Tag: sues

  • DOJ Sues California Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    DOJ Sues California Over In-State Tuition for Noncitizens

    The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of California on Thursday, challenging a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. The lawsuit also targets the California Dream Act, which offers state financial aid to undocumented students who meet certain requirements.

    The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of California, targets the state, Governor Gavin Newsom, state attorney general Rob Bonta, the University of California Board of Regents, the California State University Board of Trustees and the California Community Colleges’ Board of Governors.

    “California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

    California marks the sixth state the federal government has sued over such policies, but unlike some of the others, California plans to fight back. The state is home to more than 102,000 undocumented students, who have been permitted to pay in-state tuition rates since 2001 if they met certain requirements. Undocumented students have also been allowed to access state financial aid for more than a decade, according to the Higher Education Immigration Portal.

    Newsom has repeatedly pushed back on the Trump administration’s policies, including immigration crackdowns. The DOJ filed another lawsuit against the state on Monday, after Newsom signed a bill banning face coverings for federal immigration agents. The DOJ also recently sued Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber over the state’s redistricting plan.

    Bondi said in her statement that the DOJ will “continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”

    But Newsom isn’t backing down.

    “The DOJ has now filed three meritless, politically motivated lawsuits against California in a single week,” Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “Good luck, Trump. We’ll see you in court.”

    By contrast, Texas and Oklahoma, faced with similar lawsuits this summer, swiftly sided with the DOJ, quashing in-state tuition benefits for their undocumented students. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education also agreed to stop offering in-state tuition to noncitizens in September, a few months after the DOJ sued, but the legal battle is ongoing. A judge recently allowed a group of Kentucky undocumented students, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to intervene in the case. Legal fights in Minnesota and Illinois have also continued as the states defend their in-state tuition policies against DOJ challenges.

    The government argues that such laws violate a federal statutory provision that says undocumented people can’t receive higher ed benefits unless citizens are also eligible. The DOJ has asserted that states can’t permit undocumented students in a state to pay lower tuition rates while denying out-of-state citizens the same benefit. Proponents of California’s current policy argue it allows any nonresident who meets certain requirements—including spending three years in a California high school—to access in-state tuition, not just undocumented students.

    Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the University of California system, said system leaders believe they’ve acted within the law.

    “For decades, the University of California has followed applicable state and federal laws regarding eligibility for in-state tuition, financial aid, and scholarships,” Zaentz said in a statement sent to Inside Higher Ed. “While we will, of course, comply with the law as determined by the courts, we believe our policies and practices are consistent with current legal standards.”

    California Community Colleges Chancellor Sonya Christian said in a similar memo that the system “will follow all legal obligations and fully participate in the judicial process alongside our state partners” but “statutes referenced in the lawsuit have been in place for many years and have been implemented in accordance with long-standing legal guidance.”

    “Although we cannot comment on ongoing litigation, our commitment remains unchanged: we will continue to ensure that all students who qualify under state law have access to an affordable, high-quality education,” Christian said. “We will also continue to comply fully with all current federal and state requirements.”

    Iliana Perez, executive director of the advocacy organization Immigrants Rising, called the latest lawsuit an “an affront to the decades of hard-fought student-led advocacy for equitable access to postsecondary education.” She also noted the challenge comes just a week before college applications are due at public four-year institutions in the state.

    “This challenge is a callous attempt to have students second-guess their dreams,” Perez said in a statement. “We have one message for this Administration; we will not be deterred!”

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  • DOJ sues California over in-state tuition for undocumented students

    DOJ sues California over in-state tuition for undocumented students

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Justice is suing California over its laws allowing certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and receive state-administered scholarships.
    • In a Thursday court filing, the agency argued that in-state tuition rates for undocumented students illegally provide benefits not offered to all U.S. citizens and asked a federal judge to rule California’s laws unconstitutional.
    • The lawsuit, which also names as defendants Gov. Gavin Newsom and the governing boards of California’s three public college systems, marks the sixth the DOJ has brought against states with in-state tuition policies for certain undocumented students.

    Dive Insight:

    California is home to roughly 103,000 undocumented residents enrolled in higher education — accounting for about a fifth of some 510,000 undocumented students in the U.S. — according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

    Since 2001, a California law known as AB 540 has allowed students to pay in-state tuition at its three public higher ed systems if they attended a state high school for at least three years and earned their high school diploma or equivalent in California. Undocumented students must also sign an affidavit saying they have either filed an application to gain legal status or plan to once they are eligible.

    A 2017 law broadened that eligibility and permits students to reach the three-year attendance threshold by combining any time spent at a California high school, community college, adult school or carceral education program.

    It also allows students who completed at least three years full-time high school coursework anywhere to qualify for the waiver if they attended at least three years of their K-12 education in California.

    Leaders from the state’s public college systems — the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges — supported the expansion of the in-state tuition policy.

    Both laws apply to both U.S. citizens and immigrants without legal status.

    But U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Thursday statement that policies are “illegally discriminating against American students and families” and that California is demonstrating “flagrant disregard for federal law.”

    Since 1998, U.S. law has prohibited immigrants without legal status from receiving any higher education benefit based on their residency, “unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit … without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”

    The agency’s lawsuit is not the first time California’s in-state tuition law has faced legal opposition. One challenge to AB 540 that similarly argued the policy violated federal law made it to the California Supreme Court in 2010.

    However, the court upheld AB 540, ruling it did not violate federal law because students seeking in-state tuition status did not need to be California residents.

    The DOJ argued Thursday that this decision was incorrect and that federal courts should reject it. 

    “Allocating lower tuition rates on the basis of high school attendance is a proxy for residence,” running afoul of federal law, the agency said.

    Using the same argument, the DOJ lawsuit also targets a 2011 law permitting AB 540-eligible undocumented students to receive state-administered scholarships and aid and a law passed in 2014 establishing a student loan program for them.

    Gaining an in-state tuition waiver for California can have big cost implications for prospective students, as the state’s public colleges charge some of the highest out-of-state tuition premiums in the U.S., according to the College Board.

    The University of California published tuition and fees for out-of-state students who started in 2025-26 were $37,602 more a year than for their in-state counterparts.

    At the University of California, Berkeley, that means out-of-state, full-time undergraduates who first enrolled this fall would pay $55,080 if they did not receive financial aid or scholarships — more than double the $17,478 their in-state counterparts would pay sans aid.

    Even with aid and institutional scholarships, out-of-state students saw a stark difference. U.S. News & World Report estimated that the average total cost of attendance at UC Berkeley for those receiving need-based aid was $16,636 for in-state students and $66,625 for those from outside of California.

    The Cal State system’s published tuition and fees for out-of-state are also higher than for in-state students. Its 23 campuses charge a base rate of $6,450 for in-state undergraduate tuition and fees for the 2025-26 academic year. This year, out-of-state students pay at least $444 more per credit.

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  • Law professor sues University of Kentucky after suspension over criticizing Israel

    Law professor sues University of Kentucky after suspension over criticizing Israel

    The University of Kentucky suspended tenured professor Ramsi Woodcock in July for his comments about Israel. Now, Woodcock is suing his university for violating his First Amendment rights.

    Woodcock’s lawsuit, filed last week in federal district court in Kentucky, asks the judge for two things: let him go back to teaching and stop the university from enforcing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. 

    TAKE ACTION: Stop University of Kentucky’s Free Speech Crackdown

    The lawsuit lays out a damning timeline of UK’s abuse of his First Amendment rights. Woodcock, long an outspoken critic of Israel, remained steadily employed at UK for seven years, gaining tenure in 2022 and a promotion to full professorship this year. But less than two weeks after his promotion, UK removed him from teaching and banned him from campus. This was purportedly because of unspecified complaints about his  petition to a faculty listserv in March 2024, more than a year earlier, calling for global war against Israel and its annihilation. On his website, antizionist.net, he claims Israel is waging a genocide and that the world has a “moral duty” to step in. 

    After UK suspended Woodcock, describing his online petition as “calling for the destruction of a people based on national origin,” FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal resources for faculty free of charge, intervened with UK to explain that Woodcock’s speech was protected by the First Amendment. While members of the public or UK’s community may have taken offense to Woodcock’s strong views about Israel, faculty members have the First Amendment right to present arguments on matters of public concern outside the classroom. Using Woodcock’s speech as a cudgel to remove him from the classroom was a clear violation of his expressive rights as a faculty member at UK.

    The FLDF also announced that Joe Childers, a Kentucky-based attorney, would defend Woodcock through the university’s investigative process. Now Woodcock is taking his fight to court. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is representing Woodcock in the lawsuit, with help from the Chicago-based law firm Kapitan Gomaa Law. Childers is serving as local counsel. 

    “The University’s suspension of Professor Woodcock violates his First Amendment right of freedom of expression and his right to procedural due process, discriminates against him in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, threatens the democratic principles which sustain this Country’s form of government, and degrades the quality of education at the University of Kentucky,” the lawsuit states.

    A university cannot censor the ideas it dislikes out of existence. And it certainly cannot punish its own faculty for making provocative arguments both at the university and in the court of public opinion. FIRE will keep readers apprised about the status of Woodcock’s lawsuit. 

    If you are a public university or college professor facing investigations or punishment for your speech, contact the Faculty Legal Defense Fund: Submit a case or call the 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533).

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  • Texas v. Texas: State AG sues higher ed board over work-study programs

    Texas v. Texas: State AG sues higher ed board over work-study programs

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    Dive Brief:

    • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing his state’s higher education coordinating board to end three work-study programs, alleging they are “unconstitutional and discriminatory” against religious students. 
    • Under the rules established by the Texas Legislature, the programs require participating employers to provide students with nonsectarian work. Two of the programs also make students attending seminary or receiving religious instruction ineligible to participate.
    • The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that those provisions amount to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board “prohibiting participants from engaging in sectarian activities, including sectarian courses of study, to be eligible to receive state benefit.” He asked a state judge to bar the board from administering the programs.

    Dive Insight:

    Paxton argued in the lawsuit that the state work-study programs — all of which are need-based — exclude otherwise eligible students “based solely on the religious character of their course of study,” violating the First Amendment. 

    Texas is home to at least 14 seminary schools, according to The Association of Theological Schools.

    The work-study programs also “effectively eliminate religious organizations with only sectarian employment opportunities from participating,” Paxton said.

    The state board did not immediately respond to questions Monday.

    The three programs being contested are:

    • The Texas College Work-Study Program.
    • The Texas Working Off-Campus: Reinforcing Knowledge and Skills Internship Program, better known as the TXWORKS internship.
    • The Texas Innovative Adult Career Education, or ACE, Grant Program.

    The work-study program and TXWORKS internship partially fund jobs for eligible students to help them pay for college. The ACE program provides grants to nonprofits “for use in job training, vocational education, and related workforce development” for eligible students, according to the lawsuit.

    All the programs are geared toward low-income students, though some also target other demographic groups as well, such as ACE’s focus on veterans.

    In a Friday statement, Paxton called the laws governing the programs “anti-Christian” and said they should “be completely wiped off the books.”

    This is not the first time Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, has sought to overturn Texas state law through the courts. In June, he worked with the Trump administration to have a federal judge strike down Texas’ decades-old law offering in-state tuition rates to undocumented students.

    Paxton’s lawsuit comes after a federal judge earlier this year struck down a Minnesota law that excluded some religious colleges from participating in a publicly funded dual enrollment program.

    Minnesota’s dual enrollment program previously barred colleges from participating if they required students to sign faith statements. In August, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel ruled that the law infringed on the colleges’ constitutional rights by making them choose between participating in the program and practicing their religion.

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  • Ky. Professor “Reassigned” After Call for War on Israel Sues

    Ky. Professor “Reassigned” After Call for War on Israel Sues

    The University of Kentucky’s administration building. A professor is suing the institution.

    BD Images/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus

    The University of Kentucky law professor who was removed from teaching amid his calls for a global war on Israel to end its existence as a state is now suing his institution and the U.S. education secretary.

    On his website, antizionist.net, Ramsi Woodcock asks fellow legal scholars to sign a “Petition for Military Action Against Israel.” He says Israel is a colony and war is needed to decolonize, and he calls for the war to continue until “Israel has submitted permanently and unconditionally to the government of Palestine everywhere from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

    In his lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Woodcock asks a judge to order the university and top officials to restore his normal teaching and other duties, allow him back into the College of Law building, end the university’s investigation of him, and pay monetary damages. But he also asks the judge to order Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “refrain from requiring or using” the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism when enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    The IHRA says antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel,” “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” or claims “that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” Earlier this year, Kentucky state lawmakers ordered public universities to use the IHRA definition in their policies combating antisemitism. Woodcock is also asking the judge to declare that that order violates the First Amendment.

    His lawsuit alleges the state and federal actions are related to his “suspension,” saying the university’s tolerance of his speech “ended in summer 2025” after the federal government threatened to withdraw funding from universities and moved to enforce the IHRA definition. He also cited the passage of the state legislation that “enabled and pressured administrators to suppress speech critical of Israel and Zionism.”

    The Education Department didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday. A university spokesperson said Woodcock hasn’t been suspended but was “reassigned pending the outcome of an investigation,” adding that the university will be “limited in our comments while that investigation is ongoing.”

    In an email to Inside Higher Ed, Woodcock responded, “Israel is a colonization project that practices apartheid and is currently exterminating two million Palestinians in Gaza. The scandal is not that I am calling for immediate military action to end Israel but that the university is willing to violate our nation’s constitution in order to preserve Israel. Every American scholar has a First Amendment right to oppose Israel and I look forward to holding the university accountable for breaking the law.”

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  • Indiana AG sues Indianapolis Public Schools for hindering ICE efforts

    Indiana AG sues Indianapolis Public Schools for hindering ICE efforts

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    Dive Brief:

    • Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita alleges Indianapolis Public Schools has multiple policies that violate state laws by prohibiting local government entities from limiting or restricting federal immigration enforcement.
    • In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Rokita claims the 30,000-student district has policies barring federal immigration officers from accessing nonpublic areas on school property without a judicial warrant, and that these policies are illegal under Indiana law and pose “grave risks to public safety.”
    • Rokita’s lawsuit also cited an incident on Jan. 8, 2025, in which IPS’ policies “directly contributed to the failure” of federal immigration officers attempting to deport an undocumented Honduran man.

    Dive Insight:

    The IPS Board of School Commissioners said in a Thursday statement that Rokita’s lawsuit is a “heavy burden” and “silly litigation and political posturing” that impacts students, families and taxpayers. 

    “Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment,” the board said. “In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.”

    The board emphasized that it has always upheld the law and will continue to do so while ensuring “safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments for all students.”

    Beyond denying access to immigration enforcement officers to school property without a judicial warrant, IPS also requires its employees to not assist immigration efforts unless legally required and authorized by the superintendent, according to Rokita’s lawsuit. The other IPS policy challenged in the complaint is that district staff are prohibited from collecting, maintaining or sharing information about the immigration status of a student, their parents or a school employee.  

    The IPS Board of School Commissioners said it has been “actively collaborating” with Rokita’s office to go over relevant policies of concern. The board said, however, that Rokita only gave the district five business days to review and respond to his opinion on the policies.

    “Yet, these important issues deserve thoughtful, deliberative weighing of important legal rights — not impulsive, superficial efforts for political gain,” the board said.

    The IPS policies being challenged, however, are a common practice in other school districts looking to protect students affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement in communities nationwide this year.

    In fact, immigration lawyers have advised districts across the country to train their principals and teachers to know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers cannot enter school property without a warrant signed by a judge.

    Immigration advocates have also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, which ruled that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education based on their immigration status. Additionally, other state and local guidance has reminded school administrators this year that districts must maintain the confidentiality of all personally identifiable information in education records related to students under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

    As ICE efforts go on near school communities, some district leaders — most recently at Chicago Public Schools — are calling for virtual schooling for students and families living in fear of federal immigration enforcement presence. Educators, advocates and child psychology experts are continuing to sound the alarm on the traumatic impacts immigration enforcement has on students, including school avoidance and stress.

    But in Indiana, Attorney General Rokita said in a Thursday statement that sanctuary policies like those in place at IPS “are bad in any context, but they are especially troubling in our schools.” He added that, “schools across the country are vulnerable to infiltration by criminal illegal aliens — it’s happened in many other states — and it is essential that ICE be able to take action when that occurs to help keep our kids safe.”

    Rokita’s lawsuit also alleged that in January, ICE’s efforts to deport an undocumented Honduran man living in Indiana were thwarted because IPS did not let the man’s son, who is an IPS student, reunite and leave the U.S. on a flight with his father, who volunteered to board. 

    “IPS took the position that it would not release the child to an ICE officer unless the officer had a judicial warrant or other court order,” the lawsuit said. “ICE responded that it simply was asking that the son be released to the father so that they could depart the country as the father had agreed to do and that such action did not require a court order.”

    Because the father was unable to get custody of his son to board the flight with him, the father missed his flight, and the voluntary departure order expired, according to the complaint. As a result, the lawsuit said that “an illegal alien who should have departed the United States — who had voluntarily agreed to depart the United States — therefore remained in the United States because of IPS’s actions.”

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  • US Chamber sues White House to block ‘plainly unlawful’ H-1B visa fee

    US Chamber sues White House to block ‘plainly unlawful’ H-1B visa fee

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    Dive Brief:

    • President Donald Trump’s proclamation placing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas is a “plainly unlawful” expansion of executive authority that violates the Administrative Procedure Act and federal immigration laws, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce alleged in a lawsuit Thursday.
    • Chamber of Commerce v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, et. al. is at least the second such lawsuit against the fee proclamation, following a separate filing earlier this month by plaintiffs in California. The Chamber claimed the fee would “inflict significant harm on American businesses” and render the H-1B program economically unviable for many.
    • The Chamber asked the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to enjoin the fee requirement and vacate any agency actions taken to implement it. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

    Dive Insight:

    The lawsuit is an immediate follow-up to the Chamber’s statement last month calling on the Trump administration to withdraw its fee proclamation. In that statement, the organization said Trump’s move could impede economic growth as well as domestic job creation by incentivizing employers to move some business functions overseas.

    A Chamber press release Thursday reiterated those concerns. Neil Bradley, the organization’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, credited the administration with “securing our nation’s border” while warning of the need for H-1B visas to support growth and attract global talent.

    The fee caught employers by surprise when it was announced in September, particularly so for those in the technology sector, where H-1B visas are routinely sought to staff highly-skilled positions in mathematics, computer science and similar fields. But the fee’s effects could be felt in other fields, including higher and K-12 education, plaintiffs in the California lawsuit alleged.

    New guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued Monday appeared to give the higher education sector some relief, however. It said that the new fee wouldn’t apply to those who are inside the U.S. and “requesting an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay.” That means international students who recently graduated and have H-1B sponsorship wouldn’t be subject to it, Bloomberg Law reported. 

    Trump has touted the fee — which applies prospectively only to H-1B visa petitions filed on or after Sept. 21, 2025, — as a necessary measure to combat “systemic abuse” of the program by employers in an effort to artificially suppress wages while reducing job opportunities for U.S. citizens.

    The Chamber directly addressed this point in its lawsuit, conceding that while abuse of the H-1B program is a serious issue, Congress considered this problem when creating the program and authorized the executive to take certain measures to prevent and remediate such abuse.

    For example, the Chamber noted that Congress twice imposed a temporary $4,000 surcharge fee on certain employers with a high proportion of H-1B visa holders. It also implemented a regulatory framework, the Labor Condition Application, requiring employers seeking H-1B employees to certify that the positions offered to such candidates meet criteria outlined by Congress. The legislature gave the president the authority to enforce such requirements by issuing fines as well as bans on filing future H-1B petitions.

    “What Congress did not authorize is disincentivizing the use of the program by imposing a fee many times the amount of fees set by Congress,” the Chamber said.

    Separately, the organization echoed an argument used by the California plaintiffs in alleging that the fee is arbitrary and capricious and was not submitted to notice-and-comment rulemaking as required under the APA.

    The lawsuits against the fee add to employers’ confusion in the aftermath of the proclamation. Sources previously told HR Dive that businesses have since been left to parse just how to pay the fee or how it will apply to visa petitioners who are already physically present in the U.S.

    Editor’s note: Natalie Schwartz, senior editor at Higher Ed Dive, contributed to this story. 

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  • New York City sues Education Department over Title IX funds

    New York City sues Education Department over Title IX funds

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    Dive Brief:

    • New York City sued the U.S. Department of Education on Oct. 15 over the federal agency’s decision in September to terminate $47 million in federal funding for 19 magnet schools. The department severed the nation’s largest school system from discretionary grant funding after the agency found the New York City Department of Education violated Title IX when it set transgender-inclusive bathroom and locker room policies. 
    • In an unprecedented measure, the Education Department, in a Sept. 16 letter, gave New York City Public Schools a short timeline of just three days to agree to overhaul its Title IX policies in response to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights decision.
    • The lawsuit seeks to stop the defunding of the Magnet School Assistance Program, meant to help with desegregation and that primarily serves low-income Hispanic and Black students. OCR said in its letter to New York City that funding the grant is “no longer in the best interest of the Federal Government.”

    Dive Insight:

     Abruptly discontinuing Magnet School Assistance Program funds threw “into chaos and uncertainty” the future of the magnet schools as well as the 7,700 students who attend them, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims the cuts have also led to “the complete disruption” of the magnet schools’ specialized programming. 

    The Trump administration already sought to zero-out the program entirely in its proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. That, however, would require congressional approval.

    The legal challenge filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York escalates the fight between school districts and the Trump administration over its civil rights enforcement measures. 

    “With this lawsuit, New York City Public Schools is fighting back against the U.S. Department of Education’s attack on our magnet program and transgender and gender expansive students,” said New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos in an Oct. 16 statement. “U.S. DOE’s threat to cut off tens of millions of dollars in magnet funding unless we cancelled our protections for transgender and gender expansive students is contrary to federal, state, and local law, and, just as importantly, our values as New York City Public Schools.”

    Districts are increasingly opting to take the administration to court in response to its federal funding threats, rather than comply with the department’s demands. Those demands often include adopting “biology-based” definitions of “male” and “female,” and in some places run against state law that require inclusive policies for transgender people.

    Two large Northern Virginia school districts, for example, were among the first to sue the administration in late August after the agency decided the districts violated Title IX by allowing transgender students access to sex-segregated facilities aligning with their identities. Fairfax County and Arlington County school boards collectively have on the line $190 million, which the districts use to fund school meals for low-income students; services to students with disabilities, homeless students; and English learners, among other activities. 

    In these cases, the administration issued Title IX violations after very brief investigations, and provided recipients with 10 or less days to respond — as opposed to the usual 90-day timeline. 

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  • Federal Union Sues Trump Admin Over Political OOO

    Federal Union Sues Trump Admin Over Political OOO

    Employees who had the messages put on their accounts told Inside Higher Ed that it was “wild to see your name attached to a message that you had nothing to do with.”

    J. David Ake/Getty Images

    The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing federal workers, sued the Trump administration Friday, challenging the automated out-of-office email responses it placed on many employees’ email accounts when the government shut down. 

    The message, which was placed on the email accounts of all furloughed staff members without their consent, blamed Democrats in the Senate for causing the shutdown.

    AFGE’s members, who will be represented by the legal firms Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group, argue in the complaint that the message Trump attached to their email accounts is “partisan political rhetoric.” Not only does it violate the Hatch Act, a federal law that requires nonappointed government staff to stay nonpartisan, but it also violates the First Amendment rights of the individual employees, they argue. 

    “The Trump-Vance administration is losing the blame game for the shutdown, so they’re using every tactic to try to fool the American people, including taking advantage of furloughed civil servants,” Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, said in a news release. “Even for an administration that has repeatedly demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the Constitution and rule of law, this is beyond outrageous. The court must act immediately to stop this flagrant unlawfulness.”

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  • Former Provost Sues UNC Chapel Hill

    Former Provost Sues UNC Chapel Hill

    A former provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill accused the Board of Trustees of systematically violating open records and meetings laws on multiple occasions, including to retaliate against him, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this week.

    At the heart of the lawsuit from Chris Clemens, who resigned in April, is a delayed tenure vote.

    In March, the UNC Board of Trustees postponed a vote to grant tenure to 33 faculty members. At that meeting, held March 20, the board moved into closed session, with Clemens present, apparently to discuss individual tenure cases. Instead, trustees launched into a debate over the value of tenure, with some voicing their philosophical opposition to the practice and others arguing that they should delay such approvals for financial reasons, according to the lawsuit.

    The board eventually approved tenure for all 33 candidates in June via an email vote.

    According to the lawsuit, Clemens shared details from the meeting with other academic leaders, noting that no tenure decisions were made or individual candidates considered and that the board instead “engaged in a sweeping policy discussion about tenure’s institutional value and global costs.” Following that briefing, the Board of Trustees allegedly communicated through Signal, a private messaging application that includes a feature to automatically delete messages after they are read, to call for a vote of no confidence in Clemens. UNC leadership asked Clemens to step down shortly thereafter, according to the lawsuit.

    But even if Clemens’s suit is successful and the violations are proven to be true, the board will likely face few repercussions given past precedent.

    A Systemic Pattern

    Clemens’s lawsuit also accused Jed Atkins, director and dean of the School for Civic Life and Leadership, of relaying the former provost’s briefing to then–board chair John Preyer via Signal. (Clemens had taken issue with the hiring practices at the civic life school before stepping down.)

    The lawsuit alleges that Atkins “requires that his leadership team subscribe to a Signal group and conducts a substantial portion of official communications via Signal with auto-delete enabled not only in exchanges with trustees but as a routine practice,” in violation of state law. Atkins did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    Beyond the tenure flap, Clemens has accused the board of defying state open meetings laws on multiple occasions in an effort to “hide policy debates from public view,” according to his lawsuit.

    “Over the past four years, the Board has engaged in a pattern and practice of systematically violating the Open Meetings Law by improperly invoking closed session exemptions to shield policy and budget deliberations from public scrutiny,” the former provost alleged.

    Contacted by Inside Higher Ed, Clemens declined to comment.

    In his legal filing, Clemens cited three specific examples beyond the March tenure discussion in which he alleged the board violated open meetings laws. He specifically pointed to a closed session discussion in November 2023, when UNC discussed athletic conference realignment; further secret deliberations over athletics in May 2024 involving both conference realignment and finances; and an “emergency meeting” in December 2024 to hire a head football coach. At the December meeting, UNC Chapel Hill hired NFL legend Bill Belichick on a $10 million annual contract.

    (Responding to a separate legal complaint over the May 2024 meeting, trustees previously agreed to reaffirm their commitment to open meetings laws and pay $25,000 in attorneys’ fees.)

    “Each episode follows the same pattern: the Board invokes a statutory exemption, enters closed session, then discusses broad policy or budget matters that must be debated publicly,” the lawsuit states.

    Despite being allegedly pressured to step down, Clemens isn’t seeking a payout or his job back. Instead, he’s asking the court to prevent the board from continuing its alleged defiance of open meetings laws, to produce minutes or a transcript of the March 20 closed session and to mandate that trustees participate in training on state open meetings and public records laws.

    Responses

    Contacted by Inside Higher Ed, UNC Chapel Hill spokesperson Kevin Best wrote by email, “We’re aware of the litigation and are reviewing it closely,” but he declined to comment further given the pending nature of the case.

    The Board of Trustees released a more forceful statement Wednesday.

    “The former Provost’s baseless assault on this volunteer Board and how it conducts its business stands in stark contrast to the widely recognized excellence the University has achieved under this Board’s leadership,” chair Malcom Turner said. “His allegations are disappointing and inaccurate, not to mention a waste of taxpayer dollars, for which this former officer of the University shows no regard. His claims will not withstand scrutiny.”

    Most of the individuals named in the lawsuit either declined to comment or did not respond to media inquiries. Multiple faculty and staff members at the School of Civic Life and Leadership (none of whom are defendants in the lawsuit) also did not respond to requests for comment.

    However, one source alleged that the former provost instructed employees to use Signal and that he also used it for university business, which Inside Higher Ed confirmed via screenshots.

    Allegations that Clemens used Signal come amid an opaque investigation by outside counsel into the School of Civic Life and Leadership that was announced earlier this month. While Chapel Hill leadership has said little about the investigation, it comes after multiple resignations from faculty members in the school, some of whom have alleged it has “lost sight of its mission.”

    Dustin Sebell, a School of Civic Life and Leadership professor, told Inside Higher Ed via text message that Clemens “habitually used Signal for university business” and encouraged others to do so. To Sebell, the lawsuit seems like an effort by Clemens to sidestep the investigation.

    “By hastily filing a hypocritical lawsuit, Chris is trying to avoid investigators’ questions about his misconduct as Provost by claiming privilege pending ongoing litigation,” Sebell wrote.

    But some faculty members, such as Michael Palm—president of the UNC Chapel Hill chapter of the American Association of University Professors—expressed concern about political influence on the board.

    “Open meetings laws are important for public universities. Unfortunately, right now we don’t need them to know that the UNC [Board of Trustees] considers UNC faculty to be their enemy,” Palm wrote to Inside Higher Ed via email. “The crisis we’re in is political, not procedural.”

    Although North Carolina has historically been considered a swing state, the UNC Chapel Hill board appears to be overwhelmingly comprised of Republicans. Some have previously worked for Republican officials, while others have donated heavily to GOP candidates and causes.

    Of 14 voting members on the UNC Chapel Hill board, at least 10 have donated to conservative politicians and organizations, some contributing tens of thousands of dollars, according to a review by Inside Higher Ed. Several others have direct GOP connections, including Preyer, who previously worked for former senator Lauch Faircloth. Three other trustees previously held state office: Robert Bryan III, James Blaine II and Patrick Ballantine. All were elected as Republicans.

    Potential Consequences

    Should the allegations in the lawsuit be proven true, consequences will likely be fairly light—at least, that has been the outcome in other cases where boards allegedly violated sunshine laws.

    The Pennsylvania State Board of Trustees, for example, was required to complete training on the state’s Sunshine Act recently as part of a settlement with the news organization Spotlight PA over alleged violations of opening meetings laws related to secretive practices by the board.

    But in other cases, universities have largely escaped consequences for clandestine actions.

    Kentucky attorney general Russell Coleman has found that multiple state institutions have violated open records laws, adding up to 10 times this year alone. Coleman found that the University of Kentucky violated open records law four times and had four partial violations, while Northern Kentucky University had one violation and the University of Louisville had a partial violation. However, none of those violations resulted in punitive actions from the state.

    Last year Indiana’s public access counselor found that Indiana University’s Board of Trustees violated open meetings laws when members claimed that they were holding a private meeting to discuss litigation. But trustees also discussed IU president Pamela Whitten’s performance and a campus climate review, expanding the private meeting beyond its stated aims. A complaint from a news organization prompted scrutiny from state officials, but no punitive or corrective actions.

    UNC Chapel Hill was also previously accused of violating state open meetings laws, including in 2021 when it hired Clemens as provost, choosing to approve “Action 1” on its agenda with a vague reference to personnel matters, raising concerns that trustees violated state law via a secretive vote. Board leadership defended the vote and Clemens remained in place until April.

    This story has been updated with a statement from the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees.

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