Tag: office

  • Will end to federal Office of Ed Tech mean an end to equity?

    Will end to federal Office of Ed Tech mean an end to equity?

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    From internet access to 1:1 devices, ed tech use in schools has grown at a rapid pace since Congress formed the Office of Educational Technology three decades ago within the U.S. Department of Education.

    But now that OET is gone, former employees fear the office’s progress to push for equitable access to technology for students and teachers nationwide will be lost — particularly as the implementation of artificial intelligence tools accelerates. 

    The Trump administration informed all seven OET employees in a March 12 email that their positions and office were being “abolished” as the Education Department announced massive layoffs across the agency. 

    Just a couple weeks later, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the Education Department. The move comes as the Trump administration aims both to reduce the overall size of the federal government and to give states more authority over their education systems. 

    The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on OET’s closure.

    When Kristina Ishmael, OET’s deputy director from October 2021 to December 2023, found out about the office’s closure, she said she felt “shock and surprise, as well as disappointment and anger.” Ishmael added that those feelings extended to the decimation of other Education Department offices as well. 

    OET’s role in guiding schools

    OET’s responsibilities over the years, among many other things, included the development of six National Educational Technology Plans between 2000 and 2024. 

    The latest plan identified three persistent barriers to equity in ed tech to be addressed by education leaders at state, district and school levels. Those barriers included inequitable implementation of ed tech in classrooms, uneven availability of ed tech professional development opportunities for teachers, and gaps in students’ access to broadband connections, devices and digital content.

    There is still a lot of work to do to address those inequities, Ishmael said. 

    Just months after ChatGPT debuted, OET began to release guidance on AI use in schools, focusing first on its impact on educators, and then on responsibilities for ed tech industry leaders and logistical concerns for school district leaders. 

    Beyond offering nonregulatory federal guidance, OET worked with multiple offices in the Education Department and other federal agencies. Additionally, OET acted as a point of contact for Congress to keep lawmakers informed about the state of ed tech in classrooms, according to former staff. 

    For instance, OET collaborated with the Office for Civil Rights when the Education Department released guidance last year on students’ civil rights protections regarding the use of AI tools in schools, said Anil Hurkadli, who held a one-year appointment as OET’s acting deputy director through Jan. 20. 

    “If we don’t have a really clear interpretation or articulation of how civil rights laws do indeed apply in the use of educational technology and educational settings, you create a lot of risk that districts and states are not procuring products and services in ways that are in alignment with those laws,” Hurkadli said. 

    The same issue applies to ed tech developers, Hurkadli said. If the industry creates tools without a clear understanding of civil rights laws, they also run the risk of violating students’ privacy and potentially compromising their sensitive data, he added. 

    OET served as a key convener for districts and states in the ed tech space, which also included student and teacher perspectives, Hurkadli said. For decades, the office leveraged its federal role to advocate both within the government and with external stakeholders for equitable access to ed tech in classrooms. 

    Without OET, there will be “a gaping hole in those efforts at a time when technology is accelerating at a pace where we can’t afford to lose ground,” Hurkadli said.

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  • Explaining Sussex v the Office for Students

    Explaining Sussex v the Office for Students

    The University of Sussex has published a pre-action protocol letter to the Office for Students (OfS).

    The letter notifies the regulator of the university’s intention to seek judicial review and appeal the decision – which imposed a £600k fine over breaches related to academic freedom and freedom of speech.

    Thus far we’ve had a war of words – now we see the legal basis for the argument. Sussex argues that OfS acted ultra vires (ie beyond its powers), misinterpreted legal principles, misapplied statutory definitions, and demonstrated irrationality in its findings, particularly over the Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement (TNBEPS).

    It also asserts that OfS overstepped its authority, failed to engage in procedural fairness, and ignored safeguards already in place – putting meat on the bones of its eye-catching “free-speech absolutism” claim.

    Some of it concerns a regulatory regime that’s set to be replaced – but some of it concerns an allegation of “absolutism” about how the regulator is interpreting the law. The second of those could go on to matter quite a bit once the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 actually gets implemented.

    Chilling effects and balancing acts

    Sussex’s disciplinary statement classified “transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying” – including name-calling and derogatory jokes – as serious disciplinary offences, and it argues that OfS made a legal error in finding that the statement breached regulatory requirements around freedom of speech.

    It arguies that the language targets conduct already covered by existing laws – like section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which prohibits abusive speech likely to cause harassment or distress.

    In 2023, the university introduced clarifications – a “harm threshold” requiring speech to be reasonably expected to cause fear or distress, and an explicit statement safeguarding lawful academic freedom and speech, stating that the policy should not justify disciplinary action for expressing controversial or unpopular views.

    It claims OfS ignored those contextual safeguards and wrongly interpreted the policy as restricting lawful speech, even though its objective meaning, when read in full and in context, demonstrates otherwise.

    Broadly, this is about the “chilling effect” – Sussex is saying that universities can lawfully discipline harmful or abusive speech, as long as there’s an alignment with existing legal prohibitions, and as long as there are clear safeguards for lawful expression – limiting OfS’s power to challenge policies based on hypothetical misreadings. Doing so gives universities freedom to uphold respectful environments without breaching free speech duties.

    Expression that you can restrict

    Next, Sussex argues that OfS misunderstood what “freedom of speech within the law” actually means – taking the position that universities can’t prohibit any speech unless it’s already explicitly banned by civil or criminal law.

    Sussex’s argument is that universities, like other institutions, are allowed to set standards of conduct and discipline behaviour – like plagiarism, abuse, or poor academic quality – even if those behaviours aren’t technically illegal:

    The University would have to tolerate academics designing curriculums which lack academic rigour, for example a curriculum which seeks to reinforce stereotypes (as distinct from a curriculum that discusses stereotypes).

    The University would have to tolerate an academic starting every lecture by swearing at and demeaning students, so long as such action did not relate to protected characteristics.

    The University would have to tolerate an academic conducting every lecture through the medium of song or mime (noting that freedom of speech protects the manner of speech as well as the content).

    The argument is that lawful speech can still be restricted if the restriction is lawful and proportionate, as allowed under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the mere possibility of disciplinary action doesn’t amount to an unlawful restriction on speech, citing European case law to back this up.

    This one’s interesting because it’s a key part of the “absolutism” argument – in its draft guidance on the new legislation last year, for example, OfS said:

    It is likely to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for higher education providers and other relevant organisations to comply with their free speech duties if they seek directly or indirectly to restrict the particular content of speech. For instance, a provider, constituent institution or relevant students’ union may wish to restrict or prohibit speech because it has made a negative value judgement about the content of the speech. There is likely to be very little scope to restrict or prohibit lawful speech in this way.

    Sussex is basically saying that the case law suggests that it’s not nearly as difficult or impossible as OfS claims – and that universities retain the lawful authority to set and enforce standards of behaviour, academic integrity, and professionalism – even where those rules affect speech that isn’t illegal. It’s also saying that having disciplinary procedures in place isn’t, by itself, a breach of free speech obligations, so long as they aren’t used to punish lawful expression improperly.

    Stereotyping standoffs

    One of the things we’ve reflected on before is the apparent refusal of the regulator to accept that the case law puts a higher value on free speech in academic contexts than in others – and of course a university encompasses all sorts of contexts.

    Put another way, what a student writes in an essay or what an academic teaches (with all the usual qualifications about proper rigour) that might, say, stereotype a trans person is a world away from stereotyping banter on a society social.

    In the letter, Sussex challenges the logic and legality of OfS’s conclusion about the 2023 “Stereotyping Statement” in the TNBEPS. OfS accepted the statement didn’t infringe academic freedom, noting the policy included a safeguard against constraining academic freedom or imposing disproportionate limits on free speech. Yet it still found the same policy breached freedom of speech duties, because it could chill other lawful speech, particularly by students or non-academic staff.

    Sussex argues this is irrational because the Stereotyping Statement only relates to how the curriculum is designed – something that exclusively involves academics. If OfS was satisfied that the policy didn’t infringe the academic freedom of those academics in setting the curriculum, it argues there is no rational basis to then conclude that their freedom of speech was infringed by the same policy.

    This standoff matters. OfS is saying that even if a policy respects academic freedom, it can still breach free speech duties if it chills broader expression – while Sussex argues that in curriculum design, those duties converge, and protecting academic freedom inherently protects speech.

    Is a policy statement a governing document?

    Sussex argues that the Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement (TNBEPS) is not a “governing document” as defined by section 14(1) of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA), which it says only refers to foundational legal documents like a university’s Charter and Statutes.

    In comments to the Guardian at the end of last month, Sussex vice chancellor Sasha Roseneil argued as follows:

    This is a really small statement, of which we have many dozens, if not hundreds, of similar policies and statements. Whereas the governing documents of the university are its charter and statutes and regulations. So that’s the core of the problem

    In the pre-action letter, Sussex claims OfS has wrongly expanded the definition through its regulatory framework, which includes broader policy documents, without the legal authority to do so – insisting that only Parliament can define those terms – and that interpreting TNBEPS as a governing document is beyond the OfS’s powers (ultra vires).

    You might argue that it’s sensible for both the law and the regulator to only look at proper, formal governing documents when assessing breaches of things, you might not – but if Sussex is right on that, it does underline a key difference between the law operating in 2021 and what would be the position if the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was fully in force.

    It goes on to argue that the regulator “misunderstood and misapplied” its regulatory role, because OfS was supposed to determine whether the university’s governing documents were consistent with principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech – not to speculate on how someone might misread a policy.

    It criticizes OfS for relying on “hypothetical misinterpretations” rather than objectively interpreting the actual text, ignoring contextual safeguards like the university’s disciplinary rules and Free Speech Code – which the university says led to a flawed and unlawful decision.

    If Sussex is right, it’s saying that OfS may have failed a basic legal duty – to interpret documents in context and according to their actual effect, not based on imagined misunderstandings.

    Delegation and proportionality

    You’ll recall that the other big fine for Sussex was about delegation. Sussex argues that OfS acted beyond its legal authority by making findings about whether the university properly followed its internal rules on who has the power to approve policies (its delegation arrangements).

    Sussex contends that these are matters for our old friend the Visitor, a traditional legal role in UK university governance, who in Sussex’s case is the actual King.

    It cites longstanding legal authority confirming that the Visitor has exclusive jurisdiction over internal governance questions, including interpretation and application of the university’s own rules, and says that unless Parliament clearly removes or overrides that jurisdiction, external bodies like OfS can’t interfere.

    Sussex says HERA 2017 doesn’t meet the test, because it neither expressly nor necessarily implies that OfS can judge whether a university has followed its internal delegation rules.

    OfS argues that cases like Thomas v University of Bradford [1987] AC 795 make clear that HERA 2017 grants it the power to impose conditions as long as those conditions fall within its statutory mandate.

    This one’s interesting because it has echoes of arguments about the powers OfS has over consumer protection. In that area, C1 allows it to assess whether a provider has paid “due regard” to guidance, but OfS doesn’t have actual powers to judge whether a provider is in breach – which is partly why it’s busy proposing to remix consumer law as a “fairness condition” of its own, and partly why interim Chair David Behan has been arguing to DfE that it needs to be given proper powers to become an enforcement body.

    Poking around in the annex

    As such, Sussex also argues that OfS exceeded its legal authority by including Annex H in its Final Decision.

    That contains OfS’ views on whether the university may have breached other legal obligations – like Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Equality Act 2010. Sussex asserts that HERA 2017 doesn’t authorise OfS to investigate or make findings about compliance with these separate legal duties, which fall outside its jurisdiction.

    OfS tries to justify its actions by saying that potential non-compliance with these laws might indicate whether Sussex breached Condition E1 (the requirement for governing documents to support freedom of speech and academic freedom).

    But Sussex argues this logic is flawed – it says E1 is about the content of governing documents and whether they align with public interest governance principles – not about whether the university might have violated unrelated legal duties that OfS doesn’t oversee.

    The university also points out what it says are legal errors in OfS’ analysis. OfS claimed the university might have breached Article 10 ECHR simply because it didn’t conduct a formal “proportionality assessment” – but case law says that’s not a requirement to prove a breach.

    The case referenced is a fascinating one – in Belfast City Council v Miss Behavin’ Ltd [2007] the council had denied a licence to an adult entertainment business, who argued their freedom of expression was infringed because the council hadn’t assessed whether the denial was proportionate.

    The House of Lords rejected the argument, deciding that what matters is whether the interference was in fact justified – not whether the council had formally weighed it up using proportionality language.

    And Sussex argues that OfS wrongly suggested the university’s curriculum content could amount to indirect discrimination under the Equality Act, even though curriculum content is explicitly excluded from that law under section 94(2).

    Process issues

    Some of the process issues are eye-opening. We learn, for example, that OfS suggested various potential penalties and breaches throughout the 1246 days of the investigation, “most of which were later dropped”.

    We already knew that OfS “never met with university representatives”, declined all requests for meetings or discussions about its findings or decisions, and would not confirm whether changes the university made to its policy addressed the concerns raised.

    Here Sussex says that when the provisional decision was reached and sent in March 2024, it was “259 pages long, repetitive and poorly written”. A year or so later, out of the blue, it says it got a call from OfS requesting a meeting within 3.5 hours – a courtesy call that the final decision was coming that day.

    It says that the majority of the findings and proposed penalties in the provisional decision had been abandoned, but the proposed penalties had actually increased – with no explanation.

    Sussex claims OfS acted unfairly during its investigation by meeting with Kathleen Stock multiple times while refusing nine requests to meet with university representatives – and argue OfS relied on a second statement from Stock, obtained after the university’s submissions, without disclosing it or allowing any response, using it to reject the university’s position on harm caused under condition E1.

    What happens next will hinge on whether OfS engages with the university’s legal challenge or digs in for a court fight – there’s a question over whether there’s any pre-action protocol for this kind of tribunal, and Sussex reserves the right to rely on other grounds.

    But more broadly, the case lays bare fundamental disagreements about how speech should be regulated in higher education, who gets to interpret the law, and where the boundaries lie between institutional autonomy and regulatory oversight.

    Whether you think Sussex is bravely standing up for a more balanced view of the campus culture see-saw, or is simply resisting accountability, the outcome may well reshape how free speech duties are understood and enforced across the sector.

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  • Head Start Providers Shocked as Federal Office Serving Wisconsin Shuts Without Notice – The 74

    Head Start Providers Shocked as Federal Office Serving Wisconsin Shuts Without Notice – The 74


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    Head Start child care providers in Wisconsin and five other Midwestern states were stunned Tuesday to learn that the federal agency’s Chicago regional office was closed and their administrators were placed on leave — throwing new uncertainty into the operation of the 60-year-old child care and early education program.

    “The Regional Office is a critical link to maintaining program services and safety for children and families,” said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, in a statement distributed to news organizations Tuesday afternoon.

    The surprise shutdown of the federal agency’s Chicago office — and four others across the country — left Head Start program directors uncertain about where to turn, Mauer said.

    “We have received calls throughout the day from panicked Head Start programs worried about impacts to approving their current grants, fiscal issues, and applications to make their programs more responsive to their local communities,” Mauer said.

    The regional offices are part of the Office of Head Start in the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

    In an interview, Mauer said there had been no official word to Head Start providers about the Chicago office closing. Some program leaders learned of the closing from private contacts with people in the office.

    “We have not seen official information come out” to local Head Start directors, who operate on the federal grants that fund the program, Mayer said. “It’s just really alarming. For an agency that is about serving families, I don’t understand how this can be.”

    The National Head Start Association issued a press release Tuesday expressing “deep concern” about the regional office closings.

    “In order to avoid disrupting services for children and families, we urge the administration to reconsider these actions until a plan has been created and shared widely,” the association stated.

    Katie Hamm, the deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at HHS during the Biden administration, posted on LinkedIn shortly before 12 noon Tuesday that she had learned of reduction-in-force (RIF) notices to employees in the Administration for Children and Families earlier in the day.

    RIF notices appear to have gone to all employees of the Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care in five regional offices, Hamm wrote, in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle in addition to Chicago.

    “Staff are on paid leave effective immediately and no longer have access to their files,” Hamm wrote. “There does not appear to be a transition plan so that Head Start grantees, States, and Tribes are assigned to a new office. For Head Start, it is unclear who will administer grants going forward.”

    Hamm left HHS at the end of the Biden administration in January, according to her LinkedIn profile.

    Mauer said regional office employees “are our key partners and colleagues,” and their departure has left Head Start operators “incredibly saddened and deeply concerned.”

    Regional employees work with providers “to ensure the safety and quality of services and to meet the mission of providing care for the most vulnerable families in the country,” Mauer said.

    The regional offices provide grant oversight, distribute funds, monitor Head Start programs and advise centers on complying with regulations, including for child safety, she said. They also provide training and technical assistance for local Head Start programs.

    “The Regional Office is a critical link to maintaining program services and safety for children and families,” Mauer said. “These cuts will have a direct impact on programs, children, and families.”

    In addition to Wisconsin, the Chicago regional office oversees programs in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.

    Head Start supervises about 284 grants across the six states in programs that  enroll about 115,000 children, according to Mauer. There are 39 Head Start providers in Wisconsin enrolling about 16,000 children and employing about 4,000 staff.

    The federal government created Head Start in the mid-1960s to provide early education for children living in low-income households. Head Start operators report that the vast majority of the families they serve rely on the program to provide child care so they can hold jobs.

    The regional office closings came two months after a sudden halt in Head Start funding. Head Start operators get a federal reimbursement after they incur expenses, and program directors have been accustomed to being able to submit their expenses and receive reimbursement payments through an online portal.

    Over about two weeks in late January and early February, program leaders in Wisconsin and across the country reported that they were unable to log into the system or post their payment requests. The glitches persisted for some programs for several days, but were ultimately resolved by Feb. 10.

    Mauer told the Wisconsin Examiner on Tuesday that so far, there have not been new payment delays. But there has also been no communication with Head Start operators about what happens now with the unexpected regional office closings, she said.

    “No plan for who will provide support has been shared, and the still-existing regional offices are already understaffed,” Mauer said. “I’m very nervous to see what happens. With no transition plan this will be a disaster.”

    In her statement, Mauer said the regional office closing was “another example of the Federal Administration’s continuing assault on Head Start” following the earlier funding freeze and stalled reimbursements.

    She said closing regional offices was undermining the program’s ability to function.

    “We call on Congress to immediately investigate this blatant effort to hamper Head Start’s ability to provide services,” Mauer stated, “and to hold the Administration accountable for their actions.”

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


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  • Making Higher Ed’s Back Office More Efficient and Student-Centric

    Making Higher Ed’s Back Office More Efficient and Student-Centric

    Facing challenges in enrollment, retention, or tech integration? Seeking growth in new markets? Our strategic insights pave a clear path for overcoming obstacles and driving success in higher education.

    Unlock the transformative potential within your institution – partner with us to turn today’s roadblocks into tomorrow’s achievements. Let’s chat.

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  • Office for Civil Rights Commences Title VI Investigations Against 45 Universities

    Office for Civil Rights Commences Title VI Investigations Against 45 Universities

    On March 14, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it had opened Title VI investigations into 45 universities. In a news release, ED noted that these investigations follow a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) signed by Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights. According to the ED release, the DCL — sent to all educational institutions that receive federal funding — reiterated that schools were obligated “to end the use of racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.”

    Among the universities being investigated are both public and private institutions that include Clemson University, Cornell University, Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Kentucky.

    An article from the Courier Journal reported that University of Kentucky spokesperson Lindsey Piercy said, “We have not received any official notification of this review. However, the university complies with both the constitution and Title VI. Our graduate programs are open to all qualified applicants. We will continue to monitor and review this issue, cooperate with any official inquiries and, as always, comply with the law.”

    Montana State University-Bozeman (MSU) is also among the 45 institutions under investigation. MSU vice president for communications Tracy Ellig released a statement which reads in part: “MSU strictly adheres to all federal and state laws in the hiring of its faculty and staff. … Montana State University strictly adheres to all applicable laws with regard to its students. MSU has well-established processes and procedures in place to investigate any claim of discrimination by students, faculty, staff or the public.”

    The ED press release noted that the investigations were prompted by these institutions having partnered with The PhD Project, an organization founded in 1994 with the goal of creating more role models leading business classrooms. It endeavors to improve diversity in the business world by encouraging people from underrepresented backgrounds to attain doctoral degrees in business. ED asserted that The PhD Project “limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”

    The PhD Project issued the following statement: “For the last 30 years, The PhD Project has worked to expand the pool of workplace talent by developing business school faculty who inspire, mentor, and support tomorrow’s leaders. Our vision is to create a broader talent pipeline of current and future business leaders who are committed to excellence and to each other, through networking, mentorship, and unique events. This year, we have opened our membership application to anyone who shares that vision. The PhD Project was founded with the goal of providing more role models in the front of business classrooms, which remains our goal today.”

    OCR is also investigating six universities that have allegedly awarded race-based scholarships, which it asserts is not allowed, and one university that allegedly administers a program that “segregates students on the basis of race.” Among those schools are Grand Valley State University, Ithaca College and the University of Tulsa School of Medicine.

    “The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination,” noted U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudiced by the color of their skin.”

    Kelly Benjamin, media and communications strategist for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), noted that AAUP was a plaintiff in a case for which the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland has granted a preliminary nationwide injunction on parts of two executive orders issued by President Donald J. Trump that sought to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs among federal government grantees and contractors, which includes most colleges and universities.

    “Unfortunately, the Office of Civil Rights within the Education Department has…intensified the clamp down on speech and expression related to race and identity, and they’ve moved beyond censorship into a true weaponization of federal civil rights law,” said Benjamin. “It’s fundamentally at odds with what the mission of higher education should be, which is the search for knowledge that serves the common good.

    “They’re trying to remake higher education into their own agenda, where they can control not only who has access to higher education but what is taught in the classroom, what can be researched, what can be written about,” he added. “It’s an assault on the very core mission of higher education.”

    The defendants, which include President Trump and ED, filed for a stay of the injunction pending appeal, which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted. “Having reviewed the record, the district court’s opinion, and the parties’ briefing, we agree with the government that it has satisfied the factors for a stay under Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 426 (2009).” Entered at the direction of Chief Judge Albert Diaz, with the concurrence of Judge Pamela Harris and Judge Allison Rushing.

    EdTrust issued a statement from Augustus Mays, vice president of partnerships and engagement,  condemning the investigations. He noted: “By using federal investigations as a weapon to intimidate institutions committed to racial equity, the Trump administration is not only undermining the fundamental mission of higher education but is also jeopardizing student success. These attacks are grounded in a false narrative that DEI initiatives are about exclusion. The reality is the opposite: these programs are designed to expand access, increase opportunity, and strengthen institutions by ensuring that all students, particularly underserved students, can thrive.”

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  • Navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity

    Navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity

    Franz Kafka’s masterpiece “The Trial” begins when Josef K discovers that “one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”

    What follows is the story of his desperate attempt to navigate a nightmarishly opaque bureaucracy — and the bleak results. Like Josef K, Columbia students awoke one morning to find themselves at the mercy of the university’s new Office of Institutional Equity.

    In recent weeks, the OIE sent dozens of warnings to students telling them they were under investigation for alleged discriminatory harassment simply for engaging in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus. Individual acts of protected political expression — social media posts, peaceful demonstrations, and op-eds in the student newspaper — were treated as creating a “hostile environment” for criticizing Israel, with accusations framed in expansive interpretations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

    FIRE has since heard from a number of students lost in the maze of Columbia’s cryptic dispatches and confusing accusations, and one thing is clear: the OIE has cast a late-winter chill across campus. 

    These investigations can take months or even years, and leave students in fear of what they can and cannot do or say while they await the results. 

    Take the two Columbia seniors who were notified just months before graduation that they were under investigation and subject to expulsion for allegedly writing a student newspaper article signed by a consortium of pro-Palestinian student groups urging divestment from Israel. One student described the situation as “dystopian” and said she is now reluctant to speak out on the issue again. Even worse, the two students were targeted not because there was any evidence they’d actually authored the article, much less created a hostile environment by doing so, but merely because of their involvement with the pro-Palestinian student group consortium.

    Another student contacted FIRE to report that they were afraid to return to campus because they feared the administration would retaliate against them for their previous advocacy with Students for Justice in Palestine. 

    Moreover, Columbia made national headlines this week when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained former student Mahmoud Khalil, who previously tried to fight the OIE. Though he had already successfully appealed the university’s disciplinary charges against him, federal agents showed up on his doorstep and hauled him off to an ICE detention center based on accusations that he led campus protest activities aligned with Hamas. 

    Trump administration’s reasons for detaining Mahmoud Khalil threaten free speech

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    The government arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil for deportation, and its explanation for doing so threatens the free speech of millions of people.


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    Khalil reported that just before he was due to graduate this past December, the OIE buried him in allegations relating to social media posts with which he was uninvolved. Furthermore, when he stood up for himself and refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement, the university put a hold on his transcript and threatened to block his graduation — until he hired counsel, and the OIE seemed to temporarily back off. The timing of the ICE raid and the OIE’s investigation into Khalil leaves students and faculty with more questions than answers, especially as he has still not yet been criminally charged for anything and is facing deportation.

    While Columbia’s OIE is charged with addressing claims of unlawful discrimination and harassment, it cannot do so by employing an overly broad definition of harassment that stretches the meaning beyond recognition. Yet the OIE has done exactly that in interpreting Title VI harassment to include protected criticism of Israel, suppressing political activism under the guise of maintaining a “safe” environment by defining speech against another country as possible discriminatory harassment if “directed at or infused with discriminatory comments about persons from, or associated with, that country.” 

    Is it possible for such speech to be part of a pattern of discriminatory harassment? Yes. It’s also possible for it not to be harassment. The way Columbia is treating such speech, though, makes that impossible to discern. 

    The OIE’s needlessly murky investigatory process is also deeply troubling. Students report being left in the dark about the specifics of the charges against them, and being required to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to see the evidence. In other words, they can’t talk to anyone about their case or get help until after it’s too late and the OIE has already decided their case and potentially sealed their fate. 

    These investigations can take months or even years, and leave students in fear of what they can and cannot do or say while they await the results. When students are forced to endure lengthy investigations that may result in serious sanctions such as suspension and expulsion, it’s obvious that the process, even if it results in a student’s favor, is the punishment. 

    The original title of “The Trial” was Der Prozess, or literally “The Process,” because the true horror Josef was forced to confront was that of a Byzantine and convoluted process custom-built to crush dissent. If nothing else, we can perhaps thank Columbia, like so many schools before it, for bringing classic literature to life.

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  • After Heated Oval Office Exchange, Trump Ends Pivotal Meeting With Zelensky Early (Time)

    After Heated Oval Office Exchange, Trump Ends Pivotal Meeting With Zelensky Early (Time)

    Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky wouldn’t concede the point. A tense Oval Office meeting Friday that was supposed to end in Ukraine agreeing to share mining resources with the U.S. devolved into a heated argument as President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance insisted Ukraine should express more gratitude for U.S. support and agree to a ceasefire with Russia, even without clear security guarantees from the U.S.
    “You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump told Zelensky, as the two interrupted each other during a forceful exchange in front of TV cameras.

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  • The Office for Students reviews TEF… again

    The Office for Students reviews TEF… again

    The Office for Students has been evaluating the last iteration of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), which happened in 2023.

    The 2023 TEF was a very different beast to previous iterations, focusing more on qualitative (submissions from providers and students) evidence and less on the quantitative experience and output measures. But to be clear, this work does not appear to assess the impact or likely effects of these changes – it treats the 2023 exercise very much as a one off event.

    We get an independent evaluation report, written by IFF research. There’s the findings of a survey of students involved in preparing the student submissions (aspects of which contribute to a student guide to evidence collection for TEF), findings from a survey of applicants (conducted with Savanta), and an analysis of the estimated costs to the sector of TEF2023. The whole package is wrapped up with a summary blog post, from OfS TEF supremo Graeme Rosenberg.

    Of all this, the blog post is the only bit that touches on what most of us probably care about – the future of the TEF, and the wider idea of the “integrated quality system”. Perhaps predictably, OfS has heard that it should

    “build on the elements of the TEF that worked well and improve on areas that worked less well for some providers.

    The top-line summary of everything else is that OfS is pleased that TEF seems to be driving change in institutions, particularly where it is driven by student perspectives. There’s less confidence that the TEF outcomes are useful for prospective students – the regulator wants to explore this as a part of a wider review of information provision. And while institutions do find TEF valuable, the cost involved in participation is considerable.

    How much does TEF cost then?

    It cost OfS £3.4m, and the mean estimate for costs to the wider sector was £9.96m. That’s about £13.4m in total but with fairly hefty error bars.

    What else could the taxpayer buy for £13.4m? There’s the much-needed Aylesbury link road, an innovation hub in Samlesbury near the new National Cyber Force headquarters (promising jobs paying upwards of £3,000 according to the headline), or enough money to keep Middlesbrough Council solvent for a while. In the higher education world, it’s equivalent to a little under 1,450 undergraduate annual tuition fees.

    The sector numbers come from a survey involving 32.3 per cent of providers (73: 52 higher education providers, 21 FE colleges) involved in the 2023 TEF conducted in September and October 2024 (so significantly after the event). It looked at both staff costs and non-staff costs (stuff like consultancy fees).

    As you’d probably expect, costs and time commitments vary widely by institution – one provider spent 30 staff days on the exercise, while for another it was 410 (the median? 91.6). Likewise, there was variation in the seniority of staff involved – one institution saw senior leaders spend a frankly astonishing 120 days on the TEF. Your median higher education provider spent an estimated £37,400 on the exercise (again, huge error bars here). It is asserted that Gold rated providers spent slightly more than Silver rated providers – the data is indicative at best, and OfS is careful not to assert causality.

    We also get information on the representations process – the mechanism by which providers could appeal their TEF rating. The sample size here is necessarily tiny: 11 higher education providers, 8 colleges – we are given a median of £1,400 for colleges and £4,400 for higher education providers.

    Was it worth it?

    The picture painted by the independent IFF evaluation is positive about the TEF’s role in driving “continuous improvement and excellence” at providers. The feeling was that it had encouraged a greater use of data and evidence in decision making – but in some cases these positive impacts were negligible given the volume of the input required. Students were also broadly positive, citing limited but positive impacts.

    The evaluation also made it clear that the TEF was burdensome – a large drain on available staff or student resource. However, it was generally felt that the TEF was “worth” the burden – and there was a broad satisfaction about the guidance and support offered by OfS during the process (although as you might expect, people generally wanted more examples of “good” submissions – and the “woolly” language around learning gain was difficult to deal with, even though the purpose was to drive autonomous reflection on measures that made sense in a provider context).

    One of the big 2023 cycle innovations was a larger role for the student submission – seen as a way to centre the student perspective within TEF assessment. This wasn’t as successful as OfS may have hoped – responses were split as to whether the process had “empowered the student voice” or not – the bigger institutions tended to see it as replicating pre-existing provider level work.

    Students themselves (not many of them, there were 20 interviews of students involved in preparing the submissions) saw this empowerment as being limited – greater student involvement in quality systems was good, but largely the kind of things that a good provider should be doing anyway.

    But the big question, the overall purpose, really needs to be whether TEF2023 raised the value of the student experience and outcomes. And the perspective on this was… mixed. Commonly TEF complemented other ongoing work in this area, making it difficult to pick out improvements that were directly linked to TEF, or even to this particular TEF. Causality – it’s difficult.

    If we are going to have a big, expensive, exercise like TEF it is important to point to tangible benefits from it. Again, evidence isn’t quite there. About half of the providers surveyed used TEF (as a process or as a set of outputs including the “medals” and the feedback) to inform decision making and planning – but there were limited examples of decisions predicated on TEF offered. And most student representatives were unable to offer evidence of any change as a result of TEF.

    Finally, I was gratified to note that coverage in “sector publications like Wonkhe” was one key way of sharing good practice around TEF submissions.

    The value to applicants

    Any attempt within the sector to provide a better experience for, or better outcomes for students is surely to be welcomed. However, for a large and spendy intervention the evidence for a direct contribution is limited. This is perhaps not surprising – there have been numerous attempts to improve student experience and outcomes even since the birth of the OfS: by the regulator itself, by other sector bodies with an interest in the student experience (the Quality Assurance Agency, Advance HE, the sector representative bodies and so forth) and autonomously by institution or parts of institutions.

    Somewhat curiously, the main evaluation document has little to say about the realisation of TEF’s other main proposed benefit – supporting applicants in choosing a provider to study at. Providers themselves are unsure of the value of TEF here (feeling that it was unlikely that applicants would understand TEF or be able to place due weight on the findings of TEF) though there is some suggestion that a “halo effect”, drawing in part from the liberal use of logos and that job lot of gold paint, could help present a positive image of the provider. It is a hell of a reach, but some noted that the fact that institutional marketing and recruitment efforts used TEF and the logos presents evidence that someone, somewhere, thinks it might work.

    The thing to do here would be to ask applicants – which OfS commissioned Savanta to do on its behalf as a separate exercise. This research was based on six focus groups covering 35 prospective students aged between 17 and 20 and applying to England. In four of these groups, participants had heard of the TEF – in two they had not – and in every case the applicants had ended up applying to silver rated universities.

    This is backed up by what initially looks like a decent survey instrument – a big (2,599 respondents, covering various existing online panels, and weighted via the use of quotas on age, gender, ethnicity and post fieldwork by provider type, mode of study, domicile, and neighbourhood participation marker) survey conducted in April and May of 2024. The headline finding here is that 41.7 per cent of applicants (n=798) had seen TEF ratings for any university they had looked at.

    Somewhat mystifyingly, the survey then focuses entirely on the experience of those 333 applicants in using the TEF information, before asking whether applicants may think TEF would be important in applying to university of the whole sample (52.2 per cent reckoned they would be important, despite a fair number of these applicants not having even noticed the ratings).

    Can I just stop here and say this is a weird methodology? I was expecting a traditional high n survey of applicants, asked to rate the importance of various factors on application choices, ideally with no prompting. This would give a clearer picture of the current value of TEF for such decisions, which is what you would expect in evaluation. That’s not to say that the focus groups or a specific awareness or use survey wouldn’t be a valid contribution to a proper mixed methods analysis – or as a means of generating a survey instrument for wider use.

    Even so, participants in the focus groups were happy to list the factors that affected their choices – these included the obvious winners like location, course content, and graduate outcomes, plus a “significant role” for the cost of living. Secondary (less important) factors included university reputation, teaching quality, and other personal preferences. Though some of these factors are covered within the TEF exercise, not one single applicant mentioned TEF results as a primary or secondary factor.

    For those that had heard of TEF it was seen as a “confirmatory tool rather than a decisive factor.” Applicants did not understand how TEF ratings were determined, the criteria used, or what the meaning of – say – gold rather than silver meant when comparing providers.

    The focus groups chucked the supplementary information (panel statements, submissions, the data dashboard) at applicants – they tended to quite like the student statements (viewing these as authentic), but saw the whole lot as lengthy, overcomplicated, and lacking in specificity.

    I enjoyed this comment on the TEF data dashboards:

    I feel like there is definitely some very useful information on this page, but it’s quite hard to figure out what any of it means.

    On the main ratings themselves, participants were clear that gold or silver probably pointed to a “high standard of education,” but the sheer breadth of the assessments and the lack of course level judgements made the awards less useful.

    There was, in other words, a demand for course specific information. Not only did applicants not mention Discover Uni (a government funded service that purports to provide course level data on student outcomes and the student experience), the report as a whole did not mention that it even existed. Oh dear.

    Unlike IFF, Savanta made some recommendations. There needs to be better promotion of the TEF to applicants, clearer ratings and rationales, and a more concise and direct presentation of additional information. Which is nice.

    What to make of it all

    Jim will be looking at the student submission aspects in more detail over on the SUs site, but even this first reading of the evaluation documents does not offer many hints on the future of the TEF. In many ways it is what you would expect, TEF has changed mainly when OfS decided it should, or when (as with the Pearce review) the hand of the regulator is forced.

    While providers are clearly making the best of TEF as a way to keep the focus on the student experience (as, to be clear, one stimulus among many), it is still difficult to see a way in which the TEF we have does anything to realise the benefits proposed way back in the 2015 Conservative manifesto – to “recognise universities offering the highest teaching quality” and to allow “potential students to make decisions informed by the career paths of past graduates.”

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  • FIRE statement on White House denying AP Oval Office access

    FIRE statement on White House denying AP Oval Office access

    Punishing journalists for not adopting state-mandated terminology is an alarming attack on press freedom.

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  • ‘It’s different when they’re in their office’: the disconnect in student perceptions of academic meetings

    ‘It’s different when they’re in their office’: the disconnect in student perceptions of academic meetings

    by Stacey Mottershaw and Anna Viragos

    As we approach the five-year anniversary of the closure of UK university campuses for the Covid-19 pandemic, we thought it might be interesting and timely to reflect on the way that the sector adapted to educational delivery, and which innovations remain as part of our new normal.

    One key aspect of educational delivery which has remained to varying extents across the sector is the move to online student meetings. This includes meetings for academic personal tutorials, dissertation supervisions and other one-to-one meetings between students and staff. The Covid-19 lockdowns necessitated the use of online meetings as the only available option during this time. However, even post-lockdown, students and staff have continued to request online meetings, for reasons such as flexibility, privacy and sustainability.

    To explore this further, we conducted a small mixed-methods study with students from Leeds University Business School to consider their preferences for online or in-person meetings, utilising a faculty-wide survey for breadth and short semi-structured interviews for depth.

    We designed a questionnaire including questions on demographic (eg gender, home/international, whether they have caring responsibilities) and situational questions regarding their preference for face-to-face only, hybrid, or online meetings. We also included some questions around the ‘Big Five’ personality traits, to better understand factors that influence preferences.  We then distributed this online questionnaire, using the Qualtrics questionnaire software.

    Based on our findings, 15% of respondents preferred face-to-face only, 31% online only, with the remaining 54% preferring to have the option of either face-to-face or online.

    We also found that international students had a stronger preference for online meetings compared to non-international students. Whilst we had a relatively small sample of students on the Plus Programme (our institutional programme targeted to under-represented students); they had a stronger preference for in-person meetings. In terms of the Big Five traits, this student sample was highest on agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lowest on extroversion.

    In addition to the questionnaire, we ran seven one-to-one interviews with students from a mix of second year, the year in industry and final year, who had all experienced a mix of both online and face-to-face meetings throughout their studies.

    In reviewing the data, we identified five core themes of student preferences around meeting modes:

    • Connection and communication: Participants felt that the type of meeting affected connection and communication, with in-person meetings feeling more authentic.
    • Privacy/space: Participants felt that the type of meeting was influenced by factors including their access to private space, either at home or on campus.
    • Confidence: Some participants felt that the type of meeting could affect how confident they would feel in interactions with staff, with online meetings in their own environment feeling more comfortable than in spaces on campus.
    • Time: Participants discussed the amount of time that they had for each type of meeting, with online meetings deemed to be more efficient, due to the absence of travel time.
    • Flexibility: Participants demonstrated a strong preference for flexibility, in that they value having a choice over how to meet, rather than a meeting mode being imposed upon them.

    Through cross-examination of the core themes, we also identified something akin to a meta-theme, that is a ‘theme which acquire[s] meaning through the systematic co-occurrence of two or more other themes’ (Armborst, 2017 p1). We termed this meta-theme ‘The Disconnect’, as across each of the core themes there seemed to be a disconnect between student expectations of APT and what is typically provided, which ties in with existing literature (Calabrese et al, 2022).

    For example, one participant suggested that:

    It’s different when they’re in their office like popping there and asking a question for the lecture or even like the tutorials rather than having to e-mail or like go on a call [which] feels more formal.

    Whilst this comment seems to lean more towards other types of academic teaching (eg module leadership, lecture delivery or seminar facilitation), it can also translate to availability of staff more broadly. The comment suggests that students might expect staff to be available to them, on site, as and when they are needed. Yet in reality, it is unlikely that outside of set office hours academic staff will be available to answer ad hoc questions given their other commitments and particularly given the increased proportion of staff regularly working from home since the pandemic. This perspective also seems to contradict the perception that staff are much more available now than ever before, due to the prevalence of communications administered via email and online chat and meeting tools such as MS Teams. Staff may feel that they are more available as online communication methods increase in availability and use, but if students do not want ‘formal’ online options or prefer ad hoc on-site provision, then there may be a disconnect between student expectations and delivery, with all stakeholders feeling short-changed by the reality.

    Another disconnect between expectations and reality became apparent when another participant commented:

    […] online it was more rushed because you have the 30 minutes and you see the time going down and in the Zoom you will see like you have 4 minutes left to talk and then you’re rushing it over to finish it.

    Whilst this clearly relates to the core theme of time, it also seemed to be correlated with participant understanding of staff roles. It is difficult to understand how the time limitation for online and in-person meetings is different when the meetings are of the same duration, except that in the case of in-person meetings the student may be less aware of timings, due to not having the time physically visible on the screen in front of them. This might be reflected in the student-staff dynamic, where managing online meetings might be seen to be a joint and equal endeavour, with the responsibility for managing in-person meetings being skewed towards the staff member. Whilst it can be argued that staff should take responsibility for managing the meeting, in a time of increased narratives around student-led tutoring, it may be worth exploring the possible knock-on effects of students passively allowing the meeting to happen, rather than actively owning the meeting.

    Final thoughts

    A limitation of this study was the low response rate. At the point of dissemination, there were approximately 2,000 students in our faculty. However, we received just 198 survey responses (9.9%), and only seven people took part in the interviews, despite repeated calls for participants and generous incentives. Although this was a smaller sample than we had hoped for, we are confident that our study makes a timely and relevant contribution to discussions around delivery of APT, both within our faculty and beyond.

    As a starting point, future research could seek to generate responses from a broader pool of participants, through both a quantitative survey and qualitative methods. Based on our findings, there may also be scope for further research exploring student expectations of staff roles, and how these match to institutional offerings across the sector. Ultimately, universities need to do more to investigate and understand student preferences for educational delivery, balancing this alongside pedagogical justifications and staff circumstances.

    Stacey Mottershaw is an Associate Professor (Teaching and Scholarship) at Leeds University Business School and an EdD candidate at the University of Sheffield. Her research predominantly seeks to understand the needs of marginalised groups in higher education, with a particular focus on equitable and socially just career development. 

    Dr Anna Viragos is an Associate Professor in Organizational Psychology at Leeds University Business School, and a Chartered Psychologist of the BPS. Her research focuses on a variety of topics such as stress and wellbeing, creativity, and job design.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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