Tag: News

Harvard Resists Trump’s Demands

Protesters in Cambridge urged Harvard to resist Trump’s demands at a Saturday rally.

Erin Clark/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Harvard University is pushing back on demands from the Trump administration calling for a long list of institutional reforms in response to alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations on campus.

Nearly $9 billion in federal contracts and grants hang in the balance at the institution amid a review the administration announced last month, alleging the university has mishandled instances of antisemitic harassment on campus.

President Alan Garber said Monday that the institution will not accept the administration’s agreement, writing that Harvard “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

Hours later, the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a freeze on $2.2 billion in multiyear grant funding for the institution and $60 million in multiyear contracts.

The Trump administration presented Harvard with at least two demand letters, the first on April 3 and another on Friday. The letters call for changes to governance, hiring and admissions, a ban on masks, and more, including greater scrutiny of international applicants to exclude “students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,” according to one letter.

“Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment. But we appreciate your expression of commitment to repairing those failures and welcome your collaboration in restoring the University to its promise,” top officials at the General Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wrote in Friday’s letter to Harvard leadership.

Friday’s letter also called for a mask ban; a shutdown of all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and the reformation of multiple programs “with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.” Targets include Harvard’s Divinity School, Graduate School of Education, School of Public Health, Medical School, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic and several others.

The administration also called for the university to “commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.”

In a public letter to the Harvard community, Garber rejected the sweeping demands.

“Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to ‘maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.’ It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner,” Garber wrote. “Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”

Garber’s letter rejecting Trump’s demands also included a link to the legal response sent to the federal government, which noted changes to campus policies and “new accountability procedures” introduced at the university over the course of the last 15 months.

“It is unfortunate, then, that your letter disregards Harvard’s efforts and instead presents demands that, in contravention of the First Amendment, invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court,” lawyers representing the university wrote in response.

In addition to freezing more than $2 billion in federal funding, the joint task force responded to the institution’s rejection, saying, “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges—that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”

Harvard’s pushback is a rare repudiation of Trump from an individual institution. While various associations and faculty groups have spoken up on the federal government’s attacks on higher education, most college presidents have been silent, even at targeted institutions. (Only a few, such as Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, have publicly expressed concerns.)

Last month Columbia University yielded to a sweeping list of similar demands, despite concerns by various legal scholars, as the Trump administration froze $400 million in federal research funding. Since then, Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong has stepped down and the U.S. National Institutes of Health have frozen another $250 million in funding, despite the agreement. While Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said Columbia is on the “right track” to restore funding, that hasn’t happened yet, and the federal government is reportedly seeking more oversight.

Dozens of colleges across the nation—including others in the Ivy League—are also facing investigations into alleged antisemitism and other issues, including race-based programs or scholarships and the participation of transgender athletes in intercollegiate athletics.

Universities that have had their federal funding targeted include Cornell University (more than $1 billion), Northwestern University ($790 million), Brown University ($510 million), Princeton University ($210 million) and the University of Pennsylvania ($175 million).

Harvard’s rebuttal to the federal government comes as the university plans to issue $750 million in bonds, which a spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed was “part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” Princeton is also issuing $320 million in bonds this spring.

Harvard faculty have also taken legal action against the Trump administration.

The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday alleging that the review of Harvard’s funds was an illegal exploitation of the Civil Rights Act and an effort to impose political views upon the institution.

The lawsuit alleged that the Trump administration’s “unlawful actions have already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting academic research and inquiry at Harvard, including in areas that have no relation whatsoever to charges of antisemitism or other civil rights violations.”

Harvard’s AAUP chapter also signed a lawsuit last month with other faculty groups pushing back on the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest and deport pro-Palestinian student activists.

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April 14, 2025
Ideas for Relationship-Building as Resistance (opinion)

As Subini Annamma and David Stovall write in their February piece, “Standing Up to the New Segregationists,” “When universities stay silent or indicate their willingness to comply with executive orders that seek to dehumanize anyone who is not white, male and cisgender, they are sending a message.”

We would argue that all of us in the system of higher education, on individual and collective levels, are sending messages with our action or nonaction at this moment. The past few months have been a period of chaos marked by rapid-fire executive orders, threats to college and university funding, and presidential edicts that undermine higher education’s fundamental values. The whiplash of ongoing executive actions and their judicial reversals is overwhelming, and the ground keeps shaking under our feet.

Consistent with a traumatic experience (when events occur faster than our ability to cope), some of us may be experiencing a kind of trauma response, an instinctive response to a perceived threat. Most of us have heard about fight-or-flight modes, but it seems to be fawn and freeze responses that are playing out at many institutions across the country. The fawning response in higher education manifested in the form of anticipatory compliance in the face of threats to colleges’ federal funding. Diversity, equity and inclusion offices were jettisoned within a blink of an eye.

We also are seeing some of our colleagues struggling with the task of revising position descriptions and scrubbing institutional websites, all while trying to support their colleagues who are most at risk. And there are many of us who don’t know what to do; feeling unsettled and fearful, we are just trying to make it through each day.

Despite what is happening around us, we have to continue to attend to our work—to do all of the things that keep the institution running, to be in relationship with our colleagues and to be in classroom spaces with our students. We may be asking ourselves how we can show up in a meaningful way when our world is on fire, or how we can move forward when we feel so powerless.

But if we do nothing, what does that say about our commitment to the essential promises of education—to the free exchange of ideas and academic freedom, to a belief in science and innovation, and, most especially, to our commitment to access, diversity and equity, which we know enhances the learning experience for everyone? Are these not the things that drew us to education in the first place?

This moment is calling us back to our essential purposes—the deep relationships with students, the excitement of new ideas bubbling up and the sense of freedom that comes from the creation of knowledge in the context of community. It is time for us to get to work, to reclaim our spaces, to take a stand. We cannot wait for someone else to save us: We must save ourselves. And we do so through deep relationships within the context of community. As we have learned from bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Paulo Freire and Kimberlé Crenshaw, relationships will be our resistance.

Relationships are not just the touchy-feely outcome of safe learning spaces: They are the foundation. And what better action can we take to protect ourselves and our communities from harm than by strengthening our foundation for this moment and what lies ahead? Fortunately for us all, whether you are an educator or institutional leader who has always prioritized relationships or one who is looking to strengthen your community as the ground beneath higher education rumbles and shakes, relatively small efforts (which is perhaps all we can muster) can reap far-reaching benefits.

There are a myriad of brilliant ways to foster belonging, structure brave dialogue spaces and listen deeply to others, indeed, many more than we could possibly incorporate here. What we offer are some practical ways to grow and maintain an ethic of care and relational accountability. We hope this inspires simple ways for you to gather with others or maybe gives you permission to explore your own ideas for slowing down to the speed of relationship-building. What we share here are not new ideas, but they may have been forgotten.

The offerings below span many cultures and have been practiced in one form or another by communities over time in response to oppressive regimes across the globe. We just have to recall the wisdom of our ancestors and employ some of their communal resistance strategies. They made sense of the world, grieved, resisted and found joy. So, too, must we.

Notice and Name It

“I believe we have a responsibility to create ways of understanding political and historical realities that will create possibilities for change. I think that this is our role, to develop ways of working through which, little by little, the oppressed can unveil their reality.” —Paulo Freire

We can’t pretend that what is happening in the world doesn’t impact us, our students or their learning. Perceived and real threats of harm impede learning and development. In noticing and naming what is happening, we give ourselves and our students a means of coming to terms with it. When we name the fears and acknowledge uncertainty, we release a bit of the tension and welcome participants in all their experiences. This could involve a facilitator-led nod to the political climate, musings from the group of what they are holding in their minds, a meditative moment or a two-minute journaling activity in which students reflect on what they need to let go of in order to be present for the work ahead in class. These techniques can be just as helpful in meetings and other convenings of staff and faculty.

In location-diverse, online environments, where you can expect a wide range of pressing matters, feel free to use or adapt this Acknowledgment Statement developed by emareena danielles and Deborah Kronenberg for a PODlive series on facilitation.

Play: A Shortcut to Joy and Laughter

Play and laughter are part of our ancestral languages, of our somatic ways of being. They exist across every culture to fuel us, nourish us and allow us to be more fully human. When was the last time you used your body or voice or language in a new way? How can you make space for a moment of play at the start of any group work or class, faculty development workshop, or community meeting? As easy as making a sound and movement, drawing with your nondominant hand, appropriating a childhood game toward a collective goal, or engaging in gibberish conversations, the small, silly risk will lead to a room (virtual or otherwise) of laughter.

The collective release of emotion through play creates a community poised to dig into the work with joy and openness and gives us a reference point of when we took a risk, went with the flow and practiced resilience. For a great resource, Moving Beyond Icebreakers by Stanley Pollack with Mary Fusoni not only has a plethora of games to try but teaches facilitators how to use the games as metaphors for the work ahead. You may also want to check out Professors at Play for a more in-depth discourse.

Tell Stories

“We tell stories because we are human. But we are also made more human because we tell stories. When we do this, we tap into an ancient power that makes us, and the world, more of who we are: a single race looking for reasons, searching for purpose, seeking to find ourselves.” —Amanda Gorman

Storytelling is a tradition that transcends cultures and communities and helps us make meaning of experiences. Nothing creates a connection between two people quite like sharing real stories from their own experiences and making meaning of the ideas together. A brief pair storytelling activity or a full Story Circle process holistically engages us all, pulling more of ourselves into the room. Stories activate our deep listening capacity, build authentic connections and remind us of why we are here in this moment, doing this work.

Gather Together

“I have seen, over and over, the connection between tuning into what brings aliveness into our systems and being able to access personal, relational and communal power.” —adrienne maree brown, Pleasure Activism

When we are exhausted and overwhelmed, it is easy to isolate. But as the news headlines continue to keep us in a state of constant upset and tension, we can choose to pull away from our individual screens as a means of resistance, as a conscious choice to be our full selves and band together with others. Whether through synchronized movie nights, local stitching circles or open mikes, coming together builds our relationships and positively impacts our communities’ efficacy. At College Unbound, students, faculty and staff kick off our in-person classes by breaking bread together to settle into our beautiful community before the academics begin. Gather however and whenever you can and know you are generating power by doing so.

Self-Care

As facilitators of relationships, of learning, of change-makers, we also have to care for ourselves. Here, we are not talking about indulging oneself with the luxury of a spa day. We are talking about the radical practice of taking care, slowing down and saying no to productivity as an indicator of self-worth. We can also care for ourselves through connection with peers both within and outside the field of education. We can prioritize our own joy, however that comes, and know that our rest is resistance, too (check out Tricia Hersey’s work).

Resistance is needed now and mercifully comes in many forms. It might show up in marches and protests, but it can also be found in discovering what is within our locus of control and reclaiming our own agency. Our facilitation of spaces that build a sense of agency for students, staff and ourselves in solidarity can grow power.

The antidote to oppression can be found in these glimpses of liberation, in spaces where we are unafraid and can imagine a more just world. In this context, we also build up our reserves for the journey toward the future we seek to manifest.

If we can take a moment away from the chatter and from the bombardment of headlines meant to cause chaos, we can tap into our collective histories and remember: We know how to do this. Let’s recognize all the work we are already doing, the embedded relationship-building that has sustained us until now. And let’s continue to do the work that brought us to these educational spaces. The relational work we foster is the bedrock for the world we need to create together.

Sylvia C. Spears is serving as provost and Distinguished Professor of Education, Equity and Social Justice at College Unbound, a small, private degree-completion college focused on adult learners.

Deborah Kronenberg is an educator, consultant and public speaker who approaches communities of learning with creative, interdisciplinary, relationship-centric leadership in faculty and administrative roles in the greater Boston area.

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April 14, 2025
Some DEI Programs Are Vulnerable, Not Illegal (opinion)

The Trump administration’s directives on diversity, equity and inclusion have wreaked havoc across the higher education landscape. Confusion persists about whether all DEI activities are forbidden or just ones that are officially illegal. To top it off, there’s much bewilderment about what exactly constitutes an “illegal DEI” activity.

The ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. When people are confused about what’s legal or not, they’ll overcorrect out of fear. As a result, we see colleges and universities scrubbing DEI websites and cutting diversity-related programming. The outcome? A hasty, often over-the-top retreat from efforts that serve students and faculty alike.

Critically, some of the programs deemed illegal by the Trump administration have not been ruled unlawful in the courts, such as scholarships and prizes that consider race or ethnicity in the selection process. The more accurate term to describe them is “vulnerable” rather than “illegal.” In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court specifically struck down a form of race-conscious admissions. While a court technically could apply SFFA in the future to render consideration of race in scholarships and recruitment efforts illegal, that day has yet to come, despite the current administration’s faulty interpretation of the ruling.

Even Ed Blum, who organized the SFFA lawsuits, acknowledges this distinction, as reported in Inside Higher Ed: “Blum doesn’t actually believe the [SFFA] decision itself extends to those programs [e.g., race-conscious scholarships, internships or pre-college programs]. He does think they’re illegal—there just hasn’t been a successful case challenging them yet.”

“I haven’t really made myself clear on this, which is my fault,” Blum told Inside Higher Ed in February, “but the SFFA opinion didn’t change the law for those policies.”

So what does that mean for colleges and universities? The fuzziness over the legality of traditional race-conscious scholarships and recruitment programs will remain until the question is decided by the courts. While the majority ruling in SFFA led some to assume that all race-conscious programs will be deemed unconstitutional, the outcome is unknown. Courts could view the stakes or dynamics of nonadmissions programs (e.g., scholarships, outreach) as differing enough from the hypercompetitive context of selective college admissions to allow continued consideration of race. Institutions and organizations could also argue that race-conscious programs are needed to address specific, documented historic discrimination. This argument is different from defending race-conscious initiatives due to broad societal discrimination, as noted by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Likely, many institutions and organizations will move away from using race/ethnicity in the selection process for scholarships and other nonadmissions programs, out of fear of litigation and threats of federal funding being withdrawn. However, they may retool selection processes to consider factors related to their missions and goals, such as prioritizing those who show a commitment to supporting historically underserved populations. Further, if the ruling in SFFA is going to be used to attack nonadmissions programs, we can’t forget that it also affirms the right of programs to consider individuals’ experiences related to race. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

The Ph.D. Project, the focus of Title VI investigations by the Department of Education, is an example of a program that was, in prior iterations, vulnerable but not necessarily illegal. The department announced last month that it had launched investigations of 45 universities over their partnerships with the Ph.D. Project, alleging that the nonprofit, which offers mentorship, networking and support for prospective Ph.D. candidates in business, “limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”

The Ph.D. Project has already said that it changed its eligibility criteria earlier this year to be open to anyone who “is interested in helping to expand and broaden the pool of [business] talent”—so what will become of the investigations? Quite possibly, the Education Department will accuse institutions of breaking the law for partnering with an outreach program that in prior iterations considered race in its selection process—which is how the department likes to interpret SFFA, but that is still unsettled legal territory. Courts likely won’t hear a case on the Ph.D. Project because the program has already changed its selection criteria, so we still won’t know whether it’s legal or not to consider race in outreach programs. Until that question goes to court, we’ll probably have institutional decision-making driven more by the chilling effects of the Title VI investigations as opposed to actual law.

While programs that consider race in selection criteria are vulnerable, there are plenty of diversity-related programs and initiatives that are not, or should not be as long as they are open to all students. Programs like speaker series, workshops, lunch and learns, training programs, cultural events, resource websites, racial/ethnic or culturally focused student organizations, administrative infrastructure, and task forces related to advancing a more supportive and inclusive environment—all of these can continue to play a critical part in advancing an institution’s mission and goals.

In spite of this, the Trump administration recently proclaimed that DEI programs fuel “division and hatred” and ordered Harvard to “shutter such programs.” However, in previous communications, even the Trump administration has recognized that common DEI initiatives “do not inherently violate federal civil rights laws,” as noted by a group of leading law faculty. The directive to Harvard is serious overreach on multiple levels. We can only hope that Harvard will not capitulate to the administration’s demands and will defend its rights as an institution.

Over all, institutions must resist panic-driven overcorrections. When vulnerable programs are threatened, institutions with the resources to do so should defend them in court. In other circumstances, retooling programs, rather than eliminating them, may be necessary. Institutions should not abandon diversity, equity and inclusion efforts out of fear; instead, they should seek to support diversity both lawfully and well.

The Trump administration’s strategy is clear: sow doubt and encourage institutions to retreat. Instead of gutting diversity-related efforts wholesale, institutions need to take a more thoughtful approach. Our students depend on it, and so does the future of education.

Julie J. Park is a professor of education at the University of Maryland, College Park, and served as a consulting expert on the side of Harvard College in SFFA v. Harvard. She is the author of the upcoming book Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: A New Era in College Admissions, as well as two other books on race-conscious admissions.

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April 14, 2025
Admissions Offices Brace for Federal Scrutiny

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Orwell in the Reading Room

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crusade in Search of a Problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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April 14, 2025
UNC Chapel Hill Provost Stepping Down Amid Civic Life Strife

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s provost is stepping down next month to return to the faculty there, a development that news articles last week suggested is tied to his disagreement with hiring practices at the School of Civic Life and Leadership, or SCiLL.

In a statement Friday to Inside Higher Ed, Chris Clemens, the outgoing provost, said, “I made the decision to step down as provost. During my time as provost, I’ve been able to address challenges I care deeply about and make meaningful progress. However, the issues that have arisen in recent days are not ones I can solve, and I don’t feel the same passion for them.”

His statement didn’t explain what these recent issues are, and Chapel Hill spokespeople didn’t provide further information beyond campus chancellor Lee Roberts’s April 3 announcement that Clemens had decided to step down.

Clemens will return May 16 to being the Jaroslav Folda Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Roberts said in that announcement. Clemens has been provost since early 2022, starting under former chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, who’s now president of Michigan State University. Roberts credited Clemens with, among other things, helping establish the School of Data Science and Society, the Program for Public Discourse, and SCiLL.

SCiLL was established after Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution in January 2023 asking the campus administration to “accelerate its development” of this new school. The then–board chair called SCiLL an effort to “remedy” a shortage of “right-of-center views” on campus. Controversy quickly ensued. Faculty said they didn’t know a whole school was in development.

The Republican-controlled State Legislature then passed a law requiring Chapel Hill to establish the school and hire 10 to 20 faculty from outside the university, plus make them eligible for tenure. It became one of many civics or civil discourse centers—critics have called them conservative centers—that Republican lawmakers and higher education leaders have established at public universities in recent years.

In January 2025, Clemens canceled the latest SCiLL tenure-track faculty searches before reversing course days later. Articles in The Assembly and the conservative Real Clear Investigations have now implied that Clemens’s departure was connected to his involvement in the disagreements over hiring within SCiLL.

Clemens, a self-described conservative, had been an advocate for SCiLL. The Real Clear Investigations article was titled, before the headline was changed, “In North Carolina, Academic Conservatives Have Met the Enemy and It Is … Them.”

In his Friday statement, Clemens said, “I look forward to returning to the faculty to resume work on optical design technology, with a particular focus on applications for the SOAR telescope and astronomy. This will allow me to spend more time in the classroom—an aspect of academic life I have greatly missed.”

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April 14, 2025
‘Economically Reckless’ Businesses Slam Bill to Bar Immigrant Kids From School – The 74

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More than two dozen Chattanooga business owners are condemning a bill to require student immigration background checks in Tennessee’s public schools as “economically reckless.”

The Tennessee Small Business Alliance represents restaurants, real estate firms, retail stores and other local employers operating within the district represented by Sen. Bo Watson.

Watson, a Republican, is cosponsoring the legislation to require proof of legal residence to enroll in public K-12 and charter schools. The bill would also give public schools the option of charging tuition to the families of children unable to prove they legally reside in the United States – or to deny them the right to a public education altogether.

House Leader William Lamberth of Gallatin is a co-sponsor of the bill, which has drawn significant — but not unanimous — support from fellow Tennessee Republicans. Lamberth’s version of the bill differs from Watson’s in that it would make it optional — rather than mandatory — to check students’ immigration status in all of Tennessee’s more than 1700 public schools.

The bill, one of the most controversial being considered during the 2025 Legislative session, has significant momentum as the Legislature winds down for the year even as it has drawn raucous protests at times. The legislation will next be debated on Monday in a House committee.

A statement released by the business alliance described the legislation as a “political stunt that’s cruel, economically reckless, and completely out of step with local values.”

Citing estimates compiled by the nonprofit advocacy organization, American Immigration Council, the statement noted that more than 430,000 immigrants in Tennessee paid $4.4 billion in taxes – more than $10,000 per immigrant.

Watson, in an emailed statement from Chattanooga public relations firm Waterhouse Public Relations, said his bill “raises important questions about the financial responsibility of educating undocumented students in Tennessee—questions that have long gone unaddressed.”

The statement said the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, which established the right to a public school education for all children regardless of immigration status, has “never been re-examined in the context of today’s challenges.” The statement said Watson is committed to a “transparent, fact-driven discussion about how Tennessee allocates its educational resources and how federal mandates impact our state’s budget and priorities.”

Watson has previously also said the legislation was prompted, in part, by the rising costs of English-language instruction in the state’s public schools.

Democrats have criticized that argument as based on inaccurate assumptions that English language learners lack legal immigration status.

Kelly Fitzgerald, founder of a Chattanooga co-working business and one of 27 employers that signed onto the statement of condemnation, criticized lawmakers.

“Do our representatives believe that undocumented children — who had no say in their immigration status — should be denied a public education, even though their families already pay taxes that fund our schools?” said Fitzgerald, whose own children attend Hamilton County Public schools

“My children are receiving a great education in our public schools, and I want every child to have the same rights and opportunities as mine do,” she said.

“In my opinion, this is not something our legislators should be spending their resources on when there are much larger issues at hand in the current environment,” she said. “We should leave children out of the conversation.”

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

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April 12, 2025
Does Texas Have a Teacher Retention Crisis? – The 74

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Texas teachers may be increasingly fed up with their job, but they’re still staying in school.

State data shows Texas public school educators continue to return to the classroom at somewhat similar rates as years past, despite multiple surveys showing the large majority of them have contemplated quitting the profession.

While teacher turnover has slightly increased over the past decade, state data show there hasn’t been a large exodus of experienced teachers. In fact, the average years of experience for Texas public school teachers hasn’t notably changed since 2014-15, nor has the share of first-year teachers hired by districts.

The numbers run counter to years of warnings that Texas teachers are primed to bolt en masse out of frustration with the job. At the same time, Texas does still face widespread issues with morale, as well as big challenges in finding certified teachers and filling several types of positions, including special education educators and bilingual teachers.

Steady hands in schools

While much has changed in Texas classrooms over the decade, students continue to be educated by mostly veteran teachers. The average tenure for Texas teachers has held steady during that stretch, ranging from 10.9 to 11.2 years of experience.

The state did see a slight dip in the share of first-year teachers — who, on average, have less positive impact on student achievement than other educators — during the late 2010s, then a slight uptick over the past few years. Still, novice teachers account for fewer than 1-in-10 Texas educators.

A small rise in turnover

Teacher turnover, a measure of how many educators don’t return to teach in the same district each year, has ticked higher since the pandemic. While it once hovered near 16 percent, it’s reached roughly 20 percent over the past two years.

Ultimately, a 4 percentage point difference equates to about 15,000 more teachers who aren’t returning to a classroom in their district. However, state data shows teachers of all experience levels are leaving at similar rates.

Still stressed

Teachers might be sticking with their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.

A 2024 poll of 1,100 Texas teachers by the Charles Butt Foundation, an Austin-based education advocacy nonprofit, found nearly four-fifths of educators surveyed had seriously considered quitting the profession in the past year. Pay, quality of campus leadership and a sense of feeling valued ranked among the biggest factors in whether teachers had considered quitting.

Separate polls by two of the largest Texas educator unions — the Texas American Federation of Teachers and Texas State Teachers Association — also showed about two-thirds of teachers had considered leaving the profession.

Texas education leaders also are worried about the state’s ability to retain teachers and hire tough-to-fill positions. A state panel convened by the Texas Education Agency examined the issues and made numerous recommendations in 2023, though few of its proposals have been put into action.

As teachers leave Texas schools, district leaders are increasingly filling those positions with uncertified teachers, who generally leave the profession sooner than certified teachers.

This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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April 12, 2025
Doing right by the teachers who do right by the world
Key points:

Ethical PD is a call to action for all involved in teacher professional development

Key questions that unleash powerful PLCs

GenAI and cultural competency: New priorities in teacher preparation

For more news on teacher PD, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub

Teachers are superheroes. Every day, they rise to the challenge, pouring their hearts into shaping the future. They stay late to grade papers, show up early to tutor struggling students, and spend their weekends planning lessons that inspire young minds. They do this because they believe in their mission–a mission to change lives, ignite passions, and build a better world.

More News from eSchool News

We are again in uncertain times. We again find ourselves dealing with sudden changes and uncertainty. We seem to be in a state of constant change and ambiguity.

In today’s evolving educational landscape, effective student assessment goes beyond multiple-choice tests and letter grades. According to a recent study, over 60 percent of educators believe traditional assessments fail to fully measure student understanding.

Holden, my 21-month-old, has fallen in love. His early morning snack and “couch time” includes a dose of “Tiger!” This is toddler for, “Mom, turn on Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”

The COVID-19 pandemic left an indelible mark on K-12 education, placing immense pressure on teachers as they adapted, literally overnight, to new methods of instruction.

Spring brings not only showers and flowers, but it also brings the opportunity to interview for new education positions. Preparing for an interview involves several key steps that can significantly impact the outcome.

STEM careers are on the rise. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in STEM occupations is expected to grow by 10.4 percent from 2023 to 2033, compared to just 3.6 percent for non-STEM occupations.

The U.S. Department of Education is giving state education agencies 10 days to certify that their schools do not engage in any practices that the administration believes illegally promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

COVID had already killed thousands of people in other countries and was spreading in the United States when a top federal health official said schools should prepare to offer “internet-based teleschooling” in case they had to close for a period of time.

More than half of educators (62 percent) are already making use of AI at school, with more than one-quarter using it daily for work purposes, according to a Twinkl survey of more than 3,500 U.S. teachers.

Many math tasks involve reading, writing, speaking, and listening. These language demands can be particularly challenging for students whose primary language is not English.

Tags educational leadership, leadership, news, PD, preparation, professional development, questions, teacher, teacher PD, teacher preparation

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April 11, 2025
Leading (again) in uncertainty
Key points:

Change has become the norm in our high-speed world

How school leaders can manage and control emotions

Em-pathy, not un-pathy, in school leadership

For more news on navigating change, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub

We are again in uncertain times. We again find ourselves dealing with sudden changes and uncertainty. We seem to be in a state of constant change and ambiguity. The causes are different, but the feelings–and often our immediate reactions to these events–are the same.

More News from eSchool News

Teachers are superheroes. Every day, they rise to the challenge, pouring their hearts into shaping the future. They stay late to grade papers and show up early to tutor struggling students.

In today’s evolving educational landscape, effective student assessment goes beyond multiple-choice tests and letter grades. According to a recent study, over 60 percent of educators believe traditional assessments fail to fully measure student understanding.

Holden, my 21-month-old, has fallen in love. His early morning snack and “couch time” includes a dose of “Tiger!” This is toddler for, “Mom, turn on Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”

The COVID-19 pandemic left an indelible mark on K-12 education, placing immense pressure on teachers as they adapted, literally overnight, to new methods of instruction.

Spring brings not only showers and flowers, but it also brings the opportunity to interview for new education positions. Preparing for an interview involves several key steps that can significantly impact the outcome.

STEM careers are on the rise. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in STEM occupations is expected to grow by 10.4 percent from 2023 to 2033, compared to just 3.6 percent for non-STEM occupations.

The U.S. Department of Education is giving state education agencies 10 days to certify that their schools do not engage in any practices that the administration believes illegally promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

COVID had already killed thousands of people in other countries and was spreading in the United States when a top federal health official said schools should prepare to offer “internet-based teleschooling” in case they had to close for a period of time.

More than half of educators (62 percent) are already making use of AI at school, with more than one-quarter using it daily for work purposes, according to a Twinkl survey of more than 3,500 U.S. teachers.

Many math tasks involve reading, writing, speaking, and listening. These language demands can be particularly challenging for students whose primary language is not English.

Tags educational leadership, leaders, leadership, news, school, school leaders, school leadership, visit, world

Want to share a great resource? Let us know at [email protected].
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April 11, 2025
Fewer Students Engage in College Activities After COVID
Higher education professionals have noted that today’s students are less engaged than previous classes. Many experts attribute this shift to the lack of socialization caused by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. But according to a recently published study, students’ participation rates have been declining for the past decade.

A March report from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium found that while student engagement in various on-campus activities—including academic, civic, career, extracurricular and research work—has trended upward since 2020, rates are still lower than they were in 2019.

“The pandemic brought great disruption to [engagement] … and the narrative around is that, ‘Oh, things are back to normal. We’re operating normally.’ And it looks like, you know, on campuses, the pandemic has been forgotten … but in the data, in fact, we don’t see that,” said Igor Chirikov, senior researcher and SERU Consortium director.

Methodology

The report includes 10 years’ worth of survey and institutional data by the SERU Consortium, including 1.1 million student survey responses from 22 major research universities. The consortium is based at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, and research was done in partnership with the University of Minnesota and the evaluation firm Etio.

“Pre-pandemic” data is categorized as responses collected between 2016 and 2019, and “post-pandemic” data reaches 2023. Survey respondents were all students at R-1 residential universities with high retention and graduation rates (ranging from 82 to 94 percent).

Overall declines: Researchers used the engagement indicators from 2018–19 as the reference point to mark the distinction between pre- and post-pandemic testing. All charts are focused on change, so they do not signify a decline in units (such as hours spent studying) but they do present an opportunity for comparison between indicators, Chirikov said.

Most indicators of campus involvement have declined since the onset of COVID-19, with few recovering to pre-pandemic levels as of 2023.

Academically, students reported significant differences in the amount of time studying in and outside of class, as well as in interacting with faculty members. Studying with peers also took a dip during the pandemic, but a relatively small one, which researchers said could be due to the shift to online and hybrid formats that created virtual study groups and other digital interactions.

During the 2020–21 academic year, the share of students who indicated that their professor knew or had learned their name declined, as did their confidence that they knew a professor well enough to ask for a letter of recommendation for a job or graduate school. Both factors made slight improvement during the 2022–23 academic year, but they remain below pre-pandemic levels.

The question about recommendation letters is one that interests Chirikov, particularly as universities are growing their enrollment and the student-faculty ratio increases. “I think that shows to what extent students have a person on campus, like a faculty member that knows them, that knows their work and can put in a good word for them,” he said.

Participation in faculty-led research also dropped, from 25 percent of students in 2018–19 to 20 percent in 2022–23. Wealthy students were 50 percent more likely to assist in faculty research, compared to their low-income peers.

“These are research universities, so part of their mission is to engage students in research and work in the lab, and we see, again, both declines and equity gaps in all this,” Chirikov said. “A lot of these opportunities are unpaid, and students coming from low-income families, they just cannot afford it. It’s becoming a luxury for rich kids.”

Involvement in extracurricular activities, interestingly, increased during the 2020–21 academic year, which researchers theorize could be due to students seeking new ways to connect with their peers amid social distancing measures.

“This indicator relies less on university infrastructure and opportunities; students worked themselves to restore that, to extend and create a different environment and spaces for communication and development friendship,” Chirikov said.

The following year, extracurricular involvement declined to below pre-pandemic levels. Students committed fewer hours to student groups and were less likely to hold a leadership role.

Since the pandemic, students have spent less time performing community service or volunteering and are less likely to have academic service-learning or community-based learning experiences.

On-campus employment also took a hit—fewer students indicated they worked on campus during 2022–23 compared to 2018–19, and employed students reported working one fewer hour per week. In addition, a smaller number of students said they completed an internship, practicum or field experience, which aligns with national trends that show that students are having more difficulty securing internships. Conversely, off-campus employment rates increased after the pandemic, though the number of hours students work has dropped.
Sowing Success

Noting barriers to access or confusion among students over how to get plugged in on campus, some colleges and universities have created new programming to address participation gaps.

Goucher College created micro-experiences in service learning to allow learners to participate in small-scale or one-day projects, opening doors for students who are engaged in other spaces on campus.

The University of Miami offers a precollege webinar series to support incoming students who receive Federal Work-Study dollars in identifying and securing on-campus employment opportunities.

San Francisco State University, part of the California State University system, established an online hub for students to identify research and creative activities that may interest them, removing informational barriers to participation.

Virginia Commonwealth University encourages faculty members to hold open office hours that meet across disciplines to facilitate greater interaction between learners and professors.
Across various engagement opportunities, college juniors and seniors were more likely to report participation, which could be tied to previous involvement before the COVID-19 pandemic, or an increased personal investment in achieving postgraduate success.

All demographic factors were controlled, so a changing student population has no effect on the overall trends, Chirikov said.

So what? Based on their findings, researchers recommend higher education revitalize engagement opportunities for students, particularly in the fields of research, community connections, student organization and career development programs.

Federal cuts to research may further disrupt this trend, which Chirikov hypothesizes will differ according to discipline and funding losses.

Additionally, institutions should address gaps in participation among different demographics, such as low-income and working-class students, who may experience financial and time deficits, Chirikov and his co-authors wrote.

Researchers are currently unpacking 2024 data to see which of these trends have continued or if there were new changes, Chirikov said.

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April 11, 2025