As I explored in part 1, the implications of Michael Godsey’s article for higher education are profound, particularly in the way it highlights disparities in student motivation, engagement and academic culture between different types of institutions.
His observations about the buy-in effect at private K-12 schools—where students and their families actively choose and invest in the educational experience—find a parallel in higher education, where the most selective colleges tend to foster stronger academic engagement, often by self-selecting for motivation as much as talent.
Selective Colleges and the Culture of Academic Commitment
Just as Godsey observes that students at private schools like his daughter’s exhibit greater enthusiasm and self-discipline, students at elite colleges and universities often display a higher level of academic investment. This is not necessarily because they are inherently more talented but because they have been filtered through a selection process that prioritizes motivation, work ethic and demonstrated academic dedication.
Students at these institutions expect rigorous coursework and embrace the challenge rather than resisting it.
Faculty are less preoccupied with maintaining order and more focused on deep intellectual engagement because the students themselves uphold a culture of academic seriousness.
The peer effect reinforces engagement—when all students around you are driven, it’s harder to disengage without standing out.
This dynamic is similar to tracking in K-12 schools, where students deemed more academically capable are placed in advanced or honors programs, shielding them from the distractions of less engaged peers. The difference is that in higher education, this sorting happens through admissions rather than within schools.
The Motivation Gap Across Different Types of Colleges
At broad-access institutions, such as regional public universities or community colleges, faculty often encounter a wide spectrum of student engagement—some highly dedicated, others struggling with external obligations and some with little intrinsic motivation for academic work. This presents a challenge similar to what Godsey describes in public high schools:
Many students don’t see themselves as having bought in to the academic experience. They may be there out of necessity (to qualify for a better job or a chance to participate in athletics) rather than a deep commitment to intellectual growth.
External distractions—jobs, family responsibilities, financial pressures—compete with academic priorities, making it harder to sustain focus and engagement.
A culture of disengagement can take hold, just as in the public school classrooms Godsey describes, making it difficult for even motivated students to thrive.
Should Higher Education Track Students More Explicitly?
One implicit takeaway from Godsey’s argument is that students benefit when they are surrounded by peers who share their academic enthusiasm. This raises a controversial but important question for higher education: Should colleges do more to track students into different learning environments based on motivation and engagement, rather than simply ability?
In some ways, this already happens:
Honors programs at public universities function as internal selective institutions, grouping together highly motivated students and giving them smaller, discussion-driven courses with top faculty.
Gated entry into high-demand majors is widespread, often driven to enhance a particular college’s rankings.
Specialized cohorts and living-learning communities create subgroups of engaged students who reinforce each other’s academic commitment.
Highly structured programs (such as those in STEM and pre-professional tracks) implicitly filter for motivation by their demanding course sequences.
Yet, tracking within higher education is far less explicit than in K-12 schools. At many institutions, faculty find themselves teaching classes with highly diverse levels of motivation, which can lead to tensions:
Should professors lower expectations to accommodate less prepared or less motivated students?
Should they hold firm on rigor and risk alienating or failing a significant portion of their class?
How can institutions better cultivate a culture of academic commitment, particularly in settings where students do not automatically arrive with strong buy-in?
Bridging the Motivation Gap in Higher Education
Rather than creating rigid tracking systems that could exacerbate educational inequalities, colleges need to find ways to embed buy-in within all types of institutions. Possible strategies include:
Creating more cohort-based learning models: Small, high-impact learning communities, similar to honors programs but available to all students, can cultivate shared academic identity and accountability.
Rethinking advising and orientation: Encouraging intentional major selection and career goal setting early on can help students see education as a personal investment rather than an obligation.
Using pedagogical strategies that reinforce engagement: Active learning, project-based work and immersive real-world applications can encourage students to see their studies as meaningful.
Reinforcing faculty-student relationships: At elite institutions, students benefit from close faculty mentorship; replicating this at other colleges through structured faculty-student interactions could increase motivation and accountability.
The Best Schools Don’t Just Teach—They Create a Culture of Learning
At first glance, the purpose of education seems straightforward: Schools exist to teach students knowledge and skills. But the most effective institutions do far more than simply deliver content. The best schools create an intellectual culture—a shared commitment to curiosity, critical thinking and lifelong learning.
This distinction is especially relevant in higher education, where student engagement, institutional culture and faculty mentorship shape not just what students learn, but how they learn and apply knowledge beyond the classroom.
The Difference Between Teaching and Cultivating a Learning Culture
This distinction is critical. If universities merely teach, students may approach their studies passively, checking off degree requirements with minimal engagement. But when institutions create a vibrant learning culture, students take ownership of their education. They become active participants in discussions, independent researchers and engaged citizens who seek knowledge not just for grades, but for its intrinsic value.
How a Learning Culture Manifests in Higher Education
A learning culture is shaped by many factors, including institutional values, faculty engagement, student expectations and extracurricular opportunities. The best colleges and universities foster this culture in several ways:
High-impact educational practices: Research has shown that certain experiences—such as undergraduate research, study abroad, service learning and collaborative projects—dramatically enhance student learning. Institutions that embed these practices into coursework ensure that students don’t just passively absorb information but engage with real-world applications of knowledge. For example:
Portland State University incorporates service learning into its capstone courses, requiring students to work on community-based projects.
CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College integrates research experiences into its curriculum, ensuring students engage in inquiry-driven learning from their first year.
Faculty as mentors, not just lecturers: At institutions with strong learning cultures, faculty members do more than deliver lectures—they mentor students, involve them in research and challenge them to think critically. Close faculty-student relationships create opportunities for intellectual exchange outside the classroom. Some universities institutionalize this by:
Encouraging faculty-student lunches or informal discussion groups (e.g., the University of Michigan’s M-PACT mentoring program).
Embedding research experiences in first-year courses (e.g., the University of Texas at Austin’s Freshman Research Initiative).
Intellectual curiosity beyond the classroom: The best colleges cultivate a campuswide intellectual atmosphere. This happens through:
Public lectures, symposia and visiting scholar programs that expose students to ideas beyond their coursework.
Student-driven initiatives like debate societies, interdisciplinary discussion groups and maker spaces.
Engagement with the arts and humanities, ensuring that even students in technical fields experience creative and philosophical inquiry.
Challenging, not just accommodating, students. Many institutions focus heavily on student retention and satisfaction, sometimes at the cost of intellectual rigor. A true culture of learning, however, challenges students. The best universities set high academic expectations while providing the support needed to meet them. Examples include:
Honors programs and cohort-based learning communities that create rigorous academic environments within broader universities.
Writing-intensive courses across all disciplines, reinforcing analytical skills that extend beyond students’ majors.
Project-based and interdisciplinary coursework that requires synthesis of ideas rather than rote memorization.
Implications for Colleges and Universities
If higher education institutions want to cultivate a true learning culture, it must move beyond simply delivering content and reimagine how it engages students. Some key implications include:
Rethinking how we measure success: Universities often emphasize graduation rates, job placement and standardized learning outcomes. While these metrics are important, they do not necessarily reflect a thriving intellectual culture. Institutions should also assess engagement: Are students participating in meaningful discussions? Are they involved in research? Are they developing the habits of lifelong learners?
Ensuring high-impact practices are accessible to all students: Many transformative experiences—such as study abroad and research opportunities—are disproportionately available to students at elite institutions. Public universities and community colleges must find ways to embed these experiences into the curriculum, making them accessible to part-time, commuter and first-generation students.
Prioritizing faculty-student interaction: Universities must incentivize mentorship by valuing faculty engagement with students in promotion and tenure decisions. Large lecture-based institutions should integrate more small-group learning experiences to facilitate faculty-student connections.
Encouraging intellectual risk-taking: A culture of learning is not about teaching students to parrot back information but about encouraging them to take intellectual risks. This means fostering open debate, embracing interdisciplinary inquiry and encouraging creative problem-solving.
Creating a campus climate that values inquiry: Universities must ask themselves: Do students feel that intellectual curiosity is encouraged? Are there informal spaces for discussion and debate? Are students challenged to think critically about complex issues rather than being shielded from uncomfortable ideas?
The University as a Catalyst for Lifelong Learning
A true learning culture does not end at graduation. The best colleges and universities equip students with the intellectual tools to continue learning throughout their lives. This means fostering habits of critical inquiry, a passion for ideas and the ability to adapt to new knowledge.
The best schools, like the most impactful professors, don’t just teach; they inspire curiosity, cultivate resilience and shape the way students engage with the world. If higher education is to fulfill its democratic and intellectual promise, it must embrace this mission—not just to produce degree holders, but to create lifelong learners.
Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and the author, most recently, of The Learning-Centered University: Making College a More Developmental, Experiential and Equitable Experience.
Bill Gates is planning to close his philanthropic foundation in 2045, but not before he ramps up spending on health research and other humanitarian efforts.
STAT News reported Thursday that the Gates Foundation, which launched in 2000, will spend $200 billion over the next two decades—double the $100 billion it spent on global health, development, gender equity and other work during its first 25 years. The announcement comes amid President Trump’s directives to cut billions of dollars in federal research funding to universities, effectively shutter the United States Agency for International Development and withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization.
In an interview with The New York Times, Gates said some of those decisions stunned him and predicted that unless there’s a big reversal of the Trump administration’s policies, “we’ll probably go from 5 million to 6 million” child deaths a year instead of earlier projection that child deaths would decrease by one million.
“The world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children,” he said, referring to the unelected billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk, who runs the Department of Government of Efficiency, which ordered the decimation of USAID. “He put it in the wood chipper because he didn’t go to a party that weekend.”
Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus its resources on achieving three goals: that “no mom, child or baby dies of a preventable cause”; that “the next generation grows up in a world without deadly infectious diseases”; and that “hundreds of millions of people break free from poverty, putting more countries on a path to prosperity.”
“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. “I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world.”
Southern Illinois University in Carbondale is investing in a new dedicated team of first responders to provide care for students experiencing mental health challenges.
A $290,000 grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education will fund training and support for a crisis response team to engage students during emergency calls. Student Health Services at SIU developed a response model based on best practices that ensures students, particularly those from vulnerable populations, receive immediate support and direct connection to appropriate treatment.
The grant is designed to expand and enhance the existing services mandated by the state’s 2020 Mental Health Early Action on Campus Act, which requires two- and four-year colleges to implement various preventative measures and clinical care services for student mental health, including increasing awareness of support services, creating partnerships for mental health services and implementing peer-support networks.
SIU leaders hope the new model, CAPS Plus, will both improve safety for students in critical moments and promote retention and success for students by connecting them with relevant support resources for ongoing care.
What’s the need: Rates of anxiety and depression, as self-reported by students, have grown over the past five years, with about one-third reporting moderate or severe anxiety or depression symptoms, according to the 2024 Healthy Minds study.
While a large number of college students experience poor mental health or have struggled with mental health challenges, connecting students with relevant resources when they need them remains an obstacle to timely care.
About one-third of college students say they don’t know where to seek help on campus if they or a friend are experiencing a mental health crisis, according to a spring 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse. Roughly one in five students said they have not received services for mental or emotional health because they prefer to deal with issues on their own or with support from friends and family, according to the 2023 Healthy Minds survey.
SIU’s Department of Public Safety responded to almost 50 mental health-related incidents in the past year. Student focus groups revealed that participants were aware of the ways encounters with law enforcement have escalated, sometimes resulting in death for the person in crisis. Similarly, past research shows that police involvement can exacerbate mental health challenges, and individuals from marginalized communities are less likely to trust the police.
“We recognize that those in crisis may benefit from intervention services not specifically provided by a law enforcement agency,” said Benjamin Newman, SIU’s director of public safety and chief of police, in an April press release.
A 2022 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found that about one-third of all respondents had “a great deal” of trust in campus safety officers, but only 19 percent of students who had negative interactions with police growing up said the same. Almost half (46 percent) of respondents said they felt safer with police on campus, but Black and Hispanic students were less likely to say they felt this way.
Over 38 percent of survey respondents also said they want colleges and universities to expand mental health supports to improve safety and security on campus, the most popular response.
Put in practice: The university’s Department of Public Safety and the Counseling and Psychological Services office created a collaborative response team to engage students who may need mental health support. Now, if an officer encounters a community member in crisis, a mental health professional is contacted to assist, Newman said.
The collaborative mental health response teams first started in February. The group includes the Department of Public Safety, Counseling and Psychological Services, clinicians, campus administrators, faculty members and external partners, including local emergency room staff.
Team members completed critical incident response and crisis intervention training, in which they learned to identify symptoms of mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, trauma, dementia and delirium as well as de-escalation techniques, intervention steps and transition to treatment services.
Additionally, dispatchers receive training on how to screen and de-escalate calls that could involve mental health concerns so they can effectively alert the crisis team.
In addition to using the grant funding, the university also implemented a mental health and wellness fee for the upcoming academic year to support continued access to services.
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College athletics has fundamentally changed in the last two decades. With students earning thousands—sometimes millions—for their name, image and likeness and changing teams with greater ease via the transfer portal, athletics have transformed from amateur levels to something more akin to a professional sports league.
The imminent ruling on the $2.8 billion House settlement case stands to bring about even more change for the sector.
In the latest episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, Editor in Chief Sara Custer speaks with Karen Weaver, an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania, about what the new landscape means for everyone on college campuses, not just those in the athletic department.
“College athletics have played a critical role in higher education for over 100 years,” said Weaver. “The problem is that the money that has come into so much of college athletics at the highest level is just astronomical.”
With coaching salaries well into the millions and eight-figure investments into athletics facilities, the campus starts to look and feel differently, she said. “I think that has an impact on everybody.”
Meanwhile, ensuring athletes have academic success is further complicated when they can change institutions to pursue more lucrative deals, she said.
“The transfer portal has created an enormous burden on academic counselors and faculty when athletes are supposed to make normal progress toward a degree—all of that is very confusing now,” she said.
Weaver explained what policy shifts mean for the future of Olympic teams as well as Division II and III programs. In light of rumors that President Trump plans to sign an executive order to regulate payments for name, image and likeness, Weaver suggested collective bargaining would be a more comprehensive solution to the legal and financial complexities of the current state of affairs.
“I understand collective bargaining with students is tough, I get that, and it’s messy … but it’s still a legitimate outlet to try to address all of these issues and it needs to be talked about more.”
About 80 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at Columbia University Wednesday as they occupied a reading room in the campus’s library, The New York Times and other sources reported.
The arrests come just over a year after protesters at Columbia occupied Hamilton Hall, an academic building, as part of a massive protest movement that inspired other student demonstrations nationwide but drew ire from Republicans and pro-Israel groups, who argued that the protesters’ chants and signs were antisemitic.
Columbia isn’t the only campus where protesters are seeking to revitalize the movement as the spring semester winds down. Though their numbers are nowhere near the hundreds that erupted last spring, pro-Palestinian protests have sprung up on several campuses in recent weeks—in some cases honoring the anniversary of last year’s demonstrations or calling for charges against student demonstrators to be dropped.
“In light of all of the repression that the student movement for Palestine faced in the wake of the encampment last year, it’s important for us to insist on our demands, which have not changed,” a spokesperson for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine told The News & Observer regarding a daylong demonstration held at the end of April.
Ultimately, it seems that most protesters are asking for the same thing they demanded a year ago: for their institutions to divest from companies with ties to Israel. Only an extremely small number of colleges has done so, but that hasn’t deterred students from trying.
The protests also come amid President Donald Trump’s ongoingattacks on institutions that he believes failed to protect Jewish students during last year’s demonstrations. So far, his administration has frozen billions in federal funding to Columbia and other institutions, and taken steps to deport international students who participated in the protests.
UW and Columbia
Columbia students weren’t alone in taking over a campus building in recent weeks. About 75 protesters at the University of Washington occupied a new engineering building, barricading the doors and starting fires in nearby dumpsters Monday night, The Seattle Times reported. The organizers, part of a group called Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return UW, told the paper they wanted to “repurpose a building that is meant to make weapons of war to a place that serves the needs of students and workers and staff at the University of Washington.”
Three law enforcement agencies were called in to disband the protest; 31 people were arrested.
Administrators at both Columbia and UW have issued statements condemning the protests on their respective campuses. UW president Ana Mari Cauce called the demonstration “dangerous, violent and illegal building occupation and related vandalism.” She condemned statements by the group celebrating Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians, saying the institution would “continue our actions to oppose antisemitism, racism and all forms of biases.”
In a lengthy message to the Columbia campus, Claire Shipman, the recently installed acting president, called the Wednesday protest “utterly unacceptable.”
“Let me be clear: Columbia unequivocally rejects antisemitism and all other forms of harassment and discrimination. And we certainly reject a group of students—and we don’t yet know whether there were outsiders involved—closing down a library in the middle of the week before finals and forcing 900 students out of their study spaces, many leaving belongings behind. Our commitment to a safe, inclusive, and respectful campus community is unshakeable, and we will continue to act decisively to uphold these values,” she wrote.
Both presidents said they attempted to resolve the situation peacefully before sending in police.
Shipman’s statement earned her the praise from members of the Trump administration’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, who said in a statement that they are “confident that Columbia will take the appropriate disciplinary actions for those involved in this act.”
At the same time, the same task force announced it would launch a review of the protest at UW.
“The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism appreciates the university’s strong statement condemning last night’s violence and applauds the quick action by law enforcement officers to remove violent criminals from the university campus,” the task force said in a press release. “While these are good first steps, the university must do more to deter future violence and guarantee that Jewish students have a safe and productive learning environment. The Task Force expects the institution to follow up with enforcement actions and policy changes that are clearly necessary to prevent these uprisings moving forward.”
Arrests Elsewhere
In recent weeks, pro-Palestinian protesters have also been arrested at Swarthmore College, Rutgers University, Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of California, Los Angeles.
At Swarthmore, protesters erected an encampment on Trotter Lawn, a central campus green, on April 30, demanding divestment and the protection of students from the Trump administration. The university began issuing interim suspensions the next day. On May 3, police were called in to tear down the encampment, according to a statement by college president Val Smith. Police arrested nine individuals, including one current and one former student.
The Rutgers protest, held on April 29, was arranged to oppose an appearance by U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, an Israel supporter who participated in a roundtable on antisemitism at the university’s Hillel. Though they were protesting in a designated area near the Hillel, four individuals—three of them Rutgers students—were charged with rioting after they stepped out of the area, blocking a public sidewalk, according to MyCentralJersey.com.
At VCU, one person was arrested April 29 during a gathering to commemorate a clash between protesters and police on campus the previous year. A student organizer with the campus’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter said the event was not a protest. However, university police said it violated a policy that requires authorization for events where students hold signs or banners, The Progress-Index reported. Police asked the students to disperse and arrested one individual who held up a sign chastising police for pepper-spraying protesters last April.
At UCLA, three individuals were arrested at an on-campus showing of The Encampments, a documentary on the pro-Palestinian encampments of spring 2024. According to the university, the event, which drew about 150 guests, was unauthorized because it was hosted by the campus’s SJP chapter, which was suspended in February. The university indicated that the three individuals were arrested for assaulting a police officer and assaulting and robbing a student.
‘Scared to Talk About It’
Despite the recent increase in protests, the Trump administration’s actions—as well as the penalties levied on student protesters by many institutions over the past year—seem to have quieted some planned demonstrations this spring.
Emory University was home to an explosive clash between protesters and police on April 25, 2024, which led to 28 arrests. But this year, according to The Emory Wheel, Emory’s student newspaper, only about 50 people showed up to an event commemorating that day.
One faculty demonstrator told the Wheel that many students no longer felt comfortable protesting.
“It’s clear that there’s just a lot of people who are afraid,” he said. “You don’t have to actually arrest people sometimes to suppress freedom of speech.”
Student protesters at the University of Texas at Austin, the site of over 130 arrests in April 2024, expressed a similar sentiment during a protest marking the anniversary of those arrests. About 100 people showed up, according to the university’s student paper.
“You don’t hear near as many people talking about the genocide that’s going on, even here at UT,” a student told The Daily Texan. “With the 100-plus arrests that [law enforcement] made, people are almost scared to talk about it or to do anything about it.”
The Department of Education canceled this year’s competition for three Fulbright-Hays fellowship programs, adding to the growing list of higher education grants that have been eliminated since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The decision, announced Thursday on the Federal Register, will affect doctoral students and faculty who applied for the Group Projects Abroad, Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad and Faculty Research Abroad programs—all of which focus on expanding American expertise in critical languages and are congressionally mandated.
About 110 individuals and 22 groups from over 55 institutions benefited from these three programs, according to department data, in fiscal year 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. This year, prior to the cancellation, more than 400 applications had been submitted.
Department officials wrote in Thursday’s announcement that the cancellation is just for fiscal year 2025 and was part of a “comprehensive review” to ensure that all competition criteria and priorities “align with the objectives established by the Trump Administration.”
But outside critics say these cuts signify larger problems that stem from cutting nearly half of the department’s staff in March.
The massive reduction in force was sweeping and impacted nearly every sector of the agency, including the International and Foreign Language Education Office, which oversees Fulbright-Hayes. After the cuts, not one IFLE employee remained.
“When [the department] conducted the reductions in force, it claimed it would continue to deliver on all of its statutory requirements,” said Antoinette Flores, director of higher education accountability and quality at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “But this is evidence that it’s not, and it can’t.”
The Department of Education did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for further comment on why the cuts were made and whether the program will resume in fiscal year 2026.
‘A Loss to Education’
All three of the canceled programs were signed into law by President John F. Kennedy during the Cold War in response to national security concerns. The goal was to ensure Americans had the international exposure and comprehensive language training necessary to maintain the nation’s diplomatic, economic, military and technological prowess.
In total, the 12 Fulbright-Hays programs have allocated more than $2 trillion to nearly 58,000 participants since 2000. But now higher education advocates worry that impact will be squandered.
“This is just a cancellation for these grants for this year, but the entire office that ran these programs was let go. It’s a team that had very specific expertise and knowledge that is not easily transferable or replaceable,” said Flores, who worked as a political appointee in the department during the Biden administration. “This is just one year, but long term, it’s a loss to education over all.”
IFLE’s former director of institutional services confirmed Flores’s concerns in a court declaration filed in an ongoing lawsuit from Democratic state attorneys general challenging Trump’s efforts to dismantle the department.
In addition to selecting grant recipients, the anonymous declarant said, IFLE assisted the awardees with securing visas and housing, ensured their work aligned with the goals articulated in their applications, helped establish research affiliations, and responded to safety and security concerns if they arose. Furthermore, each of the 18 staff members had expertise in curriculum development, and most were multilingual—skills the declarant said were “critical.”
Without the staff’s expertise, maintaining the program and meeting the department’s statutory obligations would likely be impossible, the former director explained.
“The complete removal of our team, leaving underqualified and overwhelmed staff left to manage these programs, seems to suggest to me that the decision was not made for budgetary efficiency but rather as part of a broader effort to dismantle international education initiatives within the Department and the America[n] education system,” the declarant explained.
And the consequences will not only fall on this year’s applicants whose proposals will be dismissed, but also on last year’s awardees, who are currently abroad and left with no experienced contact point in the States.
“We put in lifesaving mechanisms to ensure that scholars overseas are safe,” the declarant said. “The absence of this expertise puts scholars at extreme risk.”
The University of Florida is already one of the nation’s premier public universities. But it has the potential to be the very best. That belief—in UF’s momentum, its mission and its future—is what led me to pursue the extraordinary opportunity of the UF presidency.
Santa J. Ono was recently recommended as the sole finalist for the University of Florida presidency.
University of Florida
Over the past several weeks, I’ve had the chance to spend meaningful time with the university’s leadership. I believe deeply in their vision: ambitious, anchored in a culture of excellence and laser-focused on student success. The passion I’ve seen for this institution—including during my visit to campus earlier this week to meet its students, faculty and administrators—is infectious, and the alignment between the Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors, the governor and the Legislature is rare in higher education. This alignment signals seriousness of purpose, and it tells me that Florida is building something truly exceptional. I’m excited to be part of that.
I believe in Florida’s vision for higher education. I understand its priorities, and I support them. I will execute this vision with clarity, consistency and integrity. I put my name forward for this position because I agree with the state leadership’s vision and values for public higher education. My alignment is rooted in principles—like the renewed emphasis on merit, the strengthening of civics and foundational learning, and the belief that our universities should prepare students not just for careers, but for informed citizenship in a free society.
Public universities have a responsibility to remain grounded in academic excellence, intellectual diversity and student achievement. That means rejecting ideological capture, upholding the rule of law and creating a culture where rigorous thinking and open dialogue flourish. I share that commitment.
Like many, I supported what I believed to be the original intent of DEI — ensuring equal opportunity and fairness for every student. That’s something on which most everyone agrees. But over time, I saw how DEI became something else—more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success. That’s why, as president of the University of Michigan, I made the decision to eliminate centralized DEI offices and redirect resources toward academic support and merit-based achievement. It wasn’t universally popular, but it was necessary. I stood by it—and I’ll bring that same clarity of purpose to UF.
The future of higher education depends on a clear mission, a culture of merit and accountability, and a deep commitment to preparing students to thrive in the real world. That means strengthening partnerships with businesses, supporting agriculture and innovation, and ensuring each student—regardless of background—has the opportunity to reach their full potential.
I also understand the challenges of leadership in today’s academic environment. During my tenure leading other public universities, I declined to politicize the institutions or publicly oppose national political figures. I did this because I believe universities must serve as platforms for learning, not partisanship or ideological activism.
Combating antisemitism has been a priority throughout my career. I’ve worked closely with Jewish students, faculty and community leaders to ensure that campuses are places of respect, safety and inclusion for all. I know that the University of Florida has been a national leader in this regard —setting a gold standard in standing firmly against antisemitism and hate. That standard will not change under my leadership. I will continue to ensure that UF is a place where Jewish students feel fully supported, and where all forms of hatred and discrimination are confronted clearly and without hesitation.
Finally, peaceful protest has a place in campus life. But the University of Florida is not a place for disruption, intimidation or lawlessness. If I am approved, UF will remain a campus where all students are safe, where differing views can be heard and where the rule of law is respected.
This is an exciting moment for Florida and for the University of Florida. I’m honored to be a part of it. And I’m ready to get to work.
Santa J. Ono has been recommended as the sole finalist to be the 14th president of the University of Florida. He formerly served as the president of the University of Michigan.
The Vatican announced the selection of a new pope to lead the Catholic Church on Thursday, the first to come from the United States and the first to hold a bachelor’s degree from a U.S. university.
Pope Leo XIV, then Robert Prevost, graduated from Villanova University in 1977.
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost, is a Chicago native who graduated from Villanova University in Philadelphia in 1977 with a bachelor of science in mathematics. In September of that year, he joined the Order of St. Augustine. He took his solemn vows in August 1981 and earned a master of divinity from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982.
Villanova president Peter M. Donohue said in a statement that the university celebrates the election of Pope Leo XIV.
“I cannot help but reflect on what his Augustinian papacy will mean to our university community and our world,” Donohue said. “Known for his humility, gentle spirit, prudence and warmth, Pope Leo XIV’s leadership offers an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to our educational mission.”
For most of his career, Prevost served in Peru, holding roles as a parish pastor, diocesan official, seminar teacher and administrator before becoming bishop of Chiclayo in 2015. In 2023, Pope Francis appointed Prevost prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which increased his visibility and influence in the church, putting him on the path to the papacy.
In addition to being the first pope from the U.S., Leo is also the first dual-citizen pope, holding citizenship in Peru. He’s also the first Augustinian friar to be elected pontiff, reflecting Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic roots.
The last pope to take the name Leo also has ties to American higher education. Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903) gave his formal approval for the founding of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., on April 10, 1887, and the university recognizes this date as Founders Day.
Less than a year after former president Ben Sasse resigned abruptly, the University of Florida has gone in the opposite direction for its next presidential pick, announcing Santa Ono as the sole finalist.
Ono, who stepped down from the University of Michigan presidency last week after less than three years on the job, brings a wealth of academic and research experience: He also served in the top jobs at the University of Cincinnati and the University of British Columbia.
Sasse, a Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska when he was hired in late 2022, previously served as president of Midland University, a small institution in his home state. Despite a lack of experience overseeing a massive research enterprise like UF, Sasse fit a profile in demand in Florida, where GOP lawmakers have ascended to presidencies at multiple universities. But his time at UF was short-lived; after less than 18 months on the job, he stepped down amid a spending scandal. At the time, he cited his wife’s deteriorating health as his reason for leaving.
Ideology has regularly trumped experience in recent Florida presidential hires. Multiple former lawmakers, all Republicans, are at the helm of various state institutions. They include former lieutenant governor Jeanette Nuñez at Florida International University, Adam Hasner at Florida Atlantic University and Richard Corcoran at New College of Florida, among others.
Considering those recent hiring trends, Ono is an outlier—a traditional higher ed candidate in a state where Republican governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Board of Governors, most of whom he appoints, have taken active roles in presidential searches.
And while many faculty members have celebrated the selection of a candidate with strong research and leadership credentials, some conservative figures are pushing back on Ono.
Now a public battle appears to be brewing over who will lead the University of Florida.
Opposition Emerges
When UF announced Ono as the sole finalist for its presidency on Sunday, many observers were shocked that he was leaving his plum job at Michigan so soon. In October, Ono signed an eight-year contract extension with a $1.3 million base salary to keep him at Michigan long term. (Though UF’s compensation package has not yet been released, Ono could earn as much as $3 million a year, according to a salary range set by trustees.)
But almost seven months later, Ono resigned when his candidacy at UF was announced.
Given the trend of DeSantis’s involvement in presidential searches across the state, it seems unlikely Ono would have emerged without the governor’s blessing. But other conservative figures have publicly objected to Ono’s candidacy over concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Michigan, which has been scrutinized for its significant spending on such efforts.
Chris Rufo, a trustee at New College of Florida who has championed anti-DEI efforts nationwide, strongly opposed the pick and called for UF to reverse course on the hire. Rufo has been a regular critic of DEI at UM.
“The finalist for the University of Florida presidency is a left-wing administrator who recently declared his support for ‘DEI 2.0’ and claimed that ‘the climate crisis is the existential challenge of our time.’ Florida deserves better than a standard-issue college president,” Rufo wrote on X.
Congressman Byron Donalds, who represents Florida’s 19th Congressional District and is the expected front-runner to replace DeSantis as governor at the end of his term, has also voiced concerns: “Florida cannot afford to inject wokeness into our flagship university. This selection must be blocked and the search committee must start over,” Donalds wrote in a social media post.
Though he said he was “not involved” with the search and had not talked to Ono, he emphasized that he has faith in UF’s trustees—most of whom he appointed—guiding the pick. He added that the expectations for higher education in Florida were clear, noting the state’s opposition to DEI and what he called a rejection of “woke indoctrination” at state institutions.
“I don’t think that a candidate would have been selected who is not going to abide by those expectations, and I think that you will likely see that will be very clear in this instance. I will let the process play out, but we have put a real serious stake in the ground on this,” DeSantis said.
The governor boasted that Florida “led the efforts” to take down diversity initiatives, which he said the Trump administration has since followed on a national level.
DeSantis also noted that Ono eliminated the University of Michigan’s DEI office in recent months.
“I don’t think that anyone would want to come to the University of Florida if your goal was to pursue a woke agenda. You’re going to run into a brick wall here in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.
If the governor disapproved, he could blow up the search, as he did last month when UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences tried to hire a new dean. In that case, DeSantis ordered the search restarted after his office took issue with DEI statements from candidates. Allowing UF’s hiring effort to proceed seems to suggest at least tacit approval from DeSantis.
Some members of the Florida Board of Governors have also thrown their support behind Ono, pushing back on criticism. Their support is critical, considering that board has the power to upend presidential searches, which it has done in past searches, such as at FAU in 2023.
Florida Board of Governors member Alan Levine has taken to social media to urge fellow conservatives, including Rufo, to give Ono a chance and hear him out through the process.
“Chris, let’s give @SantaJOno a chance to tell his whole story,” Levine wrote in response to Rufo. “He eliminated the DEI office at Michigan. He faced threats and vandalism for standing up to the pro-palestinian/anti-israel/anti-US movement on campus. There seems to be more to Dr. Ono’s actions, and we need to let him tell his story. No candidate is without things they need to explain. I’m open to giving him the chance to do that, particularly given his total body of work.”
The University of Florida declined to comment on critiques of the candidate.
Ono Explains
As Ono exits Michigan, he leaves several controversies in his wake.
The outgoing president has faced criticism for his handling of pro-Palestinian protests in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel and the brutal retaliatory offensive by the Israeli military. Several former employees alleged they were fired for engaging in pro-Palestinian protests, prompting a lawsuit against the university, Ono and others, filed earlier this month.
Michigan has also navigated a series of athletic scandals during Ono’s tenure. Most recently, a former Michigan football coach was accused of hacking the digital accounts of more than 2,000 NCAA athletes and downloading “personal, intimate digital photographs and videos,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Matt Weiss, an assistant at UM from 2021 through early 2023, was charged with 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft in March. The incident also prompted multiple lawsuits against the university.
But in an op-ed shared exclusively with Inside Higher Ed, Ono made no mention of the lawsuits and avoided most other controversies. Instead, he focused on the potential at the University of Florida, emphasizing his belief “in Florida’s vision for higher education” and UF’s leadership.
“The passion I’ve seen for this institution—including during my visit to campus earlier this week to meet its students, faculty and administrators—is infectious, and the alignment between the Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors, the governor and the Legislature is rare in higher education. This alignment signals seriousness of purpose, and it tells me that Florida is building something truly exceptional. I’m excited to be part of that,” Ono wrote in the op-ed Thursday.
Ono echoed themes championed by both DeSantis and Rufo as he argued that universities must reject “ideological capture” and renew “emphasis on merit.” He also sought to distance himself from DEI efforts.
“Like many, I supported what I believed to be the original intent of DEI—ensuring equal opportunity and fairness for every student. That’s something on which most everyone agrees,” he wrote. “But over time, I saw how DEI became something else—more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success. That’s why, as president of the University of Michigan, I made the decision to eliminate centralized DEI offices and redirect resources toward academic support and merit-based achievement. It wasn’t universally popular, but it was necessary.”
Ono added that he would bring “that same clarity of purpose to UF.”
“It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story [on Trump’s attacks on lawyers and law firms], because of the fear now running through our system of justice.” — Scott Pelle, “60 Minutes” (May 4)
That observation prompted my colleague, Angel Eduardo, to caution that we are now in “uncharted and horrifying territory” — a territory governed by coerced compliance. Against that backdrop comes the latest installment of Executive Watch, authored by Professor Timothy Zick.
In the weeks and months ahead, more FAN posts will appear discussing yet other First Amendment issues related to the Trump administration, its executive orders, and related matters. If this seems excessive, it is because (as Zick and I discuss in a forthcoming scholarly article) the suppressive actions taken by this administration are unprecedented in both their breadth and depth.
Vigilance in the service of freedom is no vice, and apathy in response to despotism is no virtue.
Related
Professor Zick’s post is set out below followed by a few news items, including two new federal district court rulings involving First Amendment challenges to anti-DEI executive orders and a NYU Law School item about punishing protestors. — rklc
During his first term as president, Donald Trump signaled that he was not committed to pluralism and expressive liberty when it came to matters like patriotism, public protest, and other forms of dissent. During his second term, Trump has issued multiple executive orders that attempt to impose official orthodoxies or understandings regarding race, gender, patriotism, and other subjects.
My previous post explained how Trump has used executive orders to instigate a whole-of-government assault on free speech, and how that campaign has affected nearly every corner of American life. This post focuses on how Trump has used executive orders to try to purge concepts and ideas from public and private realms and to dictate what is orthodox when it comes to matters Americans sharply disagree on.
Many of Trump’s orders are not only viewpoint discriminatory; their expressly stated purpose is to eradicate certain ideas or ideologies and replace them with officially approved alternatives. Although they seek to impose official ideologies by striking disfavored ideas or concepts, many of the Orders utterly fail to define key concepts, including “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),” “discriminatory equity ideology,” “radical gender ideology,” and “hateful ideology.”
As I explained in my previous installment, such glaring vagueness has a real chilling effect. Faced with losses of many billions in funding or revenue, or with ruinously expensive investigations or prosecutions, many have decided to capitulate or over-comply, scrubbing any potentially offending terms and concepts from trainings, lectures, websites, and other fora.
In 1943, the Supreme Court decided West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which invalidated a state law mandating that students salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each school day. In an iconic and justly famous opinion, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote:
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
Trump’s use of executive orders to impose or coerce adoption of official orthodoxies or views is contrary to a foundational First Amendment principle: The government cannot dictate to Americans what ideas they can support or promote or what they believe.
President Trump’s orthodoxies
Presidents have historically used executive orders to change policies and priorities regarding a wide range of matters, from the scope of anti-discrimination laws, to matters relating to service in the military, to the protection of religious or other liberties. For example, a president might instruct executive agencies to adopt specific legal or policy positions on enforcement of anti-discrimination laws or the protection of Second Amendment rights. And, of course, presidents can engage in their own speech about these and other matters, including through executive orders.
Trump has utilized executive orders for some of these purposes, though in novel ways (and for far more trivial ones, such as dictating what kind of straw can be used in federal buildings). But many of his orders do not merely change enforcement policies or call for agencies to regulate the actions of those who are subject to agency jurisdiction. The First Amendment “tell” in the orders is that they direct agencies to root out and censor the “promotion” of disfavored ideas or concepts.
Many of the president’s executive orders reflect his own personal frustrations and grievances, including the promotion of ideas he believes should never have been expressed, and that the federal government should now use its vast powers to suppress. Thus, a central purpose of the orders is to purge disfavored ideas and concepts from schools, companies, libraries, museums, foundations, and scientific research.
The following examples illustrate these points:
Race
An executive order describes DEI programs as “radical” and “wasteful.” It instructs agencies to coordinate the termination of “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the federal government, under whatever name they appear.” Further, Trump ordered all federal agencies and commissions to provide the director of the Office of Management and Budget with lists of “[f]ederal contractors who have providedDEI training or DEI training materials to agency or department employees” and “[f]ederal grantees who received Federal funding to provide or advance DEI, DEIA, or ‘environmental justice’ programs, services, or activities since Jan. 20, 2021.”
Here as elsewhere, and absent any definitional guidelines, a second order also targets DEI. It requires an office within the Department of Labor to “immediately cease . . . [p]romotingdiversity.” What’s more, the president orders federal agencies to “[e]xcise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear, from Federal acquisition, contracting, grants, and financial assistance procedures.”
“Radical DEI,” an executive order proclaims, must be replaced by “individual dignity, hard work, and excellence,” which are identified as “fundamental to American greatness.”
Promoting, advocating, or even mentioning “DEI” is also forbidden in the private sector. The president orders agencies to root out DEI and in its place “advance in the private sector the policy of individual initiative, excellence, and hard work.” To that end, the president orders agencies to identify the “most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners” within their jurisdictions and to propose investigations of private sector companies to investigate their use of “DEI.”
“Basing Federal policy on truth,” the order proclaims, “is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.” The order criticizes understandings of sex or gender that go beyond biology for “[i]nvalidating the true and biological category of ‘woman.’”
The president rejected “the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa” and proclaimed the administration’s intent not to “regard this false claim as true.”
Trump decreed that “every agency and all Federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their agency shall use the term ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’ in all applicable Federal policies and documents.”
The order required agency heads to “implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex,” as defined in the order. Further, it requires that “[a]gencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.”
In a guidance document sent to all agencies, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management instructed agency heads to review any programs that “promoteor inculcategender ideology,” place on immediate leave any employees whose job descriptions involve “inculcatingor promotinggender ideology,” remove “all outward facing media . . . that inculcate or promotegender ideology,” disable any email features that “prompt users for their pronouns,” cancel trainings and end “resource groups” that “inculcate or promotegender ideology,” and ensure that any agency forms use “sex” instead of “gender” and list only “male” or “female” as options.
In another order relating to gender, the president characterizes service in the Armed Forces by transgender individuals as a form of “radical gender ideology” that harms the military. The order declares that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, it declares that “a man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.” The Order directs the Secretary of Defense to end all pronoun use in the U.S. Armed Forces and take steps to ban transgender individuals from entering or remaining in service.
Official views about gender and gender identity are reflected in other executive orders. For example, an order concerning federal funding for K-12 schools tasks multiple agencies with recommending ways to “rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” that “directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology.” Regarding federal funding, the order states “Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology.”
Patriotism
The executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” conditions federal funding on the adoption by K-12 schools of “patriotic” curricula and threatens to withhold funding from any schools that teach that the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory.”
The order defines “patriotic education” to mean “a presentation of the history of America” that is “inspiring” and “ennobling,” that emphasizes “how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles, and that embraces “the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.”
Trump’s personal conceptions of patriotism are also reflected in executive orders pertaining to immigration and deportation. One order provides that resident aliens who express “hatred for America,” “bear hostile attitudes toward [American] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles,” or “espouse hateful ideology” will be subject to deportation — a threat the administration has now made good on by deporting international students who have engaged in pro-Palestine protests and expression. The order instructs the Secretary of State and other agencies to “recommend any additional measures to be taken that promote a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States.”
American history
In an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump declares, “It is the policy of my administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.” Without even a hint of irony, the order then states, “Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideologicalindoctrination or divisivenarratives that distort our shared history.”
The “Truth and Sanity” order tasks the vice president and other administration officials with “seeking to remove improper ideology from such properties.” An accompanying “Fact Sheet” boasts that the president has ordered officials “to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.” Further, Trump vows to remove “divisiveideology” he claims the prior administration adopted — apparently by imposing an ideology that portrays American history only in the most positive light.
Declaring (and leveraging) official ‘Truths’
As the highlighted language above shows, Trump’s executive orders could not be more transparent about their intent: to declare official “truth” and “falsity” regarding race, gender, and other matters and to punish the “promotion,” advocacy, or even references to competing ideas or ideologies. The orders call on agencies to ban or punish the “promotion” of “diversity” and “radical gender ideology,” instruction that is not “patriotic,” and speech that communicates “hostile attitudes” toward American culture or institutions. The orders declare the “truth” of biological sex and forbid the “promotion” of any other conception, while also banning pronouns and the word “gender” in federal programs. The Trump administration seeks to remove so-called “anti-American ideology” from museums.
As I explained in my previous installment, the effect of the administration’s purported “truth-declaring” on expression has been nothing short of extraordinary. Executive agencies have responded, sometimes with absurd results — including removing exhibits about Jackie Robinson, cancelling celebrations of prominent black or female figures, removing books by black authors from libraries, and scrubbing information about the “Enola Gay” from the Department of Defense website.
Similar effects have occurred outside the government. Corporations, universities, and other federal funding recipients have likewise reacted to the president’s orders by removing disfavored words or concepts from websites and other public-facing documents. Universities have cancelled presentations based on concerns that the content of lectures will run afoul of the orders, broadcast stations have been warned that their licenses may be revoked based on DEI policies, and nonprofits have been instructed to remove potentially offending words and phrases from their grant documents.
The effort to punish expression the administration dislikes or disagrees with extends beyond the areas discussed. For example, a Trump executive order targets a former official who served in his first administration for publicly declaring that the 2020 presidential election was not affected by election fraud — a position contrary to Trump’s own oft-repeated (and oft-debunked) “stolen” election narrative.
The administration has defended the orders by claiming that they merely announce new policies and target unlawfully discriminatory actions by funding grantees and others. Some even purport to preserve protection for speech that promotes or advocates what the orders define as “unlawful employment or contracting practices.” But these claims are belied by the orders themselves, which again repeatedly declare “truth” and “falsity” regarding ideas, ban “promotion” or “advocacy” of forbidden ideologies, and purport to dictate which ideas are and are not “anti-American.”
Despite their questionable validity, the orders have been exceptionally successful in terms of censoring and controlling speech. One of the principal reasons for this success is that the orders are generally vague or unclear about what is allowed and forbidden. Thus, although the concept of DEI is critical to determining whether a grantee is entitled to federal funds, none of the executive orders to date have bothered to provide any official and meaningful definition of the concept. Nor is it clear what to them constitutes “hateful ideology,” “anti-American ideology,” “unpatriotic” instruction, or other forbidden expression. To further illustrate the point, the Trump administration has been clear that it views gender as solely a biological concept; however, it has not been clear about what might constitute “radical gender ideology” or what actions will be treated as “promoting” it.
By design, such ambiguity fosters ideological suppression. As Clint Smith observed in an Atlantic article concerning the administration’s insistence that museums not display “divisive” or “anti-American ideology”:
What does it mean for something to be improper if the administration’s understanding of what is acceptable excludes anything that might make white Americans feel bad? Is the statue of Thomas Jefferson surrounded by bricks inscribed with the names of people he enslaved improper? Is a slave cabin that once sat on the grounds of a plantation in South Carolina improper? Are the shackles that were once locked around the feet of enslaved children improper? Is Harriet Tubman’s silk shawl improper? Is Nat Turner’s Bible improper? Is Emmett Till’s casket improper? Are the photographs of men and women who were lynched as white audiences looked on improper?
This kind of vagueness and uncertainty stifles legitimate speech activity. Faced with ambiguity backed by agency enforcement, many grantees will err on the side of avoiding or excising what government officials might view as “false” ideas, forbidden “promotion,” or disfavored language.
The administration has used the pronouncement of its purported “truths” and forbidden “promotion” as leverage — to threaten investigations, agency actions, and funding denials. Thus, the orders state that any grantee who engages in forbidden DEI or promotes “gender ideology” is subject to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation and substantial funding loss. Charges of engaging in DEI and promoting “radical gender ideology” have provided a pretextual basis for governmental investigations and sanctions against law firms, universities, corporations, broadcasters, and others. For the administration, the lack of clear standards allows it to declare that grantees and others are in default, hence triggering lengthy and invasive investigations. To avoid the sanctions, some targeted entities and individuals have simply folded. The administration has similarly relied on vague definitions or standards regarding so-called “anti-Semitism” to intimidate and coerce universities into “settling” unproven claims.
The undemocratic benefits of vagueness
Thus far, the administration’s lack of clarity has worked in its favor. Given the ambiguity, it can be difficult to demonstrate that the government’s funding decisions are based on disagreement with viewpoints as opposed to responses to what it considers discriminatory practices or shifting policy positions.
Trump’s reliance on vague directives and implicit threats requires that courts treat “jawboning” and other informal means of coercion as just as problematic as more direct forms of suppression. The Supreme Court held in a recent decision that New York officials could not coerce financial institutions to cease dealings with the National Rifle Association. Likewise, the Trump administration is allowed to seek to persuade funding grantees and the Nation that its conceptions of race, gender, patriotism, and history are “true.” But it cannot coerce grantees to accept those “truths” through sanction or suppression of speech.
However this issue is resolved in courts, we should be aware that much of the damage has already been done. As Justice Jackson explained in Barnette, coercing individuals and institutions to accept official orthodoxies “invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.” More ominously, Jackson warned, allowing officials to dictate what is “true” or “false” in the field of contested ideas leads only to “the unanimity of the graveyard.”
Elections have consequences . . . but imposing orthodoxies cannot be one of them
Governments are entitled to communicate their views about race, gender, patriotism, and other subjects. Further, no one has a legal or constitutional right to federal funding. However, if the government is going to make federal funding available, it cannot deny or remove it based on a grantee’s promotion or advocacy of disfavored ideas or concepts. It cannot punish instructors for teaching or discussing DEI, scientists for conducting research focused on “diverse” or “disadvantaged” patient populations, or museums for communicating “divisive” viewpoints about American culture and history.
One of the key tenets of our First Amendment freedoms is that sometimes minority rights must trump majoritarian will. This is especially true when certain viewpoints are protected while others are prosecuted. By that measure, compelled orthodoxy is an affront to those free speech principles that distinguish our Madisonian democracy from other regimes that give lip service, if that, to such worthy principles.
Court denies First Amendment challenge in anti-DEI case
Plaintiffs are three nonprofit organizations that incorporate DEI into their work. They also contract with and receive funding from several federal agencies. Concerned that President Trump’s executive orders will prevent them from fulfilling their organizational missions, Plaintiffs sued to enjoin a host of agencies and officials from enforcing the orders. They moved for a preliminary injunction over a week later, arguing that eight provisions of the orders are unconstitutional under the First or Fifth Amendment — or both. More specifically, Plaintiffs contend that the challenged provisions are impermissibly vague, chill protected speech, and amount to unlawful viewpoint discrimination.
But Plaintiffs have not shown that they are likely to succeed on any of those claims, so the extraordinary relief of a preliminary injunction is unwarranted. For half the challenged provisions, Plaintiffs fail to establish a prerequisite to success on the merits: standing. Presidential directives to subordinates that inflict no concrete harm on private parties — or at least not on these parties — do not present a justiciable case or controversy. And for the remaining provisions, Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims falter for various reasons. Two throughlines explain most of them. The government need not subsidize the exercise of constitutional rights to avoid infringing them, and the Constitution does not provide a right to violate federal antidiscrimination law. And those pressure points are even harder to overcome for Plaintiffs, who bring facial rather than as-applied challenges.
Preliminary injunction remains in force in challenge to anti-DEI order
This Court remains of the view that Plaintiffs have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their facial free speech and vagueness claims, as this Court previously explained. . . . The Challenged Provisions forbid government contractors and grantees from engaging in “equity-related” work and from “promoting DEI” in ways the administration may consider to violate antidiscrimination laws; they demand that the “private sector” “end . . . DEI” and threaten “strategic enforcement” to effectuate the “end[ing]” of “DEI”; and they threaten contractors and grantees with enforcement actions with the explicit purpose of ‘deter[ring]’ such ‘programs or principles.’ . . . This Court remains deeply troubled that the Challenged Provisions, which constitute content-based, viewpoint-discriminatory restrictions on speech (in addition to conduct), have the inherent and ineluctable effect of silencing speech that has long been, and remains, protected by the First Amendment. And they do so through impermissibly vague directives that exacerbate the speech-chilling aspects of the Challenged Provisions.
Historically, the metaphor used to describe the effect of laws that restrict speech is “chill.” The more apt metaphor here is “extinguish.” Part of the explicit purpose and effect of the Challenged Provisions is to stifle debate — to silence selected viewpoints, selected discourse — on matters of public concern. They forbid government contractors and grantees from engaging in discourse — including speech such as teaching, conferences, writing, speaking, etc. — if that discourse is “related” to “equity.” And they direct the “private sector” to “end” diversity, to “end” equity, and to “end” inclusion. See J21 Order § 4(b) (directing agencies to “encourage the private sector to end . . . DEI”). “End” is not a mere “chill.” “Deter[rence]” is not a side-effect of the Challenged Provisions; their explicit goal is to “deter” not only “programs” but “principles” — i.e. ideas, concepts, values. After all, the opposite of inclusion is exclusion; the opposite of equity is inequity; and, at least in some forms, the opposite of diversity is segregation.
The government has apparently concluded, and takes the position, that particular employment practices, for example related to hiring or promotion, constitute discrimination in ways that violate Title VI or Title VII. But the Challenged Provisions do far, far more than announce a change in enforcement priorities within the bounds of existing law. For as vague as the Challenged Provisions are about some matters, see ECF No. 44 at 36-44, 53-55, there can be no serious question that the direct and necessary impact of those provisions — and purposeful, to the extent that matters — is to extinguish discourse throughout civil society on what makes our society diverse, the different perspectives we each bring to bear based our respective upbringing, family history, community, economic circumstances, race, national origin, gender, ability, sexual orientation, or the like. These executive directives seek to extinguish discourse about our shared history. They seek to extinguish discourse about how to strive toward greater inclusivity, or even what that means, or whether that is a worthy goal.
[ . . . ]
Upon consideration of the motion to vacate the preliminary injunction, ECF No. 77, and the response and reply thereto, and after oral argument on April 10, 2025, and for the reasons provided above, it is ORDERED that the motion is DENIED.
NYU Law School saga — right to take exams and lawfully protest reinstated
Pro-Palestine law students at New York University have secured a major victory against the university administration’s attempts to silence protests. On May 4, the NYU administration confirmed that 31 law students who had been barred from campus and prohibited from sitting for final exams, unless they sign away their right to protest, are now permitted to take their exams.
“This type of public pressure, the backlash that [the administration] got from not allowing students to sit for exams, was not something that they expected,” said one of the affected NYU law students, who spoke to Peoples Dispatch about this latest decision.
The NYU administration had sent a message out to 31 law students, barring them from campus including to take exams, unless they signed a “Use of Space Agreement” which included the language “you may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property.” The law students who received the message are accused of participating in peaceful sit-in protests on March 4 and April 29, at NYU’s library and outside the office of the dean of the law school.
These student activists have pointed out that this is a form of protest permitted by the school’s own outlined policies. NYU’s Guidance and Expectations on Student Conduct explicitly states that “peacefully protesting on University property” is a type of “permitted” protest.
Tinker-type case distributed for conference nine times
The case is L.M. v. Town of Middleborough. The issue raised in the case is whether school officials may presume substantial disruption or a violation of the rights of others from a student’s silent, passive, and untargeted ideological speech simply because that speech relates to matters of personal identity, even when the speech responds to the school’s opposing views, actions, or policies.
The case has been on the docket since early October of last year. Since then it has been distributed for conference eight times between Dec. 6, 2024 and May 2, 2025. Eighteen states have filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioner.
2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases
Cases decided
Villarreal v. Alaniz(Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
Murphy v. Schmitt (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd v. Garland(9-0: The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)
Review granted
Pending petitions
Petitions denied
Emergency Applications
Yost v. Ohio Attorney General (Kavanaugh, J., “IT IS ORDERED that the March 14, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, case No. 2:24-cv-1401, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court. It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Wednesday, April 16, 2025, by 5 p.m. (EDT).”)
Free speech related
Mahmoud v. Taylor (argued April 22 / free exercise case: issue: Whether public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.)
Thompson v. United States (decided: 3-21-25/ 9-0 w special concurrences by Alito and Jackson) (interpretation of 18 U. S. C. §1014 re: “false statements”)
This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIRE as part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIRE or Mr. Collins.
