Tag: Education

  • Three States Weigh Changes to Presidential Search Processes

    Three States Weigh Changes to Presidential Search Processes

    Three states are considering changes to how public universities hire presidents via legislation to provide more, and in the case of Utah, less transparency in executive searches.

    Florida, Utah and Washington are all weighing changes, driven by state legislators in response to recent presidential searches. In the case of Florida, the move comes after the state, known for broad open records laws, revised presidential search processes in recent years in ways that narrowed transparency, which was followed by an influx of hires connected to conservative politics.

    Evergreen State legislators have proposed the changes following closed-door presidential searches at both the University of Washington and Washington State University, which they argue lacked adequate transparency because finalists were not named during the process. (However, they’ve backed off an initial bill to require universities to name finalists.)

    In Utah, lawmakers have crafted legislation to limit information on presidential searches. Current state law requires public universities to release the name of three to five finalists for presidential positions, but that could change with only a single finalist unveiled at the end of the search.

    The legislative proposals reflect a broader debate over how much transparency should be built into presidential searches and the politics of hiring processes.

    Florida’s Proposed Reversal

    The Florida Legislature passed a bill in 2022 that allowed institutions to keep the identity of applicants secret until a university identified three finalists. The change marked an about-face from prior practices, in which lists of applicants were released as part of presidential searches.

    Although the law passed in 2022 charged universities with naming three finalists, in practice it has often meant that institutions only release the name of one applicant at the end of the process. And since the passage of that legislation, Florida has tapped numerous Republican lawmakers to lead public universities, including former Nebraska U.S. senator Ben Sasse at the University of Florida, who stepped down after less than 18 months amid questions about his spending.

    Since Sasse’s exit, critics have alleged UF’s board missed or ignored multiple red flags.

    Governing boards have hired numerous other Republican former lawmakers to lead institutions since 2022. Recent hires include Adam Hasner at Florida Atlantic University, Jeanette Nuñez at Florida International University (who stepped down as lieutenant governor to take the job), Richard Corcoran at New College of Florida, Fred Hawkins at South Florida State College, Mel Ponder at Northwest Florida State College and Torey Alston at Broward College.

    In a statement on why she filed the bill to open search processes, Florida representative Michelle Salzman, a Republican, wrote that the legislation would ensure “our higher education institutions are governed in a transparent and ethical manner, with the best interests of our students and taxpayers as the guiding principle.”

    To Judith Wilde, a research professor at George Mason University who studies presidential searches and contracts, the bill seems like backlash to Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who many critics allege has used a heavy hand in installing GOP officials as college presidents.

    “They are definitely moving away from the more secretive and controlled processes that they’ve been under for the last few years. I’d say that is because so many people now are tired and upset with DeSantis putting in place his personal choices and how badly that has worked out,” Wilde said.

    Last year, the Florida Board of Governors also gave itself more authority over presidential searches, adopting a policy that requires its chair to approve a list of finalists before candidates are submitted to individual governing boards. That would go away under proposed legislation.

    The Florida Board of Governors did not respond to an inquiry about its position on the bill.

    Washington Backtracks

    Washington lawmakers initially proposed changes to how presidential searches are conducted with a bill that would require public universities to name “up to four priority candidates” for the job. But lawmakers backed off that idea, submitting a substitute bill that would expand voting rights for students and faculty on presidential searches, but not require finalists to be named.

    University of Washington officials had expressed concern about the initial proposed legislation, arguing that UW could lose highly qualified candidates if they can’t keep names confidential.

    “It’s important to understand that sitting presidents or chancellors participate in these processes at considerable professional risk. There may be reputational damage up to termination, even if their candidacy is unsuccessful, should their present employers learn that they are pursuing other employment,” Blaine Tamaki, chair of UW’s Board of Regents, wrote in a statement.

    A UW spokesperson also pointed to fallout in 2020 in the University of Alaska system when then-president Jim Johnsen stepped down after he emerged as the sole finalist to lead the University of Wisconsin system. Johnsen withdrew from the Wisconsin search after criticism that the process lacked transparency. He then resigned from the Alaska presidency mere weeks later.

    (Johnsen’s tenure at Alaska was heavily scrutinized while he was there, however, and many students and faculty members expressed relief that he planned to leave for another job, which Wilde suggested was more of a factor in his abrupt exit than his candidacy for the Wisconsin position.)

    Washington State University had also expressed concerns about the initial bill.

    “Specifically, we were apprehensive about losing strong candidates who would be unwilling to make their names public before a selection was announced,” a Washington State spokesperson wrote to Inside Higher Ed by email. “There is a very real concern for some candidates that they would lose their effectiveness at their home institutions if it became public that they were exploring employment opportunities elsewhere. This is particularly true for sitting presidents.”

    Washington State has expressed support for the new bill.

    Opacity in Utah?

    State Senator Chris Wilson, the Utah Republican who sponsored the bill to overhaul presidential searches, has argued the law needs to be changed so public universities don’t lose quality candidates who are unwilling to go through a process that exposes their identity.

    The Utah legislation seems at least partly inspired by Elizabeth Cantwell exiting the presidency at Utah State University last month to take the top job at Washington State.

    Wilson has pointed to Cantwell departing for Washington State as an example of why the bill is needed. Last month, in a House Education Committee meeting, Wilson stressed the need for confidentiality in searches and argued, “There’s no way the president of Utah State University would have applied for the presidency of Washington State if it wasn’t a private process.”

    Utah commissioner of higher education Geoff Landward has cast doubt on the notion that public universities in the state have lost applicants due to current processes.

    “I can confidently say that we have not had a single search wherein we were talking to very high-quality candidates who essentially said that they would be interested and willing to apply, were it not for the fact that the final three candidates would have to be public because that would put their current employment in peril unnecessarily,” Landward told lawmakers in February.

    But, he added, “This is a question of who did we not get to consider?”

    Wilde is skeptical of Utah’s proposal. She points to an example at Montana State University in 2019 when President Waded Cruzado informed the board that she was being recruited for another job. In response, the board gave Cruzado a $150,000 pay raise to entice her to stay—and it worked.

    “Just because they’re in the job market doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to leave the university,” Wilde said. “And if they’re doing a good job, make the effort to keep them.”

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  • Starting Salaries for Comm, Social Science College Grads Drop

    Starting Salaries for Comm, Social Science College Grads Drop

    Graduating college is a stressful process for many, with a May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab finding seven in 10 current students feel at least somewhat stressed thinking and preparing for life postgraduation. The Class of 2025, on average, is pessimistic about starting their careers, due in part to competition for jobs and student loans, according to research from Handshake.

    Recent survey data from the National Association of College and Employers points to uneven starting salary projections for the Class of 2025, with year-over-year movement on the decline for some bachelor’s degree majors, but all starting salaries have increased somewhat since 2022.

    “These salary projections come on the heels of employers indicating plans to hire 7.3 percent more graduates from the college Class of 2025 than they did from the Class of 2024, which hints at the overall health of the current job market for college graduates,” Shawn VanDerziel, NACE’s president and chief executive officer, said in a press release.

    The report draws on survey data from 158 employers and finds STEM students continue to have the highest starting salaries, compared to their communications, business and agriculture, and natural resources peers.

    The results: NACE’s survey focuses on base salaries, not including bonuses, commissions or other benefits. Projected movement in salaries over all ranges, with agriculture and natural resources climbing 2.8 percent but social sciences declining 3.6 percent, compared to the year prior.

    An Inside Higher Ed analysis of NACE’s winter surveys since 2022 finds that, while all degree programs have seen starting salary projections grow over the years, the growth has not been uniform. Communications and social sciences, in particular, saw growth in 2024 projections, which then fell in 2025.

    The highest-paid individual majors were in the engineering field: computer ($82,565) and software engineering ($82,536). Math and sciences graduates remain the third-highest-paid majors but saw a 2 percent decrease in salary projections.

    Employer respondents indicated the most in-demand majors are finance and computer science, with two-thirds of respondents indicating they will hire students in these majors. Similarly, accounting (65 percent), business administration (55 percent) and information sciences and systems (53 percent) are majors employers indicated that they will hire.

    Students’ predictions: A November 2024 student survey by ScholarshipOwl found, on average, respondents expect to earn $60,000 to $80,000 per year for their first full-time job after they graduate. Around one-quarter of respondents indicated that they expect to earn $90,000 or more for their first job out of college, which is not reflected in employer responses.

    In addition to having a competitive salary, students are most interested in jobs that provide tuition reimbursement or support for student loan repayment (61 percent), retirement savings benefits (59 percent), medical and dental benefits (58 percent), and paid vacation and holidays (49 percent). The results reflect the economic pressures college students face paying for college and high costs of living that disproportionately affect students.

    Do you have a career-focused intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.

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  • The Old World Is Dying and the New One Is Struggling to Be Born

    The Old World Is Dying and the New One Is Struggling to Be Born

    Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist philosopher and political theorist, famously wrote in his Prison Notebooks, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: Now is the time of monsters.”

    This phrase speaks not only to Gramsci’s time, but to our own: when older sociopolitical and economic structures are collapsing, but no new stable order has yet emerged.

    In such transitional moments, Gramsci argued, uncertainty, instability and reactionary forces dominate, creating a breeding ground for extremism, authoritarianism and political “monsters”—figures or movements that thrive in times of disorder.

    For Gramsci, an interregnum refers to a period when the ruling class can no longer maintain its dominance, but the emerging class or system has not yet fully consolidated power. This results in a vacuum of authority, where competing forces—both progressive and regressive—struggle for control.

    In these moments the legitimacy of the old order erodes, but its institutions continue to function in a dysfunctional, decaying manner. New movements and ideologies arise, but they lack coherence, structure or the ability to fully replace the old system. Meanwhile, monstrous forces emerge—authoritarian leaders, reactionary movements and political opportunists who capitalize on the instability.

    Gramsci saw this dynamic playing out in early-20th-century Europe, where the decline of traditional aristocratic and capitalist structures, coupled with the failures of liberal democracy, gave rise to fascism and Stalinism. He viewed these as monsters—political mutations that emerged from the chaos of transition.

    Gramsci’s framework remains highly relevant today. The post–Cold War order—characterized by U.S. hegemony, economic globalization and liberal democracy—is unraveling, but a new, stable global system has not yet taken shape. In this vacuum, we are seeing:

    • The rise of authoritarian leaders (Putin, Xi, Erdoğan, Orbán, Trump) who exploit the failures of liberal democracy.
    • Resurgent nationalist and populist movements, fueled by economic stagnation, inequality and disillusionment with global institutions.
    • Economic disorder, as global supply chains, financial systems and labor markets undergo rapid disruption.
    • Technological and social transformations, including artificial intelligence–driven job displacement, misinformation and surveillance states.

    In short, we are in another Gramscian interregnum, where the old world is collapsing but the new one remains undefined. The critical question remains: What kind of order will emerge from this instability, and at what cost?

    The End of the Old Order and the Rise of an Interregnum of Monsters

    The post–World War II geopolitical order, defined by American-led capitalism and Soviet-led state socialism, effectively collapsed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet, nearly four decades later, a stable new order has failed to materialize. The world remains in a state of flux—an era of competing powers, ideological uncertainty, economic fragmentation and political instability.

    Slavoj Žižek’s characterization of our era as a time of “monsters” perfectly captures this interregnum, a period in which the old system has lost legitimacy but a new one has yet to take shape.

    The “monsters” in Žižek’s vision are not just metaphorical; they include:

    • The resurgence of authoritarianism manifest in Chinese assertiveness, Russian revisionism and democratic backsliding in many countries.
    • Economic disruptions evident in supply chain crises, inflation and the decline of global economic integration.
    • Technological transformations, including drones, AI, cyberwarfare and social media–driven political instability.
    • Unstable alliances and shifting power centers resulting from the U.S.-China rivalry, the decline of U.S. hegemony and the European Union’s internal struggles.

    This chaotic transition recalls other historical moments when an old international or regional order collapsed without an immediate replacement, creating instability, war and uncertainty.

    Historical Parallels: When an Old Order Dies, but No New Order Has Yet Emerged

    History is not a linear progression but a series of cycles, punctuated by moments of collapse and renewal. When dominant political, economic and ideological structures break down, they rarely give way immediately to a new, stable order.

    Instead, the period between the death of the old system and the emergence of the new is often chaotic, violent and unpredictable. When great empires, ruling ideologies or geopolitical structures collapse, they leave behind a vacuum. This vacuum is rarely filled by a single force but instead becomes a battleground of competing factions, ideologies and power struggles. Only through conflict, negotiation and time does a new order finally emerge. Let me briefly describe several historical examples of such moments of transition, each marked by political fragmentation, war and economic collapse before a more stable system eventually took hold.

    • The Fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages (Fifth–Eighth centuries CE): The fall of the Western Roman Empire, traditionally dated to 476 CE, was one of the most profound civilizational collapses in history. For centuries, Rome had maintained political unity, trade networks, infrastructure and a legal system that stretched across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. But as Rome’s central authority weakened, it became vulnerable to external invasions and internal decay. The final blow came when the Germanic chieftain Odoacer deposed the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 CE.

    However, the fall of Rome did not immediately give rise to a new political order. Instead, Europe entered a long period of fragmentation, instability and decline. The vast Roman infrastructure—roads, aqueducts, cities—began to deteriorate, trade networks collapsed and literacy declined. Warlords, petty kings and shifting barbarian kingdoms—Visigoths, Vandals, Ostrogoths and Franks—fought for dominance, carving up the former Roman provinces into competing territories.

    The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) continued to exist, but it could not restore unity to the West. It took centuries before Europe stabilized under the feudal order, where landowning lords, bound by obligations of service and protection, became the dominant power structure. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church filled part of the power vacuum left by Rome, gradually emerging as a unifying institution across medieval Europe.

    The monsters of the era include warlords and barbarian kingdoms: Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths carved up Roman territory through conquest and shifting alliances. And without a central government, Europe descended into a patchwork of feudal kingdoms, often engaged in constant warfare.

    • The Thirty Years’ War and the Birth of the Modern State (1618–1648): The Thirty Years’ War was one of the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts in European history, a war that erupted after the collapse of the Catholic-Protestant balance in the Holy Roman Empire. What began as a religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant states soon spiraled into a broader struggle for power involving nearly every major European state.

    For three decades, mercenary armies ravaged the continent, plundering cities and decimating populations. Entire regions of Germany were depopulated, with famine and disease killing millions. The political and economic devastation was so extreme that some regions took over a century to recover.

    Eventually, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the war and established a new political order based on sovereign states, setting the foundation for the modern nation-state system. The idea that rulers had the right to control their own territories without external interference—the principle of sovereignty—became the new international norm.

    The monsters of the era included:

    • Mercenary armies: Private military forces, loyal only to the highest bidder, wreaked havoc across Europe.
    • Militant religious factions: Fanatical Catholic and Protestant forces carried out massacres in the name of faith.
    • Warlords and opportunists: The war allowed ambitious nobles and military leaders to seize power in the chaos.
    • The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (1789–1815): The French Revolution (1789–1799) shattered the old European order by overthrowing the monarchy, aristocracy and feudal privileges. However, rather than leading to a stable democratic government, France descended into a decade of internal purges, political terror and war.

    The Reign of Terror (1793–1794), led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins, saw thousands executed by the guillotine as the revolutionary government turned against itself. Meanwhile, the monarchies of Europe waged war to crush the revolution, fearing that its ideals would spread beyond France.

    Out of this chaos rose Napoleon Bonaparte, a military leader who transformed revolutionary France into a new empire that briefly dominated Europe. His conquests spread the principles of nationalism and legal reform but also brought bloody war. Only with the Congress of Vienna (1815) did Europe regain a measure of stability, restoring monarchies and attempting to balance power between nations.

    The monsters of the era included:

    • Revolutionary factions: Competing groups (Jacobins, Girondins) executed thousands in ideological purges.
    • Napoleon’s imperial vision: A charismatic leader who promised order, only to launch wars of conquest across Europe.
    • Mercenary armies: Warfare became a permanent state of existence, with shifting alliances.
    • The Aftermath of World War I and the Rise of Fascism (1919–1939): World War I (1914–1918) marked the beginning of the end of the age of empires, leading to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, German and Russian Empires. However, the war did not create a stable new order. Instead, the 1920s and 1930s saw economic depression, political instability and the rise of radical ideologies.

    The Treaty of Versailles (1919) imposed harsh economic reparations on Germany, fueling resentment, hyperinflation and nationalist extremism. Meanwhile, the Great Depression (1929) devastated economies worldwide, discrediting democratic governments and strengthening totalitarian movements. By the 1930s, fascist regimes had emerged in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan, ultimately leading to World War II.

    The monsters of the era included:

    • Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini: Fascist leaders who exploited economic despair and nationalism to seize power.
    • Stalin’s purges: The Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime carried out mass executions and forced labor camps.
    • Militarist Japan: Japanese imperialists invaded China and Southeast Asia, committing atrocities on a massive scale.
    • The Post–Cold War Era and the War on Terror (1991–Present): The end of the Cold War in 1991 did not lead to universal peace. While the United States emerged as the dominant superpower, the global landscape became more unstable, with failed states, terrorism and regional wars filling the vacuum.

    Yugoslavia’s violent breakup led to genocide and ethnic cleansing. The Sept. 11 attacks triggered the U.S.-led War on Terror (2001–), which destabilized the Middle East. ISIS emerged from the ruins of Iraq and Syria, proving that power vacuums create new threats.

    The monsters of that era included extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other militant factions that thrived in collapsed states, and insurgencies and rogue states as failed governments allowed warlords and factions to seize power.

    Every historical interregnum has followed a pattern: collapse, chaos, monsters and eventually, stability. Today, we stand in another such moment—what emerges next remains uncertain.

    Our Present Moment: A New Interregnum, a New Time of Monsters

    History does not move in a straight line. It is instead marked by periods of stability, where dominant powers enforce a relatively predictable order and periods of transition, where old systems collapse but no new framework has yet taken hold. These interregnums—moments between the death of one order and the birth of another—are often the most dangerous and unpredictable in human history.

    Antonio Gramsci’s invocation of a “time of monsters” refers to the forces—political extremism, authoritarianism, war, economic collapse, technological upheaval—that emerge to fill the uncertainty and chaos left by the collapse of the old order.

    Like past historical interregnums, our world today is trapped in an unstable and dangerous limbo.

    The post–World War II order, which was largely defined by the Cold War’s bipolar structure, has now been gone for over three decades, but a stable replacement has yet to emerge. The unipolar world dominated by the United States after 1991 has weakened.

    We are witnessing the decline of U.S. hegemony, the rise of new powers like China and the fragmentation of global politics into multiple competing spheres of influence. In the midst of this transition, we are already seeing conflict, chaos and the resurgence of political forces that many had assumed had been relegated to the past.

    A new world order will eventually arise, but the crucial question remains: At what cost? If history is any guide, the period before the emergence of a new stable order is likely to be marked by war, social upheaval, economic instability and political extremism. The world we recognize today may be unrecognizable within a generation.

    A Fractured World: The Breakdown of Global Stability

    One of the defining features of interregnum periods is the dissolution of previous structures of power and authority. The last 30 years have seen:

    • The weakening of U.S. global leadership: After decades of post–Cold War dominance, the United States faces internal political instability, economic stagnation and diminishing global influence.
    • The rise of China as an alternative power: While not yet a global hegemon, China’s economic, military and technological rise directly challenges U.S. influence, particularly in Asia and Africa.
    • The return of revisionist states: Countries like Russia, Turkey and Iran seek to challenge, alter or overturn the international order and reshape their regional environments through military force and coercion, testing the limits of international norms.
    • The decline of global institutions: The United Nations, the World Trade Organization and other international bodies have been weakened, sidelined or ignored as major powers act unilaterally.

    Instead of one dominant global system, the world is now fragmenting into competing blocs, including:

    • A China-led economic and technological sphere, including much of Asia, parts of Africa and South America.
    • A U.S.-led bloc, still influential in Europe and parts of the Pacific but facing internal and external challenges.
    • A growing zone of instability, including much of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, where states are collapsing and nonstate actors (militias, terrorist groups, warlords) are gaining power.

    These fractured realities mean that global cooperation—on everything from climate change to economic stability—has become harder than ever before.

    The Return of Nationalism, Populism and Authoritarianism

    When old orders collapse, people often turn to strongmen, radical ideologies and reactionary forces for answers. This is not new—the 1920s and 1930s saw the collapse of post–World War I democratic governments and the rise of fascism, communism and militarism. The same dynamic is unfolding today.

    • Right-wing nationalism is rising across the world, from Europe to India to the United States, driven by fears of economic decline, cultural change and political dysfunction.
    • Populist movements are destabilizing democracies, as leaders use rhetoric against elites, immigrants and globalization to build political power.
    • Authoritarian regimes are emboldened, seeing liberal democracies as weak and in decline. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most striking example of this trend.
    • Polarization and political violence are increasing, as societies turn against themselves, fueled by disinformation and deep ideological divisions.

    Rather than a world moving toward greater democracy and cooperation, we are witnessing a reversal of the democratic gains of the 20th century, with more countries turning toward illiberalism, autocracy and repression.

    Economic Uncertainty and the Decline of Globalization

    Another feature of historical interregnums is economic instability, as old economic systems break down and new ones struggle to take shape. Today, we are seeing:

    • A shift away from globalization: Many nations are moving toward economic nationalism, erecting trade barriers and focusing on domestic production.
    • Massive debt crises and inflation: Governments across the world are struggling with unsustainable debt, leading to potential financial crises and the erosion of the middle class.
    • Technological displacement: Automation and technology-driven foreign competition are rapidly replacing traditional jobs, with millions of workers facing economic uncertainty.
    • The rise of alternative currencies and financial systems, including digital currencies that could further destabilize traditional financial institutions.

    The predictable economic order of the late 20th century—characterized by free trade, global markets and stable growth—is unraveling, creating opportunities for economic monsters like black-market economies, corporate monopolies and financial manipulation.

    The Role of Technology: AI, Misinformation and Surveillance States

    One of the most unprecedented factors of our modern interregnum is the power of technology to both stabilize and destabilize societies.

    AI-driven disinformation is undermining trust. Social media algorithms and AI-generated content make it easier than ever to spread propaganda, conspiracy theories and false information, eroding the shared reality necessary for democratic governance.

    Surveillance technology is empowering authoritarian states. Countries like China are perfecting digital authoritarianism, using facial recognition, AI and big data to monitor and control their populations.

    Cyberwarfare is replacing conventional warfare—Future conflicts may not be fought with tanks and missiles but with hacked infrastructure, financial system disruptions and AI-driven attacks.

    While technology has the potential to create solutions, it is currently being weaponized in ways that amplify chaos rather than order.

    A New Order Will Emerge—but at What Cost?

    Every historical interregnum has eventually given way to a new order, whether it was the birth of the nation-state system after the Thirty Years’ War, the formation of modern democracy after World War II or the collapse of communism leading to the globalized 1990s. But the transitions have rarely been peaceful.

    What will it take for a new world order to emerge? Three possibilities stand out:

    • A negotiated, stable transition: Major powers could collaborate to reshape international institutions, preventing catastrophic conflict. This is the most hopeful outcome.
    • A prolonged period of instability and fragmentation: The world could remain in political, economic and military chaos for decades before a new dominant system arises.
    • A major global conflict or crisis forces a new order: As in the aftermath of World Wars I and II, only after widespread destruction will nations work together to build something new.

    The ultimate question is: Will today’s leaders and institutions manage to shape a new order without the suffering and bloodshed that usually accompanies such transitions? Or are we doomed to repeat the violent cycles of history?

    Until that question is answered, we remain in a dangerous interregnum—a time of uncertainty, instability and monsters.

    Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and recipient of the AAC&U’s 2025 President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Education.

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  • Colleges Flag Words Like “Women” to Comply With DEI Bans

    Colleges Flag Words Like “Women” to Comply With DEI Bans

    “Biases.” “Racism.” “Gender.” “Women.”

    Those are just some of the terms colleges and universities are searching for in their databases to ensure compliance with federal DEI bans and similar directives from states and university systems.

    Robin Goodman, distinguished research professor of English at Florida State University and president of the university’s chapter of United Faculty of Florida, said her institution is using a list of keywords to review webpages for DEI language in response to federal and state directives. While not all those terms were scrubbed, the list, which has circulated among faculty, disturbed her.

    “From my point of view, those words are now dangerous words” that exacerbate a “culture of fear” on campus, she said.

    She’s also mystified by which terms did and didn’t make it onto her university’s list, noting that the word “woman” is flagged, but not “man” or “sex.”

    Campuses using keyword lists isn’t entirely new. Some state laws have pressured colleges to avoid using certain terms in the past, said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. But for most campuses, this is a “new space,” as some institutions scramble to comply with federal anti-DEI orders, like the Office for Civil Rights’ Dear Colleague letter, and try to mirror the ways grant-making federal agencies, like the National Science Foundation, have responded.

    Colleges and universities are using the same tactics as many federal agencies parsing their grant projects and webpages to comply with federal anti-DEI directives. The National Science Foundation, which temporarily shut down grant reviews, searched for terms like “female” and “male-dominated” in its research grants. The Centers for Disease Control used a list of roughly 20 terms to guide choices about removing DEI-related language from its website. And the Defense Department reportedly flagged tens of thousands of images and web posts for removal because of alleged connections to DEI, including references to service members with the last name Gay and an image of the Enola Gay aircraft, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II.

    Campus administrators taking this approach argue that, when tasked with reviewing massive numbers of webpages and programs, keywords make it easier to arrive at a smaller, more manageable pool to review. Faculty members, on the other hand, are baffled and outraged by the strategy. Some sympathize with campus leaders’ plight but argue it’s alarming to watch universities treat terms like “female” as red flags.

    Fansmith doesn’t believe such lists are an ideal strategy.

    Flagged word lists are “a very, very, very blunt tool” for “trying to understand academic content or the merits of research grants or projects,” he said.

    ‘Not a Perfect Approach’

    University leaders recognize that devising keyword lists puts campuses on edge, but some argue it’s the most efficient way to respond to an onslaught of anti-DEI directives.

    East Carolina University’s interim provost, Chris Buddo, explained at a recent Faculty Senate meeting that the Office of University Counsel crafted a list of terms over several months, initially used to review the university’s web presence to comply with the University of North Carolina system’s Equality Policy, which pared back DEI. (The North Carolina General Assembly also demanded an inventory of DEI trainings from the system in 2023, offering up a list of concepts and terms to guide the audit, including “accessibility,” “bias,” “racism” and “social justice.”)

    Then, in February, a UNC system attorney issued a memo prohibiting campuses from mandating courses focused on DEI, referencing Trump’s January anti-DEI executive order. University officials again used a keywords list to search through the course catalog and ensure no general education or major requirements were focused on DEI.

    Faculty at the meeting guffawed at some of the words flagged, including “cultural.”

    “I know it’s been controversial, and I understand it is not a perfect approach,” Buddo told faculty. “But given the significant amount of content we are being asked to review, we started by using this blunt tool—and I recognize it is a blunt tool.”

    He stressed that none of the words on the list are “inherently problematic.”

    But “the list was developed as a way to cast the widest possible net, to make sure we could be aware of all the places that we might be viewed as being noncompliant,” he said.

    Anne Ticknor, chair of the faculty and a professor in the College of Education at East Carolina University, said her institution has no choice but to comply with the system’s directives, though she tried to ensure that faculty had a say in any changes to course requirements.

    “People were fearful that their academic freedom was being infringed upon, since faculty traditionally oversee curriculum, and that includes course titles, syllabus information, course descriptions, content—all of that is typically a faculty’s domain,” she said.

    East Carolina officials told Inside Higher Ed in a statement that most courses flagged using the list were “false positives,” meaning that upon review, they weren’t required or didn’t relate to DEI.

    Florida State University also emphasized in a statement to Inside Higher Ed that just because the university is using a list of key terms to review webpages and communications doesn’t mean those words or pages are necessarily being removed.

    “For example, contrary to media reports, the words ‘woman’ and ‘women’ are easily found throughout the FSU website and have not been removed, nor are they being removed,” the statement read. “Florida State University, like all universities, routinely reviews its messaging to ensure information is up to date and compliant.”

    Florida State president Richard McCullough recognized in a March 4 message to faculty and staff that they may have “feelings of uncertainty and concern.”

    “While we are confident that our institution currently complies with the law, it is important that our messaging reflects new interpretations and priorities,” he told employees.

    Some campus leaders said they crafted flagged-terms lists out of panic.

    Officials at High Point University, a private institution in North Carolina, for example, told Inside Higher Ed in a statement that they created a keyword list in a moment of heightened worry last month after the U.S. Department of Education canceled three grants that supported graduate education programs, totaling $17.8 million. The Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter, which gave institutions two weeks to rid themselves of race-conscious programming, exacerbated their concerns about losing federal funding for other programs.

    According to The News & Observer, the university circulated a list of 49 terms, including “equality” and “gender,” and called for an audit of course descriptions and syllabi, student handbooks and webpages.

    But officials quickly rescinded the move.

    “Facing a 14-day deadline, we acted quickly based on our care and concern for students and faculty,” the statement from High Point read, “but clearly we overcorrected.”

    Provost Daniel Erb sent an apology to academic leaders on March 2, saying he consulted with legal counsel and “there are no terms or words that you are required to change.”

    “While many institutions were working towards removing certain terms and words from websites … our legal counsel has helped clarify that our priority should be on ensuring all our program qualifications and requirements do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, etc.,” Erb wrote. “Therefore, the concern about the language that is used is no longer a focus.”

    ACE generally doesn’t recommend universities undertake such language reviews in response to the Office for Civil Rights’ anti-DEI directive, Fansmith said. He believes campuses’ usual processes for reviewing university communications and curricula should suffice.

    “The administration has a view of what compliance with civil rights laws means,” which “I don’t think we necessarily believe the law itself supports,” he said.

    The Ripple Effects

    While harried administrators say the flagged terms are just a guidance tool, faculty members find the reviews burdensome and say they have a chilling effect in the classroom.

    Margaret Bauer, professor of English, distinguished professor of arts and sciences and Rives Chair of Southern Literature at East Carolina University, said her department has a Multicultural and Transnational Literatures concentration. She hasn’t done a count, but she expects the word “cultural”—one of the words on the list—comes up in every course description in that concentration. She feels for her colleagues who’ve had to justify courses or explain why they’re false positives. (Bauer is also in the Faculty Senate but stressed that she’s speaking on her own behalf.)

    “We’re already all overtaxed with so much bureaucracy,” she said. “Just to add something that’s so ridiculous—it’s really frustrating … We should have been grading or planning class, things that are productive. This was not productive.”

    Bauer believes administrators are well intentioned and “want to protect us.”

    But “I want them instead to push back … and say, ‘Curriculum is under faculty. And we don’t teach discrimination. We teach the history of it. We’re not doing anything wrong … These words are things our university believes in,’” she said.

    Knowing the word list is out there makes concepts feel taboo in the classroom, she said.

    “When I’m teaching Southern literature, I’m going to end up talking about the history of oppression, the history of discrimination … I can’t not talk about it,” she said, but she finds herself feeling “more self-conscious” about it. She worries faculty members without tenure might fear for their jobs if they “teach honestly.”

    Goodman, of Florida State University, said she also can’t avoid the topics on her university’s flagged-term list.

    “I’m a feminist theorist. I’ve written a lot of books, and they all have ‘feminism’ in the title,” she said. “So, I can’t backtrack it now. It’s all out there in the public.”

    The flagged-words list—especially combined with recent Florida state laws allowing students to record professors in class and requiring professors to undergo post-tenure review—creates an environment where “faculty feel like they are being gagged in class, and they’re fearful,” she added.

    Fansmith isn’t surprised faculty are worried.

    Professors are used to “really complicated, detailed and multi-faceted levels of curriculum construction,” he said. “These are professionals who have spent their lives understanding those nuances, those details and why they matter,” so they’re concerned to see coursework in particular “reduced seemingly to a simplistic list of terms.”

    He believes word lists are an acceptable, albeit not ideal, tool to use if they’re part of an internal review process “done with the care and attention that universities generally do with matters of curricular review and with respect for academic freedom.”

    But “when it’s being mandated from the outside, by the federal government or a state and it’s getting into really perilous ideas of academic freedom and what can be taught, that’s when we start to really worry about what these lists mean and what they represent,” he said.

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  • Federal Cuts Deepen Tennessee State U’s Budget Woes

    Federal Cuts Deepen Tennessee State U’s Budget Woes

    President Trump’s assault on federal grants is making Tennessee State University’s ongoing financial troubles even worse.

    The Tennessean reported last week that the chronically underfunded historically Black university in Nashville is preparing to lose $14.4 million, the remainder of an $18 million grant it received from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. It’s one of hundreds of colleges and universities across the country facing financial uncertainty as the Trump administration moves to cut trillions of dollars from the federal budget.

    “This is going to impact our people,” Jim Grady, TSU’s chief financial officer, said at a finance committee meeting Wednesday evening. “We’ll continue to evaluate the volatility … and the potential impact to employees, students and university operations.”

    Grady said nothing would change for at least 90 days after receiving notice of the grant cancellation, and it’s not yet clear how many jobs will be eliminated as a result. And that’s not the only federal grant in question, according to The Tennessean.

    In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture—which includes the National Institute of Food and Agriculture—canceled $45 million in federal grants to the cash-strapped university, which eliminated 114 positions last fall amid a looming budget shortfall.

    Earlier this month, the USDA restored about $23 million of those grants, though another $115 million could be suspended or frozen. TSU’s federal grants fully fund 62 employees and partially fund another 112.

    In the midst of the financial uncertainty, TSU has suspended its search for a permanent president, WKRN reported.

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  • Donors Support Grad Students Lacking Federal Research Funds

    Donors Support Grad Students Lacking Federal Research Funds

    Recent federal executive orders from President Donald Trump have put a halt to some university operations, including hiring and large swaths of academic research. The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, among others, have paused grant-review panels to comply with the orders and cut funding, leaving researchers in limbo.

    Graduate students often receive educational stipends from federal agencies for their research, putting their work—and their own degree attainment—at risk.

    To alleviate some hardships, the University of Hawaiʻi’s UH Foundation launched a Graduate Student Success Fund, which will provide direct relief for learners who have lost funding.

    Fewer than a dozen graduate students in the system have been impacted to various degrees to date, but “like most institutions, the extent of the possible impact is unknown,” a UH spokesperson said.

    On the ground: Michael Fernandez, a first-year UH Mānoa doctoral student in the botany program, is a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which supports learners pursuing research-based master’s or doctoral degrees in STEM education fields. The five-year fellowship includes three years of financial aid for tuition and fees and an annual stipend.

    “I and other fellows in the program feel uncertain about future funding from the fellowship,” Fernandez said in a press release. “This is especially concerning for me, as the NSF-GRFP is currently my primary and sole source of funding for my graduate studies.”

    University of Hawaiʻi president Wendy Hensel spurred the creation of the Graduate Student Success Fund for grad students at UH Mānoa and UH Hilo. The fund, supported by private donations, mirrors an undergraduate student success fund available to bachelor’s degree seekers who need help paying for tuition, books and fees.

    The UH Foundation will also support undergraduate researchers who may have had their work interrupted due to federal freezes.

    The Graduate Student Success Fund is designed to aid student retention and financial wellness and also support career development and future talent in Hawaiʻi.

    “It is critical that we do all we can to ensure that our university graduates, the next generation of talent, desperately needed for Hawaiʻi’s workforce,” Hensel said. “These graduate students are our scientists, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, engineers, educators and leaders of tomorrow.”

    Details as to how funds will be distributed, including amounts and number of recipients, are still being determined, the spokesperson said.

    The bigger picture: Federally funded research projects that address diversity, equity, inclusion, gender, green energy or other alleged “far-left ideologies” have come under fire in recent weeks.

    In January Trump signed an executive order halting federal grant spending, which was later rescinded, but some organizations have halted funding regardless.

    Trump Administration Weaponizes Funding Against Institutions

    On March 7, the Trump administration announced it had canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University for “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The federal government has also threatened to pull funding from any educational institution that invests in diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

    In February, the National Institutes of Health announced it would cut funding for indirect costs of conducting medical research, including hazardous waste disposal, utilities and patient safety. In 2024, the agency sent around $26 billion to over 500 grant recipients connected to institutions.

    Hensel published a memo in February opposing the cuts for reimbursement of facilities and administrative costs.

    “For UH, the impact of this decision cannot be overstated,” Hensel wrote. “The university is supported by 175 awards and subawards from the NIH with a current value of $211 million. NIH’s reduction of UH’s current negotiated [indirect compensation] rate of 56.5 percent at the JABSOM [UH Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine] and the [UH] Cancer Center alone will eliminate approximately $15 million in funding that UH uses to support its research programs, including ongoing clinical trials and debt service payments.”

    How is your college or university supporting students affected by federal action? Tell us more.

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  • OPINION: The demographic cliff in higher education should be seen as an opportunity, not a crisis

    OPINION: The demographic cliff in higher education should be seen as an opportunity, not a crisis

    This spring, the number of high school graduates in the United States is expected to hit its peak. Starting in the fall, enrollment will likely enter a period of decline that could last a decade or more.

    This looming “demographic cliff” has been on the minds of education leaders for nearly two decades, dating back to the start of the Great Recession. A raft of college closures over the past five years, exacerbated by the pandemic, has for many observers been the canary in the coal mine.

    In the years to come, schools at all levels — reliant on per-pupil funding for K-12 and on tuition dollars for colleges and universities — will begin feeling the squeeze.

    The question now is whether to treat the cliff as a crisis or an opportunity.

    Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.

    As they prepare for enrollment shortfalls, superintendents and college presidents are primarily focused on crisis management. With good reason, they’re spending the bulk of their time on the hard short-term decisions of cutting programs and personnel to meet looming budget shortfalls.

    In the precious few years before the situation becomes even more dire, the question is whether schools should just continue bracing for impact — or if they can think bigger in ways that could be transformative not just for the landscape of education, but for the economy more broadly. In my view, they should think about what it would look like to make a moment of crisis a real opportunity.

    Here are some ideas about how that could happen. The first involves blurring the lines between high school and college.

    Colleges today feel immense pressure because there aren’t enough high school graduates. High schools feel similar pressure because there are fewer young people around to enroll each year — not to mention the chronic absenteeism and disengagement that has persisted since the pandemic.

    What if the two worked more closely together — in ways that helped high schools keep students engaged while enabling colleges to reach a broader range of students?

    In many states, this is already happening. At last count, 2.5 million high schoolers took at least one dual-enrollment course from a college or university. But it’s not enough to just create tighter connections between one educational experience and another. Today’s students — and today’s economy — also demand clearer pathways from education to careers. It makes sense to blur the lines between high schools, colleges and work.

    So imagine taking these changes even further — to a world in which instead of jumping from high school to college, students in their late teens entered entirely new institutions that paid them for work-based learning experiences that would lead them to a degree and eventually a career.

    That’s a lofty goal. But it’s the kind of big thinking that both high schools and colleges may need to reinvent themselves for the country’s shifting demographics.

    Colleges have an opportunity right now to double down on creating and expanding job-relevant programs — and to think even bigger about who they serve. That could include expanding opportunities for adult learners who have gained skills outside the classroom through credit for prior learning and competency-based learning. It could also mean speeding up the development of industry-relevant coursework to better align with the needs of the labor market and leaning into short-form training programs to upskill incumbent workers.

    Related: The number of 18-year-olds is about to drop sharply, packing a wallop for colleges — and the economy

    Not every student is ready to invest four years of time and money to earn a bachelor’s degree. But they shouldn’t have to be — and colleges have a chance to expand their offerings in ways that give students more pathways into today’s fast-changing economy and further education if they so choose.

    Part of the problem with the current trajectory from high school to college is that the wrong things get incentivized. Both K-12 schools and colleges get money and support based on the number of students they enroll and (sometimes) the number of people who graduate — not on how well they do at helping people gain the skills to effectively participate in the economy.

    That’s not anyone’s fault. But it often boils down to a matter of policy. Which means that changing policy can create new incentives to tighten the connections between high school, college and work.

    States like Colorado are already taking the lead on this shift. Colorado’s “Big Blur” task force put out a report with recommendations on how to integrate learning and work, including by creating a statewide data system to track the outcomes of educational programs and updating the state’s accountability systems to better reflect “the importance of learners graduating ready for jobs and additional training.”

    If schools and policymakers stay the course in the decade to come, they already know what’s ahead: declining enrollment, decreased funding and the exacerbation of all the challenges that they’ve already begun to face in recent years.

    It’s not the job of the education system to turn the tide of demographic change. But the system does have a unique, and urgent, opportunity to respond to this changing landscape in ways that benefit not only students but the economy as a whole. The question now is whether education leaders and policymakers can seize that opportunity before it’s too late.

    Joel Vargas is vice-president of education practice at Jobs for the Future.

    Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

    This story about demographic cliff in higher education 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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  • HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (March 16, 2025)

    HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (March 16, 2025)

    International Frameworks

    With the right opportunities we can become AI makers, not takers
    Michael Webb.  FE Week. February 21, 2025.

    The article reflects on the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, aiming to position the country as a leader in AI development rather than merely a consumer. It highlights the crucial role of education in addressing AI skills shortages and emphasizes the importance of focusing both on the immediate needs around AI literacy, but also with a clear eye on the future, as the balance moves to AI automation and to a stronger demand for uniquely human skills.

    Living guidelines on the responsible use of generative AI in research : ERA Forum Stakeholder’s document
    European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. March 2024.

    These guidelines include recommendations for researchers, recommendations for research organisations, as well as recommendations for research funding organisations. The key recommendations are summarized here.

    Industry Collaborations

    OpenAI Announces ‘NextGenAI’ Higher-Ed Consortium
    Kim Kozlowski. Government Technology.  March 4, 2025.

    OpenAI has launched the ‘NextGenAI’ consortium, committing $50M to support AI research and technology across 15 institutions, including the University of Michigan, the California State University system, the Harvard University, the MIT and the University of Oxford. This initiative aims to accelerate AI advancements by providing research grants, computing resources, and collaborative opportunities to address complex societal challenges.

    AI Literacy

    A President’s Journey to AI Adoption
    Cruz Rivera, J. L. Inside Higher Ed. March 13, 2025.

    José Luis Cruz Rivera, President of Northern Arizona University, shares his AI exploration journey. « As a university president, I’ve learned that responsible leadership sometimes means […] testing things out myself before asking others to dive in ». From using it to draft emails, he then started using it to analyze student performance data and create tailored learning materials, and even used it to navigate conflicting viewpoints and write his speechs – in addition to now using it for daily tasks.

    Teaching and Learning

    AI Tools in Society : Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking
    Gerlich, M. SSRN. January 14, 2025.

    This study investigates the relationship between AI tool usage and critical thinking skills, focusing on cognitive offloading as a mediating factor. The findings revealed a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities, mediated by increased cognitive offloading. Younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores compared to older participants. Furthermore, higher educational attainment was associated with better critical thinking skills, regardless of AI usage. These results highlight the potential cognitive costs of AI tool reliance, emphasising the need for educational strategies that promote critical engagement with AI technologies.

    California went big on AI in universities. Canada should go smart instead
    Bates, S. University Affairs. March 12, 2025.

    In this opinion piece, Simon Bates, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President for Teaching and Learning at UBC, reflects on how the ‘fricitonless efficiency’ promised by AI tools comes at a cost. « Learning is not frictionless. It requires struggle, persistence, iteration and deep focus. The risk of a too-hasty full scale AI adoption in universities is that it offers students a way around that struggle, replacing the hard cognitive labour of learning with quick, polished outputs that do little to build real understanding. […] The biggest danger of AI in education is not that students will cheat. It’s that they will miss the opportunity to build the skills that higher education is meant to cultivate. The ability to persist through complexity, to work through uncertainty, to engage in deep analytical thought — these are the foundations of expertise. They cannot be skipped over. »

    We shouldn’t sleepwalk into a “tech knows best” approach to university teaching
    Mace, R. et al. Times Higher Education. March 14, 2025.

    The article discusses the increasing use of generative AI tools like among university students, with usage rising from 53% in 2023-24 to 88% in 2024-25. It states that instead of banning these tools, instructors should ofcus on rethinking assessment strategies to integrate AI as a collaborative tool in academic work. The authors share a list of activities, grounded in the constructivist approach to education, that they have successfully used in their lectures that leverage AI to support teaching and learning.

    Accessibility & Digital Divide

    AI Will Not Be ‘the Great Leveler’ for Student Outcomes
    Richardson, S. and Redford, P. Inside Higher Ed. March 12, 2025.

    The authors share three reasons why AI tools are only deepening existing divides : 1) student overreliance on AI tools; 2) post-pandemic social skills deficit; and 3) business pivots. « If we hope to continue leveling the playing field for students who face barriers to entry, we must tackle AI head-on by teaching students to use tools responsibly and critically, not in a general sense, but specifically to improve their career readiness. Equally, career plans could be forward-thinking and linked to the careers created by AI, using market data to focus on which industries will grow. By evaluating student need on our campuses and responding to the movements of the current job market, we can create tailored training that allows students to successfully transition from higher education into a graduate-level career. »

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  • Education Department Accuses 51 Colleges of Discrimination

    Education Department Accuses 51 Colleges of Discrimination

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Recruitment in the Crosshairs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

    Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

    If Columbia University wants a financial relationship with the federal government, the Ivy League institution will need to overhaul its discipline process, ban masks, expel some students, put an academic department under review, give its campus security “full law enforcement authority” and reform its admissions practices.

    Those are just some of the sweeping and unprecedented demands the Trump administration made Thursday in a letter to the Manhattan-based institution. They come less than a week after the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts at the university. Columbia has until March 20 to respond.

    “We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,” three Trump officials wrote. “After which we hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”

    The demands escalate an already precarious situation for Columbia as it simultaneously faces pressure from the White House to comply and pressure from students and faculty to fight back.

    “We are in a state of shock and disbelief, and we are working with our administration to … reaffirm free speech and shared governance on campus, and to resist all Trump efforts to take academic decisions out of the hands of academics,” said Jean Howard, a member of the executive committee of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “Our administration has been cautious in dealing with Trump up to now. We’re hoping they will take a more aggressive posture in the future.”

    A Columbia spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that officials are reviewing the letter but didn’t say Friday whether the university will comply with the demands. Several free speech and higher ed policy experts say the letter amounts to an unprecedented assault on higher education that could threaten foundational principles such as academic freedom. The demands, which don’t appear rooted in any specific legal authority, also offer yet another hint at how President Trump could reshape higher education.

    “The subjugation of universities to official power is a hallmark of autocracy,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, said in a statement. “No one should be under any illusions about what’s going on here.”

    But the Trump administration says canceling the grants and contracts is necessary due to Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” In the letter, officials said that the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence.”

    Building Tensions

    Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, criticized the letter as an “outrageous” example of “extreme federal overreach,” adding that institutional autonomy is a critical part of American higher education.

    “It’s perfectly reasonable for the federal government to hold all of those institutions accountable to civil rights laws, and we expect that,” he said. “But for the government to prescribe changes in academic structure, changes essentially in curriculum and to curtail research, that’s beyond the pale.”

    One of the letter’s 12 demands is for Columbia to put its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under academic receivership for at least five years. This would mean that faculty lose control of the department and the university puts an outside chair in charge. The letter didn’t specify why officials focused on this particular department. But it’s worth noting the academic division is home to Joseph Massad, a controversial tenured professor whom lawmakers have accused of making anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements over the years.

    Federal scrutiny of colleges and universities, especially by Republicans, ratcheted up after the wave of pro-Palestinian protests in fall 2023 and spring 2024. But the Trump administration has only added to the pressure on colleges since it took office in January, quickly moving to cut funding to programs and institutions seemingly at odds with the president’s priorities.

    Columbia has been at the epicenter of the scrutiny, particularly after an encampment popped up on the small Manhattan campus’s central lawn last April. The protests culminated in early May, when students occupied a campus building and New York City police officers eventually stormed the hall, arresting those inside.

    Although other colleges faced protests and were accused of mishandling reports of antisemitic harassment and discrimination, Columbia took a hard line with protesters and was one of the few to bring in law enforcement. But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from targeting the university, nor has it led Columbia to draw a line and start fighting back.

    On Thursday, the same day the letter was sent, Columbia handed down student sanctions related to the building occupation. The sentences ranged from multiyear suspensions and expulsions to temporary degree revocations for graduates.

    Professors and other experts have warned that federal scrutiny—including high-profile grillings and subpoenas from Capitol Hill—could have damaging consequences for colleges. But alarm escalated significantly last week when the Trump administration bypassed the typical investigation process for civil rights violations and slashed Columbia’s access to grants and contracts.

    The cuts, made by Trump’s novel multidepartment antisemitism task force, are the first but likely not the last.

    The task force has already said at least 10 other universities are under review, including Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights is investigating allegations related to antisemitism at at least 60 colleges.

    Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, said Columbia needs to reject the demands and other universities need to speak up now in defense of higher education. If left on its own, Columbia could fail to defend itself, he said.

    “Other universities have an imperative to come to the defense of Columbia, because this is not just about Columbia,” Enos said. “The Trump administration is trying to attack all of higher education, and Columbia cannot try to mount a defense on its own.”

    Frustrations Abound

    Outside policy analysts and scholars on both sides of the political spectrum are frustrated with the situation—but for different reasons.

    Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, described Columbia’s handling of antisemitism on campus over the course of the past year as “egregious” and a “clear violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity or national origin. But at the same time, he said the Trump administration’s unclear process for determining a remedy is problematic.

    “Some of the things on the list I find pretty facially plausible. Others require a much higher standard of justification,” he said. “But because they have not been transparent and … there has not been any back-and-forth, there has not been a proper demonstration of the misconduct, which would be necessary to convince me that these specific remedies are called for.”

    Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies American politics and Jewish history, sees the situation as one of “competing truths.”

    “The Columbia administration has needed for a long time to act against antisemitic demonstrators and vandals on the campus,” Ginsberg said, noting that arrests without indictments or suspensions are not enough. But at the same time, “the Trump administration has overreached by threatening Columbia with dire consequences,” he added.

    He noted that the situation presents Columbia administrators with an opportunity.

    “Sure, the [Trump] administration has overstepped. It’s threatening to fire a cannon, drop a nuclear bomb,” Ginsberg said. “But as I say, that threat gives the Columbia administration an opportunity to do things that it has needed to do and probably wanted to do for some time.”

    He added that though he’s certainly hesitant when the government tries to dictate what departments are valid, in this instance, higher education has failed in its responsibility to its students. He also trusts that the Trump administration will be satisfied so long as Columbia carries out disciplinary action against students who disrupt academic life and threaten others’ safety.

    “Anytime the federal government tells the university how to organize its admissions processes, or which, if any, academic departments are valid and legitimate, of course I’m concerned,” Ginsberg said. “But my guess is that nothing will come of those particular demands. I mean, I hope the university won’t cave in.”

    On the other hand, Eddy Conroy, a senior education policy manager at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said all the Trump administration’s recent actions should be “deeply troubling.”

    Columbia has already demonstrated an aggressive response to student protests, which should be protected by the First Amendment, Conroy said, and it’s not up to the federal government to determine whether those disciplinary procedures were adequate.

    “We have an important history of peaceful protest in the United States, and sit-ins are part of that. Columbia can choose if it wants to deal with those things through its own disciplinary procedure or by pursuing trespassing charges,” he said. But to Trump, this “is a test case of how far we can push things when it comes to suppressing speech.”

    Conroy believes that the president is trying to make an example of Columbia in the hops that other institutions will then capitulate without fight, and the university’s response as a test dummy isn’t helping.

    “The [Trump] administration hits Columbia, and Columbia cowers and says, ‘Please hit us harder,’” he said.

    To Howard, the Columbia AAUP representative, Trump’s actions are a threat to the gemstone that is American higher education.

    We’ve become “the greatest university system in the world. But that requires independence. It requires the free expression of differing viewpoints,” she said. Trump’s demands are “so undemocratic, so against the norms and conventions of university life, that to comply would just destroy the heart of the institution.”

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