On February 10, 2025, students and activists gathered at the CUNY College Board of Trustees Public Hearing to demand divestment. Rabbi Dovid Feldman stood in solidarity with the students, supporting their call for justice and urging them not to be intimidated by false Zionist accusations.
This powerful moment highlights the growing movement for divestment and the unwavering courage of those standing up for what is right. The rallying cry was clear: “Divest! We will not stop; we will not rest!”
Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary, will appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next week—a key step in her confirmation process.
And though the former business mogul was originally expected to sail through the confirmation process, she’ll likely have to answer questions at the hearing next Thursday about recent upheavals in the Education Department and the president’s plan to get rid of the agency.
In the last week, news broke that the Trump administration put dozens of department employees on paid leave and is planning an executive order to shut down the department, setting off alarm bells across the higher ed sphere. At the same time, Trump’s attempts to freeze thousands of federal grants and push agency staff toward “deferred resignation” are caught up in court. Education advocacy groups say that halting the grants violates the constitutional principle of separation of powers and that cutting the number of unionized agency staff is not only illegal but also could hinder key operations like the federal student aid program.
But while many of Trump’s executive orders remain in limbo, department appointees who don’t require confirmation are quickly moving behind the scenes to carry out Trump’s education agenda. They’ve opened multiple civil rights investigations into colleges over antisemitism and transgender participation in women’s sports, announced changes to the federal aid application, and removed more than 200 DEI-related webpages from the department’s website.
Trump has yet to announce who will join McMahon and fill other key agency roles, such as under secretary and head of Federal Student Aid, nor has he formally named all the acting officials who will fill those roles in the meantime. The lack of transparency regarding who will lead the department and who is currently serving in temporary roles now has only heightened concerns among higher education officials, policy experts, lobbyists and advocacy groups. The lack of clarity makes it hard to decipher what Trump’s regulatory priorities will be and how colleges, universities, accreditors, students and others should prepare for the next four years. But many are hopeful that McMahon’s hearing will shed some light on the subject.
The secretary-designate, who is best known as the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has limited experience in education policy aside from serving for one year on the Connecticut State Board of Education and a long-running tenure on the Sacred Heart University Board of Trustees. And to this date, she has made little comment about her views on public education.
She does, however, have some experience working in Washington. McMahon served as director of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. Then, in 2021, as the president reluctantly left office, she helped found the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank.
Now, the billionaire is likely to lead the very department Trump has said he wants to see dismantled. The president told White House reporters Tuesday that he told McMahon, “I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job.
The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the new administration is preparing an executive order about the department’s future, though the specifics are still in the works.
Sources told the Journal that the order could “shut down all functions of the agency that aren’t written explicitly into statute or move certain functions to other departments,” but other sources familiar with talks about the order told Inside Higher Ed that the order could direct McMahon, once confirmed, to come up with a plan to break up the department entirely. (The second suggested order, and its resulting plan, would have to include legislative action from Capitol Hill, as the department’s existence is written into law.)
But for now, McMahon is awaiting confirmation and the department still exists. So who’s running the agency and carrying out its statutory duties?
So far, the White House has only formally announced an acting secretary, Denise Carter, who had previously served as acting head of the Federal Student Aid office. A news release from the department several days later listed 10 other appointees, ranging from chief of staff to deputy general counsel. On Thursday, the department shared the names of six more officials, including deputy under secretary and senior adviser of the communications office.
But the department’s announcements about appointees haven’t indicated who is temporarily filing some of the top jobs at the department, such as under secretary. Under federal law, the default acting official is the first assistant to the vacant position or the top deputy for that office, though the president can designate someone else who meets the criteria. Details about who is serving as those acting officials has instead come from other department statements.
For example, James Bergeron—president of the National Council of Higher Education Resources and a Republican former House policy adviser—was named deputy under secretary Thursday. But on Tuesday, the department identified him in a news release as acting under secretary. Before Tuesday’s release, Bergeron had not been listed as an appointee at all. Thursday’s announcement only referred to him as deputy under secretary, not acting.
In another instance, the department named Craig Trainor—who worked under Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi as an AFPI senior litigation counsel—deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Office for Civil Rights. And then, in later news releases, the agency identified Trainor as the acting assistant secretary for civil rights.
Although the department has yet to announce an acting chief operating officer for FSA, a department official told Inside Higher Ed that Carter is wearing two hats and continuing to lead FSA while serving as acting secretary. Phillip Juengst, a longtime FSA official, they said, is also helping lead the agency.
The Education Department did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for further detail about who is serving in what acting role and why it hasn’t formally been announced. Instead, they pointed reporters back to the news releases mentioned prior.
Most of the appointees so far are unfamiliar faces to D.C. area policy experts and former department staffers.
Bergeron, however, is an exception. He worked at the National Council of Higher Education Resources starting in 2014, advocating for higher education service agencies that work in the student loan space. Some debt-relief groups raised concerns about Bergeron’s appointment. But former department officials described Bergeron as a competent and more reasonable choice than some other Trump appointees. Before serving as president of NCHER, he worked as a staffer on the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, said the day after Trump took office that the initial lack of clarity about who was serving in what role didn’t concern him. He didn’t expect Carter or other acting appointees to carry out substantial policy actions before confirmed appointees took control. Guillory said Thursday that his comments haven’t changed, so he remains unconcerned two weeks later.
by CUPA-HR | November 14, 2023
On October 25, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on federal paid leave. This comes as congressional Democrats and Republicans have shown interest in finding bipartisan consensus for a federal paid leave program. The hearing also provided policymakers and witnesses the opportunity to discuss the promise and drawbacks of paid leave proposals.
Increasing employee access to paid leave was a primary focus of the hearing. Both sides of the aisle agreed that all workers will need to take leave during their careers without the obligation to juggle work requirements. Policymakers highlighted that 70 percent of Americans want national paid leave and that 72 percent of Americans who are not currently working cite caregiving and family responsibilities as the main reason. To address these issues, Democrats argued for a federally mandated paid leave program, while Republicans worried that a one-size-fits-all program could limit employer-provided paid leave options and be difficult to implement on a wide scale.
Some of the witnesses discussed the benefits of a federal paid leave program, concluding that better access to paid leave would benefit workers, employers and the economy. Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, stated that offering paid leave tends to benefit both workers and employers through increased labor force participation (both for women and generally), worker retention, and wage growth. Ben Verhoeven, president of Peoria Gardens Inc., added that investing in paid leave gave him better return on investment than his capital investments, as implementing paid leave increased business growth and employee retention and promotions.
Despite these benefits, Elizabeth Milito, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business’s Small Business Legal Center, said that employers would face trade-offs under a federal paid leave program. Milito argued that employers operating on the same amount of funds but under new federal benefit requirements would be obliged to provide paid leave as a benefit, leading to some employers being unable to provide higher compensation or other benefits like health insurance. Rachel Greszler, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said that in response to state paid leave programs, some companies choose to send workers to the state program first and then supplement the paid leave benefit to provide 100 percent wage replacement. This creates an administrative burden for the employee, who receives full wage replacement only if they participate in both paid leave programs.
Republicans and their witnesses also said that a federal program would require flexibility and simplicity to be most effective. Milito and Greszler concurred that most small businesses do not have a qualified HR professional to deal with additional compliance needs. Greszler also stated that the biggest unintended consequence of a one-size-fits-all approach would be a rigid structure that does not work for most employees and businesses. She specified that a carve-out for small businesses or the ability to opt in to a federal program would be most appropriate.
CUPA-HR continues to monitor for any updates on federal paid leave programs and will keep members apprised of any new developments.
