Tag: fight

Sector backs Harvard int’l students in Trump legal fight

This week, the American Council on Education (ACE) was joined by 22 higher education associations filing an amicus brief in support of Harvard against the administration’s efforts to uphold Trump’s June 2025 proclamation barring international students from the institution.

“If the federal government may punish a university for its perceived ideology or that of its students, then the marketplace of ideas collapses into a monopoly of dogma,” the brief warns.

It urges the court to affirm the preliminary injunction issued by Judge Allison Burroughs last June, which blocked Trump’s attempt to prohibit foreign nationals seeking to study at Harvard from entering the US.

The signatories have said the proclamation represents an unprecedented executive overreach threatening institutional autonomy and academic freedom, as well as violating the First Amendment.

“Over the last year, the current administration has engaged in an unprecedented effort to coerce institutions of higher education to behave in a manner that reflects the administration’s preferred ideology, including by reshaping their faculty, curriculum and student body,” the document reads.

“When Harvard resisted the administration’s unlawful demands, the administration retaliated with extreme sanctions, including the proclamation issued in this appeal.”

The case arises from multiple attempts by the Trump administration bar international students from attending the Ivy League institution last spring.

Initial efforts were led by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attempting to strip Harvard of its SEVP Certification, which enables US institutions to enrol international students – a move halted by federal district judge Allison Burroughs.

Weeks later, Trump escalated efforts and issued his own presidential proclamation aimed at achieving the same result, which was met with a preliminary injunction from judge Burroughs, who said Trump’s directive implicated core constitutional protections.

Appealing judge Burroughs’ decision, the administration argued the proclamation was legal under the president’s immigration authorities – citing the familiar argument relating to national security concerns. This took the case to First Circuit appeals court, where it is now being heard.

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

Trump’s proclamation cites Harvard’s alleged “violent crime rates” and deficient reporting on foreign students as rationales for the directive, alongside its “entanglements” with the Chinese Communist Party and “discriminatory” admissions practices reducing opportunities for American students.

If the federal government may punish a university for its perceived ideology or that of its students, then the marketplace of ideas collapses into a monopoly of dogma

American Council on Education et al.

The brief argues that the proclamation is “fundamentally inconsistent with institutional autonomy – at Harvard and other educational institutions across the country” and that the administration’s actions are unconstitutional and set a dangerous precedent for all US colleges.

“The administration’s actions at issue in this case are directed at Harvard, but they reverberate throughout every state in the nation,” the brief states, arguing that punishing a university for its perceived ideology is “the antithesis of American values”.

It highlights the targeted nature of Trump’s directive, which would allow international students into the US seeking to study at any institution but Harvard – signalling the intervention is punitive, not regulatory, the amici said.

They emphasise the value of international students, “who … enrich and strengthen our community in innumerable ways”.

“But these benefits are unattainable when schools are prohibited from enrolling international students because they do not pass the government’s ideological litmus test.”

The brief contextualises the case within the administration’s long-running assault on Harvard, involving the freezing of federal grant funding, threats to Harvard’s tax-exempt status and requests for information regarding Harvard’s international students.

The administration’s appeal is expected to be considered in the coming months.

In the federal funding fight, judge Burroughs found in September 2025 that the administration acted unlawfully when it cut Harvard’s research grants – a case also heading to the court of appeal after the administration disputed the ruling.

Despite the ongoing attacks on America’s oldest institution, Harvard’s overseas enrolments rose to their highest level since 2002 this academic year, making up 28% of the total university population.

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January 23, 2026
To fight climate change, begin in the classroom

A good teacher stays with you. For me it was my Grade 9 English teacher, Mrs. Renshaw, who was an eagle in a smart skirt suit, her beak always pointed in your direction, her eyes sharp and seeing. She scared us.

The highest value, she often said, was “self discipline”. You would not be late to Mrs. Renshaw’s class.

She stays with me not because some students cried under her screech, but because of the way she taught. We would begin every class by writing a caption to a funny image — a bicycle with square wheels or a whale breathing on land.

We would then read, all together, one student out loud at a time, before discussing the themes of the story and its meaning.

We didn’t have to wait for social science or psychology class to discuss such things as war, power structures, human instinct or violence because in Mrs. Renshaw’s class, we read and discussed “Lord of the Flies”. She thrived on hearing our interpretations of an author’s intentional and unintentional meaning and on hearing the stories we would come up with ourselves.

She passed away a few years after I left high school, but Mrs. Renshaw left something powerful with me: A passion for stories as a way of understanding our world.

Learning through stories

For all teachers out there, Mrs. Renshaw left this lesson: Stories could be the main vessel through which we teach and through which we can empower youth.

This is the heart of the EYES project.

It started as an idea, almost precisely two years ago, driven by the bright headlights of two organisations: News Decoder and the The Environment and Human Rights Academy.

The goal? Combine authoritative climate education and journalism to create a pathway for youth to deep knowledge.

We would design a climate change curriculum with a systems approach and justice lens, grounded in storytelling, to provide teachers with an innovative and flexible way of teaching something multifaceted and vital — and to provide students with the agency to take action.

The curriculum wouldn’t prescribe shorter showers or fewer beef burgers. It would instead shine light on the systems that keep the climate crisis in a relentless spiral and the injustices that have come as a result. And it would give students this fundamental task: Find the stories of the people and systems at the heart of climate change, but in their own communities and circumstances. We would guide them in communicating these stories to the world.

Seeing the small parts that make a big problem

They could start, maybe, with saving water if they have water to save and eating a plant-based diet if that’s available and affordable to them, but they should understand those are just pieces of a giant problem.

By finding and telling stories, by being a journalist in one’s own community, students can start to connect the different pieces of climate change to their own circumstances and to feel a different sense of agency.

Producing the climate storytelling curriculum was one thing. The challenge was getting it into schools. We ended up piloting it in ten countries — five in the European Union, five outside Europe — to gather feedback and refine the materials into a curriculum that can be added to any educator’s repertoire.

We soon collided with reality. Tight school curricula leave little room for innovation. Teachers are busy. How to present something both complex and innovative in a way that is engaging, tangible and accessible to all students between the ages of 15 and 18?

We built up a team of pilot teachers — springboarding from our networks -– and gave them a set of seven modules that explored such things as fossil fuel emissions, the carbon budget, climate justice and reasons to focus away from individual carbon footprints.

Reporting climate change

The modules included a project for students. They would pick a topic and report on it as journalists. That meant conducting interviews, gathering data and presenting it in a multimedia format.

We imagined deep investigations, groundbreaking documentaries, enlivened youth.

We organised in-person events to see how this curriculum would empower students in real time. In Brussels, we spoke with students about how emitting fossil fuels stays profitable and about how one area in Mumbai can be six degrees hotter than its immediate — and wealthier -– neighbouring area.

In Paris, students pitched stories about climate injustice, and in Pristina, Kosovo, Roma students drew images of their own lived reality of climate change. We were in Romania and Serbia, and in two alternative education spaces in Portugal, where all modules were delivered to students who came from complex social backgrounds.

We supported our pilot teachers in Cameroon, Colombia and Kenya from afar and connected students in Colombia, Kenya and Slovenia by making them “pen pals” so they could exchange letters on their differing lived experiences of climate change.

Change doesn’t come easy.

But we kept falling back onto the same challenges: time is squeezed at schools and climate injustice — a reality often experienced “elsewhere” — is hard to convey to young people.

We get it. The economic system that climate change is rooted in is a hard one to grasp when you’re trying to figure out whether to go to university or how to get a job or what career to train for.

It was disheartening. Was anyone really being empowered? There was little pick up and a whole lot of resistance, despite the innovative social science research that was at the heart of our program.

And so again, we came back to the thread of the project — storytelling. After all, as author and organizational consultant Peg Neuhauser said: “No tribal chief or elder has ever handed out statistical reports, charts, graphs or lists to explain where the group is headed or what it must do.”

It was in a conference room just south of Brussels, over three days in crisp October, that the wick of the project’s candle was finally lit. Educators from across Europe gathered around a large table to revitalise their teaching and, as the project was coming to a close, they opened a door I’d turned a blind eye to.

Inspiring teachers to empower youth

They listened, they contributed and they gave us a sense that we’d done it. We had laid down the soil. We had planted the seeds. All we needed were enthusiastic and present teachers to find the time and space to be together. This was the bright and warm spring we were waiting for.

We saw that our curriculum was not a rigid product but a set of concepts, pedagogies and ideas that could be adapted by skilled and passionate teachers. And we could trust them to do that. The magic wasn’t in what we gave them, but in feeding the fire they already had for teaching climate change.

The EYES curriculum is now as follows: 16 standalone classroom units each dealing with one concept — from tipping points to systemic change, from human–nature connection to green extractivism — and each including a bite-size storytelling activity such as come up with a pitch, explain a concept, make a connection. It includes six journalism guides from the principles of journalism and how to spot greenwashing, to how to interview and write an article.

There’s an Educators’ Guide produced from the brainstorming of that workshop in Brussels, a blog written by educators and students and a podcast series featuring brilliant thinkers. All materials are freely available to educators wherever they teach.

Ultimately, the success of EYES comes down to people: The educators; the advisory board; the students who were enlightened and empowered; the brilliance, strength and kindness of Andreea Pletea at The Environment and Human Rights Academy and her intimidatingly intelligent colleagues Anka Stankovic and Sebastien Kaye; the team at Young Educators European Association who bolstered the project when it was needed by helping to reach more students; Matthew and Jules Pye of The Climate Academy for transforming my way of seeing this global challenge; and my fantastic, curious and creative colleagues at News Decoder.

Empowering Youth through Environmental Storytelling comes to an end on 31 December. And as I close my laptop on EYES for the final time, I am assured that I leave behind something that will continue to spread in classrooms and help teachers and students find the climate stories yet to be told.

As Mrs. Renshaw taught me: A story does not end on the last page. It lives on in those it touches.

Questions to consider:

1. How can storytelling help students learn?

2. What does it mean to look at a problem at the systems level?

3. If you were going to explore a topic related to climate change, what would you tackle?

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December 18, 2025
USU Members turn out in Freezing Temperature to Fight for Fair Wages

USU members & union allies turned out in droves for a picket at the University of Michigan winter commencement on Sunday, December 14th over stalled contract negotiations due to management’s proposal on salary. The proposed 3% yearly salary increase for the Ann Arbor campus and 1% yearly salary increase for the Dearborn and Flint campuses was roundly rejected by USU’s bargaining team. 3% salary increases are standard on the Ann Arbor campus and would not cover the cost of dues, a staple of our platform. 1% salary increases for the Dearborn and Flint campuses were received as an insult to the staff who work there and goes against our commitment to parity among the campuses. Staff, faculty, and community allies turned out to make our voices heard and add pressure to management to pay its employees a dignified wage. Watch CBS News video coverage of the event here and read about the picket in the Michigan Daily here. Thank you to everyone who joined USU on the picket line and all the union allies who came out to support USU’s fight for fair wages!

If you were not able to join us out on the picket line yesterday (or even if you could!), please sign and send a letter to support our fight for fair wages.

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December 15, 2025
Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change

This story first appeared in Hechinger’s climate and education newsletter. Sign up here.

In Illinois, the Chicago Teachers Union won a contract with the city’s schools to add solar panels on some buildings and clean energy career pathways for students, among other actions. In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators demanded that the district create a task force on environmental issues and provide free metro passes for students. And in California, the Los Angeles teachers union’s demands include electrifying the district’s bus fleet and providing electric vehicle charging stations at all schools.

Those are among the examples in a new report on how unionized teachers are pushing their school districts to take action on the climate crisis, which is damaging school buildings and disrupting learning. The report — produced by the nonprofit Building Power Resource Center, which supports local governments and leaders, and the Labor Network for Sustainability, a nonprofit that seeks to unite labor and climate groups — describes how educators can raise demands for climate action when they negotiate labor contracts with their districts. By emphasizing the financial case for switching to renewable energy, educators can simultaneously act on climate change, improve conditions in schools and save districts money, it says.

As federal support and financial incentives for climate action wither, this sort of local action is becoming more difficult — but also more urgent, advocates say. Chicago Public Schools has relied on funding for electric buses that has been sunsetted by the Trump administration, said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. But the district is also seeking other local and state funding and nonprofit support.

Bradley Marianno, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that educator unions embracing climate action is part of a move started about 15 years ago in which more progressive unions — like those in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere — focus on “collective good bargaining,” or advocating for changes that are good for their members but also the broader community. But this approach is unlikely to catch on everywhere: “The risk lies in members feeling that core issues like wages and working conditions are being overlooked in favor of more global causes,” he wrote in an email.

I recently caught up with Potter, the CTU vice president, about the report and his union’s approach to bargaining for climate action. Collaborating with local environmental and community groups, the Chicago Teachers Union ultimately succeeded in winning a contract that calls for identifying schools for solar panels and electrification, expanding indoor air quality monitoring, helping educators integrate climate change into their curriculum, and establishing training for students in clean energy jobs, among other steps.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The report talks about contract negotiations being an underused — and effective — lever for demanding climate action. Why do you see that process as such an opportunity for climate action?

On the local level, our schools are 84, 83 years old on average. There is lead paint, lead pipes, mold, asbestos, PCBs, all kinds of contamination in the HVAC system and the walls that require upgrades. By our estimate, the district needs $30 billion worth of upgrades, and right now I think they spend $500 million a year to just do patch-up work. We’re at a point where it’s a system fail of epic proportions if we can’t figure out a way to transition and make things healthier. And so if you’re going to do a roof repair, put solar on it, have independence from fossil fuels, clean air in areas that have faced environmental racism and contamination.

We’re also dealing with a legacy of discrimination and harm, and that is true of the nation. So how do we get out of this and also save the planet and also prevent greater climate events that further destabilize vulnerable communities and put people at risk? It made sense for us to use our contract as a path to do both things — deal with this local crisis that was screaming for new solutions and ideas, in a moment when the climate is on fire, literally.

How challenging was it to get educators to view climate issues as a priority? There are so many other things, around pay and other issues, on the table.

When we started, it almost felt like people in the membership, in the community, viewed it as a niche issue. Like, ‘Oh, isn’t that cute, you care about green technology.’ As we figured out how to think about it and talk about it and probe where people were having issues in their schools, it became really obvious that when you started talking about asbestos, lead and mold remediation — and helping communities that have been hit the hardest with cumulative impacts and carcinogens and how those things are present in schools — that became much more tangible. Or even quality food and lunch and breakfast for students who are low-income. It went from bottom of the list to top of the list, instantaneously.

Your contract calls for a number of climate-related actions, including green pathways for students and agreements with building trade unions to create good jobs for students. Tell me about that.

We’re trying to use the transformation of our facilities as another opportunity for families and students in these communities that have been harmed the most to get the greatest benefit from the transformation. So if we can install solar, we want our students to be part of that project on the ground in their schools, gaining the skills and apprenticeship credentials to become the electricians of the future. And using that as a project labor agreement [which establishes the terms of work on a certain project] with the trades to open doors and opportunities. The same goes for all the other improvements — whether it’s heat pumps, HVAC systems, geothermal. And for EV — we have outdated auto shop programming that’s exclusively based on the combustible engine reliant on fossil fuels, whereas in [the nearby city of] Belvidere they are building electric cars per the United Auto Workers’ new contract. Could we gain a career path on electric vehicles that allows students to gain that mechanical knowledge and insight and prepares them for the vehicles of the future?

The report talks about the Batesville School District in Arkansas that was able to increase teacher salaries because of savings from solar. Have you tried to make the case for higher teacher salaries because of these climate steps?

The $500 million our district allocates for facility upgrades annually comes out of the general fund, so we haven’t at all thought about it in terms of salary. We’ve thought about it in terms of having a school nurse, social worker, mental health interventions at a moment when there is so much trauma. We see this as a win-win: The fewer dollars the district has to spend on facility needs means the more dollars they can spend on instructional and social-emotional needs for students. In terms of the Arkansas model, it’s pretty basic. If you get off the fossil fuel pipelines and electric lines and you become self-sufficient, essentially, powering your own electric and heat, there is going to be a boon, particularly if there are up-front subsidies.

Math and climate change

When temperatures rise in classrooms, students have more trouble concentrating and their learning suffers — in math, in particular. That’s according to a new report from NWEA, an education research and testing company.

The report, part of a growing body of evidence of the harms of extreme heat on student performance, found that math scores declined when outdoor temperatures on test days rose above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Students in high-poverty schools, which are less likely to have air conditioning, saw declines up to twice as large as those in wealthier schools.

The learning losses grew as temperatures rose. Students who took tests on 101-degree days scored roughly 0.06 standard deviations below students who tested when temperatures were 60 degrees, the equivalent of about 10 percent of the learning a fifth grader typically gains in a school year.

It’s not entirely clear why student math scores suffer more than reading when temperatures rise. But Sofia Postell, an NWEA research analyst, said that on math tests, students must problem-solve and rely on their memories, and that kind of thinking is particularly difficult when students are hot and tired. Anxiety could be a factor too, she wrote in an email: “Research has also shown that heat increases anxiety, and some students may experience more testing anxiety around math exams.”

The study was based on data from roughly 3 million scores on NWEA’s signature MAP Growth test for third to eighth graders in six states.

The report urged school, district and state officials to take several steps to reduce the effects of high heat on student learning and testing. Ideally, tests would be scheduled during times of the year when it wasn’t so hot, it said, and also during mornings, when temperatures are cooler. Leaders also need to invest in updating HVAC systems to keep kids cool.

“Extreme heat has already detrimentally impacted student learning and these effects will only intensify without action,” wrote Postell.

Mea culpa: A quick note to say I got two things wrong in my last newsletter — the name of the Natural Resources Defense Council was incorrect, as was the number of hours of learning California students have missed so far this year. It’s more than 54,000.

Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].

This story about teachers unions was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter on climate and education.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.

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October 26, 2025
As more question the value of a degree, colleges fight to prove their return on investment

This story was produced by the Associated Press and reprinted with permission.

WASHINGTON – For a generation of young Americans, choosing where to go to college — or whether to go at all — has become a complex calculation of costs and benefits that often revolves around a single question: Is the degree worth its price?

Public confidence in higher education has plummeted in recent years amid high tuition prices, skyrocketing student loans and a dismal job market — plus ideological concerns from conservatives. Now, colleges are scrambling to prove their value to students.

Borrowed from the business world, the term “return on investment” has been plastered on college advertisements across the U.S. A battery of new rankings grade campuses on the financial benefits they deliver. States such as Colorado have started publishing yearly reports on the monetary payoff of college, and Texas now factors it into calculations for how much taxpayer money goes to community colleges.

“Students are becoming more aware of the times when college doesn’t pay off,” said Preston Cooper, who has studied college ROI at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “It’s front of mind for universities today in a way that it was not necessarily 15, 20 years ago.”

Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

A wide body of research indicates a bachelor’s degree still pays off, at least on average and in the long run. Yet there’s growing recognition that not all degrees lead to a good salary, and even some that seem like a good bet are becoming riskier as graduates face one of the toughest job markets in years.

A new analysis released Thursday by the Strada Education Foundation finds 70 percent of recent public university graduates can expect a positive return within 10 years — meaning their earnings over a decade will exceed that of a typical high school graduate by an amount greater than the cost of their degree. Yet it varies by state, from 53 percent in North Dakota to 82 percent in Washington, D.C. States where college is more affordable have fared better, the report says.

It’s a critical issue for families who wonder how college tuition prices could ever pay off, said Emilia Mattucci, a high school counselor at East Allegheny schools, near Pittsburgh. More than two-thirds of her school’s students come from low-income families, and many aren’t willing to take on the level of debt that past generations accepted.

Instead, more are heading to technical schools or the trades and passing on four-year universities, she said.

“A lot of families are just saying they can’t afford it, or they don’t want to go into debt for years and years and years,” she said.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been among those questioning the need for a four-year degree. Speaking at the Reagan Institute think tank in September, McMahon praised programs that prepare students for careers right out of high school.

“I’m not saying kids shouldn’t go to college,” she said. “I’m just saying all kids don’t have to go in order to be successful.”

Related: OPINION: College is worth it for most students, but its benefits are not equitable

American higher education has been grappling with both sides of the ROI equation — tuition costs and graduate earnings. It’s becoming even more important as colleges compete for decreasing numbers of college-age students as a result of falling birth rates.

Tuition rates have stayed flat on many campuses in recent years to address affordability concerns, and many private colleges have lowered their sticker prices in an effort to better reflect the cost most students actually pay after factoring in financial aid.

The other part of the equation — making sure graduates land good jobs — is more complicated.

A group of college presidents recently met at Gallup’s Washington headquarters to study public polling on higher education. One of the chief reasons for flagging confidence is a perception that colleges aren’t giving graduates the skills employers need, said Kevin Guskiewicz, president of Michigan State University, one of the leaders at the meeting.

“We’re trying to get out in front of that,” he said.

The issue has been a priority for Guskiewicz since he arrived on campus last year. He gathered a council of Michigan business leaders to identify skills that graduates will need for jobs, from agriculture to banking. The goal is to mold degree programs to the job market’s needs and to get students internships and work experience that can lead to a job.

Related: What’s a college degree worth? States start to demand colleges share the data

Bridging the gap to the job market has been a persistent struggle for U.S. colleges, said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, a think tank that studies the workforce. Last year the institute, partnering with Strada researchers, found 52 percent of recent college graduates were in jobs that didn’t require a degree. Even higher-demand fields, such as education and nursing, had large numbers of graduates in that situation.

“No programs are immune, and no schools are immune,” Sigelman said.

The federal government has been trying to fix the problem for decades, going back to President Barack Obama’s administration. A federal rule first established in 2011 aimed to cut federal money to college programs that leave graduates with low earnings, though it primarily targeted for-profit colleges.

A Republican reconciliation bill passed this year takes a wider view, requiring most colleges to hit earnings standards to be eligible for federal funding. The goal is to make sure college graduates end up earning more than those without a degree.

Others see transparency as a key solution.

For decades, students had little way to know whether graduates of specific degree programs were landing good jobs after college. That started to change with the College Scorecard in 2015, a federal website that shares broad earnings outcomes for college programs. More recently, bipartisan legislation in Congress has sought to give the public even more detailed data.

Lawmakers in North Carolina ordered a 2023 study on the financial return for degrees across the state’s public universities. It found that 93 percent produced a positive return, meaning graduates were expected to earn more over their lives than someone without a similar degree.

The data is available to the public, showing, for example, that undergraduate degrees in applied math and business tend to have high returns at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while graduate degrees in psychology and foreign languages often don’t.

Colleges are belatedly realizing how important that kind of data is to students and their families, said Lee Roberts, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, in an interview.

“In uncertain times, students are even more focused — I would say rightly so — on what their job prospects are going to be,” he added. “So I think colleges and universities really owe students and their families this data.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The Strada Education Foundation, whose research is mentioned in this story, is one of the many funders of The Hechinger Report.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.

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October 16, 2025
UC System Warns of Broader Risks in Federal Funding Fight

The Trump administration has already frozen $500 million in grant funding at UCLA.

The University of California system is warning state lawmakers that federal funding cuts could extend well beyond UCLA as tensions between the Trump administration and American colleges continue to rise.

UC president James B. Milliken wrote a letter to dozens of local elected officials Tuesday explaining that “the stakes are high and the risks are very real.” The system’s 10 institutions could lose billions of dollars in aid, forcing its leaders to make tough calls about staffing, the continuation of certain academic programs and more, he said.

President Trump has already frozen more than $500 million in grants at UCLA, allegedly because the Justice Department accused the university of violating Jewish students’ civil rights. The president demanded the university pay a $1.2 billion fine to unlock the funds, and system officials are worried that more funding cuts are likely. California lawmakers have repeatedly urged the UC system not to capitulate.

In an August letter, State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat and chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, and 33 other lawmakers told Milliken that Trump’s actions were “an extortion attempt and a page out of the authoritarian playbook,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Milliken wrote in Tuesday’s letter that a loss in funding would “devastate” the system and harm students, among other groups.

“Classes and student services would be reduced, patients would be turned away, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and we would see UC’s world-renowned researchers leaving our state for other more seemingly stable opportunities in the US or abroad,” he wrote.

If the UC system loses federal funding, it would need about $4 to $5 billion a year to make up the difference, Milliken added. “That is what fighting for the people of California will take.”

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September 5, 2025
HACU Seeks to Fight Lawsuit Targeting HSIs

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, represented by the civil rights organization LatinoJustice PRLDEF, recently filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that takes aim at Hispanic-serving institutions.

The lawsuit was brought against the U.S. Department of Education by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the advocacy group whose lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in college admissions. The lawsuit claims the federal designation for HSIs, which requires 25 percent Latino enrollment, is discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.

HACU, an association representing HSIs, argued in its motion that it should become a party to the lawsuit to stand up for the constitutionality of the HSI program. The organization suggested the Education Department is unlikely to vigorously defend the federal designation while it’s in the process of dismantling itself.

Antonio R. Flores, president and CEO of HACU, said the lawsuit “directly undermines years of advocacy by our founding members that led the federal government to formally recognize HSIs in 1992.”

“The HSI program is a vital engine of educational excellence, workforce readiness and opportunity for all students attending these exemplary learning communities,” Flores said in a statement. “HACU joins in defending the policies and resources HSIs need to educate and serve 5.6 million students from all backgrounds nationwide.”

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July 31, 2025
Texas Law School Deans Fight to Keep ABA Accreditation

A group of Texas law school deans is urging the state Supreme Court to uphold American Bar Association accreditation standards for public law schools. The state’s highest court announced in April that it was considering dropping the ABA requirement for licensure, opening a public comment period on the matter that closed July 1.

“We strongly support continued reliance on ABA accreditation for Texas law schools and licensure eligibility,” the deans of eight of the state’s 10 ABA-accredited law schools wrote in a letter to the Texas Supreme Court. “ABA accreditation provides a nationally recognized framework for quality assurance and transparency; portability of licensure through recognition of ABA accreditation by all 50 states, which is critical for graduates’ career flexibility; consumer protections and public accountability through disclosure standards; and a baseline of educational quality that correlates with higher bar passage rates and better employment outcomes.”

Though the Texas justices did not say why they were reviewing ABA accreditation, the law deans’ letter noted that the body has already suspended its DEI standards—a move it announced in February and then extended in May through Aug. 31, 2026. That means “the language of the Standard can be revised in accordance with federal constitutional law and Texas state law that bar certain diversity, equity and inclusion practices at state universities,” the deans wrote.

Of the state’s ABA-accredited law schools’ deans, only Robert Chesney of the University of Texas and Robert Ahdieh of Texas A&M didn’t sign the letter, Reuters reported.

In his own nine-page letter to the state Supreme Court, Chesney urged the justices to look at “alternative” pathways for ensuring law school standards “to help pave the way for innovative, lower-cost approaches to legal education.”

Ahdieh told Reuters that whatever the court decides about ABA accreditation, it’s “critical” that law degrees earned in Texas remain portable.

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July 10, 2025
Jailed for basic journalism, Texas reporter takes free speech fight to Supreme Court

For years, Priscilla Villarreal has fought to hold officials accountable when they violate Americans’ First Amendment rights, including the Laredo officials who threw her in jail just for asking police to verify facts as part of her everyday news reporting.

Priscilla sued, and last fall, the Supreme Court gave her a shot at justice, granting her petition and ordering the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reconsider Priscilla’s case against the officials who tried to turn routine journalism into a felony.

But in April, a divided Fifth Circuit doubled down, holding the Laredo officials had qualified immunity, a doctrine that often shields government officials from lawsuits even when they violate the Constitution. In his dissent, one judge lamented that the court had simply reinstated what it “mistakenly said before, just in different packaging.”

So Priscilla and FIRE are doubling down, too. We’re heading back to the Supreme Court, asking it to make crystal clear that Americans have every ability to hold officials accountable for violating core First Amendment rights — like the right to ask government officials questions, and publish what they share.

That’s exactly what Priscilla has been doing for years, reporting on local crime, traffic, and other news for her 200,000 Facebook followers. She’s made a name for herself too. The New York Times describes her as “arguably the most influential journalist in Laredo.” But despite her experience, her journey from Laredo, a city on the Mexican border, to the Supreme Court has been a long one.

In 2017, she reported on a high-profile suicide and a fatal car accident. For both stories, Priscilla received tips from private citizens and verified those facts by asking a Laredo police officer. The First Amendment squarely protects this routine journalistic practice. After all, at the heart of the First Amendment is the freedom to ask government officials and institutions questions, even tough ones.

Angered by Priscilla’s reporting on these incidents, Laredo officials tried to bully her into silence by arresting her. But with no legitimate basis on which to charge her with a crime, police and prosecutors turned to a decades-old statute that no local official had ever enforced.

That law makes it a felony to ask for or receive non-public information from a government official with the intent to benefit from that information. Laredo police and prosecutors pursued two warrants for Priscilla’s arrest under the statute. In short, Priscilla went to jail for basic journalism.

So in 2019, she sued the officials for violating her First and Fourth Amendment rights. As Judge James Ho later remarked in his dissent at the Fifth Circuit, it “should’ve been an easy case for denying qualified immunity.”

But it hasn’t been. A Texas federal district court dismissed her claims on the basis of qualified immunity. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed that decision, denying qualified immunity. But when the whole Fifth Circuit reheard the case at the government’s request, it reversed the panel ruling in a splintered 9-7 decision.

In 2024, Priscilla and FIRE took her fight to the Supreme Court for the first time. The Court granted Priscilla’s petition to review the Fifth Circuit’s decision and ordered it to reconsider her case in light of the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision, Gonzalez v. Trevino. That decision affirmed the ability to sue government officials when they retaliate against protected speech by selectively enforcing statutes.

But last April, a splintered Fifth Circuit decided against Priscilla again, granting qualified immunity to the officials who defied longstanding Supreme Court precedent and core principles of American liberty by orchestrating her arrest.

The Fifth Circuit’s ruling not only denies Priscilla justice, but gives police and prosecutors a free pass to turn core First Amendment rights into a crime. That result cannot stand. And that’s why Priscilla and FIRE are going back to the Supreme Court.

Priscilla’s fearless reporting has made her a local “folk hero.” Now, she’s channeling the same grit into defending not just her own rights, but the First Amendment rights of all Americans.

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July 7, 2025
Austin Community College Joins Fight Against DOJ and Texas

Civil rights groups have been piling on to intervene in the recent Texas court case that ended in-state tuition for noncitizens living in the state. Now Austin Community College and a Texas undocumented student are joining the effort to defend the now-defunct law.

College officials worry they’ll lose students and revenue if undocumented students’ tuition prices suddenly skyrocket. Austin Community College is the first Texas college to try to join the lawsuit.

The Texas Dream Act, which allowed noncitizens who grew up in the state to benefit from in-state tuition, was overturned last month after the Department of Justice sued Texas over the law. The state didn’t fight back and instead sided with the DOJ mere hours after the legal challenge. A week later, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a Latino civil rights organization, filed a motion on behalf of a group of Texas undocumented students to intervene in the lawsuit. The group argued the swift resolution of the DOJ’s legal challenge denied those affected any chance to weigh in, so the students should become intervenors, or a party to the case, and have their day in court.

Other groups quickly followed MALDEF’s lead. Since last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward and the National Immigration Law Center have joined the fight, representing the activist group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, the Austin Community College District’s Board of Trustees and Oscar Silva, a student at University of North Texas. The groups filed emergency motions on their behalf to intervene in the lawsuit and get relief from the judgment that killed the law. If these legal efforts are successful, a case so quickly open and shut by Texas and the DOJ could be reopened.

Austin Community College board chair Sean Hassan said in a news release from the Texas ACLU chapter that college officials deserved to have their say on the policy shift.

“Employers and taxpayers are looking to community colleges to produce a sufficient number of highly skilled graduates to meet workforce needs,” Hassan said. “If legislation or court decisions will impact our ability to meet these expectations, we should have a seat at the table to help shape responsible solutions. The action by our board asks the court to ensure our voice is heard.”

Calculating the Costs

In court filings, Austin Community College leaders argue that the institution will lose revenue because of the abrupt end of the Texas Dream Act. They estimated that about 440 students will see their tuition rates quadruple, and as a result, hundreds of students will stop out and prospective students will avoid enrolling in the first place. College leaders also argued in the motion to intervene that the need for scholarships will rise, putting extra financial pressure on the community college.

They cited other potential costs as well, including setting up new processes to identify and notify noncitizen students of tuition rate changes and ramping up public relations efforts so the college can continue to “market itself as an accessible, inclusive, and affordable institution for all Texas high school graduates,” despite the policy change.

“The loss of these students will have a cascading effect on campus life, academic programs, and student support services,” Austin Community College chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said, according to court filings.

The motion also detailed how Silva, the student, would likely have to withdraw from his joint bachelor’s and master’s program at the University of North Texas if he lost his in-state tuition benefits. He was expected to graduate next spring. Silva has lived in Texas since the age of 1 and attended Texas K–12 schools.

“The Texas Dream Act means everything to me,” Silva said in the ACLU of Texas news release. “This law has made my education possible. Without it, college would’ve been out of reach for me as a first-generation college student.”

The motion comes after Wynn Rosser, commissioner of higher education for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, sent out a June 18 memo directing colleges and universities to determine which of their students are undocumented and need to be charged higher tuition starting this fall.

Trouble Over Timelines

Texas, the DOJ and civil rights groups have since been haggling over how fast the U.S. District Court should move in response to the new motions.

The civil rights groups want a decision soon. But, in a joint submission to the court on June 30, the Trump administration and Texas argued emergency motions were uncalled-for and the legal proceedings shouldn’t be expedited, though they acknowledged the intervenors raised issues “which merit response.”

“Expediting responses to intervenors’ motions would only serve [to] put the United States and Texas at a disadvantage, having to brief and respond to intervenors’ myriad of arguments in a drastically shorter timeframe than would otherwise be necessary, and would do nothing to help intervenors expedite any potential relief,” the response read.

But the civil rights groups representing Austin Community College and other intervenors weren’t having it. On July 1, they asked that the court deny the request.

The attorneys argued that the state and the federal government moved quickly to resolve the DOJ’s lawsuit and end the Texas Dream Act, but “when asked to respond on an expedited basis to the consequences of their actions and the imminent harm raised” by the motions, “the parties balk, insisting that the court should postpone its consideration of these motions until well past the point when the looming harms become irreversible.”

That same day, Judge Reed O’Connor gave the Trump administration and Texas until July 14 to respond to the motion to intervene, which aligns with their requested timeline. He also delayed briefings on the motions to stay the judgement and for relief until he rules on the motion to intervene.

As this fight plays out in Texas, the DOJ is targeting other states that offer in-state tuition benefits to undocumented students. Last month the Trump administration filed similar lawsuits in Kentucky and Minnesota, which have yet to be resolved.

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July 2, 2025