Tag: Education

  • Pepperdine Closes Exhibit Featuring “Overtly Political” Art

    Pepperdine Closes Exhibit Featuring “Overtly Political” Art

    Pepperdine officials modified a sculpture to delete the text.

    Henry Adams/Pepperdine Graphic

    Last month Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., opened an art exhibit titled “Hold My Hand In Yours,” which was scheduled to run for six months in the on-campus Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art. But On Oct. 6, the university closed the exhibit after artists learned their work had been removed or altered for being “overtly political.”

    The exhibition, curated by Weisman Museum director Andrea Gyorody, centered on the imagery of hands in paintings, drawings, sculpture and videos, among other media, with a focus on hands as a means of labor and care, according to the museum’s website.

    Last week, one of the artists in the show learned her video had been turned off at the university’s request, and a sculpture had been modified to hide text that said “Save the Children” and “Abolish ICE,” Hyperallergic reported. The creators requested their pieces be removed from the museum, and several other contributors followed suit in solidarity with the affected artists and in opposition to the university.

    Pepperdine administrators alleged the pieces went against the museum’s policy to “avoid overtly political content consistent with the university’s nonprofit status,” Michael Friel, senior director of communication and public relations at Pepperdine, told Inside Higher Ed in an email.

    In addition to removing pieces, the university inquired about posting signage that notifies visitors that “the artwork does not necessarily reflect the views of the university,” Friel noted. “That process has not been successful.” With the addition of the artists pulling their work, the museum decided to close the gallery. All compensation agreements are being honored and inconvenienced artists have received an apology, according to Friel.

    “For the past week, the administration’s rationale for the initial censorship and removal has been murky and opaque, and honestly, still unclear to me. It didn’t have to be this way,” Stephanie Syjuco, an artist who was featured in the show, wrote on Instagram.

    The Weisman Museum is housed under the university’s advancement office. “Our intent is to maintain the highest standards of excellence as we celebrate artistic expression through the visual arts,” Friel said.

    In 2019, Pepperdine censored a senior art student’s gallery because the art featured nude bodies; officials placed the art in a mobile gallery instead of in the Weisman Museum, which featured work by the artist’s peers.  



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  • RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

    RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

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    During this tumultuous year at the U.S. Department of Education that saw about half of the 4,133 employees leave due to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, the staff at the Office of Special Education Programs stayed mostly stable.

    That changed on Friday, however, when the Trump administration issued reduction-in-force notices across the federal government, including at the Education Department. Court filings show that 466 employees at the Education Department were impacted and several special education association leaders say most of the OSEP staff was laid off. 

    On Friday, the department’s press office confirmed that the RIFs affected staff at the Education Department but did not provide more details. 

    The National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in a statement on Sunday, said informal reports that NASDSE believes to be true indicate that only the two most senior staff remain in OSEP and just one staff member remains in the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Both offices are part of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

    NASDSE said it was “confused and concerned” by the staffing changes, adding that the Education Department under the Trump administration has repeatedly said it supports federal funding and implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education for children with disabilities.

    “These RIFs, if true, will make it impossible for the Department to fulfill those responsibilities,” the NASDSE statement said. “There is significant risk that not only will Federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of a free, appropriate public education.

    Like NASDSE, several other organizations in the special education field wondered how the Education Department would support special education services across the country with such a limited staff.

    “The rumored near elimination of the Office for Special Education Programs is absolutely devastating to the education of people with disabilities,” said Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, in an email on Saturday.

    Rummel said OSEP’s oversight, technical assistance and accountability efforts are critical to supporting the implementation of IDEA, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next month. About 8.4 million infants, toddlers, children and young adults received services under IDEA in 2023.

    “Eliminating federal capacity to support IDEA is harmful to people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them, and it runs counter to everything our members work toward every day,” he said.

    Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education, said on Sunday that the OSEP staff reductions will put an “extreme burden on states and locals that are already really stretched.”

    IDEA, Mandlawitz noted, is implemented collectively by local, state and federal agencies. The federal staff reductions take away “one very vital piece of the partnership. It’s just hard to understand how it can possibly function,” she said.

    Promises to protect special education

    The RIFs came two weeks into the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 as Congress remains at a funding impasse for fiscal year 2026. During the shutdown, the Education Department planned to furlough about 95% of its non-Federal Student Aid staff for the first week, according to a Sept. 28 memo from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

    Federal staff are not paid during a government shutdown, but typically receive retroactive compensation. However, there are reports that the Trump administration may try to withhold back pay for this current shutdown, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing over 820,000 workers in nearly every agency of the federal government.

    McMahon said in the memo that school systems could still draw down federal grants awarded over the summer and processing would continue for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Title I and IDEA grants would be distributed as well.

    However, the agency is pausing Office for Civil Rights investigations, new grant-making activities and technical assistance support during the shutdown.

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  • Trump Fires More Education Dept. Employees

    Trump Fires More Education Dept. Employees

    As of Friday afternoon, it remained unclear how many staff members would be affected.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images | BraunS and Prostock-Studio/iStock/Getty Images

    Staff members at the Department of Education will be affected by the mass layoffs taking place across the federal government, a spokesperson said Friday.

    Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has threatened the layoffs for weeks, citing the government shutdown. Vought wrote on social media Friday that his promised reduction in force had begun.

    A department spokesperson then confirmed in an email to Inside Higher Ed that “ED employees will be impacted by the RIF.” The spokesperson did not clarify how many employees will be affected or in which offices. Other sources say no one who works in the Office of Federal Student Aid will be laid off.

    Trump administration officials said in a court filing that an estimated 466 employees were given reduction-in-force notices. About 1,100 to 1,200 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services also got laid off. Overall, more than 4,200 workers across eight agencies were fired.

    At the Education Department, the estimated layoffs will leave the department with just over 2,001 employees. The agency, which President Trump wants to close, already lost nearly half its career staff members during a first round of mass layoffs in March. In the wake of those layoffs, former staffers warned that the cuts would lead to technical mishaps, gaps in oversight and a loss of institutional knowledge. College administrators have also reported delays and issues in getting communications and updates from the department, though agency officials say critical services have continued.

    The federal workers’ union and multiple outside education advocacy groups challenged the first round of layoffs in court. Lower courts blocked the RIF, but the Supreme Court overturned those rulings in July. Affected staff members officially left the department in August.

    Another lawsuit challenged this latest round when Vought threatened the layoffs – before the pink slips had even been distributed today. It was filed at the end of September.

    The union representing Education Department employees as well as sources with connections to staffers who were still working at the department as of Friday morning said that the latest round of cuts will at least affect staff members from the offices of elementary and secondary education and communications and outreach. A union representative added that all of the employees in the communications office’s state and local engagement division were laid off.

    A senior department leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Inside Higher Ed that the layoffs were directed by OMB and came as a surprise.

    “Last week the [education] secretary’s office had said no RIFs at all,” the senior leader explained. “We heard on Tuesday that OMB sent over a list of people for ED to RIF … ED apparently edited it and sent it back.”

    In neither case were cuts planned for the Office of Federal Student Aid, which manages the Pell Grant and student loans, the senior leader added.

    Rachel Gittleman, president of the union that represents Education Department employees, promised in a statement to fight the layoffs.

    “This administration continues to use every opportunity to illegally dismantle the Department of Education against congressional intent,” Gittleman said. “They are using the same playbook to cut staff without regard for the impacts to students and families in communities across the country … Dismantling the government through mass firings, especially at the ED, is not the solution to our problems as a country.”

    Through late September and into the first 10 days of the shutdown, both Vought and President Trump used the threat of further RIFs to try to convince Democrats in the Senate to acquiesce and sign the Republicans’ budget stopgap bill. But Democrats have stood firm, refusing to sign the bill unless the GOP meets their demands and extends an expiring tax credit for health insurance.

    Health and Human Services Department spokesperson Andrew G. Nixon wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed earlier on Friday that “HHS employees across multiple divisions” received layoff notices. But he didn’t provide an interview or answer written questions about whether the layoffs include employees at the National Institutes of Health, a major funder of university research.

    Nixon wrote that “HHS under the Biden administration became a bloated bureaucracy” and “all HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions. HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

    Democrats and some Republicans have warned against the layoffs. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the powerful appropriations committee, opposed the layoffs in a statement while also blaming Democrats in the shutdown.

    “Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country,” she said.

    But Democrats in particular have argued that firing federal workers during a shutdown is unconstitutional.

    “No one is making Trump and Vought hurt American workers—they just want to,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington State Democrat and vice chair of the appropriations committee, said in a statement Friday afternoon. “A shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers to cause more chaos or permanently weaken more basic services for the American people … This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks.”

    Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia democrat and ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, pointed out in a statement that the administration has had to rehire employees who were fired earlier this year.

    “In addition to wasting millions of taxpayer dollars to fire and rehire government employees, arbitrarily firing government employees means there are fewer people to help administer essential programs,” he said. “Moreover, I fear the lasting impact of mass firings will be an incredible loss of invaluable institutional knowledge. Furthermore, random and chaotic layoffs will make it difficult to recruit qualified employees in the future.”

    Ryan Quinn contributed to this report.

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  • MIT becomes first college to reject Trump’s higher education compact

    MIT becomes first college to reject Trump’s higher education compact

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    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s proposed compact that offers priority for federal research funding in exchange for making sweeping policy changes. 

    MIT is the first institution to formally reject the compact, which the administration sent to nine research universities on Oct. 1. 

    The nine-page compact’s wide-ranging terms include freezing tuition for five years, capping international student enrollment to 15% of the institution’s undergraduate student body, and changing or eliminating units on campus that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” 

    MIT already meets or exceeds many of the proposed standards in the compact, university President Sally Kornbluth said in a Friday message to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon. However, the compact includes other principles that would restrict the university’s free expression and independence, Kornbluth said. 

    “And fundamentally,” Kornbluth added, “the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. 

    Kornbluth’s letter to the Trump administration

    In her message, which she shared publicly, Kornbluth pointed to several MIT policies that she said were already in step with the compact. For instance, the proposed agreement dictates that colleges mandate standardized testing for applicants, and MIT reinstated its SAT and ACT requirement in 2022 after pausing it due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

    Similarly, Kornbluth noted that MIT limits international enrollment to about 10% of its undergraduate population — below the Trump administration’s proposed cap of 15%. 

    The compact also focuses on affordability, including through a standard that would require colleges with large endowments to not charge tuition to students enrolled in “hard science programs,” with exceptions for those from well-off families. 

    Kornbluth shared MIT’s own affordability initiatives, including not charging tuition to incoming undergraduate students from families earning under $200,000. She noted that 94% of undergraduate degrees awarded at MIT are in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. 

    But the MIT president opposed other compact provisions over concerns that they would restrict free expression at the university — which she underscored as a core MIT value.  

    “We must hear facts and opinions we don’t like — and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree,” Kornbluth wrote.

    The compact’s terms have raised alarms from free speech advocates since becoming public. 

    Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that the compact contains troubling language, pointing to the provision to eliminate departments that “belittle” or “spark violence” against conservative beliefs. 

    “Let’s be clear: Speech that offends or criticizes political views is not violence,” Coward wrote in an Oct. 2 statement. “Conflating words with violence undermines both free speech and efforts to combat real threats.”

    Widespread opposition to the compact

    The eight other colleges that received the compact are Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. 

    The compact has drawn widespread opposition from employee groups and students. 

    Faculty senates at two institutions — the University of Arizona and UVA — have voted to oppose the agreement. It has also drawn campus protests and petitions to urge administrators to reject the proposal. 

    Democratic state lawmakers have likewise pushed colleges to reject the agreement. 

    In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to pull state funding from colleges that sign the deal. A pair of Pennsylvania lawmakers took a similar tack by moving to bar state-funded colleges from signing onto the compact. And in Virginia, leaders of the Democrat-controlled state Senate threatened funding consequences if UVA agreed to the compact. 

    “This is not a partnership,” the Virginia lawmakers said in an Oct. 7 letter to UVA leadership. “It is, as other university leaders have aptly described, political extortion.”

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  • MIT Rejects Proposed Federal Compact

    MIT Rejects Proposed Federal Compact

    Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

    Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology has rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to sign on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would mandate sweeping changes across campus in exchange for preferential treatment on federal funding.

    MIT is the first of the nine universities invited to join the compact to publicly reject the proposal that has ignited fierce pushback from other higher ed leaders, faculty and experts who see the document as a way to strip institutions of their autonomy. The Trump administration also asked Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University to sign. Most have provided vague statements saying that they are reviewing the compact, though Texas officials have expressed some enthusiasm about the offer.

    MIT President Sally Kornbluth announced the move in a Friday morning letter to the campus community, which included a copy of her response to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

    Kornbluth highlighted in the response to McMahon a number of areas emphasized by the White House in the compact, such as focusing on merit, keeping costs low for students and protecting free expression. 

    “These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they’re right, and we live by them because they support our mission—work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law,” Kornbluth wrote.

    She also noted that MIT disagreed with a number of the demands in the letter, arguing that it “would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution” and that “the premise of the document is inconsistent” with MIT’s belief that funding should be based on merit.

    “In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,” Kornbluth wrote. “In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”

    This is a breaking news article and will be updated.

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  • Universities Are Curators of Knowledge, Not Chaos (opinion)

    Universities Are Curators of Knowledge, Not Chaos (opinion)

    In a year already defined by polarization and violence, the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University plunged higher education into crisis. The killing of one of the nation’s most prominent conservative activists on a college campus has been weaponized by political factions, prompting administrative crackdowns and faculty firings. What were once familiar battles in the campus culture wars have escalated into something more dangerous: a struggle over the very conditions of inquiry, where violence, scandal and political pressure converge to erode academic freedom. And now, a proposed “compact” with higher education institutions would seek to condition federal funding on requirements that colleges ensure a “broad spectrum of viewpoints” in each academic department and that they abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

    At the center of this struggle lies a persistent illusion: that the university should provide a platform for “every perspective.” Critics claim campuses suppress conservative voices or silence dissenting students, arguing institutions should resemble open marketplaces where all viewpoints compete for attention. Enticing as this rhetoric may be, the expectation is both unworkable and misguided. No university can present every possible outlook in equal measure, nor should it. The mission of higher education is more demanding: to cultivate, critique and transmit knowledge while attending to perspectives that have shaped history and public life. The contrast between an endless marketplace of opinion and the rigorous pursuit of knowledge is crucial to understanding what universities are for.

    Karl Mannheim once distinguished between ideology and knowledge, cautioning against their uncritical conflation. That warning remains essential. Universities are not platforms for unchecked ideology but institutions dedicated to showing how knowledge emerges through observation, interpretation, critique and debate. Perspectives matter, but exposure alone is insufficient; they must be contextualized and weighed against evidence. Free speech and academic freedom overlap but are not the same. Free speech protects individuals from state repression in public life. Academic freedom protects scholars in their pursuit of inquiry and ensures students gain the tools to test claims critically. The distinction is central: The university has an obligation not to amplify all voices equally, but to cultivate discernment.

    This does not mean shielding students from offensive or discredited ideas. On the contrary, a serious education requires grappling with perspectives that once commanded influence, however abhorrent they may now appear. Students of American history must study the intellectual justifications once advanced for slavery—not because they deserve validation, but because they shaped institutions and legacies that continue to structure society. Students of religious history should encounter theological controversies that once divided communities, whether or not they resonate today, because they explain enduring traditions and conflicts. To include such perspectives is not to offer them equal standing with contemporary knowledge, but to illuminate their historical weight and consequences.

    Confusing exposure with endorsement—or opinion with knowledge—risks leaving students adrift in noise. Universities are not megaphones for any thesis but arenas where students learn how to evaluate sources, test claims and trace the consequences of ideas over time. Academic freedom does not mean a free-for-all. Instead, it allows scholars to curate, critique and contextualize knowledge—including ideas that are controversial, even offensive or (as in the study of slavery or fascism) historically consequential. Education that multiplies opinions without cultivating methods of judgment undermines critical capacity; education that fosters discernment equips students to enter public debates wisely and responsibly.

    Recent events in higher education reveal how fragile these principles have become. Violence itself intimidates expression, but administrative and political overreaction magnifies the threat. Faculty have been disciplined for social media posts. In Texas, a lecturer was dismissed for teaching about gender identity. In California, University of California, Berkeley administrators released to federal authorities the identities of more than a hundred students and faculty whose names appeared (as accused, accuser or affected party) in complaints about antisemitism. Faculty watch colleagues punished unjustly, while students—especially international and marginalized ones—face surveillance and potential charges. Across the country, dissent is mistaken for hate, controversial speech treated as threat and scandal avoidance prioritized over defending expressive rights.

    Academic freedom has long enjoyed special constitutional protection, granting professors wide latitude in teaching and research. But this protection depends on public trust: the sense that higher education fosters critical inquiry rather than partisan indoctrination. When professors behave as ideologues or exercise poor judgment in public, that trust erodes. Yet the greater danger comes not from individual missteps but from capitulating to the demand that every perspective deserves equal standing—or from letting violence and political pressure set the boundaries of what may be said. Higher education should not resemble a bazaar of endless opinion but a community dedicated to the disciplined creation, transmission and critique of knowledge. By training students not to hear every voice equally but to weigh evidence and evaluate claims, universities preserve both their scholarly mission and their democratic role. Institutions that cave to intimidation, or that mistake neutrality for abdication, abandon their responsibility to defend inquiry.

    Equally important, universities serve as legitimating institutions. To place a perspective within their walls signals that it merits serious study, that it has crossed the threshold from private belief to public knowledge. This conferral of legitimacy makes curatorial responsibility critical. Treating perspectives as interchangeable voices distorts the university’s purpose, but so does admitting or excluding them solely under political pressure. Both compromises undermine credibility. External actors understand this and exploit universities’ legitimating authority, pressing institutions to provide platforms that elevate discredited or dangerous views into claims of scholarly validation. The responsibility of the university is not to magnify every claim in equal volume but to steward the line between ideas worth engaging and those demanding correction or refusal. Only in this way can institutions preserve their academic mission and their democratic contribution.

    The way forward is neither unbounded opinion nor fearful silence. It is the principled defense of creating, critiquing and reimagining knowledge through inquiry guided by evidence and protected from violence and censorship. To retreat from this responsibility is to weaken not only higher education but democracy itself.

    Gerardo Martí is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology at Davidson College.

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  • Senate OKs Richey to Lead ED Civil Rights Office

    Senate OKs Richey to Lead ED Civil Rights Office

    Kim Richey recently served as a senior chancellor in the Florida Department of Education.

    Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee

    The Senate voted this week to confirm Kimberly Richey as the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights—returning her to a role she held in an acting capacity from August 2020 until November 2021, spanning the end of President Trump’s first term and the start of President Biden’s. Richey also worked in the department during the George W. Bush administration.

    The vote was 51 to 47 along party lines, with Democrats and Independents all voting nay.

    Over the past few years, Richey worked in state positions as a senior chancellor in the Florida Department of Education and a deputy superintendent in the Virginia Department of Education. She now returns to the federal government to lead a greatly diminished Office for Civil Rights—the Trump administration laid off nearly half the OCR staff in March—with a significant case backlog.

    The administration is using what’s left of the office as an arm of its campaign against transgender rights, programs aimed at helping minorities and allegations of antisemitism. The OCR has been investigating both K–12 school districts and universities over these issues. Richey told senators during her June confirmation hearing that she’s committed to pursuing cases related to antisemitism and trans women playing on women’s sports teams.

    According to a résumé published by government watchdog American Oversight, Richey has also worked with conservative organizations to draft education legislation and policies. Those policy proposals mostly centered on K–12 and included promoting school choice and banning critical race theory (although the topic is not taught in K–12 schools). A 2022 receipt American Oversight uncovered indicated that Richey’s consultancy, RealignEd LLC, was paid $10,000 to “provide subject matter expertise, review and evaluation, and policy advice related to inherently divisive topics and other provisions” shortly after Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order prohibiting “the use of inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory,” in schools.

    Craig Trainor, the principal deputy assistant secretary for civil rights, has led the office as acting secretary since Trump took office earlier this year. In that post, he sent out controversial guidance banning race-based programming and activities, which was later blocked by the courts. He’s now moving to Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he’ll be the assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity.

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  • Democratic Lawmakers Amplify Pressure on UVA

    Democratic Lawmakers Amplify Pressure on UVA

    Months after Jim Ryan stepped down as University of Virginia president, state Sen. Creigh Deeds is still waiting for answers on whether political interference and external pressure played a role.

    Ryan resigned in late June, citing pressure from the federal government amid Department of Justice investigations into diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the public university. Although the Board of Visitors voted to shutter its DEI office in March, conservative critics accused UVA of failing to dismantle such efforts. The DOJ subsequently launched seven investigations, two of which have been closed. The status of the other five remains unclear.

    Deeds, a Democrat who represents Charlottesville and the surrounding area, has been seeking answers since Aug. 1 through a series of letters sent to the Board of Visitors and a far-reaching Freedom of Information Act request. But so far, university lawyers have largely refused to answer the state lawmaker’s questions, citing ongoing investigations. Faculty members have also said they can’t get straight answers from the university or face time with the board.

    And complaints over an alleged lack of transparency at UVA are piling up as state lawmakers are applying additional pressure over how the university will respond to an invitation to sign on to the proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that the Trump administration sent to UVA and eight other universities last week.

    Trading Letters

    In office since 2001, Deeds has a long relationship with the university. But for the first time in 20-plus years, the senator said, he’s being shut out by a Board of Visitors that refuses to talk to him.

    “We’re just trying to get to the bottom of what role the federal government, the Justice Department, the president’s office, the governor, the [state] attorney general played in the decision that Jim Ryan made to resign,” Deeds told Inside Higher Ed in an interview.

    Deeds has sent several inquiries to UVA since Ryan resigned. The first letter included 46 questions related to Ryan’s resignation, the DOJ investigations and whether the UVA Board of Visitors “operated within the bounds of its legal and ethical responsibilities.”

    But so far, Deeds says, he’s been given “partial answers” and “gobbledygook.”

    In a series of letters to Deeds from two law firms (Debevoise & Plimpton and McGuireWoods), the outside legal counsel offered little insights into Ryan’s resignation, arguing in an Aug. 15 response that UVA is “is currently focused on navigating an unprecedented set of challenges,” which includes the ongoing DOJ investigations.

    Some information included in the responses is already in the public sphere, such as how the board voted to shutter DEI initiatives, and details on the presidential search committee, which Deeds had also asked about. UVA also included letters sent by the DOJ to the university when it closed two investigations; while the DOJ referenced “appropriate remedial action” by the university, it did not offer specifics. But the focus across several letters sent to Deeds by university lawyers was mostly on why UVA can’t respond.

    “Counsel handling the discussions with the Department of Justice has indicated that providing a substantive response to the August 1 letter while negotiations are ongoing would be inconsistent with the need for confidentiality. Counsel has therefore requested that the Board refrain from doing so until a resolution with the Department of Justice is finalized,” wrote David A. O’Neil, an attorney with Debevoise & Plimpton.

    UVA lawyers also repeatedly took issue with Deeds’s characterization of the events surrounding Ryan’s resignation.

    In an Aug. 29 response, O’Neil wrote that the board “would like to correct a number of inaccurate premises and assumptions in your letter” but was “duty-bound to place the University’s interests above all else” and honor its “fiduciary obligation to the University.” However, UVA legal counsel did not specify what, if anything, was inaccurate.

    O’Neil also asked the senator not to “draw conclusions or promote unfounded speculation.”

    Deeds responded in a Sept. 4 letter that he was “surprised and concerned” that the Board of Visitors “felt the need to secure outside counsel to respond to a legislative request.” He added that he was equally troubled by the failure to fully answer any questions.

    Frustrated by UVA’s response, Deeds filed a FOIA request Sept. 18, seeking a trove of documents related to Ryan’s resignation and the DOJ investigations. UVA has not yet fulfilled the FOIA request but did send Deeds a $4,500 bill to process the information, which he plans to pay.

    Deeds then followed up in a Sept. 29 letter, pressing the university on what it agreed to in exchange for the DOJ closing two investigations and for more details on where the other five currently stand.

    To date, Deeds is still seeking answers.

    UVA spokesperson Brian Coy told Inside Higher Ed by email that the university has offered “as much information as possible at the time” in its multiple responses to Deeds. However, he said, the university is constrained by “active discussions with the Department of Justice regarding several investigations, and publicly disclosing information that relates to those investigations could hamper our ability to resolve them in a way that protects the institution from legal or financial harm.” He added that UVA is processing Deeds’s FOIA request in accordance with state law.

    Coy did not address several specific questions sent by Inside Higher Ed asking about potential political interference, remedial action for closed investigations or the status of the active DOJ investigations.

    Mounting Pressure

    Deeds isn’t the only one struggling to get answers from UVA’s Board of Visitors.

    Jeri Seidman, UVA Faculty Senate chair, said the board has declined to answer faculty questions about Ryan’s resignation and DOJ investigations. She added that the board has been less responsive since the Faculty Senate voted no confidence in the Board of Visitors in July.

    “We have not had interactions with the rector or the vice rector since July 11,” Seidman said, adding that the board had declined an invitation to address the Faculty Senate last month.

    Seidman credited UVA interim president Paul Mahoney with being accessible, though, she noted, he and other leaders have also declined to answer faculty questions due to DOJ investigations.

    “We appreciate his willingness to come and answer questions. Those questions are never gentle. But it’s disappointing that the rector has not acknowledged any [faculty] resolutions or requests for information, even if the response were simply to say that now is not the right time,” Seidman said.

    Recent Faculty Senate resolutions include demands for an explanation on Ryan’s resignation, the no-confidence vote and calls for UVA leadership and the board to reject the proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The compact would require changes in admissions and hiring and a commitment to institutional neutrality, while simultaneously suppressing criticism of conservatives, among other demands. In exchange, the administration says signatories would receive preferential treatment from the federal government on research funding, though the document also threatens the institution’s funding if it doesn’t sign or comply.

    Virginia Democrats have also opposed the compact and threatened to restrict funding to the university if it signs on. That threat comes as lawmakers are ratcheting up pressure on UVA and waging a legal battle to block Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s board appointments.

    The letter, sent Tuesday by Senate majority leader Scott Surovell, expressed “grave concern” over the compact and referenced Ryan’s resignation, which, he wrote, was “forced” by the DOJ via alleged “extortionate tactics—threatening hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and the livelihoods of employees, researchers, and students unless he stepped down.”

    Surovell warned that “the General Assembly will not stand by while the University surrenders its independence through this compact” and that there would be “significant consequences in future Virginia budget cycles” for UVA should the Board of Visitors agree to the arrangement.

    Surovell’s warning shot comes amid a broader dispute over who can serve on Virginia boards. While a Senate committee has blocked a recent slate of gubernatorial appointments, including at UVA, Youngkin has insisted that members can still serve until they are rejected by the full Legislature. A related legal case will be heard by the Virginia Supreme Court later this month.

    Board leadership and Mahoney replied to Surovell’s letter Wednesday with a noncommittal reply shared with Inside Higher Ed that did not indicate whether the university intended to sign on to the proposed compact or not. They wrote in part that UVA’s “response will be guided by the same principles of academic freedom and free inquiry that Thomas Jefferson placed at the center of the University’s mission more than 200 years ago, and to which the University has remained faithful ever since.”

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  • Institutions, Over Peers and Tribes, Bolster Indigenous Student Belonging

    Institutions, Over Peers and Tribes, Bolster Indigenous Student Belonging

    At all institution types, students living off campus reported a 16 percent higher sense of belonging than those living on campus.

    Daniel de la Hoz/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    A new study from the American Indian College Fund and National Native Scholarship Providers found that Indigenous students report a stronger sense of belonging on campus when their college provides “perceptions of a sense of acceptance, inclusion and identity.”

    They call this “institutional support,” and it’s the primary predictor of belonging, trailed by peer support, campus climate and tribal support, the study showed. 

    The “Power in Culture Report,” released Wednesday, examined Indigenous students’ sense of belonging at the institutional and state level. NNSP surveyed more than 560 students enrolled at 184 institutions across multiple sectors, including tribal colleges and universities, predominantly white institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, and other minority-serving institutions. The survey was conducted between March and April of 2024. 

    Unsurprisingly, tribal colleges foster a greater sense of institutional belonging among Indigenous students than other institution types. At nontribal institutions, Indigenous students must create belonging via “informal networks and cultural resilience amid institutional neglect or performative inclusion.” Indigenous students at nontribal campuses also report experiencing more microaggressions and cultural isolation. Students at institutions with larger populations of Indigenous students report a 14 percent higher sense of belonging than those at schools with fewer Native peers. 

    When looking at Indigenous student belonging at the state level, students attending college in states with larger tribal populations actually report a lower sense of belonging and say they feel less supported than students in states with smaller tribal populations, “suggesting that population size alone does not equate to meaningful support,” the study noted. Students in states with a tribal college or university reported an 18 percent lower sense of belonging than students in states without a tribal institution. 

    At all institution types, students living off-campus reported a 16 percent higher sense of belonging than those living on-campus. 

    The report includes several policy recommendations to bolster Indigenous student belonging, including recruiting Indigenous faculty and staff, funding Native language revitalization courses, and establishing meaningful relationships with local tribal nations.

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  • College Degree Aspirations on the Decline

    College Degree Aspirations on the Decline

    As public skepticism about the value of a college degree persists, the number of students who expect to earn one is also on the decline. 

    Between 2002 and 2022, the percentage of students surveyed who said they expected to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher fell from 72 percent to 44 percent, according to a research brief the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education published Tuesday. 

    During the same time frame, the percentage of first-generation students who aspired to earn a degree fell from 60 percent to 33 percent; among students with at least one college-educated parent, degree aspirations dropped from 83 percent to 53 percent. 

    “The decline in college aspirations among first-generation students is deeply concerning,” Kimberly Jones, president of the Council for Opportunity in Education, which oversees the Pell Institute, said in a news release. “These students have long faced systemic barriers to higher education, and this data underscores the urgent need for renewed investment in outreach, support, and affordability—including through programs like TRIO and the Pell Grant.”

    But in his quest to shrink the size of the federal government, President Donald Trump has proposed cutting funding for TRIO—a set of federally funded programs that support low-income, first-generation college students and students with disabilities as they navigate academic life. 

    Major cuts to the federal government also mean it will be harder to produce reports like the one the Pell Institute released this week. That’s because such studies rely on data from now-discontinued longitudinal surveys that were administered by the National Center for Education Statistics; the Trump administration fired all but a handful of NCES employees earlier this year. 

    “Without the continuation of these programs, it will be much harder to track the progress of high school, first-generation, and college students and to learn how to improve education outcomes,” Sean Simone, vice president of research at COE, said in the news release. 

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