Every Australian would be able to go to university or TAFE for free under a new Greens policy that would cost the federal budget $46.5 billion over the next four years.
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Tag: push
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Education Dept. Agrees to Push DEI Compliance Deadline
State education agencies are no longer bound to certify their compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders and guidance memos banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in order to continue receiving federal funds—at least for now.
K-12 school districts were originally required to prove they had met the president’s standard by April 14. But now, as the result of an agreement reached Thursday in a lawsuit, the Department of Education cannot enforce that requirement or enact any penalties until April 24. The move to require school systems to certify their compliance was one of the department’s first actions since releasing the Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter that declared all race-conscious student programming, resources and financial aid illegal.
The National Education Association challenged that letter in a lawsuit and then moved for a temporary restraining order to block the certification requirement. (The department notified state educational agencies of the deadline April 3.)
In addition to not enforcing the certification requirement, the Education Department also agreed not to take any enforcement action related to the Feb. 14 guidance until April 24, though that doesn’t cover any other investigations based on race discrimination.
The plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, still want to block the Dear Colleague letter entirely. But they see the agreement as a positive step.
“This pause in enforcement provides immediate relief to schools across the country while the broader legal challenge continues,” the plaintiffs said in a news release.
A judge will hold a hearing April 17 to consider the NEA’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which could block the guidance entirely.
For more information on this case and others, check out Inside Higher Ed’s lawsuit tracker here.
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Concern Dutton will push American-style crackdown on “woke” universities – Campus Review
The Coalition has warned it would use university regulator levers to review university degree course content to check for “woke” teaching if elected, leading Labor to draw parallels between Peter Dutton and Donald Trump.
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Survey: Trump Policies Push 75% of Scientists to Consider Leaving U.S.
Survey: Trump Policies Push 75% of Scientists to Consider Leaving U.S.
kathryn.palmer…
Tue, 04/01/2025 – 03:00 AM
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‘Turbulence’ and ‘confusion’: Groups raise alarm over Trump’s push to kill the Education Department
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.President Donald Trump and Republicans promised to shutter the U.S. Department of Education on the 2024 campaign trail, a goal of many conservatives going back decades.
The department — created by statute in 1979 — legally cannot be eliminated without congressional approval and a president’s signature. Such a move would have to pass the 60-vote threshold for overcoming a filibuster in the Senate, which could partly explain why past efforts to nix the department have not gotten far.
But on Thursday, Trump threw the department’s fate into deep uncertainty after he signed an executive order directing U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education“ and turn its authority over to states.
The order came just over a week after the department announced massive layoffs that cut its workforce in half.
Thursday’s order provided for the “effective and uninterrupted delivery of [Education Department] services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” but it offered few details on how the Trump administration plans to restructure or distribute the agency’s functions.
Those include managing and distributing billions in Pell Grants and student loans every year, as well as enforcing civil rights laws related to education on college campuses, among other functions.
A statement from McMahon similarly offered scant details on what the shuttering would mean in practical terms.
“We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working through Congress to ensure a lawful and orderly transition,” McMahon said.
On Friday, Trump told media that the Education Department’s management of student loans would be moved to the Small Business Administration. “That’s coming out of the Department of Education immediately,” he said. The announcement came as the SBA said it will cut 43% of its staff.
While much remains uncertain about the ultimate effects of Trump’s order, higher education groups panned the order and raised alarms over what Trump’s unilateral attempt to shutter the agency will mean for students and institutions.
“This is political theater, not serious public policy,” American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell said in a statement Thursday. “To dismantle any cabinet-level federal agency requires congressional approval, and we urge lawmakers to reject misleading rhetoric in favor of what is in the best interests of students and their families.”
Kara Freeman, president and CEO of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, said that Trump’s order “adds to the turbulence colleges and universities are experiencing and the uncertainty students and families are facing at this critical time in the academic year.”
Freeman voiced concerns around key functions of the department, including federal student aid processing, aid to institutions and data tracking “that is so important to institutional decision-making.”
“Most troubling is that these collective actions involving the department could cause enough confusion to discourage students and families from considering a path to college,” Freeman said.
Congressional Democrats were sharper in their criticism. In a letter to McMahon, Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, and Rep. Gerald Connolly, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, described both the Thursday order and the Department’s mass layoffs as illegal moves to “usurp Congress’s authority.”
Scott is leading an effort within the House to open an inquiry into the effort to dismantle the department.
He and Connolly also noted in their letter that the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the agency run “counter to the will of the American people, the majority of whom oppose efforts to close the Department.”
To their point, recent nationally representative surveys have found fairly wide support for the department. A March poll from Quinnipiac University found 60% of those surveyed opposed Trump’s plan to close the Education Department, while only 33% supported it.
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House Democrats push for Education Department closure transparency
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.Dive Brief:
- Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee introduced a resolution on Friday calling for transparency and information from the Trump administration and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on their efforts to shutter the U.S. Department of Education.
- Specifically, the resolution requests unredacted copies of all documents from the administration that refer to the Education Department’s closure, including decisions around workforce reductions and those that could affect the agency’s ability to carry out education laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
- The resolution will be taken to the House floor for a vote if the Education and Workforce Committee, led by Chair Tim Walberg, R-Mich., does not adopt it within 14 legislative days.
Dive Insight:
The resolution’s introduction comes one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing McMahon to close the Education Department to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
“Abolishing a federal agency requires an Act of Congress,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, in a Friday statement. “President Trump’s executive order has little regard for the irreparable harm it will cause to students, educators, our future workforce, and parents, who are already struggling.”
After the Trump administration announced massive layoffs that cut the Education Department’s workforce in half earlier this month, the agency has denied that its key functions would be impacted.
“Closing the Department does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them — we will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs,” said McMahon in a Thursday statement praising the executive order.
Additionally, Trump said before signing Thursday’s executive order that he plans to redistribute the department’s primary responsibilities to other parts of the government. That includes Pell Grants, Title I funding and resources for students with disabilities, he said.
The resolution introduced Friday appears to be part of a broader effort by Democrats in the House and Senate to challenge and seek more information over the slew of changes being made to the Education Department.
On March 17, leading Democrats on the congressional appropriations committees demanded details on the Education Department’s mass layoffs in a letter to the agency. The requested information included details on the number of staff terminated in each office and the expected savings from the staffing cuts.
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‘Inaccurate and misleading’: Democrat AGs push back against Trump’s DEI executive order
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.Dive Brief:
- Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility best practices are not illegal, said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Illinois AG Kwame Raoul, in a multi-state DEIA at work guidance.
- In the Feb. 13 letter, the AGs said the federal government lacks the power to issue executive orders that prohibit “otherwise lawful activities in the private sector or mandates the wholesale removal of these policies and practices within private organizations, including those that receive federal contracts and grants.”
- The AGs of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont joined in issuing the guidance.
Dive Insight:
The letter came as a response to constituent concerns about the continued viability of DEIA, the AGs said, mainly in light of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
The primary EO in question, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” includes a directive that “order[s] all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”
The executive order alleges that colleges, along with other organizations, have “adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called … ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.’”
Campbell and Raoul said the order “conflates unlawful preferences in hiring and promotion with sound and lawful best practices for promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workforce.”
It’s “inaccurate and misleading,” they said. On Feb. 21, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction, partially blocking Trump’s executive order targeting the public and private sectors.
While the judge did not prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from proceeding with its investigation of private-sector DEI programs, Judge Adam Abelson held that the plaintiffs would likely succeed with their First and Fifth amendment claims, as well as claims alleging violations of the separation of powers clause.
Prior to the most recent guidance, Democrat attorney generals have made it their priority to speak up about DEI: Last summer, the AGs defended the American Bar Association’s diversity requirements for law schools.
More recently, the Democrat AGs said that the U.S. is “on the brink of dictatorship” due to Trump’s executive orders challenging the scope of the Constitution.
A key takeaway for HR? “Properly developed and implemented initiatives aimed at ensuring that diverse perspectives are included in the workplace help prevent unlawful discrimination,” the AGs said.