Tag: Education
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Higher Education Inquirer Surpasses 150,000 Monthly Views in June 2025
Higher Education Inquirer : Higher Education Inquirer Surpasses 150,000 Monthly Views in June 2025
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A Framework for Moving Up or Moving On (opinion)
Over my 16-plus years in higher education, mostly in administration, I’ve had many colleagues reach out and ask a version of the same question:
“How do I know if I should stay or move on?”
They are leaders in their field. Most are excelling on paper, teaching, mentoring, leading committees, serving on task forces and writing grants. But they’re tired, stuck or sense that something in the role, or the institution, no longer fits.
Lately, I’m finding that we don’t talk enough about what to do when we’ve outgrown a role but aren’t sure what comes next. In academic culture, staying where we are is often seen as loyalty, moving up is luck and leaving can feel like defeat. But I’ve learned that career momentum doesn’t always mean climbing a ladder. Sometimes it means building a bridge or choosing a new path entirely.
So, what do you do when you hit a fork in the road? I recently saw a post on LinkedIn that outlined a relatively simplistic framework, aligned with the business world, which can help if you find yourself questioning your next move: assess, align, act. I’ve taken the liberty to modify it, without losing the concept: reflect, revise, recommit.
Reflect: Where Are You?
Before planning your next move, take an honest look at your current professional state. Start by asking yourself the following:
- Have I grown in the past year, or am I mostly going through the motions?
- Am I viewed as a contributor or an afterthought?
- How do I feel at the end of the day, mostly energized or mostly depleted?
- Are my ideas welcomed or tolerated?
- Do I see myself staying here for five more years?
These questions aren’t about job satisfaction alone. They’re about where you are professionally. Assess your responses to the questions above. If you feel stuck where you are and don’t see changes or opportunities for professional growth in the future, it may be time to shift.
Revise: Is This Still the Right Place for You?
Consider how your values and contributions align (or don’t) with your work environment.
In one of the classes I teach, we spend a considerable amount of time discussing values, both personal and professional. Keeping this in mind, ask yourself whether the following statements are true for you:
- I can ask difficult questions or present unconventional ideas.
- I feel heard and my input is valued.
- I can contribute in ways that reflect my strengths.
- My work is recognized, and not just when it’s convenient.
- I feel hopeful about my professional future here.
If you answer “no” more times than “yes,” it’s not a failure on your part. Instead, look at it as an opportunity to implement changes strategically.
Recommit: Move Up, Move Over or Move On
Once you’ve assessed your growth and alignment, you’re ready to make a deliberate decision to go deeper, shift roles or step toward something new. Here are three potential paths, each with concrete next steps:
- Move Up (Internal Advancement)
If you still believe in the institution and want more responsibility:
- Build your case: Document leadership wins, pilot programs or change initiatives—things that show you’re already operating at the next level.
- Get visible: Let your supervisor or mentor know you’re open to advancement. Ambition isn’t arrogance; it’s clarity.
- Ask for expanded roles: Volunteer to chair a new initiative or represent your unit on a strategic planning team.
- Find advocates: You need more than mentors. Advocates promote and back you behind closed doors.
- Move Over (Lateral Change)
If you like the institution but not the role:
- Explore cross-campus opportunities in centers, institutes or new initiatives.
- Consider a hybrid position that merges your skills (e.g., combining research and student success).
- Talk with human resources or a trusted senior leader about other opportunities within your organization—professionally, quietly and strategically.
Remember: lateral doesn’t mean lesser. Sometimes a lateral move can be the smartest option for long-term impact (and sanity).
- Move On (External Transition)
If the position and the institution don’t fit your needs anymore:
- Name what you want next: More autonomy? More responsibility? A different kind of leadership role?
- Update your materials: Be sure to identify transferable skills. If you’ve led change, managed crises or built programs, remember these skills are valued in most industries.
- Use your network: Former students, collaborators and conference contacts might hold the key to your next chapter.
- Leave well: Give your employer sufficient notice. Offer to train your successor. Write a transition plan. Protect your reputation and exit with grace and gratitude.
A Final Note: You’re Not Alone
I recently spoke with a colleague who worried her career had stalled over the last several years and that she hadn’t grown in her position. When we discussed her accomplishments, we saw that she’d proposed several new initiatives, launched a new program, mentored students and staff, and learned to navigate the complexity of higher education with professionalism and courage. In short, she hadn’t wasted any time; she’d built resilience and capacity. She also realized she was more ready for change and leadership opportunities.
If you’re at that fork in the road, know this: Moving on isn’t quitting; it’s choosing. Moving up isn’t selling out; it’s stepping in. And staying where you are is perfectly valid if it still serves your purpose, your values and your professional goals.
Ask yourself this question: “Am I building a future here or am I just getting by?”
Either way, you get to choose your next steps.
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College Athletics Enters Uncharted Territory July 1
After years of court battles, a federal judge ushered in a new era for college athletics earlier this month when she approved a settlement in the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit, effectively ending the century-old model of student athletes as amateurs.
Now students will be able to earn money for their athletic performance at colleges that opt in to the practice known as revenue-sharing, in which institutions share with players the money made off their teams. Former Division I athletes from the recent past will also share a $2.8 billion settlement to compensate for the financial opportunities they were denied due to now-defunct NCAA rules that prevented them from cashing in on name, image, and likeness deals.
Although the NCAA status quo was undone in an instant, many campus leaders had been planning for months, anticipating the outcome of the ruling.
The era of paid college athletes officially begins July 1. With it comes questions about how the landscape will evolve and concerns about equity issues, as well as what the fallout of the settlement may mean for nonrevenue sports.
A State of Transition
Experts view revenue-sharing as the most consequential part of the settlement.
Institutions that opt in to revenue sharing will have up to $20.5 million to spread among their athletes. The lion’s share of that is expected to flow to football, the top revenue-earning sport, followed by men’s basketball, with the second-highest distribution amounts. The annual revenue-sharing cap will increase gradually to $32 million over the course of a decade.
Jason Montgomery, a partner at the law firm Husch Blackwell, said that one commonly discussed formula would see 75 percent of revenue disbursed to an institution’s football team, followed by 15 percent to men’s basketball, 5 percent to women’s basketball, and the remainder spread across all other sports. But he noted institutions can adjust that formula as they see fit.
At institutions that don’t have a football team, the bulk of the revenue will likely be directed to men’s basketball. And some universities that have top basketball programs are tweaking the formula to direct more money to hoops; the University of Houston, for example, may opt for a formula that directs 23 to 25 percent of revenue to men’s basketball, local media reported.
The back-pay provision is also heavily tilted toward football, which has already prompted an appeal on Title IX grounds, with plaintiffs alleging women are being shorted on damages. The suit, brought by eight former college athletes who competed in soccer, track and volleyball, argues that female athletes are being deprived of more than $1 billion in past damages.
Financial Models
For those opting in to revenue-sharing, a major question looms: Where will the money come from?
Sean Frazier, athletic director at Northern Illinois University and president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, said financial models will vary by institution.
“You’re going to see a lot more of that innovative way to revenue-share by getting this money from external sources that are not specific to the universities themselves,” Frazier said.
Some colleges are leaning on boosters and TV deals to bankroll revenue-sharing, while others are taking different approaches. Earlier this month, the Florida Board of Governors approved the use of auxiliary funds to pay student athletes, which could flow from college bookstores, student housing, dining, parking fees and other income streams. (That measure is intended to be temporary as colleges develop long-term plans.)
In addition to increasing revenues, colleges are looking for ways to cut costs. Montgomery said one way colleges can do that is by eliminating non-revenue-earning sports—such as swimming and track and field—which some institutions have done, though that move has also been accompanied by other financial challenges for the sector.
Colleges that opt in to the revenue-sharing model don’t have to pay the maximum amount unless they choose to. That could yield scenarios where less resourced institutions pay much less than the $20.5 million cap.
While experts say there is no firm data point yet on how many colleges have opted in to revenue sharing, those numbers are likely to be just a fraction of the NCAA’s member institutions. As of last summer, that number stood at 1,085 institutions, with 355 at the Division I level.
“The vast majority of colleges are not going to be part of this revenue-share,” said Michael McCann, a professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.
Opportunities for Innovation
Frazier compared college athletics in the aftermath of the House settlement to flying a plane while building it. He expects colleges will adjust their approaches as they go.
“It is clunky right now because of the fact that we do not have certain guardrails yet finalized as we go into this. That’s why it’s going to be a little bit of a wait-and-see on some things,” he said.
He urged patience for those trying to navigate the new landscape.
“I would caution [college] leaders to not jump to trends, to not jump to any situation as a quick fix,” Frazier said. “There’s no silver bullet to be able to manage this. We’re going to have to go through a cycle to really understand what the impacts of the House settlement mean.”
McCann expects that colleges will largely pay football players, as they have signaled. Where the money flows, he said, will depend on institutional priorities. If an athletic department is focused on keeping up with rival football teams and landing on television, revenue-sharing money will be invested in football. But he thinks leaders should consider investing in other areas, including women’s sports—which have boomed in recent years, judging from the record viewership for women’s basketball.
“I see an opportunity for schools that opt in to revenue-share to not follow the script of spending most of the money on football players,” McCann said. “I could see some presidents being innovative and saying, ‘Let’s use that money primarily on women’s basketball; let’s try to create a top women’s basketball team, or softball.’ There are opportunities to distribute money in ways that I think are a lot more innovative than simply trying to catch up with all the other football schools.”
The Professional Era
To many experts, this moment amounts to the professionalization of college athletics.
“If this isn’t pay to play, I don’t know what is,” Montgomery said.
To Montgomery’s point, some colleges have hired general managers and other personnel with professional sports experience. Last year Stanford University tapped former star quarterback Andrew Luck, who spent seven years in the NFL, to return to his alma mater as general manager of the football program. Similarly, in March the University of California, Berkeley, hired former NFL player and head coach Ron Rivera as general manager of its football program.
Noting that trend, McCann suggested such programs are “operating as quasi pro teams.”
Federal Legislation?
For years, observers have speculated that Congress might get involved in college athletics. President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of his own involvement as well; in May, he proposed establishing a presidential commission on college sports before backing off the idea.
However, many experts don’t expect federal legislation to emerge.
“It’s a long shot that Congress intervenes,” Montgomery said, arguing that college athletics is not a priority for lawmakers at the moment. At most, he said Congress might codify the House settlement through federal legislation.
McCann agrees. While he believes “there will be bills introduced, and there will be press conferences and a lot of media coverage,” he doesn’t think such efforts will be fruitful.
But Frazier, who describes himself as an optimist by nature, is hopeful that federal legislation could come to pass in the near future, and he stressed the importance of being part of those talks.
“I think at the end of the day, we need to help [Trump], we need to help the federal government understand what will work,” he said. “Because we have a perception issue that college athletics can’t govern itself. We’ve created that perception as an industry, and what we need to do is take it back. What we need to do is to show the folks that have doubted us, that [think] we’ve lost control, that there is control, and the only way you can do that is with experience, leadership and execution.”
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Trump’s Department of Education Continues to Drag Feet on Borrower Defense
On June 26th, the US Department of Education was brought to the Ninth District Court (and Judge Alsup) to show how many the Borrower Defense to Repayment cases that have been resolved per court order. While we wait for a transcript of the latest episode of Sweet v McMahon, what we can tell you is that the Trump government continues to drag its feet in paying back debtors who have been defrauded.
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University of Virginia President Resigns After Trump’s Demands
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The University of Virginia president James Ryan said Friday he was resigning after the Justice Department demanded he step down.
“To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this university,” Ryan wrote in a letter to the campus community. “But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.”
The Justice Department has for months been quietly investigating whether the Virginia flagship complied with President Donald Trump’s order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The university’s Board of Visitors voted to dissolve its DEI office in March, but multiple conservative alumni groups and legal entities complained that Ryan failed to eliminate DEI from all corners of campus. In many cases, critics argue that the university simply changed the names of programs but maintained their core function.
The New York Times first reported on the resignation and the Justice Department’s demand Thursday evening.
Ryan wrote that he had planned to step down next spring for reasons separate from the investigation; he didn’t say when his resignation would take effect.
“While there are very important principles at play here, I would at a very practical level be fighting to keep my job for one more year while knowingly and willingly sacrificing others in this community,” he wrote.
Ryan took over at UVA in August 2018, steering the institution through the aftermath of the deadly white supremacist rally in August 2017, the pandemic and the racial reckoning in 2020. He also cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters last spring—a move that Republicans in the state backed but students and faculty condemned. Ryan also embraced institutional neutrality and sought to make UVA a leader in the study of democracy.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement Friday that the Justice Department welcomes “leadership changes in higher education that signal institutional commitment to our nation’s venerable federal civil rights laws.”
DOJ hasn’t said publicly what laws UVA allegedly violated, though Dhillon’s statement noted that the agency “has a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal discrimination in publicly-funded universities.”
From the early days of his second term, Trump has made a point of dragging elite, largely Ivy League institutions like Columbia and Harvard Universities into the national spotlight and berating them for their supposed liberal ideologies and alleged antisemitism. But this investigation of UVA, a public institution in a state led by a Republican, represents a new front in the administration’s war against higher education—and so far Trump is succeeding.
Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University, said Ryan’s resignation is a “major blow” to the independence of American institutions.
“It is a sign that major public research universities are substantially controlled by a political party whose primary goal is to further its partisan agenda and will stop at nothing to bring the independence of higher education to heel,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “It undercuts both the integrity of academic communities as self-governing based on the judgment of expert professionals and the traditional accountability that public universities have to their states via formal and established governance mechanisms.”
Legal experts who spoke with the Times struggled to recall other instances when the federal government has demanded a university board fire the chief official, saying it has only been done in the past when concerning corporate criminal cases.
Robert Kelchen, an education policy professor at the University of Tennessee, noted that Ryan’s resignation portends a future in which all public university presidents must conform to the political views of their state’s leadership or be kicked out of office.
“Trump pushing James Ryan to resign at UVA is important, but it happened in part because VA’s governor is also Republican,” Kelchen wrote on BlueSky.
Virginia’s two senators, who are both Democrats, said in a joint statement that the demand for Ryan to resign “is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future.”
“It is outrageous that officials in the Trump Department of Justice demanded the Commonwealth’s globally recognized university remove President Ryan—a strong leader who has served UVA honorably and moved the university forward—over ridiculous ‘culture war’ traps,” said Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. “Decisions about UVA’s leadership belong solely to its Board of Visitors, in keeping with Virginia’s well-established and respected system of higher education governance.”
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin thanked Ryan for his service to UVA in a statement Friday afternoon. Youngkin, a Republican, has appointed a majority of the university’s board members.
“The Board of Visitors has my complete confidence as they swiftly appoint a strong interim steward, and undertake the national search for a transformational leader that can take Mr. Jefferson’s university into the next decade and beyond,” he said in the statement.
A Quiet Inquiry
While the administration’s campaign against Harvard and Columbia mostly played out in public, the UVA investigation was more quiet. The DOJ didn’t send press releases about UVA or make public hay about its demands. Instead it sent letters to the university about its inquiry and findings.
On April 28, DOJ cited complaints about how the university was handling its DEI programs, according to the Times and the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Initially the letter set a compliance deadline of May 2. That was then extended to May 30.
After that, the DOJ received multiple complaint letters from groups like American First Legal, a legal advocacy group founded by Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, suggesting the university had yet to comply.
In a final letter, dated June 17, the department laid out its demands yet again, this time noting the complaints it had received from groups like AFL and saying that the university needed to make swift changes or pay the price, the Times reported. The government’s lawyers, which include several UVA alumni, found that UVA considered race in its admissions and in deciding other student benefits, according to the Times.
“Time is running short, and the department’s patience is wearing thin,” the letter said.
Neither the White House nor the DOJ have released a public statement about their demands of UVA or Ryan’s resignation.
The university said in a statement Friday morning that it is “committed to complying with all federal laws and has been cooperating with the Department of Justice in the ongoing inquiries.” But it has not said anything further since Ryan announced his departure.
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Higher Education Inquirer : Remembering Bill Moyers (1934-2025)
In a media landscape often dominated by soundbites, spin, and sensationalism, Bill Moyers was a rare voice of clarity, compassion, and conscience. With his passing, America has lost not only a gifted journalist and public intellectual but also one of its most courageous truth-tellers.
For more than half a century, Moyers stood at the intersection of journalism, politics, and public education—unyielding in his pursuit of justice and understanding. From his early days as White House Press Secretary under President Lyndon Johnson to his groundbreaking work with PBS, Moyers embodied the spirit of democratic inquiry: probing deeply, listening intently, and speaking boldly. He held the powerful to account, but always with the dignity and decency that defined his Texan roots and Baptist upbringing.
Bill Moyers never saw journalism as a career; he saw it as a calling. His programs—Now with Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, and Moyers & Company—were sanctuaries for critical thought and inconvenient truths. He gave voice to the voiceless: whistleblowers, teachers, laborers, poets, and prophets. In a time when the corporate capture of media narrowed the spectrum of acceptable opinion, Moyers stretched it wide—amplifying progressive theologians, investigative reporters, civil rights leaders, and scholars ignored by commercial networks.
His love of learning, and his belief in public education as a democratic cornerstone, made him a champion of educators and lifelong learners. He understood that education is not merely about credentials or career preparation, but about cultivating the moral imagination. That insight animated his long relationship with public broadcasting, where he insisted that television could—and should—educate, illuminate, and elevate.
Bill Moyers also saw through the fog of power. He knew how elite institutions—government, media, universities, and corporations—could align to manufacture consent and mystify the public. And yet he maintained hope. Not a naive optimism, but a deep belief in people’s capacity to awaken, organize, and transform society. As he once said, “Democracy is not a lie, it is a leap of faith. But you need to keep leaping.”
In a moment when American higher education faces crises of affordability, access, and meaning—when trust in journalism is frayed, and when truth itself feels embattled—Bill Moyers’ legacy reminds us that integrity matters. So does context, complexity, and compassion.
His loss is personal for those of us at the Higher Education Inquirer. Many of us were shaped by his work, inspired by his commitment to investigative rigor and human dignity. His interviews with thinkers like Howard Zinn, Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Joseph Campbell helped expand the public’s moral and intellectual horizons—precisely what higher education should strive to do.
In remembering Bill Moyers, we are called to do more than mourn. We are called to follow his example: to ask harder questions, to listen more deeply, to speak more clearly, and to stand, always, with the people who are too often ignored or maligned.
Rest in power, Bill Moyers. Your words lit candles in the darkness. May we carry that light forward.
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Universities “At Risk of Overassessing” in Response to AI
The number of assessments set by universities is steadily rising, but there are worries this could result in student burnout and prove counteractive if implemented without centering learning.
A recent report by the U.K.-based Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and Advance HE found that assessments at U.K. institutions have risen to 5.8 summative assignments and 4.1 formative assignments per semester in 2025, compared to five summative assessments and 2.5 formative assessments in 2020.
Josh Freeman, policy manager at Hepi and co-author of the report, said the advent of AI is “reducing the accuracy of assessments as a measure of students’ performance,” prompting universities to re-evaluate their examination methods.
“It’s possible that course organizers are assessing students more to improve the confidence they have in their assessments,” he said.
“It’s also possible that, as they redo assessment models, which may have remained the same for a long time, they are switching to alternative models of assessment—for example, those that assess students on an ongoing basis, rather than simply once at the end of the year.”
However, rising numbers of exams risks universities “overassessing” students, he added, as “students now face an intense battle over their time,” noting that the number of hours that students spend studying has fallen.
“[Many are making] sacrifices around social activities, sports and societies. These ‘extra’ activities are the first to go when students are squeezed and would probably be cut further if the academic elements of university become more demanding.”
Some 68 percent of students in the U.K. are now undertaking part-time work during term time, a record high, largely in response to cost-of-living pressures.
Michael Draper, a professor in legal education at Swansea University and chair of the university’s academic regulations and student cases board, said that some universities have begun supplementing assessments with “some form of in-person assessment” to counteract AI “credibility concerns.” But “that of course does lead to perhaps overassessment or more assessments than were in place before.”
“Students have got so many competing claims on their time, not just in relation to work, but care responsibilities and work responsibilities, that you run the risk of student burnout,” he continued.
“That is not a position you actually want to be in. You want to make sure that students have got a fair opportunity to work consistently and get the best grade possible. You want students to have a chance to reflect upon their feedback and then to demonstrate that in other assessments, but if they’re being continuously assessed, it’s very difficult to have that reflection time.”
However, Thomas Lancaster, principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, speculated that a rise in the number of exams could be a sign that assessments are being “split into smaller stages,” with more continuous feedback throughout the process, which could also simultaneously have benefits for counteracting AI use.
“This is something I’ve long recommended in response to contract cheating, where it’s good practice to see the process, not just the final product. So I do hope that the revised assessment schedules are being put in place to benefit the students, rather than purely as a response to AI.”
While breaking assessments down could prove beneficial to student learning, Drew Whitworth, reader at the Manchester Institute of Education, questioned, “How does one count what constitutes ‘separate’ assessments?”
“If a grade is given partway through this process … this is actually quite helpful for students, answering the question ‘How am I doing?’ and giving them a pragmatic reason to show [their work and that they are working] in the first place.
“But does this count as a separate assessment or just part of a dialogue taking place that helps students develop better work in response to a single assessment?”
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DOJ Sues Minnesota Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Minnesota lawmakers Wednesday over the state’s policy allowing in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students.
The lawsuit names Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the state’s Office of Higher Education as defendants. It claims Minnesota is violating federal law and discriminating against U.S. citizens by permitting noncitizens who grew up in the state to pay in-state tuition rates. Under the Minnesota Dream Act, signed into law in 2013, undocumented students have to meet various criteria to qualify, including spending three years at and graduating from a Minnesota high school.
The suit also takes issue with the state’s North Star Promise Program, a free college program launched last year for Minnesotans who meet certain requirements, including undocumented students who live in the state.
The lawsuit comes after the Justice Department successfully sued Texas over the same issue earlier in June. Texas swiftly sided with the federal government, and within hours, its two-decade-old law allowing in-state tuition for undocumented students became moot. The DOJ also sued Kentucky politicians over its in-state tuition policy last week. The lawsuits cite President Donald Trump’s May executive order that called for a crackdown on cities and states with laws that benefit undocumented immigrants, including those that offer in-state tuition benefits.
“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release. “The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to taking this fight to Minnesota in order to protect the rights of American citizens first.”
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Trump Admin. Cuts NIH’s Springer Nature Subscriptions
Citing an unnamed source, Axios reported this week that the Trump administration has cut “about $20 million in grants covering subscriptions” with Springer Nature, which publishes more than 3,000 journals, including the prestigious Nature.
The article didn’t specify which agency cut these subscriptions. Axios reported that Springer Nature “has long received payments for subscriptions from National Institutes of Health and other agencies.” The NIH originally told Inside Higher Ed in an email Thursday that it “has not terminated any contracts with Springer Nature.” But the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes NIH, sent a new statement Thursday evening.
“All NIH staff currently have full access to Springer Nature journals through the NIH Library—and that access will continue uninterrupted,” the NIH wrote in the initial email. “NIH is not, in any way, limiting access to scientific publications. On the contrary, the agency actively encourages the use of these resources to advance scientific discovery and promote transparency and replicability in research.”
But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote in a statement that “all contracts with Springer Nature are terminated or no longer active. Precious taxpayer dollars should be not be [sic] used on unused subscriptions to junk science.”
A National Science Foundation spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed in an email that “NSF has not canceled subscriptions to Springer or Nature publishing journals.”
In a statement, a Springer Nature spokesperson said, “We are proud of our track record in communicating U.S. research to the rest of the world for over a century and continue to have good relationships with U.S. federal agencies.”
The spokesperson wrote, “We don’t comment on individual contracts, but across our U.S. business there is no material change to our customers or their spend.”
The White House didn’t provide comment to Inside Higher Ed.
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Researchers “Cautiously Optimistic” NIH Will Restore Grants
Months after individual researchers, advocacy groups and a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general filed two lawsuits against the National Institutes of Health for terminating hundreds of active research grants misaligned with the Trump administration’s ideologies, some scientists are hopeful that the agency will soon restore the grants and allow them to resume their research.
Last week, a federal judge in Massachusetts ordered the NIH to restore the roughly 900 grants named in the lawsuits, including many focused on studying vaccine hesitancy, LGBTQ+ health and diversity, equity and inclusion in the medical field. U.S. District Judge William Young, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, ruled the terminations void and unlawful, stating during a hearing that in all his years on the bench he’d “never seen” discrimination by the government to this extent.
Although Science reported Thursday morning that the NIH has internally communicated plans to restore those grants “as soon as practicable”—and also cease further grant terminations—researchers say they still don’t know when they can expect to get the money they were promised.
“Since the ruling, we are really encouraged,” said Heidi Moseson, a plaintiff in one of the cases and a senior researcher at Ibis Reproductive Health. “But we haven’t heard anything from the NIH about our grants being reinstated, and we don’t have a window into what that process looks like.”
Back in March, Moseson received a letter from the agency terminating her grant, which was aimed at improving the accuracy of data collected in sexual and reproductive health research for all people, including those who identify as transgender and gender diverse. The award “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” the letter said. “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.”
The NIH did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment on its specific plans for restoring the terminated grants.
Appeal Anxiety
Moseson said each week that goes by with the grant on pause “is another week where people are not being appropriately screened into clinical care and research that would be relevant for their bodies, leading to missed preventative care or, conversely, unnecessary preventive care.”
While her team is ready to resume their research as soon as the NIH restores the funding in accordance with the judge’s ruling, she’s bracing for further disruptions ahead, depending on what happens with the appeals process.
On Monday, the NIH filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. It also filed a motion to stay the judge’s order to restore the grants while pending the appeal, but Young denied that motion on Tuesday, noting that a stay “would cause irreparable harm to the plaintiffs.”
“This is a case in equity concerning health research already bought and paid for by the Congress of the United States through funds appropriated for expenditure and properly allocated during this fiscal year,” the judge wrote. “Even a day’s delay further destroys the unmistakable legislative purpose from its accomplishment.”
The following day, Michelle Bulls, a senior NIH official who oversees extramural funding, told staffers in an email that the agency must restore funding for the hundreds of projects identified by the plaintiffs, Science reported. “Please proceed with taking action on this request as part of the first phase of our compliance with the court’s judgment,” Bulls wrote, noting that “additional information is forthcoming.”
Noam Ross, executive director at rOpenSci, a nonprofit that supports reproducible open research, and co-founder of the website Grant Watch, which is tracking grant terminations, put out a call for information on LinkedIn Wednesday about any grants the NIH has restored. But he told Inside Higher Ed Thursday afternoon that he has yet to receive any verified reports of restored NIH grants.
Shalini Goel Agarwal, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit focused on combating perceived authoritarian threats, and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said Thursday morning that she also had not yet heard of any researchers getting grant money the NIH previously terminated.
Though it’s not clear what could come of the government’s effort to appeal Young’s ruling, “at this moment the judge’s order is in effect and the NIH should be returning money to the researchers whose grants were terminated,” she said. “NIH should right now be undoing the effects of its directives.”
‘Cautiously Optimistic’
Katie Edwards, a social work professor at the University of Michigan and a plaintiff in one of the cases, said that as of Thursday afternoon, she had yet to receive any communication from the NIH about its plans to restore her numerous multiyear grants.
Edwards, whose research focuses on Indigenous and LGBTQ+ youth, said that delaying the grants much longer will undermine the research she’s already started, to the detriment of public health research.
“For some of our studies, it’s just a matter of weeks before they’ll be really hard if not impossible to restart. I’m feeling a lot of anxiety,” she said. “We’re in a waiting phase, but I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic.”
Despite the uncertainty of what’s ahead, she did get some reassuring news from the NIH on Thursday. The agency notified her that it approved her bid for a new three-year, $710,000 grant to develop and evaluate a self-defense program for adult women survivors of sexual violence. Like many other applications for new grants, the application had been in limbo for months. “So something (good??) is going on there!” she said in an email.
Other cases moving through the courts also look promising for federally funded researchers eager to get their grants restored.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities had also unlawfully terminated grants that had already been awarded to researchers in the University of California’s 10-campus system. The judge, a Biden appointee, ordered the government to restore them, adding that she is weighing extending the order to 13 other federal agencies, including the NIH.
“Many of the cases that are making their way through the courts share claims that are being made about the illegality of the federal government’s actions,” said Olga Akselrod, counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in one of the suits against the NIH. “Any time we have a win in one of these cases it’s an important statement of the applicable law, and that’s relevant for all of the cases that are proceeding.”
