Mark Carney’s whirlwind start as Canadian prime minister has seen his party surge in the polls against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s threats but has provided little time to flesh out the newcomer’s policies on higher education and science.
When Justin Trudeau announced his resignation in January, the Liberal Party was trailing the Conservatives by more than 20 percentage points and was only narrowly ahead of the New Democratic Party.
But since Trump started a trade war with what he has belittled as his “51st state,” the Liberals have rebounded remarkably in the polls and are now favorites to retain power in the snap election on April 28.
Although the federal government is the primary player when it comes to investments in research and innovation in Canada, higher education has seldom been a major issue in national elections, said Glen Jones, professor of higher education at the University of Toronto.
“Not surprisingly, the entire election is focusing on the trade war that has been initiated by President Trump,” he said.
“The Carney platform, at least to date, has largely been about providing support and stability to individuals and industries that will be directly impacted by tariffs.”
Carney has been focusing primarily on positioning himself as the leader best able to respond to the new, evolving relationship with the U.S.—a strategy that seems to be working, added Jones.
Sarah Laframboise, executive director of Evidence for Democracy, a science policy nonprofit organization, said Carney’s background—as a former United Nations special envoy for climate action—suggests that he will remain committed to his views on climate policy, and that his pro-economic growth platform could translate into targeting investments in research, innovation and artificial intelligence.
“We will also likely see an increased focus on defense-related research, particularly around Arctic security and collaborative defense technologies. However, it remains unclear if this will extend to basic research,” said Laframboise.
“Additionally, his restrictive stance on international student admissions could have significant consequences for Canada’s higher education sector.”
Carney, who has never previously held elected office, earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in the U.K. before later going on to become governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020.
“The investment fell short of reinvigorating funding for science, tech and the innovation sector,” he said.
“If the Carney Liberals are elected to power, I think we can expect the previous government’s investment to stay … but will they double down on that investment?”
Having examined Carney’s website—which mentions artificial intelligence 11 times, innovation once and science not at all—Johnson said the prime minister’s priorities in future funding seemed fairly clear.
With either Carney or Poilievre in charge, he said the next government will have an “amazing opportunity” to invest in science, technology and innovation.
“Given the USA’s deep cuts to science funding, Canada has the opportunity to leap forward as a global leader in strategic areas, but only if we increase our investment in science, training, technology and mobilization of the innovations that come from these activities.”
The Education Department will kick off the lengthy rule-making process later this month with a pair of hearings.
The department is planning to consider regulatory changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, income-driven repayment plans and “other topics that would streamline current federal student financial assistance programs,” according to a Federal Register notice.
Hearings are just the first step in negotiated rule making, which also includes convening an advisory committee to weigh in on regulatory changes over a series of meetings, proposing draft regulations and then a public comment period. Historically, the whole process takes at least a year.
The Federal Register notice doesn’t say what specific changes the department is seeking to make aside from “redefining definitions of a qualifying employer.” The department also is planning to revise the regulations for Pay as You Earn and income-contingent repayment plans.
In early March, President Donald Trump directed the Education Department to change which employers or companies are eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Under the executive order, activities that would disqualify a nonprofit could include aiding or abetting violations of federal immigration laws or what the government considers illegal discrimination. Advocates and Democrats decried the order as “un-American” and argued that it would disrupt borrowers’ lives.
The department will hold an in-person hearing April 29 and a virtual hearing May 1. More information is available here.
“This process will focus on how the Department can rightsize Title IV regulations that have driven up the cost of college and hindered innovation,” said Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron in a news release. Bergeron is also leading the Office of Federal Student Aid. (Title IV of the Higher Education Act authorizes federal financial aid programs.)
He added that “not only will this rulemaking serve as an opportunity to identify and cut unnecessary red tape, but it will allow key stakeholders to offer suggestions to streamline and improve federal student aid programs.”
Shantay Bolton, executive vice president of administration and finance and chief business officer at Georgia Tech, has been named president of Columbia College Chicago, effective July 1.
Laura Crawley, vice president of mission, engagement and innovation at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina, will become president of Bethany College in Kansas, effective May 1.
Farouk Dey, vice provost for integrative learning and life design at Johns Hopkins University, has been appointed president of Palo Alto University, effective July 1.
William Downs, president of Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina, has been named president of Campbell University, also in North Carolina, beginning July 1.
Charles Edmonds, currently executive vice president of Lycoming College, will become president of the Pennsylvania-based institution on July 1.
Louise Fincher, currently the interim president of Emory & Henry University in Virginia, has been named president of the institution.
Thomas Gibson, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, has been named the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, beginning on or around July 1.
Michael Hill, president of Chautauqua Institution in New York, has been appointed president of Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, effective Aug. 1.
Kevin Howell, chief external affairs officer at University of North Carolina Health and the UNC School of Medicine, has been named chancellor of North Carolina State University, effective May 5.
Mark Johnson, director of the doctor of ministry program at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has been elected president of Louisiana Christian University.
Michael Kotlikoff, interim president of Cornell University since last July, has been named the institution’s president, effective immediately.
Dean Pribbenow, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Elmhurst University in Illinois, has been appointed president of Millikin University, also in Illinois, effective July 1.
Sean Ryan, senior vice president of administration, strategic initiatives and trustee affairs at Bellarmine University in Kentucky, will become president of Anna Maria College in Massachusetts, effective July 1.
James Schmidt, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, has been named president of James Madison University in Virginia, effective July 1.
Claire Shipman, co-chair of the Columbia University Board of Trustees, has been named acting president of the university, effective immediately.
Marlene Tromp, president of Boise State University in Idaho, will become president of the University of Vermont, effective this summer.
The Trump administration plans to block $510 million in federal contracts and grants for Brown University in retaliation for the university’s alleged failure to address antisemitism on campus, The New York Times reported.
The Daily Callerfirst reported the news, writing that “an administration official” said Brown’s grants “would be paused” while the government conducts a review of the university’s response to claims of antisemitism.
Brown provost Frank Doyle sent an email to campus leaders Thursday, acknowledging “troubling rumors emerging about federal action on Brown research grants,” but noting that they had received “no information to substantiate any of these rumors,” the Times reported.
Brown was among the 60 higher ed institutions to receive a letter last month from the Office for Civil Rights warning of “potential enforcement actions” if they failed to comply with federal antidiscrimination law.
After Columbia became the first institution to have its grants frozen, Brown president Christina Paxson issued a statement reiterating the university’s commitment to upholding both federal law and academic freedom. She noted that if Brown were prevented from performing “essential academic and operational functions, we would be compelled to vigorously exercise our legal rights to defend these freedoms, and true to our values, we would do so with integrity and respect.”
On Thursday night, leaders of the Brown Corporation and of Brown’s Jewish community, released a statement praising Brown’s commitment to Jewish students.
“Brown University is home to a vibrant Jewish community that continues to flourish with the steadfast support of the administration,” it read. “Amidst broader concerns about antisemitism on college campuses, Brown stands out as an inclusive environment where Jewish life is deeply integrated into campus culture.”
When he was mayor of Lexington, Ky., Jim Newberry worked closely with the University of Kentucky, Transylvania University and Bluegrass Community Technical College and came to understand how important the institutions were to the city. He built close relationships with the leaders at all three colleges and said he admires the broad mission of higher education institutions: to educate and train the next generation.
“That was the mission to which I wanted to devote the rest of my professional career when I left the mayor’s office,” Newberry said. In 2012, he refocused his law practice on the higher education sector, and he is currently a member of Steptoe and Johnson, where he is co-chair of the firm’s higher education team. He predominantly represents private, nonprofit, independent colleges, but also works with large R-1 institutions.
Inside Higher Ed recently reached out to Newberry over Zoom to hear how he is helping his clients navigate the uncertainty in federal regulations, what advice he’d give to college presidents who might want to speak out and why he took Project 2025 at its word. Excerpts of the conversation follow, edited for space and clarity.
Q: What are the biggest concerns you’re hearing from your clients right now?
A: Confusion, lack of information, uncertainty about what the future may hold, who they will be dealing with. It’s, in short, the fear of the unknown right now.
Project 2025 is this administration’s playbook, Newberry said. “It’s a pretty aggressive agenda.”
Q: Is that mostly fear around new regulations or about how to stay compliant with current regulations amid all the uncertainty?
A: The confusion right now knows no bounds, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that federal offices are being closed. People who were responsible for overseeing projects are no longer there, and so if you’re trying to resolve an issue with the Department of Education, it is very, very challenging.
Q: And so what are you able to tell your clients, if anything?
A: You just kind of throw your hands up. I had one client that wanted me to give them an estimate of the cost for the regulatory compliance component of a project they asked us to assess. I said, “I’ve got no idea what to tell you about that. And I don’t know when I will be in a position to give you an estimate about that.” So we really are looking for answers. Of course, we watch Inside Higher Ed and we watch the evening news reports about what’s going on at the department, and we’re trying to piece together some mosaic that would make some sense when you stand back and look at it. But right now, it’s very sketchy.
Q: Under previous administrations, compliance was incredibly burdensome for institutions. Do you have any sense of there being more, less or similar levels of regulatory obligations under the Trump administration?
A: I do have a sense it’s going to be less. The prior administration took a pretty aggressive approach when complaints were filed with them on some matter over which they had jurisdiction, and, typically, the inquiries that you would get from [the Office for Civil Rights] would go far beyond the one complaint that initiated the whole process.
If I had to bet right now, I would say we’ll see substantially less of those kinds of inquiries, and we may see fewer investigations being initiated with institutions just because the department doesn’t have the personnel to do them. And what investigations are initiated will probably take much longer to complete just because they don’t have the personnel to review the documents necessary to reach a conclusion. I mean, even before the new administration took office, OCR investigations seemingly took forever to resolve. And now, with half as many employees, you gotta think they’re gonna take twice as long in the future as they have in the past, just on the basis of the number of people who are available to do the work.
Q: You were one of the few people I spoke to who were certain the Trump administration was going to follow through on the Project 2025 mission to dismantle the Department of Education. Why were you so confident? And what else do you see in your crystal ball?
A: It just simply appeared to me that Donald Trump had developed a remarkable level of control over the Republicans in Congress, particularly when they went through the confirmation process. And he was able to get virtually everybody he wanted confirmed. It just struck me that if you could get some of those confirmations approved, it was quite likely there would be a fair degree of support within the Republican party to materially diminish the role of the Department of Education, if not abolish it altogether. Now, whether it actually ceases to exist remains to be seen, but it’s certainly going to be in a diminished capacity. I don’t think there’s any question at all about that now, and I suspect many of its functions will be transferred elsewhere.
With respect to the future, I don’t know that I’ve got any clairvoyant ability here, but all you had to do is look at Project 2025. I mean, that’s their playbook. It has been proven repeatedly that’s exactly what they are working from. And therefore, you ought to anticipate that there’s going to be a substantial effort made to materially change the way institutions are accredited. You ought to see a substantially greater role for state regulatory agencies who are involved in higher education. And FERPA is probably going to be on the list of things that get changed. Those are some things that I think one could glean from looking at the section of Project 2025 that deals with education. It’s a pretty aggressive agenda.
Q: I mean, the spectrum of ability and capacity at the state level to take on some of these responsibilities is enormous. Does that fill you with dread as a lawyer, having to get to grips with 50 different ways of doing things in 50 different regulatory environments?
A: Yes, that’s exactly what I anticipate is going to happen. And just as there’s a substantial degree of difference from one state to the next in terms of the existing ability, I suspect, even after we go through some wholesale change that would result in functions moving from the federal level to the state level, you’re still going to see a wide variety of regulatory standards and enforcement of those standards. That’s going to create a challenging new environment for a lot of folks in higher ed. And, you know, higher ed has been very much a national kind of industry, if you will. People could go basically from one state to the next and not notice a huge amount of change in terms of how the institution would operate. That’s going to be different if they follow through with all they’re talking about doing.
Q: We’re seeing this ping-pong effect happening right now where the federal government will say one thing or take an action and then a lawsuit challenging it will follow. It’s incredibly inefficient policymaking to begin with, but how confident are you that we’ll get any sort of resolution to a lot of these extrajudicial actions coming from the administration?
A: That’s a great question, and it is one that is going to require a lot of attention, especially in the next six months, because I would anticipate during that period there will be a few of these cases that will percolate up to the Supreme Court in some fashion or another. And I hope the Supreme Court will be able to provide some clarity that will then drive the decisions that are being made at the district court and in the various courts of appeals, because it’s just going to be all over the place, I’m afraid, with different judges and courts taking different positions. Ultimately, the nine people on the Supreme Court bench are going to have to sort through some of this. They will be very, very influential.
Q: Some legal scholars have declared a constitutional crisis in this country. Would you say that we are in one now?
A: The ultimate constitutional crisis is going to be what happens when the Supreme Court makes a decision in one of these cases. If the administration refuses to abide by a Supreme Court decision, we’ll be in a full-blown constitutional crisis. But we have some limited crises percolating right now. Orders from federal courts have traditionally been honored by whichever administration, whichever party may have been in power, and that does not appear to be the current case, and that’s a real concern.
Q: What’s your take on Columbia’s concession to the department?
A: I have a lot of empathy for the leadership on every campus right now, as they try to discern as best they can what the appropriate course of action is for their institution. There are some incredibly capable people serving these institutions, both on the boards of trustees and in senior administrative levels. There is no way I could understand all of the factors they are considering as they try to chart a course for their individual institutions. And I wouldn’t try to do that, because they’ve got a lot of responsibility. They’ve got a lot of stakeholders, many of whom are taking conflicting positions. And it’s a very challenging time for folks in leadership positions—and for their lawyers, too, I might add.
Q: I appreciate you won’t give an opinion about something you aren’t involved in, but what do you think the decision might mean for institutional autonomy and academic freedom in general?
A: When you have an institution as prominent as Columbia conceding to a lot of the demands that were made, it makes it very, very difficult for lesser institutions to contemplate a fight. That’s not to say they made the wrong decision, but it is to say that their decision will probably lead others to find ways to avoid a fight with the new administration, and that’s understandable. I mean, absent some set of circumstances, this administration is going to be there for almost four years. You gotta live with them, and getting involved in litigation is problematic. It is outrageously expensive for the institutions. And even if you win, you’ve got a regulator sitting there that’s not very happy about the outcome of that litigation who can make your life pretty complicated, if not miserable, for several years to come. So there’s substantial motivation for folks not to fight. And I recognize there are constituencies—students, faculty and others—who vehemently oppose anything less than a battle to the death. But presidents and boards have to consider the overall well-being of their institutions. I don’t envy that task.
Q: We’re hearing lots of calls for leaders to speak out and condemn what’s happening to the sector. What would you tell a client who is thinking about penning an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending higher education?
A: I’m generally an advocate of institutional neutrality on matters of public affairs, because I think campuses need to be places where competing ideas can be exchanged without the administration leaning on the scales one way or the other. This is a little different, though, in that these issues are really going to the heart of what our system of higher education is going to be in the future. I happen to think the people that know the most about that are folks that are sitting in administration buildings or in boardrooms these days, and their voices need to be heard in some fashion about what the implications some of the decisions that are being made have.
So there’s certainly an interest in speaking out. I think the art of this, though, is speaking out in such a way that the points are clearly made without there being a lot of vitriol in the op-ed piece. There are a lot of constituencies on campus that want every member of the Board of Trustees and the president to go the White House and spit in the face of everybody coming and going. I understand that. I don’t think that serves their institutional interests well, but I do think a calm and thoughtful, well-reasoned, well-documented argument about some of the policy options that are available and which ones are good and which ones are bad for higher education is an appropriate thing for folks in higher education to be talking about.
Q: Interesting that you bring up institutional neutrality, because that’s part of the reasoning some leaders have given for not speaking publicly about the situation. You’re saying this issue doesn’t fall under institutional neutrality for you.
A: I don’t think this does. If I were in Minnesota, let’s say, and a client had a strongly held point of view about whether or not we need to have Canada as our 51st state, I’d discourage an institution in Minnesota from expressing that. On the other hand, that same institution may well be serving the higher ed industry if it makes some points about why having accreditation done by regional accreditors, as opposed to 50 different state agencies, is better. Then I think that kind of thing would be an appropriate subject for their comments.
From the day he retook office, President Donald Trump’s campaign to disrupt higher education has been unrelenting. He’s targeted diversity, equity and inclusion. His administration slashed more than a billion dollars in federal grants and contracts for universities, and it plans to cut more. It’s also attempted to deport pro-Palestinian international scholars, accusing them of sympathizing with terrorism.
Prominent—or infamous—among the administration’s escalating actions was its decision last month to cut $400 million from Columbia University for allegedly failing to address on-campus antisemitism. Trump officials followed this by demanding that the university, among other things, place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department in academic receivership.
As the disruption has mounted, many college and university presidents have kept silent. But unions representing higher ed employees have stepped up to the plate. They’ve protested in Washington, D.C., and on their campuses, organized open letters and filed a flurry of lawsuits against the Trump administration. Union leaders say they are filling a void in an existential fight for higher ed’s future. They wish others would join their resistance, but their unified strength in numbers may protect their members from federal retaliation in ways that higher ed officials aren’t.
Concerns about higher ed’s future under Trump and calls for a forceful response to his actions pervaded a recent gathering on collective bargaining in higher ed. The conference—held in Manhattan just two days after Columbia announced it would capitulate to multiple demands the administration made—offered a snapshot into a large pocket of resistance.
We couldn’t actually be better positioned to fight back against the kind of authoritarian attacks that we’re seeing.”
—Ian Gavigan, national director of Higher Ed Labor United
William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, kicked off the event addressing what he has called the Trump administration’s “assault on higher education.”
“We gather today during a very perilous time. To paraphrase Tom Paine, these are the times that try our souls,” Herbert said, adding that “in this crisis, we must care for ourselves and others—particularly our students, our immigrants and others most vulnerable in this time of danger.”
He spoke to roughly 150 people gathered in the historic home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Invoking the wartime president’s Four Freedoms speech, Herbert said FDR’s listed freedoms—of speech and worship, and from want and fear—“are threatened more today than ever before. So it is our obligation to those who came before us to fight for freedom and to fight against tyranny.”
Rejecting nonintervention, Herbert said, “Neutrality in defense of higher education’s mission and the principles of collective bargaining is not an option. We must reject appeasement. We must reject capitulation to the enemies of higher education and collective negotiations.”
As the conference progressed last week, unions showed they weren’t capitulating. The American Association of University Professors, an organization of scholars that also represents many of them as a union, alongside the American Federation of Teachers, with which the AAUP is affiliated, filed together or individually three lawsuits against the Trump administration’s moves. These suits seek to stop the dismantling of the Education Department, end deportations of noncitizen students and faculty who demonstrated for Palestinians, and restore Columbia’s lost $400 million.
Even before last week, the AFT had sued the Education Department to stop it from enforcing a sweeping Dear Colleague letter targeting DEI, and together with the AAUP sued the department and Trump to overturn his anti-DEI executive orders. The AAUP and its partners did secure a temporary injunction blocking parts of the anti-DEI orders—an early victory—but an appeals court overturned that court order. (Other higher ed groups and unions have sued, but the AAUP and AFT are involved in multiple lawsuits that Inside Higher Ed is tracking.)
Atop the litigation, presidents and members of those unions and others—such as the United Autoworkers, a major organizer of graduate student workers—have rallied in Washington, D.C., against cuts to universities and federal research agencies. This week, the UAW joined other, nonunion organizations in suing to overturn the administration’s cancellations of National Institutes of Health grants.
Attempts at more national shows of force are coming. Across dozens of campuses, multiple unions are sponsoring a “Kill the Cuts” day of action on April 8, focused on reversing the NIH cuts and other federal funding reductions, followed by a more general protest April 17. It all adds up to campus unions taking a public stand where administrators largely haven’t.
“I think that labor needs to fill the vacuum of leadership we’re seeing in the sector,” said Todd Wolfson, national president of the AAUP. “I don’t see another way forward.”
A Large Presence
Expecting powerful resistance from labor organizations might seem irrational in the U.S., where union membership among workers over all dropped to 10 percent in 2024—a record low since data collection began in 1983. But the picture is starkly different when you look at faculty and grad student workers alone.
Bucking the national trend, grad workers’ unionized ranks increased 133 percent from 2012 to the start of 2024. Roughly 38 percent of them are now unionized. That’s according to a report released last year by Herbert’s collective bargaining study center at Hunter College; Herbert said the share of unionized grad workers is even greater today, but he didn’t have an updated figure.
The number of unionized faculty also increased over that 12-year period, from roughly 374,000 in 2012 to 402,000 in January 2024. Roughly 27 percent of faculty are now unionized. And the Biden years saw a growing phenomenon of postdoctoral and undergraduate student workers unionizing. Trump has shaken up the National Labor Relations Board and experts predict a rollback in rights for union workers, but higher ed strikes are continuing into his administration in Massachusetts and California.
“We have more power now on our campuses than we’ve had in recent memory,” said Ian Gavigan, national director of Higher Ed Labor United, or HELU, and formerly a unionized grad worker himself. “And we couldn’t actually be better positioned to fight back against the kind of authoritarian attacks that we’re seeing.”
“I’m scared,” Gavigan said, but “that power gives me hope.”
The White House didn’t return Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment.
HELU seeks to unify all types of higher ed workers—including nonacademic workers, and regardless of whether they’re unionized or not—into a single, national coalition. Gavigan spoke during a late-addition panel to the conference. (The whole conference was renamed, after Trump’s election, “Unity in Defense of Higher Education and Collective Bargaining.”)
Panelists and the audience discussed the Trump administration’s ongoing targeting of higher ed and how to respond.
“We are under absolutely relentless assault,” said Rebecca Givan, general vice president of the Rutgers University AAUP-AFT and a HELU steering committee member. “It’s constant, it’s everywhere, it’s in every direction, but it would be so much worse if we didn’t have our unions. And so we have these structures and we need to use them to fight back.”
Givan said that “none of us have been sleeping,” but “if we can’t organize within our unions to fight back, we have nothing.” She said unions have to work within state and federal politics and agencies, fighting for changes such as higher taxes on the rich to fund higher ed.
“We also have to give our university administrators a strong invitation to do the right thing,” Givan said. “And if they do not, we have to fill that leadership vacuum. We cannot let them back down. We cannot let them do a Columbia and capitulate.”
Some other higher ed groups beyond unions are resisting as well. The American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities, has sued to stop the NIH from capping reimbursements for costs indirectly related to research. As for why many presidents aren’t publicly speaking up, Jon Fansmith, ACE’s senior vice president for government relations, told Inside Higher Ed that they have an “incredible tightrope to walk.”
“They are responsible for the jobs and livelihood of thousands—tens of thousands—of people in some cases,” Fansmith said.
They’re also responsible for the continuation of university work that includes treating patients and other important concerns. Speaking up could come at a price. Fansmith noted that the Trump administration froze about half of Princeton University’s federal grants after President Christopher Eisgruber wrote in The Atlantic that the “Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia” represented “the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.”
Wolfson, the AAUP president, told Inside Higher Ed that individual university presidents might not speak out because that puts targets on their backs. But there’s “no reason why we haven’t seen a letter signed by 1,000 presidents” speaking out against what the administration did to Columbia, Wolfson said.
“It’s a real disappointment,” he said, adding that “labor has to step in and be the main focal point of a strong, powerful and vigorous response to the federal government.”
Indeed, I have recently been struck repeatedly by the immediate juxtaposition of the banal, logistical work of being a freelance writer and speaker and the fact that the stuff I write and speak about—teaching, academia, et al.—are under concerted attack as part of a larger assault on democratic institutions, to the point where one wonders if they’re going to collapse entirely.
I’ve accepted speaking invites for six months from now wondering if we will still have operating higher education institutions six months from now. I mean, I think we will, but at this moment I wouldn’t 100 percent guarantee it, which is a strange thing to even consider given that some of these places are literally hundreds of years old.
I even just accepted an invitation to speak at a teachers’ conference in Alberta, Canada, in April 2026, and even as I signed the contract I wondered if we will still be able to travel freely between the U.S. and Canada by then.
It strikes me that part of the strategy of those currently committing these assaults on democracy is to create this kind of cognitive dissonance. Every day brings a new example of something we didn’t think could happen: disappearing people to foreign countries without even a semblance of due process, dismantling the federal infrastructure around cancer research, a president speculating about a third term and it being taken seriously as a question of legality.
That’s just this week, by the way.
The discordancy is probably greater for those working in or adjacent to higher ed, as the sector finds itself so directly in the Trump administration crosshairs. There is more not-normal in education than elsewhere right now, though the recently announced tariffs suggest that not normal is now going to be extended worldwide.
It strikes me that we are on one of two possible trajectories. One is essentially a slide into what scholars call competitive authoritarianism, where there are some external trappings of democratic society like courts and elections still existing, but where the fix is largely in as to who and what maintains power. Hungary and Turkey are the two most obvious examples that experts cite, but we’re seeing plenty of evidence for joining them right here at home.
The so-called Big Law firms that have capitulated to Trump and pledged to do hundreds of millions of dollars of legal work in exchange for being removed from the target list seem like examples of organizations that are making their bet that they can survive in a nondemocracy provided they’re willing to curry favor with power. Republican office holders seeking to carve out exceptions from Trump tariffs for their state’s industries are another example.
So too are the higher ed institutions, such as Columbia, bending the knee to Trump. They apparently view their continued existence—be that in a democratic society or something else—as more important than protecting values like academic freedom or the First Amendment. Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor who apparently is an expert on First Amendment law, sees these responses (as characterized by The New York Times) as “rational,” saying, “Sometimes people who are eager for the university to get up and make big statements have a slightly unrealistic conception of what the real-world effect of those statements would be.”
One of the upsides of the present turmoil—and it is a very small upside, I admit—is that folks are showing their true stances when it comes to the occasional fraught intersection of their purported values and material reality. Here is an esteemed First Amendment lawyer who is willing to countenance an unprecedented assault on academic freedom because the “real-world” consequences are apparently too great.
I have often lamented in this space how there has appeared to be a significant disconnect between the lofty ideals attached to higher education and how many higher education institutions act when they have a choice between living their mission or funding their operations. Feldman makes it clear which side of the divide he sits on, and he is not alone.
The other possible trajectory is that the sheer incompetence and erratic nature of Trump and those who surround him will lead to an unraveling of the assault as it implodes under the weight of public disapproval. The recent election results in Wisconsin and Florida, which showed a significant swing toward Democrats, suggest that if the public is activated and motivated, there is sufficient sentiment to defeat Trump and Republicans at the ballot box—provided we still have elections, that is.
Personally, I keep returning to the question I asked back in February: “What’s next for higher ed?” My argument that one era was over and another is to come has only been made stronger over the last month and a half. There is no going back for Columbia University. They have chosen to be something other than what they previously claimed to be. I’m certain Columbia will survive in some form, but we should not be asked to pretend that they are an example of the values we’d like to claim for higher education institutions.
Most days, I am both freaked out and hopeful, which is maybe my answer to Cottom’s musing about how we’re able to act like we’re living in a normal country. Part of the time I’m freaked out, certain that we are decidedly not a normal country and we are hurtling toward disaster.
But other times I am doing work that I think advances the values of free inquiry and personal freedom and development. I imagine going to some college or university six months from now, where we will talk about the importance of human expression through the act of writing, and then after that maybe I sit down to write a blog post, forcing myself to grapple with the world in front of me and make sense of it, even when, or especially when, it appears senseless.
Next thing you know, some thoughts have been gathered and you share them with the world.
When I first read the BlueSky post, I imagined that Cottom was thinking that we’re experiencing a disconnect or disassociation that allows us to deny the weirdness and even terror happening around us, but I think it’s the opposite.
I think it’s a sign that the work matters and that we must throw our continued support behind the leaders and institutions who are pledging to make the work that remains consistent with educational values possible. I don’t know how Feldman’s soft capitulation gets us there.
Florida Atlantic University reportedly has a pending agreement with the federal government to allow its campus police department to question and detain individuals who are suspected of being in the U.S. without legal authorization, The Florida Phoenix reported.
If FAU police acquire immigration enforcement authority, the university would seemingly be the first in the nation to deputize campus cops as federal enforcement agents, the Phoenix noted.
However, it appears that all other Florida institutions with sworn police departments will follow FAU’s lead to comply with a February directive from Gov. Ron DeSantis requiring state law enforcement agencies to enter into an agreement “to execute functions of immigration enforcement within the state” so “deportations can be carried out more efficiently.”
“All state law enforcement agencies are expected to follow the governor’s Feb. 19 directive on working U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” FAU spokesperson Joshua Glanzer wrote to Inside Higher Ed. “This includes FAUPD and other state university police departments.”
The move comes after Florida Atlantic hired former GOP lawmaker Adam Hasner to be president in February. Hasner, who once boasted of being “the most partisan Republican in Tallahassee,” served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 to 2010. Prior to taking the top job at FAU, Hasner was an executive at the GEO Group, a for-profit prison company.
The GEO Group currently runs more than a dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in California, Florida, Texas and various other states, according to its website.
Hasner’s history with the GEO Group was a matter of contention for students and others during the hiring process; some raised objections during public forums about his for-profit prison past. Other critics expressed concerns about his lack of administrative experience in higher education.
The conflict between the state of Maine and the Trump administration over transgender student athletes reached a new pivot point on Monday. As the first of several deadlines set by the federal government has now expired, whether Maine can continue to allow trans athletes to participate in school sports appears likely to be decided by the courts.
Two separate federal agencies determined that Maine is in violation of Title IX based on the Trump administration’s interpretation of the anti-sex discrimination protection.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a final warning Monday to the Maine Department of Education regarding its noncompliance with a federal directive for allowing trans girls to participate in girls’ sports.
If the state does not propose an agreement that’s acceptable to the office by April 11, the case will be referred to the Department of Justice, the letter said.
Meanwhile, a separate investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ civil rights office that found Maine in violation of Title IX for “continuing to unlawfully allow” trans girls to compete in girl’s sports has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a Monday social media post from the agency.
In a letter dated March 17, HHS had given Maine a deadline of 10 days to comply with federal guidance. Monday marked ten business days from that warning.
Both agencies determined that Maine had violated federal law after dayslong investigations that included no interviews, while typical investigations take months and are eventually settled with resolution agreements. The probes were launched after Gov. Janet Mills and President Donald Trump had a heated exchange over the state’s trans athlete policy. Millions of dollars in federal funding might be at risk, depending on how the cases proceed.
“We just need an answer at this point as to, ‘Does the Trump administration have the authority to do what it’s doing when it comes to fast tracking the removal of federal funds?’” said Jackie Wernz, a former OCR lawyer for the Education Department who now represents school districts nationwide in these types of cases.
“This is just unprecedented, and we’re not following the process that we’re used to. So I think it’s going to be really helpful for courts to start weighing in on whether or not they have the authority to do this.”
Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers said in a news conference on Tuesday that they want the state to repeal trans students’ rights to athletics, locker rooms and bathrooms, and to roll back inclusion of gender as a protected class in the Maine Human Rights Act.
“The problem is that the term gender identity and the Human Rights Act is being interpreted way too broadly by the left,” said Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook). “And what it’s saying is there’s no boundary between men’s and women’s spaces.”
Rep. Michael Soboleski (R- Phillips) said he is introducing a bill to remove consideration of gender identity from the act, and asked Democrats and Mills to support the legislation in order to avoid the risk of losing federal funding.
Earlier this year, Iowa became the first state in the nation to remove civil rights from a state law when its Legislature voted to remove gender identity from its civil rights act.
“This is not sustainable,” Stewart said. “We’re a poor state. We are heavily reliant on federal money. The governor needs to move on this.”
On March 19, the Department of Education’s civil rights office notified Maine of its noncompliance and proposed a resolution agreement that would require the state to rescind its support of trans athletes, which is currently required by the Maine Human Rights Act. A Cumberland-area school district and the Maine Principals Association, which runs student athletics, that were also found in violation have already refused to sign the agreement.
This development is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to enforce Title IX provisions concerning gender and athletics. Earlier this year, the administration launched investigations in several other states for similar policies allowing trans athletes to compete in alignment with their gender identity.
Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination, does not reference trans people directly, but the Trump administration has interpreted Maine’s policy as discrimination against cisgender girls.
Rachel Perera, a fellow in the governance studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at national think tank The Brookings Institution, said the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX leaves room for questioning. If the policy goes to trial, she said federal courts may come up with a clearer interpretation.
“It’s going to be really important to see how Maine proceeds, because they’re sort of setting the tone in terms of these other states and other localities who are going to be trying to navigate these very same dynamics,” she said.
Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: [email protected].
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” — Benjamin Franklin
If you look beneath the veneer of it all, what surfaces from the chaos of the last eight weeks is a demand for unyielding loyalty to a man and his personal and political whims.
His demands, followed in fear, are cravenly honored by political figures, media corporations, university presidents, law firms, Justice Department lawyers, and all others who surrender on bended knee to an authoritarian figure who holds the title of the 47th president of the United States.
Few stand up to him; many kowtow to him. Silence and sycophancy surround him. Meanwhile, his agency hitman exercises power with unconstitutional zeal.
When persuasion fails, when logic departs, when toleration ceases to be tolerated, and when the very pillars of freedom of expression are battered with ruinous consistency, then the promise of the First Amendment is breached with abandon — this while so many fiddle.
Given what has gone on in the first quarter of 2025 alone, this much is true: We are witnessing frontal attacks on freedom, especially our First Amendment freedoms (e.g., FANs 463, 462, 461, and 460).
Government by executive order is his calling card — his “trump” card. Shakedowns are his tactic. “Administrative error” is the justification given by his confederates for egregious due process violations.
No matter how personal, punitive, or partisan, this power (often unconstitutional in principle and authoritarian in practice) has become this administration’s default position. His will is effected by his lieutenants, implemented by his attorney general, executed by his DOGE goons, fulfilled by his FBI director and other cabinet officials, orchestrated by his deputy of policy, and defended by his press secretary.
In such ways, as professor Timothy Zick’s “Executive Watch” posts have revealed and will continue to reveal, the First Amendment is also under siege.
Fear is the engine that drives so much of this aggrandizement of power, and the submission to it. As in the McCarthy era, robotic loyalty fuels that engine. What we are seeing in Washington is a new era in compelled allegiance. Executive order “negotiations” are premised on mandatory loyalty.
To get a sense of the nature of this problem, simply consider some of what Thomas I. Emerson (a revered civil liberties and free speech scholar) wrote 55 years ago in his seminal “The System of Freedom of Expression.” When liberty is contingent on one’s “beliefs, opinions, or associations,” there is a “grossly inhibiting effect upon the free exercise of expression.”
The inevitable result, Emerson added, is to silence “the more conscientious and invite the less scrupulous to pass. ‘Self-executing’ by its nature, it places the burden upon the person…to interpret [the loyalty oaths’] purpose, recall all past events in his life, and decide what current or future [orders might affect him] at his peril.” The net effect is to leave citizens “at the continuing mercy” of the government.
Put bluntly: “It is inherently demeaning to a free people.” (emphasis added)
It is that fear, born of direct or veiled demands for loyalty, that has seized power in the control rooms of our government. Time and again, day in and day out, yet another executive order, followed by servile enforcement, abridges our First Amendment freedoms. When will it end? When will enough men and women of courage join together and say “enough”? One answer was tendered in 1776 in a work titled “The American Crisis.” To quote its author, Thomas Paine:
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Related
To preserve America’s tradition as a home for fearless writing, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Substack are partnering to support writers residing lawfully in this country targeted by the government for the content of their writing — those who, as Hitchens once put it, “committed no crime except that of thought in writing.”
Voice of America court victory in journalists’ firing case
The Voice of America can’t be silenced just yet. A federal judge on March 28 halted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the eight-decade-old U.S. government-funded international news service, calling the move a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision making.”
Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which runs Voice of America, from firing more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other staff that it sidelined two weeks ago in the wake of President Donald Trump’s ordering its funding slashed.
Seth Stern on DOGE and related free speech issues
First Amendment Watch spoke with director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, Seth Stern, about the First Amendment issues baked into the online exchange. Stern described Martin’s letter as intentionally ambiguous, argued that confusion over DOGE as a quasi-government agency brings its transparency responsibilities into question, and described the free speech issues that may arise from Musk’s roles as a social media platform owner and advisor to the president.
Yale Law School ‘Free Speech in Crisis’ conference
Agenda
Friday, March 28
9:15 a.m. | Welcome/Opening Remarks
Organizers: Jack Balkin, Genevieve Lakier, Mikey McGovern
9:30 a.m. | Panel 1: Media Environment
Chair: Paul Starr, Princeton University
Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
Mary Anne Franks, George Washington University School of Law
Eugene Volokh, Hoover Institution
11:15 a.m. | Panel 2: Polarization
Chair: Robert Post, Yale Law School
Nicole Hemmer, Vanderbilt University
Liliana Mason, SNF Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University
Ganesh Sitaraman, Vanderbilt Law School
2:15 p.m. | Panel 3: Political Marketplace
Chair: Rick Hasen, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
Rick Pildes, NYU Law School
Bradley A. Smith, Capital University Law School
Ann Southworth, University of California, Irvine School of Law
4:00 p.m. | Panel 4: Workplace
Chair: Amanda Shanor, University of Pennsylvania
Helen Norton, University of Colorado School of Law
Benjamin Sachs, Harvard Law School
Liz Sepper, University of Texas Law School
Saturday, March 29
9:30 a.m. | Panel 5: Knowledge Production
Chair: Amy Kapczynski, Yale Law School
E.J. Fagan, University of Illinois Chicago
Vicki Jackson, Harvard Law School
Naomi Oreskes, Harvard
11:15 a.m. | Panel 6: Campus Politics
Chair: Genevieve Lakier, University of Chicago Law School
Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
Athena Mutua, University at Buffalo School of Law
Keith Whittington, Yale Law School
1:00 p.m. | Wrap-Up Conversation
Organizers: Jack Balkin, Genevieve Lakier, Mikey McGover
Forthcoming book on free speech and incitement
Free Speech and Incitement in the Twenty-First Century explores the line between free speech and incitement, which is a form of expression not protected by the First Amendment. Incitement occurs when a person intentionally provokes their audience to engage in illegal or violent action that is likely to, or will, occur imminently.
This doctrine evolved from World War I through the Cold War and the civil rights movement era, culminating in a test announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). Since the 1970s, this doctrine has remained largely unchanged by the Supreme Court and, as such, has received relatively little academic or media attention.
Since the late 2010s, however, violence at political rallies, armed protests around Confederate statues, social unrest associated with demonstrations against police, and an attack on the U.S. Capitol have led to new incitement cases in the lower courts and an opportunity to examine how incitement is defined and applied. Authors from different perspectives in Free Speech and Incitement in the Twenty-First Century help the reader understand the difference between free speech and incitement.
‘So to Speak’ podcast on Columbia University, DEI, and law firms
We explore how censorship is impacting institutions — from universities to law firms to the Maine House of Representatives.
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 (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
Free speech related
Thompson v. United States (Decided: 3-21-25/ 9-0 with 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.
