest polling place.

Nonetheless, he called the decision “disappointing” and reflective of broader Republican-led efforts to restrict voting access, especially for marginalized communities.

“I hope that everybody leaves here knowing that your voice does matter. Your vote does matter,” he told NC Newsline. “And if it didn’t, they wouldn’t be working this hard to take it away.”

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January 15, 2026
DOJ Report Compounds MSI Advocates’ Worries

Minority-serving institutions sustained another blow after the U.S. Department of Justice released a December legal report declaring funding to many of these institutions as unconstitutional. That memo could reach further than the Education Department’s move to defund some of these programs, ramping up uncertainty for the institutions.

Much like the Education Department in September, the DOJ argued these programs are unconstitutional because they require colleges to enroll a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background to qualify, among other criteria. ED ultimately redirected hundreds of millions of dollars intended for Hispanic-serving institutions and other MSIs for fiscal year 2025; it remains unclear whether the DOJ memo will result in more of the same.

But the 48-page document offers new insight into the dangers a wide range of MSI grant programs could be facing and how the administration is legally justifying its stance against the institutions.

The Trump administration seems to be “doubling down” on its attacks on MSIs, offering some “legal justification for what they’ve already done, and in light of that justification, extending it to some additional programs that they did not pursue in the first go-around,” said John Moder, interim CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

Mandatory Funds at Risk

Similar to ED, the report by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel uses an expansive interpretation of the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that barred considering race in admissions.

But the DOJ went further and called into question not just discretionary dollars but also congressionally mandated funds to MSIs, said Amanda Fuchs Miller, former deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs in the Biden administration and now president of the higher ed consultancy Seventh Street Strategies. The Education Department left mandatory funds alone in September, acknowledging in a news release that those funds “cannot be reprogrammed on a statutory basis,” but it would continue “to consider the underlying legal issues associated with the mandatory funding mechanism in these programs.”

The DOJ implied that “they don’t have to give out the mandatory money as required anymore—in their opinion,” Miller said. But as far as she’s concerned, “the executive branch has to enforce statutes,” including discretionary and mandatory funding authorized by Congress.

“They don’t have the authority to declare a statute unconstitutional,” she added.

In contrast, the legal memo argued that the president may be able to reject statutes altogether “even if only parts of them are noxious.” And it concluded that “the race-based portions” of various programs—including funds for Hispanic-serving institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institutions—are “inseverable,” meaning the unconstitutional parts, according to the DOJ, can’t be removed.

The DOJ did, however, make some exceptions, including competitive grants to predominantly Black institutions (but not mandatory funds) and the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program; the department claimed these programs could be stripped of “race-based provisions.” The memo also scrutinized two TRIO programs, the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program and Student Support Services, but ultimately considered them constitutional, provided the grants aren’t used “to further racially discriminatory ends.”

This approach raises questions, Miller said. For example, the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program was specifically designed to bolster engineering and science programs at MSIs, so what would it mean to continue the program without MSI status as a factor? She also stressed that Native Americans aren’t a racial category, according to federal law, which the administration has acknowledged in the past. But the DOJ memo seems to muddy the administration’s take on the issue, she said, by arguing that Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions and Native American–Serving nontribal institutions rely on “racial and ethnic classifications rather than political classifications.”

Ultimately, “Congress needs to stand up and fight back for these schools that play key roles in their districts” and make sure its statutory authority is respected, Miller said.

Some members of Congress have called out the DOJ and ED for stepping out of bounds. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House education committee, called the DOJ memo “deeply at odds with the fundamental goal of the [Higher Education Act] to ensure all students, regardless of their background, can access an affordable, quality degree.” Sen. Alex Padilla, chair of the Senate Congressional Hispanic-Serving Institutions Caucus, said the DOJ opinion “ignores federal law.” But lawmakers have yet to share a game plan on if or how they plan to push back.

Next Steps

What happens next is unclear.

Moder said the administration might withhold new funding for the flagged programs, rescind funds already given, or both.

In that case, institutions could sue, he said, but that’s an expensive ordeal for colleges and universities that, by definition, are underresourced. To qualify for most of the programs targeted by the DOJ, institutions are required to have low per-student expenditures compared to similar institutions, meaning they have relatively few resources to spend on students. They also need to serve at least half low-income students, in addition to a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background.

“It’s an expensive proposition and a time-consuming proposition,” Moder said. Although MSIs could have already sued over their lost discretionary funds, “it’s not surprising that there hasn’t been a flurry of legal challenges presented to date.”

HACU has been defending HSIs against a legal challenge from the state of Tennessee and the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions, after ED declined to stand up for the institutions. The lawsuit argued that Tennessee institutions don’t meet the requirement for HSIs—enrolling 25 percent Hispanic students—and miss out on federal funds; therefore, the federal criteria are discriminatory based on race. HACU has since asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing it’s a moot issue now that ED took away the discretionary funds Tennessee protests.

The hope is “it will leave the possibility of … Congress voting for renewed funding,” and eventually “a new administration to continue to administer it,” Moder said.

Deborah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia in Education, an organization focused on Latino student outcomes, believes the DOJ report could have a positive twist: It offers more insight into how the administration is thinking about MSIs—and more fodder to fight back, she said.

The DOJ memo “went a little bit deeper on examples, and in doing so, created opportunities to understand where they’re coming from,” and to “challenge some of the basic framing and concepts that are in dispute,” said Santiago, who previously worked as deputy director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

Notably, she said, the report didn’t take issue with the idea that “there is a clear federal policy goal in providing capacity-building for underresourced institutions.” Instead, it took aim at “racial quotas” and quibbled with whether “individual discrimination” against particular students or types of students occurred. But Santiago said it’s easy to argue back that MSI grants support underserved institutions, not individual students, and there’s a difference between racial quotas and enrollment thresholds.

“MSIs are about institutional capacity-building and not about redressing individual student discrimination. I think that was a false framing that they put out there,” she said. “At the core, this is about persistent structural disadvantages of institutions and how the federal government can fund them.” And when the federal government has limited funds to invest, “you can make the case” that increasing academic quality at institutions with a persistent lack of resources and a disproportionate number of historically underrepresented students “is a clear federal role and responsibility.”

She also pushed back on the idea that institutions that don’t get the money are discriminated against. By the same logic, “students who are not enrolled in military academies are being discriminated against because they’re not getting access” to investments in military academies, she said.

She believes that the DOJ memo will help hone how MSIs and their supporters advocate for the institutions to members of Congress and others.

“I think we need to reframe and make the case to our colleagues on the Hill,” she said.

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January 15, 2026
Education Department launches 18 Title IX transgender athlete investigations
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The U.S. Department of Education announced a string of Title IX investigations Wednesday into over a dozen colleges and state and local school systems with policies that allow transgender students to play on sports teams aligning with their gender identity.

The 18 investigations come just a day after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could decide the future of transgender student athlete participation on sports teams.

“These policies jeopardize both the safety and the equal opportunities of women in educational programs and activities,” the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights said in a Wednesday announcement.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement that her office is “aggressively pursuing” complaints about alleged discrimination in women’s sports, which it says is a result of transgender student participation on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

“We will leave no stone unturned in these investigations to uphold women’s right to equal access in education programs,” Richey said.

The investigations were launched into large and small public education systems and colleges, including the New York City Department of Education, Washington’s Tacoma Public Schools, and the Hawaii State Department of Education.

A handful of investigations were also launched into districts in California and Maine — states that have already been the target of Education Department investigations that resulted in U.S. Department of Justice referrals and threats to federal funding loss.

The earliest of those state investigations, which was aimed at Maine’s transgender athlete inclusion policies, put over $860 million of the state’s federal education funding on the line.

The Justice Department sued Maine following a Title IX investigation that said the state had discriminated against cisgender women and girls. However, as of last week, there have been no recent major developments in that case despite the lawsuit being announced last April, according to a Maine state attorney general office spokesperson.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J and Little v. Hecox, in which justices were asked to weigh the constitutionality of state bans limiting transgender athlete participation on sports teams aligning with their gender identities and whether such bans violate Title IX.

While the high court’s conservative majority seemed inclined to uphold state bans, justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum questioned what their limits should be, considering the role of student age, hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

“I’ve been wondering what’s straightforward after all this discussion,” said Justice Neil Gorsuch in court on Tuesday.

The outcome of the cases could change the course of transgender students’ rights in schools, school district policies allowing or barring their participation on sports teams under Title IX, and the Education Department’s enforcement of the sex discrimination statute.

The new investigations also come as Office for Civil Rights employees have been indefinitely reinstated to their positions after the department’s rescission of their layoff notices. The employees were laid off as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal government and to shutter the Education Department.

The civil rights employees were put on administrative leave but were in limbo as legal challenges to the layoffs worked their way through the courts and resulted in temporary blocks. However, the Education Department abandoned its efforts last month to push some of the layoffs through, which resulted in the employees’ indefinite reinstatement as of December.

The full list of new investigations includes:
- Jurupa School District (Calif.)
- Placentia-Yorba School District (Calif.)
- Santa Monica College (Calif.)
- Santa Rosa Junior College (Calif.)
- Waterbury Public Schools (Conn.)
- Hawaii State Department of Education (Hawaii)
- Regional School Unit 19 (Maine)
- Regional School Unit 57 (Maine)
- Foxborough Public Schools (Mass.)
- University of Nevada, Reno (Nev.)
- Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District (N.Y.)
- New York City Department of Education (N.Y.)
- Great Valley School District (Pa.)
- Champlain Valley School District (Vt.)
- Cheney Public Schools (Wash.)
- Sultan School District No. 311 (Wash.)
- Tacoma Public Schools (Wash.)
- Vancouver Public Schools (Wash.)
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January 14, 2026
Lessons to Prospective International Students About Policing of Black Men

Last week, I was talking with a young man, Pinot, during my time in another country. He told me that he really wants to visit America, but one thing seriously frightens him: the possibility of police officers stopping, harassing and potentially inflicting violence on him. He asked me if these situations really happen as often as it seems. Pinot is Black. That conversation made me wonder how many talented, Black prospective international students share the same fears and ultimately opt out of applying to U.S. universities.

Yesterday, I was scrolling one of my social media timelines and saw this CBS News video of police officers in Jacksonville, Fla., terrorizing William McNeil Jr. I felt my blood pressure and anxiety rising as I watched. I had not previously seen it, but maybe Pinot had. It is plausible that others around the world have as well. Videos like these teach young people across the U.S. and abroad a set of heartbreaking, inexcusable truths about crimes committed against Black men in America.

As was the case in last week’s conversation with Pinot, I would not be able to tell a talented young Black male prospective college applicant from Africa, Jamaica, London, Paris or anyplace else that what he has seen on television or social media are rare, isolated occurrences. I would be lying. Truth is, racial profiling and police brutality happen far too often. As I said to Pinot, “What you see and hear about this is not not true.” There is far too much evidence that it remains pervasive.

I have often told a personal story to audiences comprised of hundreds (sometimes thousands) in the U.S. that I decided against sharing with Pinot because I did not want to deepen his fears about what could happen to him if he ever visited America. I am recapping the incident here.

In July 2007, I became an Ivy League professor. I also purchased my first home. I was a 31-year-old Black man with a Ph.D. Three friends and I went out to a nightclub to celebrate my new job at the University of Pennsylvania and my home purchase. Bars and clubs close at 2:00 a.m. in Philadelphia. My friends and I were hanging on a corner saying our goodbyes after the nightclub closed. Several other nearby establishments also had just shut down. Hence, there were lots of people on the other three corners and along the streets.

A cop drove past my friends and me and said something that we did not hear because it was very crowded and noisy around us. We were doing nothing wrong and therefore had no reason to believe he was talking directly to the four of us. Seconds later, he jumped out of his patrol car, put his hands on his baton and yelled to us, “I said get off the fucking corner!” We were shocked and scared. The situation also hurt and angered us, but we were collectively powerless in the moment. We put our hands up and peacefully walked away. I cried uncontrollably during my drive home.

I mentioned that I was an Ivy League professor with a Ph.D. My three friends also worked in higher education at the time (and still do). They also are Black men. Each of them has a Ph.D. No one, regardless of educational attainment, socioeconomic status or professional accomplishments, deserves to be treated like we were that night. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that our doctorates and university affiliations afforded us no immunity from police misconduct. To that cop, we were just four harassable Black men standing on a street corner.

I wanted to tell Pinot that being stopped, undeservingly terrorized and potentially murdered by police officers in America for no reason would be unlikely to happen to him. But I could not. Upon reflection, I wonder how many other young Black men from other countries say “no, thanks” to visiting the U.S. or applying for admission to our universities because of the fears that Pinot articulated to me. If they saw the McNeil video and others like it on social media, YouTube or elsewhere, they would be right to doubt my or anyone else’s insistence that interactions with American law enforcement agents are generally safe for citizens, visitors or international students who are Black.

By the way, perhaps it is good that Pinot did not ask me how the police officer who smashed McNeil’s car window, punched him in the face, threw him to the ground and attacked him was ultimately held accountable. According to an NPR article published this week, that cop was recently cleared of excessive force charges. Surely I would have lost all credibility with Pinot had I attempted to convince him that he would somehow be absolutely safe from similar acts of police brutality as a Black man in America.

Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. His most recent book is titled Let’s Talk About DEI: Productive Disagreements About America’s Most Polarizing Topics.

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January 14, 2026
Rachel Toor and Gordon Gee

A Jewish atheist feminist columnist/professor and a devout Mormon bow tie–clad lawyer/university president walked into a bar.

Or at least, shared a Zoom screen to talk about higher ed. Hilarity ensued. Especially since both have the sometimes-job-ending though not career-killing trait of talking faster than they think and never, ever being able to resist a sarcastic crack.

The Columnist didn’t get the memo about being circumspect and careful and spouted off with abandon, often finding herself surprised when people actually pay attention to what she writes and praise her for being “brave” (What are you so afraid of that you don’t feel a similar freedom? she often wonders).

The President, on the other hand, has had the kind of career where if you asked any civilian to name a college president, they would likely mention him. They might even be able to conjure an image of a bow-tied guy, not of football player size, who nevertheless allowed himself to be carried aloft on the hands of the football fans that crammed the stadiums of the giant institutions he led.

Lead them he did, until his Achilles’ mouth and inability to refrain from cracking a joke kept getting him fired. And then rehired. Now that he may be done presidenting, he’s working a bunch of gigs to help fix higher ed, something the Columnist is also trying to do (though from the cheap seats).

This odd couple decided it might be fun to engage in some ~~witty banter~~ serious discussion (via text messages) of important issues facing an industry they both love and to which they have committed their lives.

Columnist: You became a president my sophomore year of college. When I graduated and started working in academic publishing, I began following your career. I feel like I’ve known you for decades, Gordon.

President: Wow!! I have been a president your whole professional life.

Columnist: And you’ve shaped my idea—and many others’—of the American university president. You unapologetically embraced the material rewards but never came off as pretentious, and you did hard things while always seeming to be having fun and taking the work, but not yourself, too seriously.

President: I view the presidency the same way you view being a faculty member. These are the best jobs in the country, and those who whine and complain about academic life are so out of touch with the gift we have been given. And, Rachel, that is why you and I, though from different planets, have found each other, because we both believe in the cause but do not take ourselves too seriously. The joyful odd couple indeed.

Columnist: Oy. I think that makes me Oscar. Somewhere there must be a Greatest Hits of Gee Gaffes. What’s your favorite of the many, many dumb things you’ve said?

President: Probably the most embarrassing and painful moment was when I was meeting with our athletic council at Ohio State and I started talking about Notre Dame joining the Big Ten again.

Columnist: Right. IHE reported on that.

President: That was stupid because I have great admiration for Notre Dame and Father Jenkins—the president is a dear man and great friend. Sometimes a sense of humor, which I believe is critical to leadership, can be painful. The good fathers forgave me, which made it even worse. Also, my crack about the Little Sisters of the Poor. Though I did become their single largest donor.

Columnist: Ah, money. Your salary has long been a topic of conversation. I’ve never aspired to an administrative post because I think I am paid handsomely for doing the best job in the world: teaching what I love. I don’t resent administrative salaries, because if someone is able to negotiate a good deal for themselves with a board, that’s who I want representing my institution. You made a lot and you were accused of lavish spending. Spill the beans, please.

President: I was compensated very well—

Columnist: [cough]

President: —but in turn I raised billions for the universities I served. So, no excuses other than pride and success. Truthfully, my goal always was to make as much money as my football coach, which I never did in 45 years. One time I received a letter from a fan who berated me for my salary and then railed against me for being so parsimonious as to only pay the football coach $4 million.

I am at that point in life where I own up to every mistake. But my irritation gets high when the “lavish spending” issue gets thrown around. It is a narrative developed by several newspaper reporters who wanted a story and decided to invent one. For example, they accused me of spending $65,000 on bow ties. I did not spend that money on bow ties but rather on bow-tie cookies that we distributed to students, families, friends and donors over a period of years.

Columnist: Stale cookies? Nice. Speaking of pride and success, what on earth were you thinking when you took on the presidency of Brown? That move seemed to reek of the kind of arrogance you’ve accused universities of.

President: I think the goal of many university presidents is to lead an Ivy. And I was no different. Heady stuff. But I had come from an institution of 65,000 students to one of 6,500 and soon felt like an antelope in a telephone booth. It was small and self-centered. It is undoubtedly a great university, but fit is important and I was not a good fit. What I learned was that the smaller the institution, the more politically intense it is for the president.

Columnist: Now I’m going to have at you, buddy. Let’s talk about the University of Austin, which you’ve been associated with from the beginning. Sure, it’s in some ways an innovative answer to the structural problems in our industry, and it’s also a horrific winding back of the social progress we’ve made toward become a more democratic and egalitarian society. I mean, WTF, Gordon?

President: In my view, there are two pathways to change the arc of U.S. higher education. The first is from the inside out, which, candidly, is like moving a graveyard. Or the other is to create a new university that can set the standard for change. That is what the University of Austin is attempting to do. By returning to the fundamentals of Western thought and focusing on a robust conversation across the intellectual spectrum, they will gain traction. It is a noble effort.

Columnist: Gordon, you ignorant slut. Excuse me while I puke.

President: Well, go ahead and puke. 🤓

Columnist: We’ll come back to why you think it’s noble 🤮 to return to the times when everyone only read dead white men and were taught by bow-tied white men.

How about a list of topics you’re now able to speak freely about? I mean, we agree on many things and disagree on others. What else can we discuss and push each other on to think harder?

President: 1. Need to address the four tyrannies: tenure, departments, colleges and leadership gerontocracy. 2. How do we stop university faculty and others from hiding behind academic freedom and start accepting academic responsibility? 3. Exploding the myth of shared governance and creat[ing] a new model of collective responsibility that creates agility and speed by doing away with internal processes that are calculated to preserve the status quo. 4. How to create a standard of excellence in appointing members of Boards of Governors by moving it out of the political process. 5. How to make certain that the selection process of a new president produces the best candidates rather than individuals who have offended the fewest people the longest period of time.

Columnist: All that and I can add another 15 or 20 things. Plus, we both hate the ocean, both married people younger and hotter than us (I win because Toby is 14 years my junior), and you were an Eagle Scout—

President: Why did you marry a younger hot guy?

Columnist: Because I’m no fool, Gramps. Anyway, and you were an Eagle Scout—

President: I think only because I’m almost certain my dad paid off the scoutmaster to get it for me.

Columnist: —and I was a Brownie for about a week (loved the outfit) but got fired because I refused to pledge allegiance to the flag (Vietnam).

This will be fun. I say our next text exchange is “Majors Are Dumb.” And as we’ve already established, I’m the boss. Let’s talk and text again soon.

Rachel Toor is a contributing editor at Inside Higher Ed and the co-founder of The Sandbox. She is also a professor of creative writing. E. Gordon Gee has served as a university president for 45 years at five different universities—two of them twice. He retired from the presidency July 15, 2025.

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January 14, 2026
Catholic Briefly Banned Popular Social Media Site Reddit

About half of 18- to 29-year-olds use Reddit, according to Pew Research.

Illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed

Students returning to the Catholic University of America Monday were outraged to discover that the university had blocked campus internet access to the popular social media site Reddit. But by Tuesday afternoon, administrators had reversed the ban, saying it had been automatically restricted by a third-party source that controls access to pornographic sites.

The site had been available to students at the end of last semester, according to Felipe Avila, a nursing student and a member of the student government. But when students returned from break to the Washington, D.C., campus this week, they found they could no longer access the site. No other social media sites seemed to have been affected, he said, and administrators did not notify students or faculty of the change.

When Avila discovered Reddit had been restricted, he submitted a ticket to the university’s Technology Services Support office to ask if it was a glitch or if the site had been blocked intentionally.

“When I checked with our security they said that it was blocked because of certain content on the platform and also because of phishing and malicious links that are on that site,” a staff member responded in an email to Avila.

The ban wasn’t entirely out of left field: In 2019, Catholic University banned access to the 200 most popular pornography websites after the student government passed a resolution advocating for such a ban. But Reddit isn’t a pornographic site; it’s a social media site with well over 100 million daily active users who can read and post in forums called subreddits dedicated to specific topics. According to Pew Research, 48 percent of individuals aged 18 to 29 surveyed in early 2025 said they use Reddit at least occasionally.

Reddit is one of just a few social media sites that allow users to post sexually explicit material, although it must be labeled appropriately and explicit images appear blurred until a user opts to reveal them. Other social media platforms that allow such content, such as X, which has allowed users to post sexual content since 2024, remained accessible on Catholic’s campus.

Restriction Reversal

After two days without answers from administrators, Avila said, the university reversed the ban, attributing the situation to an automated system that restricts access to a list of pornographic sites, university spokesperson Karna Lozoya said in an emailed statement. That list is compiled by a third-party organization, she said, which recently added Reddit.

“The site was flagged in accord with a policy established in 2019—at the recommendation of the Student Government Association—to block access to the top pornography sites from the University network. Student leaders at the time noted their concerns about the risks of these sites, including exploitation of individuals, addiction, and security risks,” she said.

The sites that were previously banned were “almost exclusively dedicated to serving pornography,” Lozoya noted. The university decided to reverse the ban on Reddit because its primary purpose is not to share explicit content.

“In the interest of allowing access to its legitimate uses, access to Reddit.com has been restored to the campus network,” she wrote. “However, the University is taking this opportunity to remind students of the need for prudence, and to avoid consuming exploitative and degrading content.”

Avila said the short-lived ban sparked outrage among students, some of whom use the platform as an academic resource. Students can join subreddits dedicated to different academic disciplines, like r/StudentNurse, a community of over 180,000, where nursing students can connect with their peers at institutions worldwide to vent or ask for advice.

Dominic Coletti, a program officer with the free speech advocacy organization the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, warned that preventing students and faculty from accessing certain sites infringes on freedom of expression and academic freedom.

“We’re concerned about this censorship for two reasons: First, Catholic promises its students free speech. That should include the ability to communicate anonymously with others at the university and in their community about what’s happening. That includes not-safe-for-work content, to be sure, but it also includes a wide swath of discussions about topics core to the work of a university,” he wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “Catholic also promises its faculty academic freedom. That includes the freedom to perform research online and to teach students using online resources. Banning social-media sites like Reddit infringe on faculty members’ ability to perform that research and to use these resources in teaching.”

“The university did not have to promise its students and faculty members these expressive freedoms,” Coletti added. “Now that it has, it must protect those freedoms.”

Before the ban was lifted, Avila and another student senator filed a resolution calling on the university to make its standards for web filtering more transparent and asking to be notified in advance of any new bans. Even though Reddit is now accessible again, they’re planning to move forward with the resolution.

“Reversing the ban fixes the outcome, but not the oversight. We must codify protections for student expression to ensure that academic freedom is guaranteed by policy, not just public pressure,” he wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “We look forward to working with the university to see this implemented.”

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January 14, 2026
Morris Brown College Fires President

Morris Brown College president Kevin James fought to regain the college’s accreditation. Now he’s out of a job without explanation.

Morris Brown College

Morris Brown College, a historically Black institution in Georgia, removed its president, effective immediately, after seven years on the job, the Board of Trustees announced Monday.

In a news release, the board thanked Kevin James for his leadership.

James “played a meaningful role in guiding the institution through critical seasons of growth, resilience, and transformation,” the release read. The board “wishes him well in his next chapter.”

The board’s announcement offered no explanation for James’s termination.

“Morris Brown College remains firmly committed to its students, its mission, and its long-term strategic vision,” Bishop Michael Mitchell, chair of the Board of Trustees, said in a statement. “This transition in leadership will help to ensure continuity as we move forward with the important work of strengthening and advancing the College.”

Under James’s tenure, the struggling college regained accreditation after nearly 20 years without it, restoring students’ access to federal financial aid. Enrollment also grew from about 20 students to more than 540, James wrote in a Facebook post Monday.

He said the Board of Trustees terminated his contract, which is slated to end in 2029, “without providing specific cause or substantive explanation” after a positive annual evaluation and strong performance reviews throughout his presidency.

He stressed that the timing is “troubling” for the college, which faces an accreditation-reaffirmation review in just a few weeks.

“I dedicated myself fully to the restoration and resurgence of Morris Brown College, and I stand firmly behind the progress we achieved together,” James wrote. “While I am deeply disappointed by the Board’s decision, I am grateful for the overwhelming support I have received from alumni, faculty, staff, students, and community partners. Thank you for believing in the vision and the work.”

The board named trustee Nzinga Shaw as the college’s interim leader.

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January 14, 2026