Tag: Federal

  • Federal agency reportedly texts survey to professors asking if they’re Jewish or Israeli

    Federal agency reportedly texts survey to professors asking if they’re Jewish or Israeli

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    Dive Brief:

    • Faculty members of Columbia University and Columbia-affiliated Barnard College received text messages from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asking them to complete a survey inquiring about whether they are Jewish or Israeli, multiple news outlets reported April 23.
    • According to a screenshot of a message posted by CNN, EEOC said responses to the survey would be kept confidential “to the extent allowed by law.” The screenshot said EEOC was conducting an inquiry into Barnard College and that, should the agency find that the college violated laws enforced by EEOC, some of the information of respondents may be disclosed.
    • In an email to HR Dive, EEOC declined to confirm that it had sent the messages. Columbia, in a separate email, declined to confirm that employees had received messages from EEOC.

    Dive Insight:

    Federal officials have scrutinized Columbia following a series of on-campus protests in 2024. In August of that year, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and former chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, issued several subpoenas to Columbia leaders as part of an investigation into antisemitism at the university and whether the protests had created a hostile environment in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

    Last month, EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas issued a statement in which she pledged to hold universities and colleges accountable for workplace antisemitism. Lucas’ statement did not name any specific institutions, but it did cite “disruptive and violent protests in violation of campus policies” as an example of severe or pervasive antisemitic conduct that could violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

    “Under the guise of promoting free speech, many universities have actually become a haven for antisemitic conduct, often in violation of the universities’ own time, place, and manner policies, as well as civil rights law,” Lucas said in the March 5 statement.

    EEOC did not confirm whether messages sent to Columbia and Barnard faculty were part of an ongoing investigation into either institution. “Per federal law, we cannot comment on investigations, nor can we confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” the agency said.

    Similarly, Columbia declined to comment on a pending investigation, but a university official said Columbia had told staff that it gave “affected employees notice that the University was required to provide certain information in compliance with a subpoena. The University did not provide the information voluntarily.”

    Columbia did not respond to a request for comment on whether it had advised staff not to respond to EEOC’s messages.

    News of the inquiry drew criticism from one of EEOC’s administrative judges, Karen Ortiz, who sent an all-staff email directed to EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas.

    Ortiz wrote that Lucas should consider resigning; in an interview with HR Dive, she said the email was in response to news of the text messages and other recent agency actions, including its decision to abandon gender-identity discrimination litigation and halting some claims processing. She said the survey arguably was not within Lucas’ authority to send and could be understood as an attempt to intimidate Columbia and Barnard.

    “It’s a complete overreach,” Ortiz said of the survey.

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  • No, Endowments Are Not the Answer to Federal Attacks on Higher Ed

    No, Endowments Are Not the Answer to Federal Attacks on Higher Ed

    Learn more about how endowments support students and research: Contact Congress, read our brief Understanding College and University Endowments, and explore our Tax Resource webpage.

    The Trump administration has launched an aggressive and unprecedented attack on higher education—unlike anything we’ve seen before. Billions of dollars in federal support for vital research on diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and HIV disappeared overnight. The law and longstanding due process protections for institutions have been disregarded.

    These sweeping actions have harmed every type of institution—and, more importantly, the students and communities they serve. As a consequence, colleges and universities have been forced to freeze hiring, lay off staff, eliminate programs, halt life-saving clinical trials, and pause graduate admissions—all within the administration’s first 100 days.

    Some traditional supporters of higher education, as well as frequent critics, suggest that there is an easy way out: colleges and universities should simply use their endowments to plug these sudden financial gaps. This idea has come from across the political spectrum—from Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland and the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute to liberal New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and the left-leaning think tank New America.

    These calls to “just spend the endowment” tend to resurface during crises, as seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. If endowment spending increased then, why can’t the same thing happen now? It sounds simple, but it’s wrong.

    First, while institutions have increased endowment spending during major emergencies, the billions of dollars in research funding cuts being proposed now dwarfs anything confronted previously. In 2023, the federal government provided nearly $60 billion on research funding, compared to total endowment spending—financial aid, research, student services, academics, operations, and more—of about $35 billion, according to IPEDS data.

    Second, during these recent crises, institutions didn’t have to shoulder the burden alone. They acted in partnership with the federal government and other stakeholders to weather the storm. That shared response made a difference. In 2025, however, the federal government isn’t a partner—it’s the source of the crisis. And unlike past emergencies, there is no clear end in sight, leaving open the potential of a devastatingly long-term drain on endowments.

    Third, endowments are not like a single checking or savings account that can be dipped into at will. Instead, they consist of up to thousands of individual accounts, the vast majority of which are legally restricted by donors. These restrictions often designate support for specific purposes like expanding financial aid, supporting the chair of a particular academic discipline, or fueling groundbreaking medical and technological research. Most endowment spending boosts access for low-income students and academics. The 2024 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments found that almost about two thirds of endowment spending goes directly to financial aid and academics, and institutions with large endowments are the most likely to provide need-blind admissions, meet students’ full financial need, and offer no-loan financial aid packages. These funds cannot legally be redirected to make up for canceled government funding—or bail out reckless federal policy decisions.

    Even the wealthiest institutions don’t have enough unrestricted funds to routinely absorb massive, sustained cuts without irreparably draining their endowments. Endowments are managed like marathon runners: they expend energy strategically, knowing they can’t sprint the whole race. There are times to surge—such as during the pandemic—but that pace can’t last. Try to sprint the whole race, and the endowment, like a runner, collapses. Reckless financial decisions today won’t just hurt current students—they’ll shortchange the next generation as well.

    For this reason, endowment spending is closely monitored, regularly audited, and guided by strict policies designed to ensure long-term sustainability. Colleges and universities spend what is both prudent and legally permitted each year while preserving benefits for future students. According to the 2024 NACUBO report, institutions’ average effective spending rate was nearly 5 percent. That figure isn’t arbitrary. It’s shaped by state laws, donor intent, and sound financial stewardship. Some states actually impose legal restrictions on the percentage of endowment spending each year. For example, in Ohio, spending more than 5 percent in a given year could expose an institution to legal liability.

    Misconceptions about endowments aren’t just misleading—they threaten the very people and programs that they were created to support: scholarships, research, academic excellence, and the futures of countless students and faculty. And they divert attention from the real issue: an unprecedented assault on American higher education.

    If you have any questions or comments about this blog post, please contact us.

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  • Northwestern to Fund Research After Federal Freeze

    Northwestern to Fund Research After Federal Freeze

    Northwestern University is stepping in to fund ongoing research projects after the private institution received stop-work orders on nearly 100 federal grants, CBS News Chicago reported.

    The move comes after the Trump administration froze $790 million in federal research funding at Northwestern, which is one of multiple institutions across the U.S. hit by similar setbacks. Others include Harvard University, which had $2.2 billion frozen after it rejected changes demanded by the Trump administration in response to alleged antisemitism and harassment; Cornell University (more than $1 billion); Columbia University ($650 million); Brown University ($510 million); Princeton University ($210 million); and the University of Pennsylvania ($175 million).

    Northwestern, like others on the list, had a pro-Palestinian encampment protest on campus last spring, which prompted Congress to bring its president in for a hearing on antisemitism in May.

    Northwestern president Michael Schill and Board of Trustees chair Peter Barris told the university community in an email obtained by CBS News Chicago that the university still had not received formal notice that federal research funding had been pulled, but the university has received stop-work orders. They noted the university will continue funding on projects that received stop-work orders as well as other research threatened by the Trump administration.

    “The work we do is essential to our community, to the nation and to the world. Enabling this vital research to continue is among our most important priorities, and supporting our researchers in this moment is a responsibility we take seriously,” Schill and Barris wrote in the Thursday email.

    Northwestern is among the nation’s wealthiest universities, with an endowment recently valued at $14.2 billion. However, financial experts have cautioned against leveraging endowments to plug budget holes, prompting some wealthy institutions targeted by the administration to issue bonds or take out private loans.

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  • Federal Education Cuts and Trump DEI Demands Leave States, Teachers in Limbo – The 74

    Federal Education Cuts and Trump DEI Demands Leave States, Teachers in Limbo – The 74


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    Early this month, the U.S. Department of Education issued an ultimatum to K-12 public schools and state education agencies: Certify that you are not engaging in discrimination under the banner of diversity, equity and inclusion, or risk losing federal funding — including billions in support for low-income students.

    The backlash was immediate. Some states with Democratic governors refused to comply, arguing that the directive lacks legal basis, fails to clearly define what constitutes “illegal DEI practices,” and threatens vital equity-based initiatives in their schools.

    After lawsuits from the National Education Association teachers union and the American Civil Liberties Union, the Department of Education agreed to delay enforcement until after April 24.

    But states across the country, both liberal- and conservative-led, are worried about losing other aid: the pandemic-era money that in some cases they’ve already spent or committed to spending.

    The Department of Education has long played a critical role in distributing federal funds to states for K-12 education, including Title I grants to boost staffing in schools with high percentages of low-income students, and emergency relief like that provided during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Conservative-led states — particularly Mississippi, South Dakota and Arkansas — rely the most heavily on these funds to sustain services in high-need districts.

    The 15 states with the highest percentage of their K-12 budget coming from federal funding in fiscal year 2022 — the latest year with data available from the National Center for Education Statistics — voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Similarly, 10 of the 15 states receiving the highest amounts of Title I funding in fiscal year 2024 also voted for Trump.

    Mississippi and Kentucky have sent letters to the Department of Education expressing concern over halted pandemic aid.

    The clash over federal funding comes even as the future of the Department of Education is murky, given President Donald Trump’s pledge to dismantle the department.

    DEI-related cuts

    In letters to the Department of Education, state officials and superintendents in Illinois, New York and Wisconsin pushed back against the DEI directive.

    New York officials said they would not provide additional certification beyond what the state already has done, asserting that there “are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.” Illinois Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote that he was concerned that the Department of Education was changing the conditions of federal funding without a formal administrative process. Wisconsin Superintendent Jill Underly questioned the legality of the order.

    New York State Department of Education Counsel and Deputy Commissioner Daniel Morton-Bentley noted that the federal department’s current stance on DEI starkly contrasts with its position during Trump’s first term, when then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos supported such efforts.

    Colorado and California also confirmed they would not comply with the Department of Education’s order.

    While some states with liberal leaders are gearing up for legal battles and possible revocation of funding, conservative-led states such as Florida have embraced the federal directive as part of a broader push to reshape public education.

    In Florida, anti-DEI laws have been in place dating back to 2023. In fact, many school districts and the state education department say they plan to follow the federal department’s directives, noting the similar state laws.

    Pandemic aid cancellations

    In March, the Department of Education abruptly rescinded previously approved extensions of pandemic-era aid, ending access to funds months ahead of the original March 2026 deadline.

    When the Massachusetts governor’s office voiced concern over that decision, the federal department’s reply on social media was blunt: “COVID is over.”

    Sixteen mostly Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education and Secretary Linda McMahon, challenging the abrupt rescission of previously approved extensions for spending COVID-19 education relief funds.

    But backlash against abrupt federal cuts to education has not been limited to blue states.

    Mississippi’s Department of Education warned the cuts would jeopardize more than $137 million in already obligated funds, slated for literacy initiatives, mental health services and infrastructure repairs. “The impact of this sudden reversal is detrimental to Mississippi students,” state Superintendent Lance Evans wrote in a letter to McMahon.

    The letter also outlines the state’s repeated — but unsuccessful — efforts to draw down millions in approved funds since February.

    Shanderia Minor, a spokesperson for the Mississippi education department, told Stateline the agency is awaiting next steps and direction about the funds and federal directives.

    In Kentucky, state Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher told districts — which stand to lose tens of millions in pandemic aid — that abrupt federal changes leave them “in a difficult position,” with schools already having committed funds to teacher training and facility upgrades.

    According to Kentucky Department of Education spokesperson Jennifer Ginn, the state has about $18 million in unspent pandemic aid funds left to distribute to districts. And districts have about $38 million in unspent funds, for a total $56 million that could be lost.

    Lauren Farrow, a former Florida public school teacher, told Stateline that schools that receive Title I money are already underfunded — and the federal threat only widens the gap.

    “Florida is pouring billions into education — but where is it going? Because we’re not seeing it in schools, especially not in Title I schools,” said Farrow. “I taught five minutes away from a wealthier school, and we didn’t even have pencils. Teachers were buying shoes for students. Why is that still happening?”

    Effects in the classroom

    Tafshier Cosby, senior director of the Center for Organizing and Partnerships at the National Parents Union, a parents advocacy group, told Stateline that while most families don’t fully understand the various school funding systems, they feel the impact of cuts in the classroom.

    Cosby said parents are worried about the loss of support services for students with disabilities, Title I impacts, and how debates about DEI may deflect from more urgent needs like literacy and teacher support.

    “We’ve been clear: DEI isn’t the federal government’s role — it’s up to states,” she said. “But the confusion is real. And the impact could be devastating.”

    Today, as a consultant working with teachers across Florida’s Orange County Public Schools — one of the largest districts in the country — Farrow says many educators are fearful and confused about how to support their students under changing DEI laws.

    “Teachers are asking, ‘Does this mean I can’t seat a student with glasses at the front of the room anymore?’ There’s so much fear around what we’re allowed to do now.”

    “There’s no one giving teachers guidance or even basic acknowledgment. We’re just left wondering what we’re allowed to say or do — and that’s dangerous.”

    Amanda Hernández contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at [email protected].

    Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].


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  • Federal judge freezes Energy Department’s 15% cap on indirect costs

    Federal judge freezes Energy Department’s 15% cap on indirect costs

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    A federal judge Wednesday temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Energy from implementing a 15% cap on grant funding for indirect costs. The ruling came just days after a dozen higher education associations and colleges sued the department, calling the new policy an overstep of authority and a threat to U.S. research and advancement.

    In the ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said the plaintiffs — including higher ed groups like the American Council on Education and threatened colleges like the University of Michigan and Brown University — had successfully demonstrated that they would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury” if the policy were allowed to proceed in tandem with the lawsuit. 

    Burroughs’ temporary restraining order bars the Energy Department — until further court order — from terminating grants, either under the challenged policy or “based on a grantee’s refusal to accept an indirect cost rate less than their negotiated rate.” The judge is also requiring the department to submit biweekly reports confirming that the federal funds are being distributed during the pause.

    When announcing the funding cap last Friday, the Energy Department said the move would save $405 million annually and reduce what it called inefficient spending. Indirect research costs typically include overhead expenses such as facilities and administrative support staff.

    The department said the change would affect over 300 colleges and that it would terminate grants to any institutions that failed to comply.

    But the plaintiffs said the policy’s rapid implementation would give institutions no choice but to scale back funding and lay off staff.

    Their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, called the Energy Department’s policy “a virtual carbon copy” of one announced in February by the National Institutes of Health. A federal judge permanently blocked NIH’s plan to cap indirect cost funding at 15% earlier this month, a decision the agency quickly appealed. The NIH plan would cost research universities billions in annual funding.

    “DOE’s action is unlawful for most of the same reasons and, indeed, it is especially egregious because DOE has not even attempted to address many of the flaws the district court found with NIH’s unlawful policy,” the plaintiff’s lawsuit said.

    The next hearing in the case is set for April 28 before the same court. 

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  • CCRC Loses $12M in Federal Grants

    CCRC Loses $12M in Federal Grants

    The Community College Research Center has lost access to funding from four federal grants collectively worth more than $12 million, the center’s director, Thomas Brock, said in a letter Tuesday. The cut was part of the Trump administration’s broader freeze on $400 million in federal funding at Columbia University over accusations that the institution didn’t do enough to response to antisemitism.

    But Brock argued in the letter that “the terminations did nothing to address perceived problems at Columbia, nor did they challenge ‘woke’ ideology, as our projects were nonideological to begin with.”

    CCRC is based at Teachers College, an education graduate school that became affiliated with the nearby Columbia University in 1898 but was founded independently in 1887 and remains “legally, administratively, and financially separate” from the Ivy League institution, Brock explained.

    Still, when the federal antisemitism task force announced the funding cut, Teachers College, and therefore the CCRC, were affected. All four grants that were cut came from the Institute of Education Sciences. The now-terminated grants supported: 

    • A study on whether work-study programs improve retention, degree completion and employment postgraduation.
    • An analysis of how effective Virginia’s Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead program has been in helping low-income students access short-term training programs.
    • An apprenticeship program that helps develop the next generation of state-level higher ed policy researchers.
    • A network of six research groups studying ways to reverse post-pandemic enrollment declines.

    It added to the blow CCRC had already experienced in February when the Department of Education canceled 10 contracts with Regional Educational Laboratories, which are also overseen by the IES, saying they were examples of “woke” government spending. The REL Northwest had signed a contract with CCRC to pilot a professional development program for community college faculty members.

    “It is hard to overstate the importance of IES grants and contracts to a research center like CCRC,” said Brock, who was commissioner of the National Center for Education Research at IES from 2013 to 2018.

    CCRC has appealed the decision to terminate the grants.

    “We do not know how long the process will take,” Brock wrote, “but are hopeful that fair minds will rule in our favor.”

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  • Federal Grants Website Gets DOGE’d

    Federal Grants Website Gets DOGE’d

    The Department of Government Efficiency has taken control of a federal website that universities and other organizations use to find out about—and apply for—federal grant opportunities, The Washington Post reported Friday. 

    Federal officials have historically listed on Grants.gov more than $500 billion in annual federal grant opportunities from numerous agencies, including the Defense, State and Interior Departments, that fund research on a range of topics, such as cancer, cybersecurity and wastewater management. However, an engineer from DOGE—the agency run by billionaire Donald Trump donor Elon Musk—deleted, without notice, many of those officials’ permissions to post those funding opportunities.

    Agency officials have been instructed instead to send their planned grant notices to a Department of Health and Human Services email address that DOGE is monitoring. The HHS, which has long managed Grants.gov, said it’s “taking action to ensure new grant opportunities are aligned” with the Trump administration’s priorities outlined in its Make America Healthy Again agenda, according to the Post. 

    Now DOGE is responsible for posting grant opportunities. And if it delays them or stops posting them altogether, that “could effectively shut down federal-grant making,” an anonymous federal official told the Post.

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  • Admissions Offices Brace for Federal Scrutiny

    Admissions Offices Brace for Federal Scrutiny

    Last month the government cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University and sent a list of demands the university would have to meet to get it back. Among them: “deliver a plan for comprehensive admission reform.”

    The administration sent a similar letter earlier this month to Harvard University after freezing $9 billion in funding, demanding that the university “adopt and implement merit-based admissions policies” and “cease all preferences based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin in admissions.”

    And in March the Department of Justice launched investigations into admissions practices at Stanford University and three University of California campuses, accusing them of defying the Supreme Court’s decision banning affirmative action in June 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

    Exactly what the Trump administration believes is going on behind closed doors in highly selective college admissions offices remains unclear. The University of California system has been prohibited from considering race in admissions since the state outlawed the practice in 1996, and both Harvard and Columbia have publicly documented changes to their admissions policies post-SFFA, including barring admissions officers from accessing the applicant pool’s demographic data.

    Regardless, given the DOJ investigations and demands of Columbia and Harvard—not to mention potential demands at newly targeted institutions like Princeton, Northwestern and Brown—the federal government appears set to launch a crusade against admissions offices.

    A spokesperson for the Education Department did not respond to multiple questions from Inside Higher Ed, including a request to clarify what “comprehensive admission reform” means and what evidence the administration has that admissions decisions at Columbia and Harvard are not merit-based, or that they continue to consider race even after the SFFA ruling.

    Columbia acquiesced to many of the Trump administration’s demands, but it’s not clear if admissions reform is one of those concessions. When asked, a Columbia spokesperson said that “at this moment” the university had nothing to add beyond the university’s March 21 letter to the administration.

    In that letter, Columbia officials wrote that they would “review our admissions procedures to ensure they reflect best practices,” adding that they’d “established an advisory group to analyze recent trends in enrollment and report to the President” on “concerns over discrimination against a particular group.”

    Interestingly, Columbia officials also wrote that they would investigate “a recent downturn in both Jewish and African American enrollment.”

    A Harvard spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that the university’s “admissions practices comply with all applicable laws,” but they declined to answer additional questions about potential changes to admission policies or whether they’d received clarification from the Trump administration.

    Angel Pérez, president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said the vague demands on college admissions offices are intentional, and that the administration is “setting institutions up for failure.”

    “Institutions are certainly going to defend their process, but it’s going to be chaotic and it’s going to be noisy … it’s almost like we are seeing SFFA play itself out all over again,” he said. “Is there the potential that it could change some things about the [admissions] process? Absolutely. We just don’t know what that would look like.”

    Orwell in the Reading Room

    If the Trump administration’s specific grievances with selective admissions are murky, then its plan to enforce “reform” is downright opaque. However, officials have offered some hints.

    In a December op-ed in The Washington Examiner, which outlined a plan that so far reflects the Trump administration’s higher education agenda with uncanny accuracy, American Enterprise Institute fellow Max Eden suggested “a never-ending compliance review” targeting Harvard and others to enforce the SFFA ruling. In his view, admissions officers should not discuss applicants or make decisions without a federal agent present to ensure they don’t even obliquely discuss race.

    “[They] should assign Office of [sic] Civil Rights employees to the Harvard admissions office and direct the university to hold no admissions meeting without their physical presence,” Eden wrote. “The Office of Civil Rights should be copied on every email correspondence, and Harvard should be forced to provide a written rationale for every admissions decision to ensure nondiscrimination.”

    Eden now works for the Trump administration, though it’s not clear in what capacity. Inside Higher Ed located a White House email address for him, but he did not respond to several interview requests in time for publication.

    Edward Blum, the president of Students for Fair Admissions and the architect of the affirmative action ban, told Inside Higher Ed he thinks rigorous federal oversight of admissions offices is sorely needed.

    “Requiring competitive colleges and universities to disclose in granular detail their admissions practices to various federal agencies is an important and wise decision,” he wrote in an email.

    Pérez said that level of intrusion on a college admissions office’s process would effectively destroy the profession.

    “If that were to happen, I can unequivocally tell you that we are not going to have people who want to do this work,” he said. “We know how critically important it is. But how many more headwinds can they face before they begin to ask themselves, is this really worth it?”

    Crusade in Search of a Problem

    Test-optional admissions policies are likely to become a magnet for federal scrutiny. In a February Dear Colleague letter instructing colleges to eliminate all race-conscious programming, the Education Department wrote that test-optional policies could be “proxies for race” to help colleges “give preference” to certain racial groups.

    Columbia is one of the few Ivy League institutions to retain the test-optional policy it put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic; Harvard reinstated testing requirements this past application cycle.

    Personal essays may also fall under the Trump administration’s microscope. Hard-line affirmative action critics have suggested that colleges may be effectively circumventing the Supreme Court’s ban by imputing an applicant’s race from their essays. Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion said that practice should be tolerated as long as an applicant’s identity is considered in the context of their personal journey. But his vaguely self-contradictory language—he added a caveat that said essays should not be used as a “proxy” for racial consideration—has engendered fierce debate over the role of the essay in applicant reviews.

    Last month the University of Austin, an unaccredited new college in Texas with ideologically conservative roots, announced it would consider only standardized test scores when admitting applicants, disregarding essays, GPA and recommendation letters.

    “Admissions at elite colleges now come down to who you know, your identity group or how well you play the game,” a university official wrote in announcing the policy. “This system rewards manipulation, not merit.”

    Blum suspects many selective colleges of disregarding the affirmative action ban and said he was especially skeptical of those that reported higher or stable enrollments of racial minorities this fall, including Yale, Duke and Princeton. In an interview with Inside Higher Ed in February, he said he expects those institutions to invoke scrutiny from the courts and the Trump administration.

    But both Columbia and Harvard reported declines in underrepresented minority enrollment last fall, especially Black students. At Harvard, Black enrollment fell by 4 percentage points, from 18 percent for the Class of 2027 to 14 percent of the Class of 2028; at Columbia Black enrollment fell by 12 points, from 20 percent to 8 percent. (This paragraph has been updated to correct Harvard’s Black enrollment figures.)

    Pérez said that colleges that reported higher underrepresented minority enrollment have a simple explanation: demographic trends.

    “The truth is that the majority of students applying to institutions right now are incredibly diverse and will only get more diverse,” he said. “You’re putting colleges in an impossible position if you’re penalizing them for having a more diverse applicant pool.”

    Eric Staab, vice president of admissions and financial aid at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., said his institution isn’t concerned about drawing the Trump administration’s ire, despite going test-blind this year and maintaining a stable level of racial diversity.

    For one, he said, he’s not sure the Office for Civil Rights will be staffed well enough to take on more than a handful of target institutions after the Education Department’s mass layoffs last month. Even if it is, Staab said he’s confident that post-SFFA, investigators wouldn’t find anything illegal or even objectionable at Lewis & Clark.

    “Admissions has always been a merit-based process … with the [SFFA decision], pretty much all of us needed to do some tweaking or major overhaul of our admissions and financial aid policies, and we did that,” he said. “I’m not worried about them sending people into reading sessions, because we have nothing to cover up.”

    But Pérez said there could be a broader chilling effect across admissions offices if the Trump administration pursues a more aggressive approach to its “admissions reform” agenda.

    “Institutions are asking questions of the DOJ and other departments to try to get clarity, but therein lies the challenge: They have not been given clarity, so they don’t know how to prepare,” he said. “That lack of clarity is causing chaos.”

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  • Trump administration moves to cut off Maine’s federal K-12 funds

    Trump administration moves to cut off Maine’s federal K-12 funds

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    The U.S. Department of Education on Friday moved to terminate federal K-12 funding for the Maine Department of Education, following through on its promise to cut off the state and ultimately others if they do not enforce Title IX so as to keep transgender students from girls’ locker rooms, restrooms and athletic teams. 

    The move marks the first time the Trump administration has officially initiated a cut in federal funding to a state K-12 school system over civil rights violations.

    The department at the same time referred its Title IX investigation of Maine to the U.S. Department of Justice for enforcement — after multiple threats that it would do so if the state did not sign onto a resolution agreement within 10 days of the agency finding Maine in violation of Title IX.  

    “The Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant education secretary for civil rights in an April 11 statement. 

    Gov. Janet Mills “would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom — be careful what you wish for,” Trainor said. “Now she will see the Trump Administration in court.” 

    Mills has maintained since the investigation’s launch that the state is not in violation of Title IX. The governor has said the federal investigation is “not just about who can compete on the athletic field,” but rather “about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”  

    A swift investigation

    The directed investigation — meaning one initiated without a public complaint — was initiated by the department on Feb. 21 and concluded less than a month later in March. The move was precipitated by a public spat between Mills and Trump in February over the state’s transgender athlete policies, during which Mills threatened to see Trump in court. 

    The day the investigation was launched, alongside a nearly identical one into Maine by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also over Title IX, Mills said the outcome was “all but predetermined.” 

    Indeed, the investigation’s directed nature, quick turnaround time, high stakes attached, and referral to the Department of Justice — which traditionally has been reserved for egregious cases — has raised eyebrows in the education civil rights community. 

    The seemingly targeted, quick and aggressive enforcement strategy marks a significant shift from education civil rights enforcement under past administrations. Investigations traditionally took months or years, involved interviews and other investigative tools, and concluded with a negotiation with schools to bring them into compliance with federal law. Resolution agreements often included changes to school district operations like conducting climate surveys or hiring or training staff to ensure all students have access to an equal education. 

    Resolution agreement rebuffed

    In this case, however, the administration gave Maine 10 days to sign a draft resolution agreement that would change state and district policies to define “females” by “a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs (ova),” and “males” by having “a reproductive system with the biological function of producing sperm.” “Gender” would be the same as “sex” under the agreement.

    The draft agreement also would have required the state to apologize to each cisgender girl impacted by the state’s transgender female athlete policy “for allowing her educational experience and participation in school sports to be marred by sex discrimination.” 

    After the state refused to sign the agreement, the department warned officials on March 31 that it would send the case to the Department of Justice by April 11. 

    “Under prior administrations, enforcement was an illusory proposition. No more,” said Trainor in a March 31 statement.  “The Trump-McMahon Education Department is moving quickly to ensure that federal funds no longer support patently illegal practices that harm women and girls.” 

    While cutting off states or districts from funds was always within the Education Department’s power, it was a stick that was rarely used in past administrations, and especially not over Title IX, according to the Association of Title IX Administrators. 

    Within three months under this Trump administration, the department has threatened the cancellation of more than $9.5 billion for Ivy League universities over alleged Title VI and Title IX violations related to alleged antisemitism and LGBTQ+ policies, threatened some 60 colleges and a handful of districts with additional loss of funding over allegations of antisemitism, and promised that “this is only the beginning.”  

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  • Will end to federal Office of Ed Tech mean an end to equity?

    Will end to federal Office of Ed Tech mean an end to equity?

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    From internet access to 1:1 devices, ed tech use in schools has grown at a rapid pace since Congress formed the Office of Educational Technology three decades ago within the U.S. Department of Education.

    But now that OET is gone, former employees fear the office’s progress to push for equitable access to technology for students and teachers nationwide will be lost — particularly as the implementation of artificial intelligence tools accelerates. 

    The Trump administration informed all seven OET employees in a March 12 email that their positions and office were being “abolished” as the Education Department announced massive layoffs across the agency. 

    Just a couple weeks later, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the Education Department. The move comes as the Trump administration aims both to reduce the overall size of the federal government and to give states more authority over their education systems. 

    The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on OET’s closure.

    When Kristina Ishmael, OET’s deputy director from October 2021 to December 2023, found out about the office’s closure, she said she felt “shock and surprise, as well as disappointment and anger.” Ishmael added that those feelings extended to the decimation of other Education Department offices as well. 

    OET’s role in guiding schools

    OET’s responsibilities over the years, among many other things, included the development of six National Educational Technology Plans between 2000 and 2024. 

    The latest plan identified three persistent barriers to equity in ed tech to be addressed by education leaders at state, district and school levels. Those barriers included inequitable implementation of ed tech in classrooms, uneven availability of ed tech professional development opportunities for teachers, and gaps in students’ access to broadband connections, devices and digital content.

    There is still a lot of work to do to address those inequities, Ishmael said. 

    Just months after ChatGPT debuted, OET began to release guidance on AI use in schools, focusing first on its impact on educators, and then on responsibilities for ed tech industry leaders and logistical concerns for school district leaders. 

    Beyond offering nonregulatory federal guidance, OET worked with multiple offices in the Education Department and other federal agencies. Additionally, OET acted as a point of contact for Congress to keep lawmakers informed about the state of ed tech in classrooms, according to former staff. 

    For instance, OET collaborated with the Office for Civil Rights when the Education Department released guidance last year on students’ civil rights protections regarding the use of AI tools in schools, said Anil Hurkadli, who held a one-year appointment as OET’s acting deputy director through Jan. 20. 

    “If we don’t have a really clear interpretation or articulation of how civil rights laws do indeed apply in the use of educational technology and educational settings, you create a lot of risk that districts and states are not procuring products and services in ways that are in alignment with those laws,” Hurkadli said. 

    The same issue applies to ed tech developers, Hurkadli said. If the industry creates tools without a clear understanding of civil rights laws, they also run the risk of violating students’ privacy and potentially compromising their sensitive data, he added. 

    OET served as a key convener for districts and states in the ed tech space, which also included student and teacher perspectives, Hurkadli said. For decades, the office leveraged its federal role to advocate both within the government and with external stakeholders for equitable access to ed tech in classrooms. 

    Without OET, there will be “a gaping hole in those efforts at a time when technology is accelerating at a pace where we can’t afford to lose ground,” Hurkadli said.

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