Tag: Jobs

  • How standardized tests became part of the DEI debate

    How standardized tests became part of the DEI debate

    In the Education Department’s sweeping Dear Colleague letter last month, acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor wrote that colleges must eliminate all race-conscious programs and policies, from scholarships and admissions practices to campus cultural groups and DEI training.

    One surprising mention: standardized testing policies.

    Trainor wrote that test-optional policies could be “proxies for race” to help colleges “give preference” to certain groups.

    “That is true whether the proxies are used to grant preferences on an individual basis or a systematic one,” he wrote. “It would, for instance, be unlawful for an educational institution to eliminate standardized testing to achieve a desired racial balance or to increase racial diversity.”

    Higher education leaders and researchers have long debated the pros and cons of standardized testing in admissions: Some believe they’re a meritocratic predictor of academic success, while others say they’re more aligned with family wealth. In recent years, those debates have become entangled with discussions of systemic racism in the American education system.

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, the vast majority of colleges waived test requirements for applicants. Five years later, most have retained their test-optional policies—though a year ago some selective institutions began returning to score requirements, reigniting a charged debate about the role of standardized tests in admissions.

    After the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in 2023, experts said test-optional policies could serve as race-neutral measures to help colleges maintain diversity in their applicant pools. They cited research showing that colleges with test-optional policies enrolled 10 to 12 percent more students from underrepresented racial backgrounds; other studies found that doing away with test requirements simplified the application process and thus removed barriers for first-generation and other underserved students. The Biden administration even included test-optional policies in its guidance for colleges adjusting to the court ruling.

    If colleges cited such research in keeping their test-optional policies, Trainor’s letter implied it could be grounds for a civil rights investigation.

    In a Frequently Asked Questions document meant to clarify the broad scope of the Dear Colleague letter, OCR made no mention of testing policies. But in response to multiple questions from Inside Higher Ed about how the department views test-optional policies, Trainor left the door open to federal scrutiny.

    “This isn’t complicated,” he wrote. “When in doubt, every school should consult the [Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard] legal test contained in the [Dear Colleague letter]: ‘If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.’”

    Harry Feder, executive director of FairTest and an outspoken critic of standardized testing, said assessments like the SAT have long been embroiled in debates about racial equity in education, but the discourse grew more prominent as attacks on DEI and affirmative action intensified.

    “The SAT has racial bias baked into it from its origins as an early IQ test to keep out the riffraff,” he said. “What Republicans are now saying is, that’s an objective measure of merit, and if white and Asian kids do better on them over all, then colleges not considering those scores is a form DEI run amok.”

    John Friedman, an economics professor at Brown University, has published numerous influential studies on the effects of standardized testing policies, including those cited by the majority of Ivy League institutions that decided to return to test requirements. He said he understands where the Education Department’s skepticism comes from.

    “Schools might be tempted to continue test-optional policies to make it easier to maintain diverse classes, even if that makes it harder to assess students’ academic preparation,’” Friedman said. “I think that’s where some of the angst comes from, as part of a larger concern about higher education moving away from the traditional sense of meritocracy.”

    At the same time, he said the department should consider how institutions use test scores in admissions, which can vary widely.

    “The point is not that you can’t go test-optional. It’s that you shouldn’t if your goal is an end run around the SFFA decision,” Friedman said. “It would be bad to force institutions that decided thoughtfully that test requirements are not best for them to adopt those policies anyway.”

    Dominique Baker, associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, said she doesn’t believe it should matter whether colleges are considering racial diversity in deciding on their testing policies. The truth, she said, is that research on how testing policies affect applicant diversity is murky, and many of the colleges where the policies could have a demonstrable impact have already returned to requiring scores.

    For her, the mention of testing policies alongside other DEI initiatives is “head-scratching.”

    “The places the administration cares about have largely already returned to testing, or are certainly poised to do so soon. So who is this for?” Baker said. “It’s bananas that testing is even in here.”

    Reversing the Test-Optional Tide?

    So far, the letter hasn’t had any effect on institutions’ testing policies. But colleges are starting to respond to the Dear Colleague letter’s guidance in other ways, changing the names of student service offices, scrubbing mentions of race and equity from their websites, eliminating race-conscious programs, and canceling affinity group events.

    “It would be naïve to believe that certain institutions wouldn’t, at the very least, strongly consider changing their testing policies in order to fly under the radar with the administration,” Baker said.

    Some colleges are pushing ahead with their test-optional policies regardless. Last Thursday the University of Vermont announced that its test-optional policy, put in place during the pandemic, would become permanent.

    Jay Jacobs, vice president for enrollment management at Vermont, told Inside Higher Ed the decision was based on years of research that found that removing test requirements not only had little effect on students’ academic performance and persistence, but also helped UVM achieve its goal of enrolling more local and first-generation students.

    He said the university did not take racial diversity into account when measuring the policy’s enrollment impact—“we didn’t want that to be construed as the reason,” he explained—but said that whatever the rationale, he doesn’t believe the Education Department’s guidance should have any influence.

    “No external party should have a say in dictating institutional policy,” Jacobs said.

    Meanwhile, leaders in the assessment industry have remained largely silent about the Trump administration’s promotion of their exams as part of the war on DEI.

    The College Board, which owns and administers the SAT, did not release a public statement about the letter, nor did ACT, Educational Testing Services or any other major assessment organization.

    College Board communications director Holly Stepp wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that the organization believes testing can promote college access, but it does not usually comment on policy matters.

    “College Board provides access and opportunity to millions of students from every background through programs that are mission-driven, evidence-based, and nonpartisan,” Stepp wrote. “We do not set policies around how our exam is used by higher education institutions and scholarship providers.”

    Juan Elizondo, ACT’s strategic communications director for government and public relations, told Inside Higher Ed that the company stands behind institutions’ freedom to set their own testing policies.

    “ACT respects the authority of our higher education partners to decide the admission standards that are right for their institutions,” he wrote.

    Failing the Logic Test

    As colleges like Yale, Harvard and MIT returned to test requirements last year, many cited the same new research: a study from Opportunity Insights that found that test-optional policies made it more difficult for selective institutions to admit students who could succeed academically—and to find qualified applicants from diverse racial and economic backgrounds. Statements from both Yale and Dartmouth said that test scores could “help expand access” for underrepresented groups, including students of color.

    So if both test-optional and test-mandatory policies can promote racial diversity depending on the institution, how will the Trump administration enforce its guidance?

    When asked this question, Trainor did not respond directly but implied that any institution using racial diversity as a justification for any policy, or even citing it as a potential benefit, could be in violation of the current Education Department’s views on civil rights law.

    Friedman, one of the researchers who produced the Opportunity Insights study, said his research showed that for some highly selective colleges, requiring test scores could help “a little bit” with diversity in the selection process. The argument is that by providing a standardized measure of academic preparedness, selective colleges can find a “diamond in the rough”—applicants from underresourced high schools who would struggle to stand out otherwise.

    “For some schools, going back to requiring testing may help improve diversity, but my sense is that improving diversity is not the primary motivation behind this policy change,” he said.

    Feder agreed but had a different prediction.

    “If I’m at the OCR and an Ivy League college is saying, ‘We went back to test requirements because it’s good for diversity,’ even if that’s not really the case, I’d go investigate them,” he said. “By their own logic, they’d have to.”

    Baker said there hasn’t been enough research to determine whether test-optional policies make a huge difference in promoting diversity. Many of the colleges that have kept them in place, she said, have also made more holistic changes to their admissions process that could account for diversity gains. But she believes ending the experiment early by government coercion would be a major step backward.

    “Researchers in the field are doing some real deep dives to better understand the effects of test-optional policies themselves. The people writing the [Dear Colleague] letter have no clue about any of that; they just read about how these policies are part of an anti-white war on meritocracy,” she said. “They’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall.”

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  • What Republican voters want for higher ed

    What Republican voters want for higher ed

    Republican voters believe in the value of college degrees but harbor concerns about accountability and affordability, according to a new national survey conducted by Third Way, a center-left think tank, and GS Strategy Group, a Republican polling group.

    The survey of 500 Republican voters found that most respondents, 63 percent, view four-year degrees as valuable—including 60 percent of voters who have “very favorable” perceptions of President Trump. Trade schools and community colleges enjoy particularly robust support; 91 percent and 87 percent of respondents, respectively, view them favorably. By comparison, 69 percent hold favorable views of four-year colleges and universities, and 37 percent feel positively toward for-profit universities.

    At the same time, Republicans surveyed believe the most needed reforms in higher ed today are greater accountability and greater affordability.

    Most respondents, 87 percent, support increased accountability for higher education institutions. And many believe the government should play various roles to ensure that principle is upheld. Seventy-one percent agree that the federal government should require transparency from institutions and accredit them based on their value to students. The same share believe there should be federal guardrails to prevent “bad actors” from charging students for low-quality degrees. And nearly half agree taxpayer dollars should be withheld from colleges that don’t offer a sufficient return on students’ investment.

    Toward that end, 83 percent of Republicans support the financial value transparency rule, which requires colleges to report program-level information like the total cost of attendance and the amount of private education loans disbursed to students. To make college more affordable, 81 percent of Republicans are in favor of Pell Grants, federal financial aid for low-income students, and 79 percent support the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and income-driven repayment for student loans. Almost 70 percent favor borrower defense to repayment, allowing students who attended fraudulent institutions to have their student loans discharged.

    The report notes that many of these same policies “are being considered for cuts as budget reconciliation heats up.”

    “As Congress considers where to trim the budget this year, it’s important to remember that Republican voters aren’t looking for higher education cuts but rather a renewed emphasis on making it more affordable and holding institutions to the line for delivering a return on investment,” the report concludes.

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  • Ohio University puts Black alumni reunion weekend on hold

    Ohio University puts Black alumni reunion weekend on hold

    Ohio University has postponed its annual Black alumni reunion weekend while it reviews the event in light of the Office for Civil Rights’ Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter, which declared illegal virtually all race-based activities at public institutions.  

    While the Black alumni reunion “has always been open to all individuals who have an interest in the event,” read a statement from the university, “based on OCR’s recent guidance related to Title VI compliance, some of the programming historically included in the event may need to be reimagined. The University is obligated to follow OCR’s guidance in order to protect our access to critical federal funding, including students’ continued access to federal financial aid.”

    The statement also cited the impact of “proposed State of Ohio legislation,” without specifically mentioning SB 1, a bill the Senate has passed that calls for the elimination of DEI statements, offices and trainings.

    “Without question, should this bill pass the House in its current form and be signed into law by the Governor, it will bring changes for all of us,” university president Lori Stewart Gonzalez wrote in an earlier message to the campus community. “However, to define today the specific changes we might make would preempt the legislative process on a bill that is not finalized.”

    Still, all signature events planned for Black alumni reunion weekend, which was scheduled for April 10–13 in Athens, were canceled.

    “While this is difficult news to share, we remain committed to honoring the legacy and accomplishments of Ohio University’s Black alumni,” said planning committee co-chairs Terry Frazier and Jillian Causey in the statement. “We will continue working with the University to develop a plan that aligns with evolving federal and state guidelines while preserving the significance of this gathering.”

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  • ADL, other pro-Israel groups condemn AAUP Palestine webinar

    ADL, other pro-Israel groups condemn AAUP Palestine webinar

    The Anti-Defamation League and four other pro-Israel groups accused the American Association of University Professors of “demonizing Israel” in its framing of and publicity around a webinar titled Scholasticide in Palestine.

    Scholasticide is the intentional eradication of an education system. In a joint letter Thursday, the same day as the webinar, the ADL, the Academic Engagement Network, Hillel International, the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Federations of North America condemned the event’s use of this term.

    “Language used in the event’s description—including ‘scholasticide’ and ‘exterminationist’—suggests the adoption and promotion of a one-sided and inflammatory narrative which deviates from the mission of the AAUP,” the letter said. The groups said there’s “no evidence of any intent by Israel to ‘systemically destroy’ the education system in Gaza or elsewhere. The destruction of institutions, including educational ones, is a tragic byproduct of war, exacerbated when terror groups like Hamas embed their operations within school buildings and other civilian centers.”

    Six months into the latest war in Gaza, a group of independent United Nations experts said in a news release, “It may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.” By then, the release said, the last Gazan university had already been destroyed and “more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza, and over 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured.”

    Miriam Elman, the Academic Engagement Network’s executive director, provided Inside Higher Ed with an email from Donna Murch, a member of the AAUP’s elected national council, inviting members to the webinar. Murch said the event would feature “academics and right-to-education organizers who have experienced, documented and challenged Israel’s ongoing and systematic destruction of the education system in Palestine.”

    An AAUP spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed, “We are not aware that anyone who is objecting to AAUP’s programming actually attended the event, which is part of an extended series of conversations about diverse topics of interest to our members. We take antisemitism very seriously and plan our programming consistent with the principles of academic freedom and academic responsibility that AAUP vigorously defends.”

    The pro-Israel groups also criticized the AAUP event’s promotional material for not mentioning Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelis. The letter says, “We note with dismay that this divisive event is taking place within a wider context of the AAUP being perceived as increasingly moving in a virulently anti-Israel direction.”

    The AAUP has received criticism for its council’s August decision to abandon the group’s nearly 20-year categorical opposition to academic boycotts—such as those often called for against Israel.

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  • Trump’s upheavals worry job-hunting postdoctoral researchers

    Trump’s upheavals worry job-hunting postdoctoral researchers

    Julia Barnes, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow, was watching President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress last week when she heard him refer to her work as an “appalling waste” that needs to end.

    In a list of expenses he called “scams,” Trump mentioned a $60 million project for Indigenous peoples in Latin America.

    “Empowering Afro-Indigenous populations in Colombia, South America, is exactly what I do,” Barnes said. “My project is explicitly DEI, and it is DEI-focused in a foreign country.” The Trump administration has targeted both foreign aid and diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Even before the speech, she knew her work helping such communities, which have faced atrocities, was under threat. Barnes said officials at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she’s based, last month asked her not to travel to Colombia for a planned research trip. She’s taken further precautions herself out of fear that she’ll be forced to repay any NSF grant money she uses, she said.

    She’s not using the money at all—even to pay herself, she said. “I’m drawing on my savings right now to pay rent and pay for groceries,” Barnes said. She’s also teaching at another university and freelancing for a nonprofit. (An NSF spokesperson pointed Inside Higher Ed to an agency webpage that says activities such as travel “are permitted to proceed in accordance with the terms and conditions of existing awards.”)

    “It’s pretty devastating,” she said. “This is the highest position I’ve ever gotten in my career. This is my dream job to do this research; it’s a cause that I care about very deeply.” She said, “It really breaks my heart to see this shift in values away from what I had initially hoped would become a tenure-track professorship and something—something greater.”

    Postdocs like Barnes are worried about their careers amid the tumult of the Trump administration, which has frozen federal funding; canceled grant review meetings; slashed National Institutes of Health payments for indirect research costs; targeted diversity, equity and inclusion activities without clearly defining DEI; and laid off swaths of federal research agency employees.

    Many of those actions have been in flux as judges block and unblock the administration’s orders amid courtroom fights, and as federal officials walk back terminations and other cuts. But university officials nonetheless appear unnerved, with some restricting Ph.D. program admissions and pausing hiring.

    “There’s a very complicated feeling in spending close to a decade of time and energy pursuing this type of career,” said Kevin Bird, who’s on the job hunt. He’s nearing the expiration of his stint as an NSF biology postdoc research fellow at the University of California, Davis, and said he’s always tried to work at public universities because he values their mission.

    “The whole process of striving for this for so long and making the sacrifices—to think it’s worth it—and then kind of having the entire system be attacked and sort of collapse in uncertainty has really been an unpleasant thing to experience,” Bird said.

    The White House didn’t provide an interview or statement last week.

    Looking Overseas

    Counting her undergraduate days, Amanda Shaver said she’s spent 19 years building a science career. Now an NIH postdoc fellow at Johns Hopkins University, she said she feels “so close to the finish line of trying to do everything right for so many years to get a faculty position”—only for it to now “feel unattainable.”

    Shaver said meetings to consider the career transition NIH award she applied for have been postponed, and she wonders whether Trump officials actually axed the program because they considered it a DEI initiative. The NIH didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment last week about the program’s status.

    Looking at the overall future of research and higher education in the U.S., Shaver said, “Things are not good.” She’s applying to positions in other countries.

    In the meantime, she awaits word on what’s happening with her NIH Pathway to Independence Award application. This award—also known as K99/R00—provides recipients money to finish work during their postdoc stints and then start labs at new institutions, Shaver said. “It really sort of elevates you in the candidate pool” for faculty jobs, she said.

    But Shaver—who describes herself as from a low-income family and a disadvantaged school district—said she applied for a version of the award known as MOSAIC, which is meant to keep talented people from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences field. That makes it a potential target of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade.

    Shaver said the MOSAIC website disappeared temporarily, “and people thought that they just weren’t in existence anymore, and people were told to not submit those.” But she had already applied; a study section of faculty was supposed to meet in February to consider the application, she said. That was postponed once, and last week she received an email saying it’s been postponed again until May, she said.

    “I don’t know if they will actually meet or not,” Shaver said. She might apply for the regular version of the award in the future but will then have lost an application cycle and can only keep applying until the fourth year of her postdoc stint, she said.

    “The NIH is the worldwide leader in biomedical research,” she said. “And canceling different types of grants or delaying funding and firing people that are really qualified at the NIH, cutting the indirect costs at universities—all these things collectively are really harming the research industry.”

    She added, “It doesn’t make any sense—I think to any voter—to want to dismantle biomedical research … it’s like a degradation of an entire system that is built on facts and knowledge.”

    Amid the upheaval, it can be hard to tell whether university job cuts stem from Trump’s actions or other factors. Bird, the NSF postdoc at UC Davis, said searches for two tenure-track faculty positions he applied for have been canceled since Trump took office. One of the institutions he mentioned, North Carolina State University, told Inside Higher Ed the search is now progressing, and the other, Clemson University, said its search was canceled to “attract a broader and more qualified candidate pool” and the position will be reposted soon.

    Whatever the reasons for those cuts, “many people I’ve talked to now at institutions are feeling the crunch or feeling the concern about what the next few years might hold if the NIH cuts go through, if any aspect of the indirect rate shifts happen,” Bird said. “It’s kind of forcing a lot of universities to really plan for the worst, I think.” So far, a federal district court judge has blocked the NIH from implementing such cuts.

    He lamented the attacks on efforts to recruit into science more first-generation students and students from historically excluded groups. These attacks change “what the job I could even have would be like—if part of the job isn’t taking that mindset of broadening participation and bringing people into the career path like I was,” said Bird, who comes from a small town and a low-income family.

    All this turmoil is pushing him to start “broadening my horizons,” including looking at positions in Europe or other parts of the world that hopefully “will have more stable science institutions and stable higher education,” he said.

    Job cuts at federal research agencies and universities may increase competition-—and uncertainty—among those trying to take the next step in their careers. Julia Van Etten said, “I have a lot of friends who’ve lost their jobs” as early-career researchers in federal agencies.

    Van Etten, an NSF postdoc research fellow at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, said she’s looking for faculty jobs. But “it’s uncertain how many of those jobs will exist going forward.”

    “There’s a lot more people on the job market here,” Van Etten said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty on the job market here. There seems to be a general feeling that the overseas job markets—if they’re not already—are going to become saturated.”

    “It just feels like the job market is kind of bleak,” she said.

    Van Etten said the government—through funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and other agencies—has already invested much in her education and work. And she’s invested time that might have been wasted.

    “I spent my entire 20s in grad school and working to get my Ph.D.,” she said. “And no one gets a doctorate just for the pay, right? I really love what I do, and I think my work in basic research is really important. And, for the first time in my entire life, I’ve had to start thinking about what I would do if I wasn’t a scientist anymore.”

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  • Trump order restricts PSLF eligibility for certain nonprofits

    Trump order restricts PSLF eligibility for certain nonprofits

    Despite a public push to cancel student debt among civil servants, only a small number of Public Service Loan Forgiveness applications were approved by the first Trump administration.

    Drew Angerer/Getty Images

    In his latest executive action, President Donald Trump directed the Education Department to limit eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

    The order, issued late Friday evening, would require the Education Department to go through a complex and lengthy process known as negotiated rule making, so the directive doesn’t change anything immediately. And Education Secretary Linda McMahon pledged at her confirmation hearing that PSLF will not be eliminated completely, as “that’s the law.” However, the changes could lead to the denial of student loan forgiveness for thousands of nonprofit employees.

    The administration argued the order was a necessary step to “restore the program” and end the subsidization of “illegal activities” such as “illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property, and disruption of the public order.”

    But Democrats and debt relief and consumer protection advocates say it’s another attempt to weaponize the federal government and block funds from reaching public servants in fields the president disagrees with.

    “Don’t be fooled, today’s executive order is blatantly illegal,” Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said in a statement Friday. “It is an attack on working families everywhere and will have a chilling effect on our public service workforce doing the work every day to support our local communities.”

    Like Trump’s other executive orders, this directive is likely to face legal challenges.

    Congress created the PSLF program in 2007 with bipartisan support under former president George W. Bush. It was designed to incentivize Americans to work in public service, by promising student loan forgiveness to federal, state, local or tribal government staff members; civilians working in the military; and the employees of certain nonprofit organizations after they make 10 years of qualifying payments on an approved federal loan repayment plan.

    Historically, recognized nonprofits have included emergency management and crime-reduction services, public interest and civil rights legal groups, and institutions of public health and education. More than two million borrowers are eligible for the program, according to December data from the Education Department, the Associated Press reported.

    But gaining access to the program’s benefits hasn’t always been easy. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the American Federation of Teachers sued then–education secretary Betsy DeVos, alleging “gross mismanagement” of the program. Data showed that of the roughly 76,000 applications submitted between 2017 and the filing of the lawsuit, only about 1 percent had been approved.

    Although the department reached a settlement in fall 2021 and committed to reconsider every application it denied, when the first Trump administration exited office, only 7,000 Americans had received forgiveness. Comparatively, the Biden administration prioritized making the program easier to access and provided more than $74 billion in relief to more than one million borrowers over the course of four years.

    Now, under the new stipulations, fewer borrowers could see relief, advocates said.

    “The PSLF Program has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means,” the order says. “The Secretary of Education shall propose revisions … that ensure the definition of ‘public service’ excludes organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose.”

    According to the order, activities that would disqualify a nonprofit include: aiding or abetting violations of federal immigration laws, supporting terrorism, engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing federal policy, the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children “or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary States for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents,” and aiding and abetting illegal discrimination.

    Although the president didn’t say so directly, experts interpret the order as yet another attempt to discourage activism and chill efforts Trump disagrees with, such as diversity, equity and inclusion; LGBTQ+ advocacy; pro bono defense for undocumented immigrants; and Palestinian statehood.

    Representative Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan and chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, praised the president’s intentions in a statement, saying President Trump is protecting Jewish students from “the hatred they’ve been enduring” on college campuses.

    “Federal dollars shouldn’t fund antisemitism,” he said. “President Trump is stepping up by preventing these activists from receiving windfalls in forgiveness benefits footed by taxpayers.”

    Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington and former chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, says Trump is “holding resources owed to hardworking Americans hostage.”

    “President Trump is once again trying to use his office to force his extreme political views on the American people by choking off promised relief for people who’ve served our country in ways he disagrees with,” she said. “It is as outrageous as it is un-American.”

    But the Trump administration says the order is about more than just preventing “subsidized wrongdoing.” In his view, it’s also a matter of limiting “perverse incentives” for higher education institutions.

    Rather than alleviating worker shortages, the president said, PSLF encourages colleges and universities to increase the cost of tuition and load students in “low-need majors” with “unsustainable” debt.

    To that, debt-relief advocates like the Student Debt Crisis Center say, “Public service workers are the backbone of this country.”

    “This executive order is both illegal and deeply troubling for all nonprofit workers,” SDCC president Natalia Abrams said in a statement. “Relentless political attacks on education and existing programs are not just policy decisions—they disrupt the lives and financial stability of Americans with student debt and their families. This must stop.”

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  • Trump admin cancels $400M in grants at Columbia U

    Trump admin cancels $400M in grants at Columbia U

    The Trump administration announced Friday that it’s cutting $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University as a result of what Republican officials say is “continued inaction” and failure to protect Jewish students at the Ivy League institution.

    The accusations were made in a joint news release from the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Education, and the General Services Administration, all of which are members of an antisemitism task force the president assembled just one month ago through an executive order. Earlier in the week, the task force said it was reviewing Columbia’s $5 billion in federal grants and hinted that it could halt some of the university’s contracts. That notice was the task force’s first major action, and other universities could face similar reviews, experts said Friday.

    “For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in the release. “Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”

    It remains uncertain exactly what grants and contracts will be affected, and the Department of Education did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for clarity.

    Columbia officials said the university is “reviewing the announcement” and pledged to “work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding.”

    “We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously … and are committed to combating antisemitism,” a spokesperson said in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

    Columbia has been a frequent target for Republicans who have taken issue with how colleges responded to a spate of demonstrations protesting Israel’s war in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. That criticism ratcheted up last spring after pro-Palestinian student protesters erected an encampment of tents and later took over a campus building in hopes of persuading the university to divest from companies affiliated with Israel. Those protests, and Columbia’s decision to call in city police in response, not only sparked a national movement but also attracted strong opposition from critics who declared the demonstrations antisemitic and accused the colleges of failing to defend Jewish students.

    Trump officials have pledged to crack down on campus antisemitism, and this action against Columbia could serve as an early test case of how exactly the new administration could follow through on campaign trail promises.

    But canceling a university’s grants and contracts would be unprecedented. Higher education policy experts say that even if it’s just a threat, the concept of pulling funds without proper investigation from the Office for Civil Rights is deeply alarming.

    “You don’t get to punish people just because you don’t like what they’re doing,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education. “The fact that the administration is choosing to simply ignore not just precedent, not just norms, but the actual law covering this should be concerning to a lot of people, not just people at Columbia.”

    The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is tasked with enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race and national origin, including antisemitic and Islamophobic discrimination. The department’s rules and regulations, which Fansmith said are mandated by Title VI, outline how OCR conducts investigations and what to do if the office finds a violation. OCR is required to attempt to reach a resolution with the institution. In the rare case that a college refuses to comply with the law, the case can be referred to the Department of Justice.

    “So while the law doesn’t specifically dictate the process, it dictates the necessity of the process,” Fansmith said. “Nowhere in federal law is the government given the authority to arbitrarily select different types of federal funding and withhold them from an institution absent any prior finding or decision.”

    Republicans from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, on the other hand, praised the decision.

    “Americans do not want their money sent to institutions that serve as breeding grounds for hatred and support for terrorism,” Representative Tim Walberg, the Michigan Republican who chairs the committee, said in a statement. “I applaud the Trump administration for listening to the American people and holding institutions accountable when they fail to combat antisemitic, anti-American values.”

    Walberg and then–committee chair Representative Virginia Foxx were key figures in a scathing interrogation of then–Columbia president Minouche Shafik last spring. They also subpoenaed the university for records in August and published a deep-dive campus antisemitism report in November.

    But these congressional actions, as well as the department’s civil rights investigations, are separate from the actions of the task force.

    “The entire House report would be—what I’m sure many people would consider—a great piece of evidence in an OCR investigation,” Fansmith said. “The Trump administration is just missing the step where OCR does an investigation … which they’re required to in statute.”

    The statement said that Columbia should expect more cancellations.

    ‘Weaponizing’ Funding Cuts

    Similarly to Fansmith, First Amendment advocates see the Trump administration’s move as an overreach designed to intimidate institutions and chill campus free speech rather than address civil rights violations and hate speech.

    Kristen Shahverdian, program director for campus free speech at PEN America, said in a statement that while universities must urgently respond to concerns about antisemitism and ensure that students can participate fully and equally in campus life, they also need to be given “space, time and resources” to do so. The task force has not allowed that, and as a result federal research funding hangs in the balance.

    The Trump administration is “weaponizing nearly every instrument it has to suppress ideas it disfavors and pressure institutions into enforcing ideological alignment,” Shahverdian said. “The threat is sure to reverberate across the higher education sector, just as it seems intended to do.”

    Tyler Coward, lead counsel of government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Inside Higher Ed that though the loss of funds is a potential consequence for institutions that violate antidiscrimination law, they may only face liability if they fail to address the unlawful conduct.

    “If the administration is cutting funding to Columbia for violating Title VI, it must be clear and transparent about how it arrived at that decision and follow all relevant procedural requirements before doing so,” Coward said. And First Amendment–protected speech cannot be punished with the retraction of federal funds, he added. (The release offered no specifics on how the task force made its decision.)

    This “immediate cancellation” violates the law. If the Admin thinks Columbia has violated Title VI by being deliberately indifferent to antisemitic harassment, it has to give Columbia a chance for a hearing first, make findings on the record, & wait 30 days.

    www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03…

    [image or embed]

    — Sam Bagenstos (@sbagen.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 1:27 PM

    Fansmith said he was “not in a position to say” whether Columbia’s response to the student protests, building raids and encampments of 2024 would qualify for punishment under a proper OCR investigation. But the Trump administration “clearly thinks so,” he added.

    “If they are so certain of what the outcome will be, then there’s no harm from conducting an investigation,” he said. But “there’s plenty of harm from not doing it.”

    Trump ‘Walking the Talk’

    But right-leaning advocates for the protection of Jewish students and faculty members say the move was justified and necessary.

    Kenneth Marcus, a prominent civil rights lawyer who ran OCR during Trump’s first term, described Trump’s latest actions as “incredible.”

    “If anyone wasn’t paying attention before, this will get their attention,” said Marcus, who also founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. “There can now be no doubt that the Trump administration has prioritized campus antisemitism far higher than any prior administration has done. They have Columbia University in their scopes today, but no one should doubt that they will be coming after other universities as well.”

    McMahon affirmed Marcus’s take on the situation in an interview with Fox News shortly after the funding cuts were announced.

    “The president has said he’s absolutely not going to allow federal funds to be going to these universities that continue to allow antisemitism,” she said. “Kids ought to go to college and parents ought to feel good about their kids going to college, knowing they’re in a safe environment.”

    Marcus also applauded the Trump administration for utilizing multiple agencies to tackle the problem at once. The Department of Justice was minimally involved in responding to campus antisemitism during Trump’s first term, he said, but this time “the DOJ is leading the charge” and “the difference is palpable.” This weekend, all university administrators should be meeting with their general counsels and ensuring they are doing everything they can to protect all students, Marcus advised.

    “The last administration spoke of a whole-of-government approach. This administration is walking the talk,” he said.

    Liam Knox contributed to this report.



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  • Anti-DEI rhetoric is not same as legal reality (opinion)

    Anti-DEI rhetoric is not same as legal reality (opinion)

    The Trump administration’s anti-DEI playlist has been booming out onto the quad since Inauguration Day. Executive orders denounced “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences,” and the Department of Justice promised to investigate “illegal DEI” activities. The Department of Education asserted that universities have “toxically indoctrinated students” with ideas about “systemic and structural racism” before launching its “End DEI Portal.” Meanwhile, more than 30 states have considered or enacted laws curtailing DEI.

    University responses have been varied and sometimes chaotic. Some have canceled, then reinstated cultural events. Some have scrubbed DEI websites and canceled race-focused events. Others have vowed to “resist.” More than 60 higher education organizations called on the department to rescind its DEI Dear Colleague letter, while one lawsuit seeks to block the DCL and another has won a preliminary injunction as to the executive orders.

    In sum, this is the year the culture war turned into a food fight. It’s understandably chaotic, but the chaos isn’t entirely warranted by the legal moves the administration is making. Behind all the angry words are sober laws that didn’t change on Inauguration Day. The administration’s attack on DEI is rooted in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Naturally, that seminal law doesn’t mention DEI. Here’s what it says:

    “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

    The anti-DEI initiative is based on this law because, unlike other antidiscrimination laws, it prohibits differential treatment almost without exception. This has been especially true since Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, the 2023 Supreme Court case that ended affirmative action based on race.

    Why Title VI?

    Title VI, which bars racial discrimination, is very different from the antidiscrimination laws covering sex and disability, since those laws often require the kind of differential treatment that is illegal in matters of race. For example, Title IX does not require that women and men try out for the same basketball team. To the contrary, it requires that men and women be given equal opportunity to benefit from the program, which in some cases requires the kind of separate-but-equal approach famously made illegal by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. Disability laws are even more rooted in equitable practices like reasonable accommodation, accessible facilities and so on. Discrimination is avoided not by treating people the same but by treating people differently in certain defined ways.

    One key difference between conservative and progressive approaches to antidiscrimination law is about equal versus equitable treatment. Conservatives lean toward equal treatment where possible, so the law that achieves that most clearly is found in Title VI and its constitutional corollary, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The resulting law is simple and powerful: no differential treatment based on race, color or national origin.

    But it is also quite narrow. It doesn’t make DEI illegal, and it won’t “dismantle DEI.” That would require new laws, restricted funding and so on. All that may happen, and some already has—but it can’t be achieved with Title VI, even in the hands of an energetic Office for Civil Rights.

    Political Rhetoric vs. Legal Reality

    The yawning gap between political rhetoric and legal reality is perfectly embodied in the Education Department’s new “End DEI Portal.” Its provocative name appears in the press release—but not on the portal itself, which never mentions DEI (save for in the domain name). The portal is a complaint form for “illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning” based on civil rights law. It’s a tool constructed by lawyers that differs little from the Biden-era complaint form.

    To be sure, the “End DEI Portal” name will induce people to report practices that aren’t illegal—and that will have a chilling effect. But its implementation sticks to the letter of the law. There are many other examples like it.

    Breaking Down the EO and DCL

    The Jan. 21 executive order on DEI has sweeping political language, but its legal provisions are quite conventional. Agencies are ordered to end “discriminatory and illegal” activities and enforce civil rights laws—two long-standing obligations, though opinions vary on how well they have been carried out. It instructs agencies to “combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences” and describes “illegal DEI” as programs “that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences.” For example, under the executive order, federal contractors must now certify that they do not “operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.” Not any DEI program: any that violate antidiscrimination laws.

    The phrase “illegal DEI” invites misunderstanding—but it does not, nor could it, mean that DEI programs are illegal.

    Importantly, the executive order says it cannot limit free speech or teaching —even if that speech or teaching advocates for “the unlawful employment or contracting practices prohibited by this order.” These sober reassurances come near the end, several paragraphs after many people appear to have stopped reading.

    OCR’s Dear Colleague letter is made with the same ingredients: Heated political language condemns DEI programs, while legal language tracks Title VI. The upshot is that, in the department’s view, differential treatment based on race, color or national origin violates the law. OCR followed up with an FAQ document laying this out in detail. It is rooted in law familiar to every civil rights lawyer, and it follows a strict reading of Title VI law that comes from Students for Fair Admissions.

    Problems Still to Be Solved

    Well before the 2024 election, several public universities ended race-based scholarships, and Duke University transformed a race-based scholarship into a program open to all. In a sense, it’s surprising that scholarships based on race or national origin survived this long. The federal regulations implementing Title VI mention financial aid nine times in the section prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, and this language has been the same since at least 1980.

    But even simple things can be uncertain in law. A related regulation allows that universities “may take affirmative action to overcome the effects of conditions which resulted in limiting participation by persons of a particular race, color, or national origin.” This would seem to open the door to scholarships and perhaps other practices based on race. But Title VI of the Civil Rights Act never mentions affirmative action, and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause may forbid it.

    Because of the obvious risks, university programs have long been designed not to classify people by race, color or national origin—but some common practices are in for some scrutiny. Consider a donor who has made a restricted gift to provide scholarship support to students from a specific country—it doesn’t matter if it’s Canada or Kenya. Since Title VI bars preference by national origin, can the university no longer offer that scholarship? If so, how should it be altered to conform to Title VI? Possibilities like this almost seem absurd, but they are among the issues colleges are working out right now.

    Race-based housing or mentoring programs are certainly open to challenge, but it remains to be seen how many such programs there really are. It isn’t illegal for a student club, house, activity or even a scholarship program to be of interest mainly to students of one race. It becomes a problem when a college compels behavior or allocates resources based on race. Take housing as an example. Ethnically themed houses are pretty common, and many are open to anyone. If selection is race-neutral, these should be fine. But it will be no surprise if OCR chooses to investigate housing assignment processes to confirm that they are actually race-neutral.

    The State Attack on DEI

    Over all, the law hasn’t changed much at the federal level, though its enforcement is sure to be more focused. When all the dust has settled, this may be true at the state level, too. I won’t describe the legislation pending in all the different states, but a quick look at Iowa’s DEI laws may shed some light.

    Iowa’s HSB60 is titled “An Act prohibiting private institutions of higher education that participate in the Iowa tuition grant program from establishing diversity, equity, and inclusion offices.” The bill, which closely follows the structure and language of similar legislation passed for Iowa’s public universities last year, does what the title says, so the question is— what is the definition of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” under Iowa law? For both private and public universities, DEI is defined as carrying out policies or procedures “on the basis of” or “with reference to” race, color or ethnicity—and in some cases gender identity, sex or sexual orientation. The definition also includes promoting “as the official position” of the college any of a series of concepts associated with DEI.

    That certainly seems comprehensive—perhaps DEI is indeed illegal in Iowa. But both pieces of legislation explicitly do not apply to academic course instruction, research or creative works, student organizations, invited speakers, performers, or health services. You can drive a truck through these exceptions—a truck roughly the size of a college. These expansive exceptions are probably commanded by the First Amendment, which is one of the reasons why “illegal DEI” in Iowa ends up being pretty similar to “illegal DEI” in the Trump executive orders. It’s shaped like an admittedly very expansive reading of Title VI—with a little Title IX on the side.

    DEI and Religious Liberty

    Free speech is the First Amendment protection that comes to mind most naturally in higher education, but another one might become important for some colleges: the free exercise clause guaranteeing religious liberty. Some colleges state their commitment to diversity in unmistakably religious terms. One can imagine a practice rooted in religious belief that arguably violates the letter of Title VI—for example, distributing certain committee memberships in a representational way, perhaps by national origin. Or, for a college with long-standing missionary connections, scholarships directed to students from certain international religious communities.

    Practices like this could result in a direct collision of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. A very similar scenario was briefly discussed in a recent Supreme Court case, but the court did not resolve it. We may not know the answer unless it comes up. Because the free exercise clause protects not just beliefs but also actions—up to a point—certain practices related to diversity could conceivably have more constitutional protection if they are faith-based.

    So Why Are Some Universities Ditching DEI?

    Over all, it looks like getting into compliance with the law will require small but meaningful adjustments—and perhaps a lot of them. But this doesn’t explain why some universities are retreating from DEI altogether. I can think of four reasons why some are making this move. Three just reflect the reality of 2025, but the fourth may be an unforced error.

    First, state legislatures control public university funding, so even those that don’t pass anti-DEI laws can express their displeasure through the budget. When an institution like the University of Akron cancels race-oriented programs that are clearly protected under the First Amendment and the Jan. 21 executive order, the real reason may be the State Senate’s opposition to DEI.

    Second, research universities rely on big pipelines of grant money from agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Those pipelines have been shown to be fragile, so when a private research university in a very blue state reduces its DEI program, as the University of Southern California appears to have done, it may be out of concern for research grants. Exactly how these funding streams relate to DEI has yet to be fleshed out, but it’s understandable if universities are connecting the two.

    Third, the executive branch may also use its hiring discretion to roll back DEI. In February, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia wrote in a letter to the dean of Georgetown Law School that his office would not hire anyone “who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI.” There are potential legal problems with this, but it’s hard to see how universities can compel the federal government to hire their graduates. The retreat from DEI may be motivated in part by factors like this.

    A fourth explanation is that some university leaders are confusing political language with changes in the law. This is a critical mistake: We believe in rule of law, not rule by law. The law only changes when Congress changes it. The administration’s DEI executive orders did not purport to change the law; neither did the Office for Civil Rights or the Department of Justice. They are expressing sharp views on what the law is—and, in their view, what it has been since the Students for Fair Admissions case in 2023.

    From that perspective, everyone is playing with the same legal cards they had before Inauguration Day. What matters now is our collective commitment to play those cards according to the rules of the game. There’s a lot of change coming, and the courts are destined to be very busy.

    Dan Currell was a senior adviser in the Office for Civil Rights in the first Trump administration.

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  • Elon Musk survives Royal Society expulsion bid

    Elon Musk survives Royal Society expulsion bid

    Elon Musk will remain a fellow of the Royal Society after a meeting to discuss revoking his association with the U.K.’s most prestigious science organization ended without any disciplinary action being taken against the world’s richest man.

    More than 150 fellows met at the world’s oldest scientific society on March 3 to discuss a proposal to expel the controversial Tesla and X boss, who was elected to the U.K. academy in 2018 for his services to science and technology.

    Two leading scientists have already resigned their fellowships over Musk’s fellowship in light of what they believe are several clear breaches of the academy’s code of conduct, including his spearheading of radical cuts to U.S. research funding and his polemics against public figures such as Labour MP Jess Phillips, whom he labeled a “rape genocide apologist.”

    More than 3,400 scientists and academics have also signed an open letter expressing their dismay at the lack of action by the Royal Society.

    However, the meeting appeared to end with no decision on Musk’s fellowship.

    In a statement released after the meeting, the Royal Society explained that “fellows agreed on the need to stand up for science and for scientists around the world in the face of the growing challenges science faces.”

    “Concern was expressed, in particular, about the fate of colleagues in the U.S. who are reportedly facing the prospect of losing their jobs amid threats of radical cutbacks in research funding,” it added.

    No specific mention was made of the motion to expel Musk in the statement, although the society “agreed to look at potential further actions that might help make the case for science and scientific research and counter the misinformation and ideologically motivated attacks on both science and scientists.”

    “Fellows, over 150 of whom attended tonight’s meeting, were united in the need for the society to step up its efforts to advocate for science and scientists at a time when these are under threat as never before and yet at the same time have never been more necessary for humanity at large,” it added.

    This week the Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton added his backing for Musk’s removal, stating that he “should be expelled from the British Royal Society. Not because he peddles conspiracy theories and makes Nazi salutes, but because of the huge damage he is doing to scientific institutions in the U.S. Now let’s see if he really believes in free speech.”

    Musk responded, “Only craven, insecure fools care about awards and memberships. History is the actual judge, always and forever. Your comments above are carelessly ignorant, cruel and false. That said, what specific actions require correction? I will make mistakes, but endeavor to fix them.”

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  • Saint Augustine’s accreditation appeal denied again

    Saint Augustine’s accreditation appeal denied again

    The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges denied Saint Augustine’s University’s appeal to remain accredited, SAU announced Thursday.

    The decision is the latest blow to the embattled historically Black university in North Carolina, which has struggled to maintain its accreditation since December 2023, when SACSCOC voted to strip it of its membership due to compliance issues related to governance and finances. Following that decision, SAU lost an appeal to remain accredited; it won a reprieve in the courts last July but lost accreditation again in December. Now that SASCOC has denied SAU’s latest appeal, the university will again pursue a legal remedy, officials announced.

    “We have made substantial progress and are confident that our strengthened financial position and governance will ensure a positive outcome,” Board of Trustees chairman Brian Boulware said in a Thursday statement announcing plans to contest the accreditation decision in court. “SAU is resilient, and we are resolute in our commitment to academic excellence.”

    Beyond accreditation issues, Saint Augustine’s has navigated severe fiscal issues that left it teetering on the brink of closure for months as it pursued various financial lifelines. SAU recently attempted to lease its campus to 50 Plus 1 Sports, a fledgling Florida company. The $70 million deal to lease property for 99 years with development options would have provided much-needed funds for SAU, but following a review required by state law, North Carolina officials declined to sign off on the arrangement due to the transfer of nonprofit assets.

    SAU had unsuccessfully sought approval of the deal before its appeal to SACSCOC last month.

    The North Carolina attorney general’s office, which reviewed the deal, cited insufficient documentation and concerns that SAU was only receiving $70 million for property appraised at $198 million. Saint Augustine’s and 50 Plus 1 Sports have since restructured the terms of the deal.

    In Thursday’s statement, SAU announced it “secured up to $70 million in sustainability-focused funding at competitive market rates and terms,” which it expects to close later this month. It added that nondisclosure agreements “prevent SAU from publicly disclosing the partners’ names.”

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