Over the last two weeks, FIRE wrotetwice about the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ recent “Dear Colleague” letter, asking for more clarity about how OCR plans to enforce Title VI. This weekend, OCR began to provide much-needed clarity through a “Frequently Asked Questions” document, and promised to update the FAQ as needed.
While the FAQ document answers key questions, including addressing some points FIRE raised, one more item still needs to be addressed: OCR should expressly incorporate the Supreme Court’s hostile environment harassment standard articulated in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education when evaluating whether institutional programming creates a hostile environment.
Key clarifications from the FAQ:
OCR echoed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Feb. 5 memo, confirming that institutional cultural celebrations or historical observations such as Black History Month and International Holocaust Remembrance Day do not violate Title VI.
FIRE analysis: We advised colleges not to “overcomply” and prematurely cancel university cultural celebrations. Those that have cancelled events, including Grand View University in Iowa, should restore them.
The FAQ distinguishes between K-12 classrooms and higher education classrooms, acknowledging that college discussions and coursework on race-related issues are less likely than K-12 programs to create a racially hostile environment.
FIRE analysis: This is a win for academic freedom and free expression in higher education. OCR correctly notes the difference between the environs of K-12 and college classrooms — the latter being precisely where difficult discussions should take place. President Trump’s Jan. 21 executive order on DEI also explicitly protected higher education classroom instruction, an exception FIRE has long sought when government actors have attempted to reform campus DEI bureaucracies.
Other parts of the FAQ leave room for additional clarification, particularly regarding the standard for determining when race-related speech can violate Title VI.
While FIRE does not take a position on affirmative action or other race-conscious practices at institutions, OCR’s interpretation of Title VI and the Students for Fair Admissions cases prohibits institutions from maintaining policies or practices that treat students differently based on their race. As the Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague” letter states:
If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life. Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.
It’s one thing for OCR to address institutional conduct in its policies or programs — prohibiting the distribution of benefits or the imposition of burdens based on race — but quite another to regulate institutional speech in programs. The FAQ would benefit from additional clarity on how the Supreme Court’s Davis decision applies to institutional speech, including mandatory trainings and institutionally sponsored events or programming.
OCR should explicitly confirm that when evaluating whether an institution has created a hostile environment, it will only consider conduct that is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit” as rising to that level. Expressly mentioning the hostile environment harassment standard as articulated in Davis in future FAQ updates would help institutions better understand the difference between unlawful conduct and protected expression. OCR’s clarifications thus far are useful, but it must make this distinction clear going forward.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. education secretary nominee Linda McMahon told a Senate panel Thursday that, if confirmed, she would not defund public schools but would seek to reform the U.S. Department of Education by reducing federal bureaucracy and bringing schools back to the basics of reading and math.
“We are failing our students, our Department of Education, and what we are doing today is not working, and we need to change it,” McMahon said.
However, when asked about some specific changes she would make to Education Department programming, McMahon said, if confirmed, she would evaluate department functions before making recommendations. She said she would “reorient the department toward helping educators, not controlling them.”
The 2 ½-hour confirmation hearing, held by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, was briefly interrupted five times by people protesting McMahon’s nomination. The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to approve McMahon’s nomination in the coming days.
McMahon’s confirmation hearing comes amid drastic changes at the Education Department. President Donald Trump has already issued various executive orders that severely limit federal funding, prohibit activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and call for an end to “indoctrination” in K-12 schools, which he said includes “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
Trump is also expected to issue an executive order that would significantly reduce the Education Department’s authority and responsibility in the federal government.
In fiscal year 2024, the Education Department received $79.1 billion from Congress. Lawmakers have yet to approve FY 2025 funding.
Among the Education Department’s responsibilities is managing $1.6 trillion in higher education student loans.
A protester disrupts Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. education secretary, as she testifies during her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Kayla Bartkowski via Getty Images
Trump nominated McMahon just weeks after winning the November election. McMahon served as administrator of the Small Business Administration for two yearsin Trump’s first administration. She is also a former president and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.
McMahon is also board chair at America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank that supports free enterprise and nationalism. At the state level, McMahon served on the Connecticut State Board of Education. She also served as a trustee at Sacred Heart University, a private Catholic school in Fairfield, Connecticut. She is currently the treasurer on the university’s Board of Trustees, according to the school’s website.
In 2012, she won the Connecticut Republican primary for U.S. Senate but lost to current Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who is a member of the HELP committee.
If the Senate approves McMahon’s nomination, she would succeed Miguel Cardona as the 13th U.S. education secretary since the department’s founding in 1979.
Here are three takeaway exchanges from the confirmation hearing.
Antisemitism on college campuses
Several Republican senators asked McMahon about antisemitism on college campuses.
“Will you make sure that Jewish Americans are safe on our campuses, for heaven’s sake?” asked Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., referring to “a wave of antisemitism” particularly since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. “Will you make sure that this stops on our college campuses that are getting all of this federal tax money?”
McMahon said she would “absolutely,” or schools would “face defunding of their monies.”
Several senators asked McMahon about the Education Department’s responsibility for the federal student loan program. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., questioned McMahon’s commitment to existing public service loan forgiveness programs passed by Congress.
“Those that have been passed by Congress? Yes, that’s the law,” McMahon said.
Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., said McMahon’s experience overseeing the Small Business Administration “would be a great asset as the department looks to reform a very broken student loan program.”
During the hearing, McMahon also voiced support for more skill-based learning and dual enrollment in K-12. “I think we have to look at education and say our vocational and skill-based training is not a default education,” McMahon said.
Closing the Education Department
Several Democratic lawmakers probed McMahon about Trump’s push to eliminate the Education Department. On Wednesday, Trump referred to the department as a “big con job” and said he wanted the agency closed immediately.
“The president has given a very clear directive that he would like to look in totality at the Department of Education, and believes that the bureaucracy of it should be closed, that we should return education to our states, that the best education is that closest to the kids,” McMahon said.
She acknowledged that only Congress has the power to shut down the agency. And McMahon noted that programs established by federal statute would need to continue with or without an Education Department.
But she said she was open to exploring whether the Education Department’s civil rights investigation arm could move to the U.S. Department of Justice and whether IDEA responsibilities could shift to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
When speaking of IDEA, McMahon said, “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in HHS, but I don’t know.” She said that if she’s confirmed, she would make it a high priority to ensure funds for students with disabilities are not impacted.
“It is incredibly important that those programs continue to be funded,” she said.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said “To be clear here, you’re going to put special education in the hands of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” referring to the newly named HHS secretary who has refused to say vaccines don’t cause autism.
Title IX protections
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., asked McMahon if she would support language in the regulation for Title IX — a federal sex discrimination law — that says schools must address sexual harassment that is either “severe or pervasive.” Currently, Title IX regulation says sexual harassment that is “severe and pervasive” is prohibited, which is a higher threshold for investigations.
“I don’t believe there should be any acceptance of sexual harassment, senator,” McMahon said.
Baldwin replied, “I hope that you will take your position and press for that to be the law.”
Baldwin also raised concerns about McMahon’s support for sexual assault victims, as the nominee is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by former World Wrestling Entertainment employees alleging sexual harassment and abuse.
“If confirmed, you will be responsible with overseeing the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, charged with ensuring equal access to education through vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws,” Baldwin said. “I am so concerned about whether sexual assault survivors on campus can trust you to support them.”
McMahon replied, “They certainly can trust me to support them.”
Throughout the hearing, McMahon said the Education Department would protect students from discrimination and harassment. One example she gave was prohibiting schools from letting transgender girls and women play on women’s designated sport teams. She also said the Education Department would protect the rights of parents “to direct the moral education of their children.”
Hassan said the hearing felt like “elegant gaslighting” because of McMahon’s ambitions for the Education Department, which is being threatened with closure by President Trump.
“The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me,” Hassan said.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. education secretary nominee Linda McMahon told a Senate panel Thursday that, if confirmed, she would not defund public schools but would seek to reform the U.S. Department of Education by reducing federal bureaucracy and bringing schools back to the basics of reading and math.
McMahon also said her priorities as education secretary would be to expand school choice and skills-based learning, give local schools and parents more decision-making power, and to protect students from discrimination and harassment.
“I’m very hopeful that we will get back to the basics of education so that our children can read when they leave 3rd grade, and that 8th grade students can do math and reading proficiently,” McMahon said. “We are failing our students, our Department of Education, and what we are doing today is not working, and we need to change it.”
However, when asked about some specific changes she would make to Education Department programming, McMahon said, if confirmed, she would evaluate department functions before making recommendations. She said she would “reorient the department toward helping educators, not controlling them.”
The 2 ½-hour confirmation hearing, held by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, was briefly interrupted five times by people protesting McMahon’s nomination. The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to approve McMahon’s nomination in the coming days.
McMahon’s confirmation hearing comes amid drastic changes at the Education Department. President Donald Trump has already issued various executive orders that severely limit federal funding, call for expansion of private school choice, prohibit activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and call for an end to “indoctrination” in K-12 schools, which he said includes “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
Trump is also expected to issue an executive order that would significantly reduce the Education Department’s authority and responsibility in the federal government.
Federal education funding represents just about 14% of total K-12 spending in 2024, with the rest provided by local and state governments and other sources. Still, education experts say federal investments are important for supporting funding equity and accountability.
In fiscal year 2024, the Education Department received $79.1 billion from Congress. Lawmakers have yet to approve FY 2025 funding.
Among the Education Department’s responsibilities is managing $1.6 trillion in higher education student loans.
District and state K-12 programs also received $189.5 billion over the past five years in federal COVID-19 emergency funds to support pandemic recovery efforts.
A protester disrupts Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. education secretary, as she testifies during her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Kayla Bartkowski via Getty Images
Trump nominated McMahon just weeks after winning the November election. McMahon served as administrator of the Small Business Administration for two yearsin Trump’s first administration. She is also a former president and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.
McMahon is also board chair at America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank that supports free enterprise and nationalism. At the state level, McMahon served on the Connecticut State Board of Education. She also served as a trustee at Sacred Heart University, a private Catholic school in Fairfield, Connecticut. She is currently the treasurer on the university’s Board of Trustees, according to the school’s website.
In 2012, she won the Connecticut Republican primary for U.S. Senate but lost to current Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who is a member of the HELP committee.
If the Senate approves McMahon’s nomination, she would succeed Miguel Cardona as the 13th U.S. education secretary since the department’s founding in 1979.
Here are three takeaway exchanges from the confirmation hearing.
Closing the Education Department
Several Democratic lawmakers probed McMahon about Trump’s push to eliminate the Education Department. On Wednesday, Trump referred to the department as a “big con job” and said he wanted the agency closed immediately.
“The president has given a very clear directive that he would like to look in totality at the Department of Education, and believes that the bureaucracy of it should be closed, that we should return education to our states, that the best education is that closest to the kids,” McMahon said.
She acknowledged that only Congress has the power to shut down the agency. And McMahon noted that programs established by federal statute, such as Title I for low-income schools and services to students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, would need to continue with or without an Education Department.
But she said she was open to exploring whether the Education Department’s civil rights investigation arm could move to the U.S. Department of Justice and whether IDEA responsibilities could shift to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
When speaking of IDEA, McMahon said, “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in HHS, but I don’t know.” She said that if she’s confirmed, she would make it a high priority to ensure funds for students with disabilities are not impacted.
“It is incredibly important that those programs continue to be funded,” she said.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said “To be clear here, you’re going to put special education in the hands of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” referring to the newly named HHS secretary who has refused to say vaccines don’t cause autism.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked McMahon about her support for public schools in areas where there are no other private or charter school options, like in small rural parts of Alaska accessible by only boats or planes.
“I absolutely do believe that our public schools are the bedrock of our education,” McMahon said. “I think we have to invest in our public education,” adding that public taxpayer funding can be used for other education supports, such as tutoring, in areas that don’t have school choice options.
Antisemitism on college campuses
Several Republican senators asked McMahon about antisemitism on college campuses.
“Will you make sure that Jewish Americans are safe on our campuses, for heaven’s sake?” asked Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., referring to “a wave of antisemitism” particularly since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. “Will you make sure that this stops on our college campuses that are getting all of this federal tax money?”
McMahon said she would “absolutely,” or schools would “face defunding of their monies.”
Several senators asked McMahon about the Education Department’s responsibility for the federal student loan program. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., questioned McMahon’s commitment to existing public service loan forgiveness programs passed by Congress.
“Those that have been passed by Congress? Yes, that’s the law,” McMahon said.
Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., said McMahon’s experience overseeing the Small Business Administration “would be a great asset as the department looks to reform a very broken student loan program.”
During the hearing, McMahon also voiced support for more skill-based learning and dual enrollment in K-12. “I think we have to look at education and say our vocational and skill-based training is not a default education,” McMahon said.
Title IX protections
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., asked McMahon if she would support language in the regulation for Title IX — a federal sex discrimination law — that says schools must address sexual harassment that is either “severe or pervasive.” Currently, Title IX regulation says sexual harassment that is “severe and pervasive” is prohibited, which is a higher threshold for investigations.
“I don’t believe there should be any acceptance of sexual harassment, senator,” McMahon said.
Baldwin replied, “I hope that you will take your position and press for that to be the law.”
Baldwin also raised concerns about McMahon’s support for sexual assault victims, as the nominee is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by former World Wrestling Entertainment employees alleging sexual harassment and abuse.
“If confirmed, you will be responsible with overseeing the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, charged with ensuring equal access to education through vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws,” Baldwin said. “I am so concerned about whether sexual assault survivors on campus can trust you to support them.”
McMahon replied, “They certainly can trust me to support them.”
Throughout the hearing, McMahon said the Education Department would protect students from discrimination and harassment. One example she gave was prohibiting schools from letting transgender girls and women play on women’s designated sport teams. She also said the Education Department would protect the rights of parents “to direct the moral education of their children.”
Hassan said the hearing felt like “very elegant gaslighting” because of McMahon’s ambitions for the Education Department, which is being threatened with closure by Trump.
“The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me,” Hassan said.
I love the Fall for a number of reasons, one of which is the vast number of conferences and events within the higher ed and education technology space. I’m continually impressed and inspired by the intelligence and expertise of the leaders and tacticians within our industry. When you bring together smart people to share insights and learns, discuss ways to navigate challenges and evolving market paradigms, and work together to uncover new growth opportunities, great things start to happen. You can see pathways to transformation and how you can make a positive impact. It’s both refreshing and inspiring.
I recently had the opportunity to attend and speak at the P3 EDU conference. All the panels were insightful and topical, and the panelists paired their expertise with strong points of view about where higher education is headed. It was a powerful reminder that we must adapt to a rapidly changing landscape, embrace innovation, and prioritize student success.
As we all know, the higher education space is facing significant challenges. We’re navigating demographic shifts and cliffs, a relentless focus on affordability and outcomes, and the ever-present need to adapt — and adapt quickly. While the pressures can feel overwhelming, the P3 conference reminded us that we don’t have to go it alone. It also reinforced that Collegis Education is not only focusing our time and effort on the right things but leading the way in many areas.
Here are the key themes that resonated with me and what I walked away with.
1. Data-Driven Decisions: The New Normal
There was an undeniable consensus around the power of data and its role in helping schools evolve. Institutions have become acutely aware of where they have or lack data proficiency and how data is used or misused across the organization. Schools now understand the role that strategic partnerships can play in eliminating data deficiency and unlocking data potential.
This is what we at Collegis call being data enabled. Being data-driven has become table stakes –– but being data-enabled is a step above. Enabled data is achieved by eliminating tech and data siloes and elevating your data integrity and thoroughness. Once that is done, it open up new data enabled capabilities to drive impact across the entire student lifecycle.
But to maximize your ability to drive meaningful growth, retention, and outcomes, you must first unlock the potential within your systems and the underlying data.
2. AI: A Double-Edged Sword
If your inbox or LinkedIn feed looks like mine, it’s hard not to come across some AI-related article, product, or debate. It’s no surprise AI in higher ed was a hot topic at the conference. While some view it as a threat, I believe AI offers higher ed immense opportunities and can be transformational.
But to take advantage of AI, you must get your data house in order. If you start to power your AI tools with spotty data, you’ll get lackluster outcomes, poor ROI, and a lot of frustration along the way.
At Collegis, we’re using AI to drive effectiveness across the student lifecycle. We’re helping schools leverage automation to make administrative tasks less cumbersome, creating capacity and allowing limited human capital to focus on where they can make the most impact. But AI’s impact goes beyond automation. We’re also helping our schools harness its power to enable predictive analytics, using AI to analyze large data sets. Now, our partners can begin to deploy proactive strategies rather than reactionary ones, helping them to anticipate student needs, identify points of failure before they occur, and refine their programmatic offerings to keep pace with workforce demands. We must continue to innovate, leveraging new AI advancements, for the sake of our partner institutions.
3. The Power of Partnership: The Expanding Landscape of P3s
At the conference, there was a clear sense that P3s (public-private partnerships) are expanding beyond their traditional scope. More schools are welcoming partnerships to address complex challenges like the enrollment cliff and seizing emerging opportunities in technology, campus development, research collaboration, student housing, and infrastructure. Our industry needs to become less risk-averse, and we need to push ourselves to lead the way rather than chase the trends or replicate the innovators in our space who have found success by challenging the status quo.
The disruptions we face indicate a wider shift in the educational landscape. By embracing partnerships, leveraging data and technology, and preparing our students for the future, we can emerge stronger and more innovative than ever before.
You have to ask yourself, “How well am I, my institution, and the companies I partner with positioned to succeed in this disruptive market?”
