Tag: News

Who Is Katrina Armstrong?

Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong is no stranger to crisis.

During her time in medical school and residency in Baltimore in the early 1990s, Armstrong treated patients with AIDS as the epidemic claimed tens of thousands of lives with no cure in sight.

Then, on Armstrong’s first day as physician in chief and chair of the department of medicine at Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital in 2013, terrorists set off bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring nearly 300 others. Staff at Mass General responded immediately, activating emergency protocols and mobilizing trauma teams and other resources to treat the victims.

But in recent months, Armstrong has navigated a crisis that no medical training could prepare her for, one that threatens the financial health and public standing of Columbia.

She was thrust into the spotlight eight months ago, elevated from CEO of Columbia’s Irving Medical Center to the Ivy League institution’s top job after then-president Minouche Shafik stepped down following a difficult year of protests and congressional scrutiny. Now, months after her ascent, the Trump administration has Columbia squarely in its crosshairs for, it claims, failing to address antisemitism in the wake of the pro-Palestinian protests that roiled the campus last spring and spread nationwide.

Already Trump officials have stripped Columbia of $400 million in federal grants and leveled a series of sweeping and legally dubious demands to overhaul student disciplinary policies, reform admissions and clamp down on an academic department—moves experts have cast as an autocratic attack on higher education. They come even though the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has not yet completed a Title IV investigation into reports of antisemitism on campus.

Columbia law professors and conservative legal scholars have questioned the legality of Trump’s actions. But whether they are lawful or not, Columbia is facing an unprecedented threat to its finances and autonomy with a first-time president at the helm.

Soon enough, the university will find out if she’s up to the challenge.

The Leader

Originally from Alabama, Armstrong earned a bachelor of arts in architecture from Yale University in 1986 and added a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1991. She joined the medical school faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996, where she stayed until 2013, when she was hired as a professor at Harvard University and its affiliate, Massachusetts General Hospital.

Over the course of her academic career, Armstrong has churned out more than 300 publications. Her body of work includes research on “cancer risk and prevention in Black and Latino patients; racial inequities in genetic testing and neonatal care; and the impact of segregation, discrimination, and patient distrust on the health of marginalized populations,” according to Columbia Magazine. Many of those topics have drawn scrutiny from the Trump administration in recent months, raising the question of whether such projects would receive federal funding now.

(Columbia did not make Armstrong available for an interview.)

To her supporters, Armstrong is a brilliant researcher with a celebrated career in medicine and academia, someone they describe as charismatic and magnetic with a strong moral compass.

But to her detractors, Armstrong is someone who has capitulated to the Trump administration and failed to defend the institution from politically motivated and possibly unlawful broadsides.

Roy Vagelos is firmly in the supporters’ camp.

Now 95, Vagelos earned a medical degree from Columbia in 1954 and went on to a career in academia and medical science, serving as chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical giant Merck. In August, amid ongoing antiwar protests, Vagelos and his wife, Diana Vagelos (whom he met on campus in 1951), donated $400 million to Columbia’s medical school.

That gift, he told Inside Higher Ed, reflects his confidence in Armstrong, whom he praised for having a nonstop work ethic and developing a clear vision for the medical school.

“Katrina is different from other academic leaders in that she wants to impact society beyond just education,” Vagelos said. “She is a doctor, she wants to cure disease, she wants to improve lives throughout the world by improving health. I had a different kind of career, but our objectives are the same.”

Claire Shipman, vice chair of the Columbia Board of Trustees, complimented Armstrong as an authentic and “exceptional leader” who “came in to help us heal and get our campus in order.” She added that Armstrong is cool under pressure despite the enormity of the current threats.

“Columbia is the epicenter of the political struggle somehow, and she’s getting a crash course in politics,” Shipman said. “Maybe it’s because she’s a doctor, but she’s definitely used to working in crisis conditions, and she just gets into the zone and handles it.”

(Shipman declined to discuss board deliberations on the Trump administration’s demand letter ahead of today’s deadline for a response.)

Columbia students protest on campus, Nov. 14, 2023.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images

James McKiernan, who holds several roles at Columbia, including interim dean of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, argued that Armstrong is making the most of a tough situation, balancing legal compliance with a continued commitment to student free speech.

“I think she inherited a situation where the boundaries had not been established, particularly physical boundaries on time, manner, and place for demonstrations,” McKiernan said.

While he noted Armstrong has been criticized for allowing federal agencies, including Immigration and Custom Enforcement, on campus, “she’s doing what is required by the law.”

Colleagues from other phases of Armstrong’s career also spoke effusively about her.

David Asch, a professor and senior vice president for strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania who worked with Armstrong years ago, called her “completely electric in the classroom.” He added that he was unsurprised she ascended to the top job at Columbia.

“She had ‘university president’ written all over her,” Asch said.

Johns Hopkins Medicine International president Charles Wiener, who also worked with Armstrong in the 1990s, said she had a good personal touch with patients and their families and was motivated by a “relentless drive to take care of people.”

Even critics looking for her to take a stronger stand against Trump had positive things to say about Armstrong.

Michael Thaddeus, a math professor and vice president of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, described her as the most open and accessible leader he’s seen in his 27 years at the university.

“When I was in her office, I mentioned that AAUP was having a happy hour at a nearby bar that evening,” Thaddeus said. “She and her husband showed up at the happy hour and stayed for 90 minutes. That’s just something inconceivable that any previous president wouldn’t have dreamed of doing.”

Still, he voiced concerns about her leadership, including that the campus remains closed to the public and that she has yet to clearly articulate a response to Trump. Thaddeus noted that the university has been in a “holding pattern” since the “turbulent reign” of Shafik, and that Armstrong has largely focused on calming campus tensions. But now that the federal government has brought the fight to Columbia, he wants to see her step it up.

“She’s in a very difficult position now, and what she’s done in the last seven or eight months is not going to work anymore,” Thaddeus said. “She needs to commit to some course of action.”

Others argue that Armstrong is in fact crumbling in the face of threats from the federal government.

Last week AAUP president Todd Wolfson blasted Columbia in a statement that accused campus leaders of surrendering to authoritarianism and sacrificing students to appease Trump.

“The subjugation of universities to state power is a hallmark of autocracy. Columbia University’s immediate submission and betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that seems intent on destroying US higher education,” Wolfson wrote.

The Response

The largest decision of Armstrong’s short tenure as president is looming.

Columbia faces a deadline today to respond to a demand letter from the Trump administration, which called on leadership to make sweeping changes, including expelling or suspending student protesters, overhauling disciplinary procedures, banning masks on campus, and reforming admissions. Arguably the most onerous demand is placing the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies Department into “academic receivership” for a minimum of five years, though Trump officials did not specify what that should entail.

A Wall Street Journal article published Wednesday indicated the university is likely to yield to Trump’s demands. Armstrong’s public statements have offered few clues as to what Columbia will do. But on March 13, Columbia punished student protesters who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring—months after Armstrong apologized for the “hurt” their arrests caused on campus. Sanctions included multiyear suspensions, expulsions and temporary degree revocations. Though the punishments were announced the same day the Trump administration sent the demand letter, Columbia officials said the decisions were the result of lengthy investigations.

In a series of public statements, Armstrong has emphasized the importance of unity and standing up for Columbia’s values, a commitment to free speech, and her guiding principles.

Experts have mixed views of Armstrong’s communiqués.

Lisa Corrigan, a communications professor at the University of Arkansas and an expert on rhetoric and political communication, believes the president is scapegoating protesters and taking a tepid stance.

After analyzing her statements, Corrigan told Inside Higher Ed by email that she thinks Armstrong is “trying to walk the line between the larger national higher ed community and the donors/Trump administration.” Her statements seem to accept “the administration’s rationale for financial sanctions,” Corrigan said, which “only paves the way for further funding and speech assaults at Columbia and elsewhere using the antisemitism canard. Given the speedy exit of her immediate predecessor, Minouche Shafik, after her catastrophic testimony in congressional hearings in April 2024 on antisemitism on Columbia’s campus, Armstrong’s remarks clearly paint her as more amenable to the administration’s increasing control over the future of the institution.”

Former Columbia president Minouche Shafik testifies before Congress in April 2024. She resigned from the post last August.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Larry Ladd, a subject matter specialist at AGB Consulting, emphasized that Armstrong is navigating an unprecedented moment, treading carefully as she tries simultaneously to listen to the concerns of the campus community and to respond to threats from the federal government.

He likened the situation at Columbia to the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and its neighbors.

“The president of Columbia has the same challenge the president of Mexico or the prime minister of Canada has: how to create constructive conversation with the federal government. She is doing the best she can to engage in that conversation, because the government has power to help or harm the university, and she is trying to protect the university and its values,” Ladd said. “She has to be careful to defend its values without causing harm to the university.”

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March 20, 2025
Trump Admin Pauses $175M to University of Pennsylvania

The Trump administration is pausing $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, apparently because the college allowed a transgender woman to compete in women’s sports three years ago.

The funding pause, announced Wednesday via a White House social media post, is not related to any investigation. Instead, the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services stopped the $175 million as part of an “immediate proactive action to review discretionary funding streams,” a senior White House official said in a statement. The legality of the move isn’t clear, and officials didn’t specify what the paused funding was intended to be used for.

The official did note that the university “infamously permitted a male to compete on its women’s swimming team.”

The University of Pennsylvania became a target for Republicans and conservatives after swimmer Lia Thomas, who initially competed on the men’s swimming team, transitioned and then swam for the women’s team during the 2021–22 season—in compliance with the NCAA policies at the time. Thomas went on to win the NCAA championship in the 500-yard freestyle, although her time was not an NCAA record.

President Donald Trump campaigned in part on getting “men out of women’s sports,” and signed an executive order in early February specifically banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. The order is part of a broader rollback of trans rights, and Trump has gone so far as to deny the existence of trans and gender-nonconforming people, declaring that there are only two sexes, male and female.

Shortly after the order was signed, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title IX investigation into transgender athletes participating in college sports at the University of Pennsylvania. The Education Department also urged the NCAA to rescind all “records, titles, awards, and recognitions” given to trans women and girls. Since Trump’s order, the NCAA and Penn have acceded and revised policies to prevent trans women from competing in women’s sports.

A senior Trump administration official told Fox Business that the pause was a “proactive punishment” and that the university is at risk of losing all federal funding as part of the ongoing Title IX investigation.

“This is just a taste of what could be coming down the pipe for Penn,” the official told Fox Business, which first reported on the pause.

A University of Pennsylvania spokesperson said Wednesday afternoon that the institution had yet to receive any official notification or any details about the pause. The spokesperson noted that Penn follows NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.

“We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions,” the spokesperson said.

Columbia, Penn and other universities are facing great uncertainty when it comes to federal funding as Trump looks to cut spending and crack down on programs that don’t align with his priorities. Penn recently paused hiring and took other steps to curb spending.

Pausing Penn’s funding without any formal investigation and outside the typical processes for such a punishment is just the latest salvo in Trump’s attacks on wealthy universities. Earlier this month, the administration cut $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University, accusing the institution of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”—an unprecedented move that alarmed experts and higher education advocates. Trump officials then ratcheted up the pressure by demanding sweeping changes at Columbia as a precondition to formal negotiations. Columbia has until Thursday, March 20, to respond.

Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education, said the administration is punishing conduct they disagree with, adding that he found the Penn pause “more troubling” because of the lack of explanation or rationale.

“It’s one thing to say we think there’s a big problem,” he said. “It’s a much bigger deal to say we’re arbitrarily suspending funding without a reason … You should at least have a reason for taking serious action.”

He noted that the current regulations governing Title IX don’t specifically bar transgender students from participating in women’s sports, and that Penn is in compliance with the policies. So he’s not sure what Penn could offer the Trump administration to restore the funding.

Blake Emerson, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the funding pause is illegal since the administration didn’t follow the processes under Title IX to pull funding. That process includes a formal hearing and a report to Congress.

“There is no freestanding executive power to cut off money without legal authority,” he said. “It’s another instance in this pattern of the Trump administration not just aggressively using the law to target political opponents and universities, but flouting the law and not even showing casual regard for the legal process.”

Emerson noted that executive orders aren’t laws, and that if the Trump administration wants to change the existing interpretations of Title IX, it has to go through the rule-making process.

He urged Penn and Columbia to fight the cuts, as he doesn’t think “acquiescence is likely to appease” the Trump administration.

“Universities have a strong case to make that the funds being cut off are really necessary to provide essential public services the universities provide,” he said. “We’re losing scientific research because of these illegal steps, and universities are failing to make the case for their own programs when the actions being taken against them are clearly illegal. To my mind, acquiescence is a major blunder.”

Meanwhile, conservative activists who have railed against trans athletes praised the move.

Riley Gaines, who competed against Thomas, called the timing of the announcement “serendipitous” in a social media post. Three years ago Wednesday, she tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championships.

Beth Parlato, senior legal adviser for the Independent Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the message from the funding pause was clear: comply or suffer the consequences.

“President Trump means business and he’s not going to tolerate any school willfully violating the law,” Parlato said. “It is so encouraging to see an administration actually follow through with promises made to the American people, and I’m looking forward to watching each and every school that fails to protect women and girls be held accountable.”

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March 19, 2025
Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

The American Association of University Professors chapter at Columbia University is urging officials there to reject the Trump administration’s demands, which include putting an academic department under receivership, abolishing the University Judicial Board and giving security employees arrest authority.

“Compliance would make Columbia complicit in its own destruction, stripping shared control of academic and student affairs from the faculty and administration and replacing the deliberative practices and structures of the university with peremptory fiats from outside the institution,” the AAUP chapter said in a statement Tuesday. “We see no evidence that compliance would assuage the hostility of the White House.”

The Trump administration announced March 7 it was canceling about $400 million in federal grants and contracts for Columbia due to what it claims is the university’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Then, in a letter last week, federal officials listed “next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” They set a March 20 deadline for complying with the demands, which also include a mask ban, a plan for changing admissions and more.

The Columbia AAUP’s statement said, “The government’s demands read like a ransom letter, dictating to the university what principles it must sacrifice and what ideological positions it must adopt to restore research funding.” As for the justification of fighting antisemitism, the AAUP chapter said the university took “many actions over the last year to accommodate its Jewish students, sometimes at the expense of the grievances of other campus groups.”

The AAUP chapter said this “assault on Columbia will serve as a model for attacks on other universities across the nation” and urged colleagues to speak out and “march in the streets.”

The White House didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday.

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March 19, 2025
Moody’s Downgrades Sector Outlook to Negative

Moody’s Ratings on Tuesday downgraded its outlook for the higher education sector from stable to negative due to recent and potential federal policy changes.

The revised outlook comes as the Trump administration has gutted the Education Department via mass layoffs and sought to aggressively overhaul higher education with a flurry of executive orders that have destabilized certain funding streams.

“Actions and potential changes include cuts to research funding, enforcement actions against diversity programs, staff reductions at the US Department of Education, uncertainty over federal student aid, and possible expanded taxes on endowments,” Moody’s analysts wrote in the report released Tuesday. “These factors are causing institutions to pause capital investments, freeze hiring, and cut spending.”

In December, Moody’s projected a stable 2025 with anticipated revenue growth of 4 percent—the most optimistic outlooks for the sector among a trio of predictions from key financial organizations. Now the ratings agency notes federal policy changes could prompt revenue shortfalls, particularly at research universities, due to a proposed cap on National Institutes of Health reimbursements for research-related costs. That cap, which is currently blocked by a court order, would mean about $100 million in cuts annually for research universities that spend at least $50 million on research and award 70 research doctorates a year, according to Moody’s.

In addition to the NIH rate cut, an increase to the endowment tax would hit wealthy, private universities and likely drive cuts to financial aid or in other spending categories, the report found. The current endowment tax is 1.4 percent for institutions with at least 500 students and $500,000 in assets per student, but recent Republican proposals have floated raising that tax significantly. One proposal has called for a 10 percent tax and changing the per-student endowment threshold from $500,000 to $200,000. Another GOP proposal would set the tax at 21 percent.

Potential disruptions to federal financial aid disbursement, however, would impact all colleges and universities. Moody’s noted that “only a select group of wealthy institutions have the financial flexibility to manage such a scenario without likely seeing steep enrollment decline.” Given steep cuts to the Education Department, Moody’s expressed concern that the Federal Student Aid office could be affected, particularly after last year’s overhaul of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which was beset by multiple technical challenges.

“The administration has said the reductions will not affect the department’s statutorily mandated functions such as administering Title IV financial aid and providing assistance to federal student loan borrowers, but the extent to which that will be the case is uncertain,” the report noted.

Federal enforcement actions against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives—which the Trump administration has targeted—also pose a financial risk to the sector, according to Moody’s. The report cited the potential for “a wide array of funding cuts, including Title IV funding suspension, if [universities] do not comply” with Trump’s executive orders clamping down on DEI offerings.

Moody’s also flagged potential losses due to the possible reduction in visas for foreign students. Colleges and universities that would be hit the hardest, according to the report, are those that are “reliant on STEM master’s programs, or more niche offerings like art and design programs.”

The report concluded that the outlook could revert to stable “if many of the federal policies and proposals are reversed or halted by judicial intervention or do not come to pass. Stronger-than-expected investment market returns and operating revenue growth could also lead to a revision of the outlook to stable.”

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March 19, 2025
Judge Orders Education Dept. to Restore Teacher Prep Grants

A federal judge in Maryland this week ordered the U.S. Department of Education to reinstate numerous grants that support teacher-preparation programs.

The department canceled the $600 million in grants last month as part of a wider effort to slash federal funding and eliminate programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. In response, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the National Center for Teacher Residencies and the Maryland Association of Colleges for Teacher Education challenged the cuts, arguing in a lawsuit that the grant terminations were illegal.

On Monday, U.S District Judge Julie Rubin ordered the department to restore funding for the Supporting Effective Educator Development program, the Teacher Quality Partnership program and the Teacher and School Leader incentive program within five business days. That order comes after a federal judge last week directed the department to reinstate canceled grants in eight states.

“We are thrilled that the court has ruled in favor of preserving funding for TQP, SEED, and TSL grants, which have a transformative impact on our nation’s education system,” AACTE president and CEO Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy said in a news release.

The order also blocks the department from terminating any other TQP, SEED or TSL grant awards “in a manner this court has determined is likely unlawful as violative of the Administrative Procedure Act,” which instructs courts to “hold unlawful and set aside final agency actions” deemed “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

The judge asked both the department and the plaintiffs to file a status report within seven business days showing compliance with the order.

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March 19, 2025
Results of Men’s March Madness Bracket Based on Academics

March Madness officially begins Thursday with a match-up between the University of Louisville and Creighton University.

Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

No shame if you forgot National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division I basketball championships were coming up—after all, this March has been filled with more than enough madness in higher ed, even without paying attention to basketball.

Nonetheless, the biggest event in college sports kicks off this week. If you’ve been a little too concerned with the news cycle to fill out your bracket, we’re here to help. Every year since 2006, Inside Higher Ed has determined which teams would win in the men’s and women’s tournaments if the results were based on academic, rather than athletic, performance.

To determine the winners, we used the NCAA’s key academic performance metric, known as the academic progress rate, for the 2022–23 academic year, the most recent data available. The academic progress rate measures student athlete retention and academic eligibility, though some outside experts have said the metric paints an imperfect picture of a program’s academic performance.

(Full disclosure, we did use this metric to determine the winners of the First Four matchups, even though two of the four games will be determined before publication Wednesday morning.)

If two colleges had the same APR, we used 2023–24 graduation success rate, the proportion of athletes who graduated within six years of entering an institution, as tiebreakers. If teams tied again, we turned to the team’s six-year federal graduation rates, which is a more inclusive metric.

Luckily, none of the teams tied in all three categories. Still, there were a handful of nail-biting victories. For instance, the Clemson University Tigers tied the Liberty University Flames on both the academic progress and graduate success rates. But when looking at the overall graduation rate, Clemson won by one point. After besting the Flames in the Final Four, the Tigers beat out the University of Louisville to win the whole thing.

Now, the Inside Higher Ed bracket likely won’t win you any money. But there’s no bad time to celebrate the academic achievements of student athletes alongside their athletic prowess.

Congrats, Clemson Tigers!

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March 19, 2025
Executive Watch: Trump’s weaponization of civil lawsuits — First Amendment News 462
This is the latest installment of Professor Timothy Zick’s “Executive Watch,” which debuted with First Amendment News 457. This post focuses on civil suits by government figures, mainly by the sitting president. It comes at a time when the legitimacy of the New York Times v. Sullivan case is being challenged, and while efforts to establish a national anti-SLAPP law are being thwarted.

Several future posts are in the works, as well as a Resources Page, so stay tuned. – rklc

Professor Timothy Zick

Presidents and suppressive campaigns: Today’s unprecedented practices

Executive Watch is an effort to record and analyze the many First Amendment-related conflicts and concerns arising during the second administration of President Donald Trump. One of the challenges in assessing the administration’s approach to the press and critics is to identify and explain what is distinct or unique about it. After all, the policies and actions of every administration have raised First Amendment issues and concerns. John Adams had reporters jailed under the Sedition Act, Richard Nixon had his “enemies list,” President Obama’s Department of Justice was criticized for prosecuting reporters in national security cases, and President Biden’s administration was accused of pressuring social media platforms to censor disfavored speech.

However, as I explained in my introductory post for Executive Watch, what is distinct about the current president and administration is the depth and breadth of the campaign they are waging against critics, both inside and outside government.

Among other actions, the president and various government agencies have attacked the press and called for the firing of individual reporters; excluded media outlets from official events for failing to use preferred geographic language; retaliated against civil servants who investigated or prosecuted crimes Trump allegedly committed; punished private law firms for lawful advocacy; used the FCC and other agencies to investigate and sanction media outlets for negative coverage; scrubbed government websites of truthful information about racial health disparities and gender discrimination; threatened to prosecute critics of Elon Musk’s efforts to downsize the federal government; arrested a green card holder for participating in campus protests; and suppressed disfavored speech about diversity, equity and inclusion in workplaces and on university campuses.

That is just a partial list.

Notably, these efforts have been undertaken not just by Trump, but also through actions by a host of federal agencies including the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Department of State.

The current situation represents an unprecedented and coordinated effort to use courts, governmental agencies, and even private individuals to engage in retribution, intimidate media and non-media critics, impose official orthodoxies, and punish dissent.

Civil lawsuits as engines of leverage and intimidation

“I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.” — Donald J. Trump

One aspect of the broader current agenda involves the filing of civil defamation, consumer fraud, and other lawsuits against the press and others who publish disfavored information or opinions critical of Trump or his administration.

Like any other citizen, a political candidate, president, or ex-president has the right to file lawsuits and seek redress for reputational or other harms. Indeed, prior to Trump, at least one ex-president did so. However, the extent to which Trump has relied, and continues to rely, on defamation and other civil lawsuits against media and non-media defendants is a unique aspect of a broader campaign against political critics. No other political candidate or president has wielded the civil lawsuit as a political sword quite as Trump has.

When it comes to civil litigation, Trump is in a league of his own. By one account, Trump has been involved in more than 4,000 civil lawsuits over the years, ranging from business disputes to defamation and other actions. Even for someone like Trump, who has been involved in a variety of complex business ventures, that is a remarkable number of civil actions.

One lesson Trump likely learned from his litigation experience is that lawsuits can be an effective form of leverage in business and other dealings. Indeed, even if a claim has no or little legal merit, it can be useful in terms of exhausting, intimidating, and silencing opponents.

For a long time, many of Trump’s civil lawsuits were business-related. However, since he became a political candidate, Trump’s filing of defamation actions has significantly spiked. As a political candidate and officeholder, he has pursued several defamation lawsuits against media and non-media defendants.

Trump has sued CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, as well as local media outlets, for critical coverage of his campaign and first term as president. For example, he brought a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN over the network’s use of the term “the Big Lie” to describe his false claims that he won the 2020 election. That claim was dismissed. More recently, Trump brought a $20 billion civil action against “60 Minutes” and CBS for allegedly editing an interview with Kamala Harris in ways that obscured or improved her answers to questions.

Trump also sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for stating that he had been found liable for “rape” in a civil case. Finally, Trump sued The Des Moines Register and its parent company, Gannett, for publishing a flawed poll showing Trump trailing Harris in the 2024 presidential election in Iowa. He also filed suit against the pollster herself, J. Ann Selzer. All of this despite Trump ultimately winning Iowa handily, raising questions about what damages he allegedly suffered.

Trump has also filed civil lawsuits against non-media defendants. For example, he has sued the Pulitzer Board for recognizing The New York Times for its reporting on the Russia investigation. (That suit has been allowed to proceed, at least for now.)

Trump and his lawyers have also been expanding their civil suit repertoire. He sued CBS and the defendants in the Iowa case for consumer fraud and election interference. His lawsuit against CBS also contains a claim under the Lanham Act, which provides civil damages for false advertising. These suspect allegations target core press functions and political speech.

Additionally, Trump has vowed to file many more civil lawsuits against those who publish unflattering opinions or disfavored information. He has claimed such legal action is necessary to “straighten out the press” and punish those he accuses of fraud and election interference.

Poor litigation track record

For all his litigation experience, Trump has a very poor track record in civil lawsuits, particularly those claiming defamation. In fact, he nearly always loses — sometimes very badly. Trump has even been ordered to pay media defendants substantial damages for filing harassing and frivolous defamation lawsuits. Some states have laws that impose liability on plaintiffs for bringing so-called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) — essentially, defamation actions intended to silence or intimidate critics. Trump has been found liable for damages under such laws.

This is one context in which Trump may not mind being a loser or even paying damages. Weaponizing civil lawsuits and courts is not about restoring Trump’s damaged reputation, recovering damages, protecting consumers, ensuring the integrity of elections, or any other legitimate private or public interest. Rather, they are a means of punishing critics and chilling, through expensive and often frivolous litigation, the publication of unfavorable or unflattering information and opinion.

Civil lawsuits as political weapons

“Donald Trump is abusing the legal system to punish speech he dislikes. If you have to pay lawyers and spend time in court to defend your free speech, then you don’t have free speech.” — Adam Steinbaugh

Like many other aspects of the Trump administration’s agenda, civil lawsuits serve important political purposes. They are part of the campaign to suppress dissent, undermine the press, and entrench executive power.

Decades of litigation have likely convinced Trump that the prospect of defending against frivolous and strategically harassing claims will either convince defendants to settle, trim their critical reporting, or both. In that sense, civil lawsuits are an effective means of intimidating, leveraging, and silencing opponents.

The civil lawsuits communicate political narratives about the press as an institution, hoping to further weaken its public standing. Many of Trump’s civil complaints present hyperbolic and unsupported claims concerning Trump, the press, or both. They also highlight longstanding grievances against the media and other critics. Regardless of their outcome, Trump will be applauded by political supporters for waging war against the press, which Trump continues to describe as “the enemy of the American people.”

In a broader sense, civil lawsuits are part of a campaign to entrench executive power by undermining or eliminating institutions — including the press, agencies, lawyers, and universities — that can check the administration’s political and other narratives. Destroying the credibility of media and non-media fact-checkers and harassing them in civil suits, often through exorbitant demands for damages, serves these larger goals.

Regardless of their merit, Trump’s lawsuits force defendants to consider whether it is worth publishing truthful information or opinions that reflect poorly on him or his administration. The ordinary demands and pressures of civil litigation are even more pronounced when the plaintiff is the president of the United States. Judges may be reluctant to dismiss frivolous claims as a result of Trump’s status, and juries in some jurisdictions may be inclined to side with the president against his critics.

Past as prelude: The Sullivan story and its current importance

Using civil lawsuits as a cudgel against the media and other critics is an abusive practice that threatens to chill communication of opinions and facts. Although unprecedented for a presidential candidate or president, weaponizing defamation and other civil lawsuits to suppress criticism and chill reporting is not a new tactic.

During the Civil Rights Era, local southern officials relied on pro-plaintiff standards to censor and intimidate both media outlets and civil rights activists. Through frequent lawsuits, local and state officials sought to control the narrative about racial segregation.

Recognizing the chilling effect of this litigation tactic, in its 1964 decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan the Supreme Court adopted a demanding standard of proof applicable to public officials who sued for allegedly defamatory statements about the conduct of their official duties. Under that precedent, public officials must show the statements were made with “actual malice,” i.e., that the defendant knew they were false when published or published them with reckless disregard for their truth. The Court later extended the actual malice standard to suits brought by public figures, including those like Trump who have gained extensive public notoriety.

Sullivan was a direct response to early SLAPPs, which were filed to censor local and national reporting about the extent and effects of racial segregation. As the Court recognized, because no double jeopardy limit applied in the civil context, defamation lawsuits could be even more chilling to a free press than the threat of criminal prosecution.

Anthony Lewis

Indeed, as Anthony Lewis observed in his book about the Sullivan case, by 1964, southern officials had brought $300 million in libel claims against the press for truthfully reporting on civil rights abuses. Sullivan’s protective standard — which the president favors eliminating — has been an effective shield for defendants sued by Trump. Without it, media and non-media defendants may face sizable damage awards for publishing even truthful criticism of Trump or the administration.

To be sure, the press does not always act responsibly. Media outlets and reporters can be held liable for knowingly or recklessly publishing false statements about public officials or figures. At the same time, as anti-SLAPP legislation shows, expensive lawsuits and the threat of civil damages can undermine the ability of the press and others to share vitally important information with the public. Trump and his lawyers have upped the ante with consumer fraud and other claims, which must still be rebutted even if frivolous.

In the hands of political officials, including presidents, abusive civil lawsuits can significantly undermine efforts to check power and educate the public.

Troubling successes — and possible responses

Trump has had some recent success in his civil lawsuits. For example, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit, agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and issue an apology for George Stephanopolous’s comments about the civil sexual assault verdict (which the trial judge held was “substantially true” in another Trump defamation lawsuit). CBS and “60 Minutes” are reportedly also considering a settlement, even though legal experts agree the lawsuit is based on a frivolous theory that a news network can be held liable for how it edits interviews.

Meanwhile, Trump has already extracted (if that is the right word) hefty settlements from Meta and X, for seemingly defensible decisions they made to de-platform or restrict Trump based on violations of their terms of service. A judge had dismissed Trump’s action against Twitter (now X), which was based on the First Amendment.

Of course, as law students in my classes know, the First Amendment constrains state action, not the private actions of social media platforms.

WATCH VIDEO: Firing the Watchdogs | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

There are many reasons a defendant might want to settle a civil lawsuit. One reason being to avoid a protracted and costly court proceeding, to avoid discovery, or to avoid the risk of a jury verdict. However, settlement of SLAPPs raise concerns about press obeisance and lack of independence. Rather than defend core First Amendment press prerogatives and functions, large media corporations with regulatory or other business before the Trump administration may be making balance sheet decisions.

As some commentators have suggested, social and media legacy companies may be settling meritless cases to grease the regulatory skids for pending mergers and other potential benefits from the Trump administration. Some have even suggested that some of these settlements may constitute a novel form of political corruption. Thus, one commentator referred to settling frivolous civil lawsuits brought by Trump as “a novel pathway to engage in political bribery.” (Of course, even if the practice fits that description, the administration can simply refuse to enforce political corruption laws against settling defendants.)

There are several means of combatting the weaponization of civil lawsuits. The most direct and obvious is to defend against these lawsuits and offer a robust First Amendment defense. As history shows, weaponizing civil lawsuits has dangerous implications for the freedoms of the press and speech. Trump’s aggressive resort to defamation and other civil lawsuits also highlights the importance of retaining Sullivan’s press-protective standard. Defendants ought to put up substantial and sustained resistance to lawsuit weaponization.

Anti-SLAPP statutes can also provide a deterrent. A federal anti-SLAPP law would make this important protection more widely available. Thus far, Trump has not been much deterred by anti-SLAPP liability. However, making such protections available regardless of jurisdiction would provide all defendants an opportunity to dismiss harassing defamation claims.

There are also actions judges can take to punish and deter abusive civil lawsuits. Judges have the power to dismiss baseless or frivolous claims on their own, and to sanction lawyers who file them. Some commentators have urged judges to refuse to approve media settlements of frivolous claims brought by Trump, on the grounds that they are the product of duress or fraud, or are otherwise against public policy.

Like agency employees, private employers, lawyers, universities, and others who have been subject to executive actions meant to punish or chill expression, media and non-media defendants currently face a critical choice: capitulate or fight.

For the sake of the First Amendment, let us hope the targets of strategic civil lawsuits defend them vigorously.

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

Last scheduled FAN

FAN 461: “Intimidating abridgments and political stunts”

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.
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March 18, 2025
Democrats Blast McMahon Over Education Department Cuts

Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate committee that oversees education policy, and 37 Democrats blasted Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a letter Monday, expressing “outrage” and arguing that the “reckless” cuts to her department’s staff last week will be “nothing short of devastating” for America’s students, schools and communities.

“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when 60 percent of people live paycheck to paycheck, millions of Americans cannot afford higher education, and 40 percent of our nation’s 4th graders and 33 percent of 8th graders read below basic proficiency, it is a national disgrace that the Trump Administration is attempting to illegally abolish the Department of Education and thus, undermine a high-quality education for our students,” Sanders wrote.

The letter noted that less than 24 hours after the reduction was announced, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid temporarily shut down; Education Department workers responsible for fixing it had reportedly been fired.

Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann told the Associated Press that the layoffs didn’t affect employees working on the FAFSA or student loan servicing.

“They are strategic, internal-facing cuts that will not directly impact students and families,” Biedermann said.

But top Democratic appropriators, including Sen. Patty Murray of Washington State and ranking member of the House committee Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, disagreed. In their own letter Monday, they argued that the cuts would impact students’ daily lives and demanded to know how McMahon will uphold the law with a decimated staff.

“Firing the people that ensure states, school districts, and institutions of higher education live up to their legal obligations is neither efficient nor accountable,” the lawmakers wrote. “The President’s disregard for appropriations and other laws and the need for stability and productivity in government creates an imperative for the Department to provide accurate, timely responses on its use and planned use of taxpayer resources provided by the laws passed by Congress.”

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March 18, 2025
Accelerated Business Degree Reduces Student Debt

As more students and parents consider the value of higher education and the cost of a four-year degree, interest has grown in three-year degree opportunities that allow students to complete their education in less time for a lower tuition rate.

Westminster College in Pennsylvania launched a new Degree in Three program in the School of Business this year, allowing learners to graduate with 125 credits and shave a year off their time in undergraduate education. Additionally, the program pairs with the college’s master of business administration, so learners can complete two degrees in four years if they so choose.

The background: There were a few catalysts for creating a formal three-year degree program, explains Robert Badowski, Westminster’s school of business chair. First, more students were coming in with credits from high school from AP or dual-enrollment programs, making their degree progress quicker. Second, more students and parents had noted the high cost of education and concerns about student debt.

A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found seven in 10 respondents say higher education institutions in general charge too much for an undergraduate education.

Westminster isn’t the only college facing pressure to get students to graduation sooner: Interest in formalized three-year degree programs has grown in recent years, and more institutions are looking to get in the game, even medical schools.

At Westminster, the college had helped students shape their own schedules to graduate in three years rather than four, but a curriculum review and restructuring of elective courses has helped make this accessible to all students.

What’s different: Westminster students can take up to 19 credit hours per semester and be considered full-time, but the business program offered primarily four-credit courses, making it difficult for students to max out their credit load.

“You could take four classes, but if you took the fifth class, you were paying extra money, and most students don’t want to take on that burden, even if it was cutting off a year,” Badowski explains.

Many three-year degree programs reduce the total number of credits students have to complete, but Westminster accelerated business students still complete at least 125 credits. To do so, faculty members reimagined their four-credit elective courses to be worth either one or two credits instead.

Now, instead of engaging in a deep dive into an elective topic, students receive greater breadth in a variety of areas and are able to hit that 19-credit threshold exactly.

“We had a meeting [with faculty members] as far as which courses made sense to do this with, and we found out in the process that a lot of [content] was stretched out purposefully just to be stretched out,” Badowski says. The process of removing content or packing it into seven or eight weeks, therefore, made more sense in many cases.

The restructuring of elective courses is something that will benefit all business students, not just those participating in the accelerated degree program, giving them greater flexibility in scheduling.

BOGO deal: In addition to removing costs associated with attending college, the Degree in Three program allows students to pair their undergraduate and graduate degrees in a four-year timeline.

“We have a pretty neat deal that if students want to take one of their M.B.A. classes the last semester of their senior year, they can,” Badowski says. “We don’t charge for the M.B.A. course, so that gets them kind of jettisoned into the program.”

The offering is particularly attractive to student athletes at the college, many of whom want to use all four years of eligibility.

The price of an M.B.A. at Westminster is also around $10,000, so students spend less for a three-plus-one M.B.A. degree than four years in their undergraduate program, Badowski says.

What’s next: Administrators are working on creating awareness of the offering among prospective students and particularly parents, who “are going to look at this and hopefully go, ‘I can help my kids save a year of tuition, maybe get them out of college a year faster,’” Badowski says.

The college doesn’t have specific goals for enrollment, but Badowski would like to see 20 in the first year and consistent growth after that. “I’m hoping that people find it useful for them, [because] they’re still getting the same amount of credits. They’re taking the same classes as everybody else, it’s just faster.”

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March 18, 2025
Why Online Learning Teams Should Read “Co-Intelligence”
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI by Ethan Mollick

Published in April 2024

How many artificial intelligence and higher education meetings have you attended where much of the time is spent discussing the basics of how generative AI works? At this point in 2025, the biggest challenge for universities to develop an AI strategy is our seeming inability to achieve universal generative AI literacy.

Given this state of affairs, I’d like to make a modest proposal. From now on, all attendees of any AI higher education–focused conversation, meeting, conference or discussion must first have read Ethan Mollick’s (short) book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI.

The audiobook version is only four hours and 37 minutes. Think of the productivity gains if we canceled the next five hours of planned AI meetings and booked that time for everyone to sit and listen to Mollick’s book.

For university people, Co-Intelligence is perfect, as Mollick is both a professor and (crucially) not a computer scientist. As a management professor at Wharton, Mollick is experienced in explaining why technologies matter to people and organizations. His writing on generative AI mirrors how he teaches his students to utilize technology, emphasizing translating knowledge into action.

In my world of online education, Co-Intelligence serves as an excellent road map to guide our integration of generative AI into daily work. In the past, I would have posted Mollick’s four generative AI principles on the physical walls of the campus offices that learning designers, media educators, marketing and admissions teams, and educational technology professionals once shared. Now that we live on Zoom and are distributed and hybrid—I guess I’ll have to put them on Slack.

Mollick’s four principles include:
1. Always Invite AI to the Table
When it comes to university online learning units (and probably everywhere else), we should experiment with generative AI in everything we do. This experimentation runs from course/program development, curriculum and assessment writing to program outreach and marketing.
1. Be the Human in the Loop
While anything written (and very soon, visual and video) should be co-created with generative AI, that content must always be checked, edited and reworked by one of us. Generative AI can accelerate our work but not replace our expertise or contribution.
1. Treat AI Like a Person (But Tell It What Kind of Person It Is)
When working with large language models, the key to good prompt writing is context, specificity and revision. The predictive accuracy and effectiveness of generative AI output dramatically improve with the precision of the prompt. You need to tell the AI who it is, who the audience it is writing for is and what tone the generated content should assume.
1. Assume This Is the Worst AI You Will Ever Use
Today, we can easily work with AI to create lecture scripts and decks. How long will it take to feed the AI a picture of a subject matter expert and a script and tool to create plausible—and compelling—full video lectures (chunked into short segments with embedded computer-generated formative assessments)? Think of the time and money we will save when AI complements studio-created instructional videos. We are around the corner of AI’s ability to accelerate the work of learning designers and media educators dramatically. Are we preparing for that day?

How are your online learning teams leveraging generative AI in your work?

What other books on AI would you recommend for university readers?

What are you reading?
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March 18, 2025