Tag: Pauses

  • UCLA consolidates IT, pauses faculty hiring as Trump administration seeks $1B payment

    UCLA consolidates IT, pauses faculty hiring as Trump administration seeks $1B payment

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • The University of California, Los Angeles has paused faculty hiring for the next academic year and is consolidating its cross-campus information technology teams as the public institution weathers financial attacks from the Trump administration on top of existing budget woes. 
    • In a community message Wednesday, two top UCLA leaders said they will “be prudent in making organizational changes, and do so in close collaboration with leaders across campus.” UCLA did not immediately answer questions Thursday about whether the IT consolidation will include layoffs.
    • The announcement follows a message late last week from Chancellor Julio Frenk, who noted the Trump administration is seeking $1 billion from the university over antisemitism allegations primarily related to a protest encampment on UCLA’s campus in 2024. 

    Dive Insight:

    In their message, UCLA Provost Darnell Hunt and Chief Financial Officer Stephen Agostini said the university was working with University of California system leaders to restore some $584 million in research funding cut off by the Trump administration. 

    “Our immediate priority is to sustain the research enterprise,” the officials said. “We are doing this via a thorough review process, grant by grant, alongside campus deans and faculty members.” 

    The funding cut followed U.S. Department of Justice allegations that UCLA broke civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. 

    At the center of those allegations was a spring 2024 pro-Palestinian protest encampment that UCLA leaders initially allowed to continue amid efforts to balance speech rights and campus safety. Less than a week later, they called police to break up the encampment. 

    The Justice Department has also launched a probe into whether the UC system discriminates against employees by allowing an antisemitic, hostile work environment. 

    Since Columbia University agreed to pay the federal government $221 million to settle similar allegations related to antisemitism, the Trump administration has reportedly sought payments from other high-profile colleges in its crosshairs. 

    Frenk recently panned the government’s effort to extract $1 billion from UCLA.

    “I want to be clear: The costs associated with this demand, if left to stand, would have far-reaching consequences,” Frenk said in a statement last week. “The impacts to society are very real, as it could threaten our ability to conduct life-saving and life-changing research. But the impacts to our university are just as real.”

    Last week, a federal judge ordered the National Science Foundation to restore grant funding potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the cuts, made after the Justice Department announced its allegations, violated a prior court order in a lawsuit filed by UC researchers over mass grant terminations by the administration. 

    Even before the faceoff with the Trump administration, UCLA was shifting toward austerity as the wider UC system grappled with deficits. In fiscal 2024, UCLA posted an operating loss of $144.2 million, a sharp downturn from its positive operating income of $159.6 million the year before.

    Hunt and Agostini noted the university had already cut administrative unit budgets by 10%, started a hiring review process and curtailed travel spending. 

    The officials said that existing efforts to streamline and save money in the university’s operations have become a subject of “immediate and urgent focus” given the financial environment. 

    The IT reorganization is part of those efforts. The move involves consolidating teams distributed across UCLA’s campus. The goal is to “boost our cybersecurity readiness; ensure more equitable access to high-quality IT services; and free up resources to elevate teaching, research and innovation,” Hunt and Agostini said. 

    Source link

  • Trump administration pauses Head Start immigration restrictions

    Trump administration pauses Head Start immigration restrictions

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    The Trump administration agreed Friday to temporarily pause enforcement of recent policy changes that restrict some education-related federal programs based on students’ immigration or citizenship status. 

    The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, was reached between the parties in a lawsuit brought last week by 20 states and the District of Columbia against multiple federal agencies, including the departments of Education and Health and Human Services. 

    Under the agreement, Head Start programs in those states won’t be required to verify the immigration or citizenship status of the children they enroll until at least Sept. 3, 2025. HHS, which administers Head Start, previously said the new policy requiring immigration status verification would take effect immediately. 

    The Department of Education, meanwhile, was set to enforce its new restrictions for some immigrants in programs like dual enrollment, adult education and career and technical training programs by Aug. 9. The Friday agreement would delay that by about a month. 

    As part of the agreement, states that sued cannot be held liable for admitting students without proper immigration status into the programs before Sept. 4. That means programs will not be retroactively penalized for enrolling all students regardless of their immigration status, as has been the norm for Head Start for decades. 

    “Today’s stipulation ensures that, for now, critical services will continue without disruption, and that families across New York and the nation will not be punished for seeking the help to which they are lawfully entitled,” the New York Attorney General’s office said in a Friday press release.

    New York led the states filing the original lawsuit, and arguments are expected on or after Aug. 20. The District of Columbia joined the suit as did these states: 

    • Washington
    • Rhode Island
    • Arizona
    • California
    • Colorado
    • Connecticut
    • Hawaii
    • Illinois
    • Maine
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • Minnesota
    • Nevada
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • Oregon
    • Vermont
    • Wisconsin

    The U.S. Department of Education could not be reached for comment in time for publication. 

    Source link

  • Judge pauses Mississippi’s DEI ban at public colleges and schools

    Judge pauses Mississippi’s DEI ban at public colleges and schools

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief: 

    • A federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked enforcement of major parts of a new Mississippi law that bars diversity, equity and inclusion in the state’s public colleges and K-12 schools. 
    • The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and other organizations filed a lawsuit in June on behalf of students and educators, arguing the new law imposes the state government’s views on race, gender and sexuality on public colleges and schools and censors opposing views. 
    • In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate pointed to accounts of educators having their programs shut down or censoring their own speech to ensure they don’t run afoul of the law. The accounts signal “possible widespread suppression of speech, programming, and institutional function,” Wingate wrote. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Educator and student groups sued over the law just two months after it took effect in April, arguing the legislation violates their First Amendment right to free speech and is unconstitutionally vague. 

    “It is difficult for administrators, teachers, and students to distinguish prohibited actions from permissible ones, making the law particularly susceptible to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement,” the lawsuit said. 

    One contested aspect of the law is a provision that bans public colleges and K-12 schools from either engaging in or requiring diversity training, which it defines as any formal or informal education meant to increase “awareness or understanding of issues related to race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or national origin.” 

    This edict applies to both elective or required courses, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs warn of dire consequences from the legislation, arguing its provisions would prohibit constitutional law professors from discussing discrimination and history teachers from teaching about the Civil War and slavery. 

    Under the bill, colleges and K-12 schools also can’t “engage in” eight “divisive concepts” — a provision the lawsuit calls “extremely broad.” One divisive concept, for instance, is that an individual “by virtue of his or her race, sex, color, national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” 

    The lawsuit argues that could block discussions of implicit bias in sociology, psychology and other classes.

    Public colleges and K-12 schools that don’t follow the law face a steep penalty if they rack up two violations — the potential loss of state funding. Colleges and schools must “cure” their violations to avoid this punishment, though the legislation doesn’t explain how that can be accomplished, sparking concerns that educators will be fired and students will be expelled, according to the lawsuit. 

    The legislation also carves out exceptions for “scholarly research or creative work” by students and employees. But the lawsuit argues those carve-outs are unclear and raise questions about whether students could discuss work on one of the banned concepts during class. 

    “Like other provisions of the act, this exception is vague and further confuses what is and what is not prohibited by the law,” the plaintiffs argued. 

    The defendants include Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, as well as the chairs of the state community college system’s coordinating board and education board, among others. They filed a motion to dismiss earlier this month, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue and that the attorney general was shielded by sovereign immunity. 

    However, Wingate wrote that U.S. Supreme Court precedent allows plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief against state officials to prevent constitutional violations.

    The temporary restraining order is in effect until further court order. Wingate is holding a hearing Wednesday over whether to grant a preliminary injunction, which would last until he issues a final ruling on the case. 

    In his ruling, the judge pointed to accounts from educators and students. One plaintiff, a librarian at Hinds Community College, expressed uncertainty about whether she can recommend books on race, gender or identity or curate material for events like Black History Month. 

    And the director of student development at Tougaloo College said she has suspended programs meant to support LGBTQ+ students out of concern that discussion of gender identity could risk her institution’s funding.

    Since the law took effect in April, institutions have been attempting to follow the legislation, often “erring on the side of caution” by canceling programming that could now be prohibited, Wingate noted. 

    “This Court finds that each day the statute remains unclarified, undefined, and under a threat of open interpretation, exacerbates the suppression of protected speech,” Wingate wrote.

    Source link

  • ‘A shell of itself’: Federal judge pauses efforts to wind down Education Department

    ‘A shell of itself’: Federal judge pauses efforts to wind down Education Department

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    The U.S. Department of Education is temporarily barred from carrying out an executive order to shut down the agency and must reinstate employees who were fired as part of a mass reduction in force in March, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

    In the preliminary injunction in State of New York v. McMahon, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun ordered that the department be “restored to the status quo” prior to the day President Donald Trump retook office.

    The agency’s actions since show no evidence that its workforce reductions have improved efficiency or that the agency is making progress in working with Congress to close the department, Joun said. 

    “The supporting declarations of former Department employees, educational institutions, unions, and educators paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations,” his ruling stated.

    Joun also said the Education Department is prohibited from carrying out President Donald Trump’s March 21 directive to transfer management of the federal student loans portfolio and special education management and oversight out of the Education Department.

    “A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” Joun wrote. “This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”

    The preliminary injunction requires the agency to submit a report to the court within 72 hours of the order, outlining all the steps it is taking to comply, and to do so “every week thereafter until the Department is restored to the status quo prior to January 20, 2025.”

    Thursday’s ruling is a setback to the Trump administration’s goals of reducing the size and scope of the federal government. The ambitions are to give more flexibility and decision-making power to the states, supporters of the administration action said.

    Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, said the agency will challenge the ruling “on an emergency basis.”

    “Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people,” Biedermann said in an emailed statement Thursday. 

    Biedermann added, “This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families.”

    Higher education advocates, on the other hand, celebrated the ruling.

    “Today, the court rightly rejected one of the administration’s very first illegal, and consequential, acts: abolishing the federal role in education,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a Thursday statement. Most Americans and states “want to keep the education department because it ensures all kids, not just some, can get a shot at a better life,” she said.

    The legal challenge began March 13, when the attorneys general in 20 states and the District of Columbia sued the Education Department to halt the mass workforce reductions announced March 11. 

    About half of the agency’s 4,133 employees were let go or accepted buy outs. Almost a third of the affected employees had worked in one of three offices within the Education Department: Federal Student Aid, the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute for Education Sciences. 

    Later that month, Trump signed an executive order at a White House ceremony that directed U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin closing down the agency to the “maximum extent appropriate.”

    “My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department,” Trump said at the March 20 signing ceremony. “We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible.”

    McMahon, during several appearances on Capitol Hill, has acknowledged that only Congress has the authority to close the agency and said she is working with lawmakers to do so.

    Source link

  • ‘A shell of itself’: Federal judge pauses efforts to wind down Education Department

    ‘A shell of itself’: Federal judge pauses efforts to wind down Education Department

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    The U.S. Department of Education is temporarily barred from carrying out an executive order to shut down the agency and must reinstate employees who were fired as part of a mass reduction in force in March, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

    In the preliminary injunction in State of New York v. McMahon, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun ordered that the department be “restored to the status quo” prior to the day President Donald Trump retook office.

    The agency’s actions since show no evidence that its workforce reductions have improved efficiency or that the agency is making progress in working with Congress to close the department, Joun said. 

    “The supporting declarations of former Department employees, educational institutions, unions, and educators paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations,” his ruling stated.

    Joun also said the Education Department is prohibited from carrying out President Donald Trump’s March 21 directive to transfer management of the federal student loans portfolio and special education management and oversight out of the Education Department.

    “A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” Joun wrote. “This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”

    The preliminary injunction requires the agency to submit a report to the court within 72 hours of the order, outlining all the steps it is taking to comply, and to do so “every week thereafter until the Department is restored to the status quo prior to January 20, 2025.”

    Thursday’s ruling is a setback to the Trump administration’s goals of reducing the size and scope of the federal government. The ambitions are to give more flexibility and decision-making power to the states, supporters of the administration action said.

    Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, said the agency will challenge the ruling “on an emergency basis.”

    “Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people,” Biedermann said in an emailed statement Thursday. 

    Biedermann added, “This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families.”

    Public school supporters, on the other hand, celebrated the ruling.

    “Today, the court rightly rejected one of the administration’s very first illegal, and consequential, acts: abolishing the federal role in education,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a Thursday statement. Most Americans and states “want to keep the education department because it ensures all kids, not just some, can get a shot at a better life,” she said.

    The legal challenge began March 13, when the attorneys general in 20 states and the District of Columbia sued the Education Department to halt the mass workforce reductions announced March 11. 

    About half of the agency’s 4,133 employees were let go or accepted buy outs. Almost a third of the affected employees had worked in one of three offices within the Education Department: Federal Student Aid, the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute for Education Sciences. 

    Later that month, Trump signed an executive order at a White House ceremony that directed U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin closing down the agency to the “maximum extent appropriate.”

    “My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department,” Trump said at the March 20 signing ceremony. “We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible.”

    McMahon, during several appearances on Capitol Hill, has acknowledged that only Congress has the authority to close the agency and said she is working with lawmakers to do so.

    Source link

  • Trump Admin Pauses $175M to University of Pennsylvania

    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.”

    Source link