Tag: sight

  • Extortion in plain sight | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    Extortion in plain sight | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    This essay was originally published by The Dispatch on July 4, 2025.

    Paramount Global’s decision to pay $16 million to end President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was a “win for the American people,” according to Trump’s lawyers. And it happened because “CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle.”

    Well, not quite.

    The case is “historic” for sure, but not in a good way or because the advocates came up with profound theories of media law. Quite to the contrary: The case is so baseless, so devoid of factual or legal support, and so diametrically opposed to basic First Amendment principles it is hard to imagine how those who filed it sleep at night. 

    The main question about Paramount’s decision to settle this comically frivolous lawsuit is not why the company decided to settle, but why did resolving it take this long if the “historic case” were so “strong?” The reason for the settlement is obvious. Paramount, the corporate parent of the CBS television network, had a gun to its head. 

    Paramount must get approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its proposed $8 billion merger with Skydance Media (which includes the transfer of 28 CBS-owned and -operated broadcast stations). The merger agreement expired April 7 but was extended to July 7. So it was pay-up or shut-up time.

    The holdup, in every sense of that word, came in the form of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, whom President Trump elevated to head the commission on Inauguration Day. As one of his first official acts, Carr opened his own investigation of the Harris interview over supposed “news distortion,” and he slow-rolled the FCC’s merger review process. The Securities and Exchange Commission and European regulators had approved the merger back in February, but the FCC continued to “ponder” the matter as the deal clock ticked down.

    Trump’s $16M win over ’60 Minutes’ edit sends chilling message to journalists everywhere

    Trump’s $16M win over a “60 Minutes” edit sends a chilling message to journalists everywhere. FIRE’s Bob Corn-Revere calls it what it is: the FCC playing politics.


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    But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: Couldn’t it be that Carr was just carefully considering nuanced issues of media law in order to safeguard the public from big-network media bias? After all, Trump had claimed that CBS had edited its interview deceptively to make Harris “look better” — something he called “totally illegal,” an “UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL,” and for which the FCC should “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” Never mind that networks are not licensed by the FCC (stations are), the rant led to the lawsuit in Texas and later the FCC investigation.

    Loopy all-cap social media posts aside, there was never a legitimate basis either for the lawsuit or the FCC action. Every day, from the smallest newspaper to the largest network, reporters and editors must digest and condense the information they collect — including quotes from politicians and other newsmakers — to tell their stories concisely and understandably. For instance, Trump has repeatedly received the same treatment. Fox News repeatedly edited interviews with then-candidate Trump during the campaign, editing answers to enhance coherence, eliminate digressions, and excise insults. Making sense of the stuff that pours from politicians’ mouths is not easy. And here, CBS was accused of something unforgivable: committing standard journalism. 

    This was never about swapping out answers to different questions or rewriting answers, as Trump and his supporters falsely claim. During the interview, 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker asked then-Vice President Harris a question about the Biden administration’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: 

    MR. BILL WHITAKER: But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. The Wall Street Journal said that he — that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu, and in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration’s entreaties.

    VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

    CBS broadcast two excerpts of Harris’ answer on two separate programs: On Face the Nation, CBS aired the first sentence of Harris’ answer. On 60 Minutes, CBS aired the last sentence of the answer. Really — that’s all this is about.

    The FCC in the past has never defined the editing process as “news distortion.” In fact, it has steadfastly maintained the First Amendment bars it from doing so. Chairman Carr’s decision to reopen a closed complaint in a matter he knows to be baseless and beyond the FCC’s authority is unprecedented and indefensible.

    We need a far stronger word than ‘hypocrite’ to capture this moment. We have a president who on day one issued an executive order purporting to ‘restore free speech’ … [then] deployed agency heads to retaliate against news organizations that displease him.

    And the arguments in the now-settled lawsuit are even more frivolous (if that’s even possible). Trump’s lawyers argued that the Harris interview violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the federal Lanham Act as a “false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice” and asserted $20 billion in damages. Those laws are designed to prevent consumer deception in marketing practices (like turning back the odometer on a used car) or false advertising. They simply don’t apply to editorial judgments by news organizations. No court in any jurisdiction has ever held that such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims. Those who have done so were promptly dismissed.

    But who needs good arguments or supporting legal authority when federal regulators are willing to ignore their oath to uphold the Constitution and back your political power play?

    Of course, Carr has maintained that there was no link between the Texas lawsuit and the FCC’s merger review or news distortion investigation. But let’s get real. Before he was named chairman, Carr said he didn’t think the 60 Minutes interview “should be a federal case,” and “we don’t want to get into authenticating news or being a Ministry of Truth.”

    But once Trump announced Carr as his pick to head the agency, Carr changed his tune, telling Fox News the FCC would review the 60 Minutes complaint while considering whether to approve the Paramount-Skydance merger. The hypocrisy here is staggering. As chairman, Carr has routinely boasted that he wants to move quickly to spur business and investment. Yet here, he mysteriously lagged in reviewing the Paramount Global-Skydance merger (coincidentally, no doubt) as settlement negotiations dragged on in Texas.

    We need a far stronger word than “hypocrite” to capture this moment. We have a president who on day one issued an executive order purporting to “restore free speech” and to bar any federal official from engaging in censorship. At the same time, the very same president deployed agency heads to retaliate against news organizations that displease him and to do so in support of his private litigation efforts. And we have an FCC chairman who used to say things like “[a] newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them,” who has made micromanaging news editing a defining principle of his administration.

    Meanwhile, settlement of Trump’s case against CBS and the anticipated merger approval raise some significant questions. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden have asked whether the settlement might violate federal bribery laws, which prohibit corruptly giving anything of value to public officials to influence an official act. In a similar vein, the Freedom of the Press Foundation has threatened (as a Paramount shareholder) to bring a derivative action against the company for conflict of interest, and last May filed a shareholder information demand. 

    Whatever else may happen, this week’s settlement announcement is not the end of this saga. But one thing is clear: The bullying tactics that led to this settlement stain our nation’s character and taint not just those who engage in them but also those who give in.

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  • University of Arizona has balanced budget in sight after massive deficits

    University of Arizona has balanced budget in sight after massive deficits

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    Dive Brief:

    • University of Arizona released a fiscal 2026 plan that would balance its budget by reducing it 3.2% from current levels, though officials noted federal policy changes, state budgeting and enrollment could force adjustments. 
    • The preliminary budget plan would make the deepest cuts to university support and administration, reducing those areas by 7.5% overall. Student support would be cut by 2.8%, and the aggregate budget for the university’s colleges would be reduced by 2.2%. It would also decrease facility and utility spending by 1.1% while increasing community outreach by 0.7%.
    • At the same time, the framework funds employee raises, faculty promotions, investments in the university’s colleges and other spending areas, officials said Thursday in a community message.

    Dive Insight:

    The University of Arizona has been scrambling for more than a year to put its fiscal house in order. 

    In early 2024, the university faced a budget shortfall reaching $177 million. The situation became so severe as to draw an open rebuke from the state’s governor, Katie Hobbs, who in a statement last February derided a “university leadership that was clueless as to their own finances.”

    Since that time, then-President Robert Robbins stepped down and the university has made major cutbacks to its budget. 

    Helping lead that work is John Arnold, who has taken on the chief operating and financial officer roles at University of Arizona after previously serving as executive director of the state board of regents. 

    For fiscal 2025, the university reduced its budget by over $110 million, centralizing its fiscal planning, “rebalancing” undergraduate aid for nonresident students, delaying raises, and reorganizing administrative units including information technology, human resources and marketing. 

    Arnold informed the state regents in November that the university was on track to wipe the remaining $65 million deficit from its budget and end fiscal 2025 with 76 days cash on hand — well above the nine days’ worth of cash that was projected last June. The regents require state universities to have 140 days of cash on hand, a target the University of Arizona hasn’t hit since 2022.

    By the fall, cuts took the university’s employee headcounts and payroll expenses back to early fiscal 2023 levels. 

    While making numerous reductions across the university’s operations, officials also announced salary increases and a raised minimum wage earlier this year. 

    Arnold and Ronald Marx, the university’s interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said in their message Thursday that the new budget framework “prioritizes academic excellence, faculty and staff support, and student success across colleges.”

    They added the caveat that possible changes in federal policy, state budgeting, changing demographics and enrollment could all sway the final fiscal 2026 budget.

    “We are actively monitoring these developments and evaluating the financial implications of the changing external environment,” Arnold and Marx said. 

    Arizona lawmakers last year threw a wrench into budget plans with multimillion dollar funding reductions, which came as University of Arizona sought to reduce its deficit by tens of millions of dollars.

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  • Hiding in plain sight? A simple statistical effect may largely explain the ethnicity degree awarding gap

    Hiding in plain sight? A simple statistical effect may largely explain the ethnicity degree awarding gap

    • By Sean Brophy (@seanbrofee), Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Decent Work and Productivity, Manchester Metropolitan University.

    A persistent challenge in UK higher education is the ethnicity degree awarding gap – the difference between White and ethnic minority students receiving top degrees (firsts or 2:1s). The Office for Students (OfS) aims to entirely eliminate this gap by 2030/31, but what if most of this gap reflects success in widening participation rather than systemic barriers?

    Between 2005/6 and 2021/22, university participation grew 21% faster for Asian students and 17% faster for Black students compared to White students. This remarkable success in widening access might paradoxically explain one of the UK’s most persistent higher education challenges.

    Figure 1 presents ethnicity gaps over time compared to a White baseline (the grey line constant at zero). The data for 2021/22 shows significant gaps: 21 percentage points for Black students, 9 for Asian students, and 4 for Mixed ethnicity students compared to their White peers. Traditional explanations focus on structural barriers, cultural differences, and potential discrimination, and much of the awarding gap remains unexplained after adjusting for prior attainment and background characteristics. However, a simpler explanation might be hiding in plain sight: the gap may also reflect a statistical effect created by varying participation rates across ethnic groups.

    Ethnicity Degree Awarding Gap (2014/15 – 2021/22)

    Figure 1. Source: HESA

    Here is the key insight: ethnic minority groups now participate in higher education at remarkably higher rates than White students, which likely then drives some of the observed ethnicity awarding gaps. Figure 2 presents the over-representation of ethnic groups in UK higher education relative to the White reference group (again, the constant grey line). The participation gap has grown substantially – Asian students were 22 percentage points more likely to attend university than White students in 2021/22, with Black students 18 points higher.

    Over-representation of ethnic groups in HE compared to White baseline (2005/6-2021/22)

    Figure 2. Source: UCAS End Of Cycle Report 2022

    This difference in participation rates creates an important statistical effect, what economists call ‘compositional effects’. When a much larger proportion of any group enters university, that group may naturally include a broader range of academic ability. Think of it like this: if mainly the top third of White students attend university, but nearly half of ethnic minority students do, we would expect to see differences in degree outcomes – even with completely fair teaching and assessment.

    This principle can be illustrated using stylized ability-participation curves for representative ethnic groups in Figure 3. These curves show the theoretical distribution of academic ability for Asian, Black, and White groups, with the red shaded area representing the proportion of students from each group accepted into higher education in 2021/22. It would be surprising if there was no degree awarding gap under these conditions!

    Stylized ability-participation curves by ethnic group

    This hypothesis suggests the degree awarding gap might largely reflect the success of widening participation policies. Compositional effects like these are difficult to control for in studies, and it is noteworthy that, to date, no studies on the ethnicity awarding gap have adequately controlled for these effects (including one of my recent studies).

    While this theory may offer a compelling statistical explanation, future research pursuing this line of inquiry needs to go beyond simply controlling for prior achievement. We need to examine both how individual attainment evolves from early education to university, using richer measures than previous studies, and how the expansion of university participation has changed the composition of student ability over time. This analysis must also account for differences within broad ethnic categories (British Indian students, for example, show different patterns from other Asian groups) and consider how university and subject choices vary across groups.

    My argument is not that compositional effects explain everything — rather, understanding their magnitude is crucial for correctly attributing how much of the gap is driven by traditional explanations, such as prior attainment, background characteristics, structural barriers, or discrimination. Only with this fuller picture can we properly target resources and interventions where they’re most needed.

    If this hypothesis is proven correct, however, it underscores why the current policy focus on entirely eliminating gaps through teaching quality or support services, while well-intentioned, may be misguided. If gaps are the statistically inevitable result of differing participation patterns among ethnic groups, then institutional interventions cannot entirely eliminate them. This doesn’t mean universities shouldn’t strive to support all students effectively – but it does require us to fundamentally rethink how we measure and address educational disparities.

    Rather than treating all gaps as problems to be eliminated, we should:

    1. Fund research which better accounts for these compositional effects.
    2. Develop benchmarks that account for participation rates when measuring degree outcomes.
    3. Contextualize the success of widening participation with acknowledging awarding gaps as an inevitable statistical consequence.
    4. Focus resources on early academic support for students from all backgrounds who might need additional help, particularly in early childhood.
    5. Explore barriers in other post-16 or post-18 pathways that may be contributing to the over-representation of some groups in higher education.

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