Tag: temporarily

  • Court temporarily blocks overnight ban on expression at University of Texas System

    Court temporarily blocks overnight ban on expression at University of Texas System

    Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked University of Texas System officials from enforcing a state law that bans free speech and expression on public campuses between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.
    • The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued leaders of the UT system in September on behalf of student groups who argued the law violated their First Amendment rights.
    • U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra, a Reagan appointee, found that plaintiffs raised “significant First Amendment issues” with the law and its application, and he granted a preliminary injunction on enforcement while the case plays out.

    Dive Insight:

    Texas passed SB 2972, earlier this year in the wake of 2024’s wave of pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. campuses.

    “In April 2024, universities across the nation saw massive disruption on their campus,” state Sen. Brandon Creighton, the primary author of the bill, wrote in a statement of intent. “Protesters erected encampments in common areas, intimidated other students through the use of bullhorns and speakers, and lowered American flags with the intent of raising the flag of another nation.”

    In late September, Creighton, was named chancellor and CEO of the Texas Tech University System. 

    Along with specifically prohibiting First Amendment-protected activity overnight, the law also bars the campus community from inviting speakers to campus, using devices to amplify speech and playing drums or other percussive instruments during the last two weeks of any term. 

    In its complaint, FIRE called the law “blatantly unconstitutional.” 

    “The First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down,” FIRE senior supervising attorney JT Morris said in a September statement. “University students have expressive freedom whether it’s midnight or midday, and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.”

    Ezra agreed in his ruling. 

    “The First Amendment does not have a bedtime of 10:00 p.m.,” the judge wrote. “The burden is on the government to prove that its actions are narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest. It has not done so.”

    In his ruling, Ezra wrote that the law’s free speech restrictions were not content-neutral and so must survive a strict legal test for the government to show that the law is the least restrictive possible to achieve a “compelling” goal. 

    The judge pointed to public posts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the bill’s statement of intent, both decrying the pro-Palestinian protests. Abbott described the protests as antisemitic and called for the arrest and expulsion of protestors.

    “The statute is content-based both on its face and by looking to the purpose and justification for the law,” Ezra wrote. 

    Ezra also highlighted that the statute carved out an exception for commercial speech in his ruling. 

    “Defendants betray the stated goal of preventing disruption and ensuring community safety by failing to expand the Bans to commercial speech,” he wrote. “Students can engage in commercial speech that would otherwise violate the Bans simply because it is not ‘expressive activities,’ no matter how disruptive.”

    In response to the law, the University of Texas at Austin adopted a more limited version of the policy that only banned overnight expressive activities in its common outdoor area that generate sound to be heard from a university residence. 

    However, Ezra concluded the pared-down policy wasn’t enough to protect students’ constitutional speech rights, as UT-Austin could change it or enforce it subjectively. 

    “The threat of prosecution arises not only from UT’s adopted policy but also from the legislative statute,” the judge wrote. “As adopted, UT Austin is not currently in compliance with the statute, and at any point could change or be instructed to change its policies to comply with the law.”

    FIRE cheered the injunction on Tuesday. 

    “We’re thankful that the court stepped in and halted a speech ban that inevitably would’ve been weaponized to censor speech that administrators disagreed with,” FIRE Senior Attorney Adam Steinbaugh said in a statement. 

    In its lawsuit, the free speech group has asked the judge to permanently block the law’s enforcement.

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  • NIH temporarily restores UC grants under court order

    NIH temporarily restores UC grants under court order

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    Dive Brief:

    • The National Institutes of Health has temporarily restored the University of California system’s research funding it abruptly revoked under President Donald Trump, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice said in court filings this week.
    • A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction last month ordering NIH, along with the U.S. departments of Defense and Transportation, to reinstate the canceled funding for the university system and its researchers while a related lawsuit proceeds. 
    • Trump administration officials said Monday the three agencies were complying but reported some administrative difficulties that would take until mid-October to resolve.

    Dive Insight:

    Researchers and faculty from the University of California’s Berkeley and San Francisco campuses filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration in June, alleging its mass termination of research grants was illegal and jeopardized U.S. advancement. At the University of California, Los Angeles alone, NIH reportedly cut some 500 research grants worth over $500 million. 

    In September, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin temporarily ordered three agencies to reinstate the grants and barred them from making further cuts en masse against the system for the duration of the court case.

    NIH has now restored the bulk of that funding to comply with the order. But the agency is running into issues verifying if the grants it canceled are held by University of California researchers who work at institutions outside of their home system, federal officials told the court on Monday.

    In total, NIH identified 61 grants that likely meet this parameter, all but nine of which have been reinstated.

    Officials are trying to verify that the researchers on the remaining nine grants are still employed by the University of California, a process challenged by potentially out-of-date agency files, court documents said.

    As of Monday, NIH anticipated completing that work by the end of the week, though the shutdown of the federal government has likely altered that timeline.

    The Defense Department also declared a successful return of funds to University of California institutions. But the agency reported administrative difficulties on behalf of its components, such as the National Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the branches of the military.

    Simply identifying relevant awards issued through those groups has been a challenge, officials said, “because of the number of DoD Components and the variety of grants systems involved.”

    “Reinstatement has been particularly complicated, as a fiscal matter, where funding has already been deobligated,” the court filing said. “In most cases, DoD Components have contacted UC institutions so that they can work together to modify awards and restore funding.”

    Prior to the government shutdown, the Defense Department gave an estimated completion date of Oct. 10.

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  • Court Temporarily Blocks Ban on Bargaining by Defense Department Teachers Unions – The 74

    Court Temporarily Blocks Ban on Bargaining by Defense Department Teachers Unions – The 74


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    A district court judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration ban on collective bargaining by two teachers unions in Department of Defense schools.

    Judge Paul Friedman issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed this spring by the Federal Education Association and Antilles Consolidated Education Association, which represent more than 5,500 teachers, librarians and counselors in the 161 schools under the Department of Defense Education Activity. The agency educates 67,000 children on military bases worldwide.

    The union sued the Trump administration over a March executive order that stripped collective bargaining rights from two-thirds of federal service workers. The order impacted the Departments of Justice, Defense, Veteran Affairs, Treasury, and Health and Human Services, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency.

    The Federal Education Association has been negotiating teachers contracts with the Department of Defense since 1970, while the Antilles Consolidated Education Association has bargained on behalf of Puerto Rico educators since 1976, according to the lawsuit. The current collective bargaining agreements for both unions were approved in 2023 and are set to expire in summer 2028.

    But since the order was issued, the lawsuit says, the Department of Defense Education Activity has discontinued negotiations, stopped participation in grievance proceedings and prohibited union representation during educator disciplinary meetings. Members are also no longer allowed to conduct union work during the school day. Requests from educators to access a union sick leave bank with 13,000 donated hours have also been ignored, according to the suit.

    “These actions, taken together, essentially terminate the respective collective bargaining agreements and thus cause irreparable harm,” Friedman said in his decision.

    A 1978 federal statute allows collective bargaining in the civil service sector. The suit argued that while presidents have the authority to exclude an agency if its primary function involves intelligence, investigation or national security work, “Many, if not most, of the agencies and agency subdivisions swept up in the executive order’s dragnet do little to no national security work, much less do they have a primary function [of] intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative [work].”

    The agency declined to comment on ongoing legal proceedings. In a reply to the unions’ lawsuit, Trump administration attorneys said the executive order was within the law and that reversing it would be costly.

    “Rather than maintaining the status quo, it would force [the Department of Defense] to undo actions it has already taken to implement the executive order, causing significant disruption and resource expenditures,” the lawyers wrote.

    In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized a few exemptions for agencies related to the Air Force and Army, but not the teachers unions — despite a push from 45 lawmakers to exclude the school system.

    “Ensuring that DoDEA educators and personnel retain collective bargaining protections will ensure that DoDEA can continue to recruit and retain the best staff in support of its mission,” the congressional members wrote in a letter. “Collective bargaining safeguards the public interest, and its history in DoDEA has demonstrated better outcomes for mission readiness, and stronger connections between military-connected families and those who serve them.”

    An appeal from the Trump administration is pending. A similar lawsuit from six unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, resulted in an injunction, but a federal appeals court reversed it in August.


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  • Judge Temporarily Blocks Cuts at Sonoma State

    Judge Temporarily Blocks Cuts at Sonoma State

    Cuts at Sonoma State University are on pause after a judge found leaders had not followed necessary procedures in winding down academic programs amid an ongoing budget crunch.

    Sonoma County Judge Kenneth English ruled that the university sidestepped its own written policies when it announced plans to ax multiple academic programs; he issued a temporary restraining order to halt the process. According to university policies, Sonoma State is required to include the Academic Senate in decisions about program eliminations. But that allegedly didn’t happen, according to a lawsuit to stop the cuts filed on behalf of seven students.

    Sonoma State has denied circumventing its own policies.

    At the heart of the lawsuit is a fight over athletics, which Sonoma State plans to cut entirely. All seven plaintiffs played various sports at the university, which competes at the NCAA Division II level. However, the judge’s ruling did not halt the administration’s plans to eliminate athletics; the restraining order applied only to the academic programs for now.

    It will remain in effect until May 1, the date of the next hearing in the case.

    A Fight Over Cuts

    In January, Sonoma State—part of the California State University system—announced sweeping cuts, citing a nearly $24 million budget deficit.

    “The University has had a budget deficit for several years. It is attributable to a variety of factors—cost of personnel, annual price increases for supplies and utilities, inflation—but the main reason is enrollment,” Interim President Emily Cutrer wrote in an announcement.

    She noted that enrollment at SSU had dropped by 38 percent since it peaked in 2015 at 9,408 students, according to federal data.

    Sonoma State had already taken moves over the last two years to close its persistent budget gap, including offering buyouts and freezing hiring, among other measures. But those actions “are not enough,” Cutrer wrote. After making piecemeal cuts in prior years, she announced a plan to eliminate more than 20 academic programs, let 46 faculty contracts lapse and ax athletics.

    But at least part of that plan is now on hold.

    Legal counsel for the plaintiffs requested a temporary restraining order to stop the shutdown of programs, arguing that their clients “will suffer irreparable harm and the Decision will be unable to be reversed even after it is ultimately found to be unlawful, or if new Sonoma State leadership or the California legislature seek to reverse the decision,” according to an April 10 court filing.

    David Seidel, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, who is also a graduate of Sonoma State, where he played soccer, told Inside Higher Ed that he was concerned about the abrupt nature of the planned program cuts, which he alleged were illegal and “extremely damaging” to students.

    He added that multiple student athletes transferred to Sonoma State over the winter. If officials were aware that SSU planned to cut athletics, as they announced in January, he believes those students were lured by false promises to play for programs that may no longer exist.

    “This is a failure of leadership,” Seidel said.

    While he recognizes that the university may still move forward with the cuts, he wants to see the process restarted under new leadership and using the procedures SSU allegedly bypassed.

    Seidel also plans to address concerns related to athletics at the May 1 hearing.

    “The temporary restraining order does not affect athletics at this time. Of course, that’s still very much a live issue that we will be pursuing on May 1, and we’re seeking a preliminary junction on athletics as well. Sonoma State and [the California State University system] have passed very specific policies and regulations with respect to discontinuing academic programs,” Seidel said. “And it isn’t necessarily true that those also apply to athletics.”

    In an email to Inside Higher Ed, SSU rejected the notion that it violated its own policies.

    “SSU maintains that the university followed its established policies regarding academic discontinuation, including communicating with and considering feedback from all programs impacted by the proposed reductions,” SSU spokesperson Jeff Keating wrote. “Yesterday’s ruling set a later date when the court will more fully review the parties’ positions, including evidence from the university that SSU is complying with its academic discontinuation policy.”

    Other Challenges

    The court decision came amid an already challenging week for Sonoma State.

    At a legislative forum on Monday, state lawmakers criticized Sonoma State’s plans to pull the university out of its fiscal crisis. Beyond the cuts, administrators have developed a blueprint known as Bridge to the Future, which aims to increase enrollment by 20 percent within the next five to seven years, launch new programs and carry out various other actions. But some lawmakers took issue with the plan, arguing it was too light on specifics.

    Sonoma State’s recent financial woes have also been accompanied by leadership turnover.

    Cutrer, the interim president, is Sonoma State’s third leader in as many years after both her predecessors were felled by scandal. In 2022, then-president Judy Sakaki resigned after she was accused of mishandling a sexual harassment scandal tied to her husband, Patrick McCallum, who was accused of acting inappropriately with several university employees. McCallum also defied a ban to stay off the Sonoma State campus while Sakaki was president.

    Sonoma State’s next president, Mike Lee, retired abruptly last year after he was placed on administrative leave when he struck a deal with pro-Palestinian protesters to review contracts to consider divestment opportunities and agreed to an academic boycott of Israel. CSU officials accused Lee of insubordination in making the deal with protesters and ultimately walked back the agreement with students.

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  • This week in 5 numbers: Court temporarily blocks NIH funding cuts

    This week in 5 numbers: Court temporarily blocks NIH funding cuts

    The number of states that sued to block the National Institutes of Health from implementing cuts to funding for indirect research costs. Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley issued restraining orders against the cuts in the attorneys general-led case, along with a similar one filed by the Association of American Medical Colleges and other groups.

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  • DOGE temporarily blocked from accessing Education Department student aid data

    DOGE temporarily blocked from accessing Education Department student aid data

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    UPDATE: Feb. 12, 2025: The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday agreed to temporarily block staffers of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing student aid information and other data systems until at least Feb. 17. 

    On that date, a federal judge overseeing the case is expected to rule on a student group’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the agency from sharing sensitive data with DOGE. 

    Dive Brief: 

    •  A group representing University of California students filed a lawsuit Friday to block the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal financial aid data.  
    • The University of California Student Association cited reports that DOGE members gained access to federal student loan data, which includes information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, account information and driver’s license numbers. 
    • The complaint accuses the U.S. Department of Education of violating federal privacy laws and regulations by granting DOGE staffers access to the data. “The scale of intrusion into individuals’ privacy is enormous and unprecedented,” the lawsuit says. 

    Dive Insight: 

    President Donald Trump created DOGE through executive order on the first day of his second term, tasking the team, led by Tesla co-founder and Trump adviser Musk, with rooting out what the new administration deems as government waste. 

    DOGE has since accessed the data of several government agencies, sparking concerns that its staffers are violating privacy laws and overstepping the executive branch’s power. With the new lawsuit, the University of California Student Association joins the growing chorus of groups that say DOGE is flouting federal statutes. 

    One of those groups — 19 state attorneys general — scored a victory over the weekend. On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department’s payments and data system, which disburses Social Security benefits, tax returns and federal employee salaries. 

    The University of California Student Association has likewise asked the judge to temporarily block the Education Department from sharing sensitive data with DOGE staffers and to retrieve any information that has already been transferred to them. 

    The group argues that the Education Department is violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which says that government agencies may not disclose an individual’s data “to any person, or to another agency,” without their consent, except in limited circumstances. The Internal Revenue Code has similar protections for personal information. 

    “None of the targeted exceptions in these laws allows individuals associated with DOGE, or anyone else, to obtain or access students’ personal information, except for specific purposes — purposes not implicated here,” the lawsuit says. 

    The Washington Post reported on Feb. 3 that some DOGE team members had in fact gained access to “multiple sensitive internal systems,” including federal financial aid data, as part of larger plans to carry out Trump’s goal to eventually eliminate the Education Department. 

    “ED did not publicly announce this new policy — what is known is based on media reporting — or attempt to justify it,” Friday’s lawsuit says. “Rather, ED secretly decided to allow individuals with no role in the federal student aid program to root around millions of students’ sensitive records.”

    In response to the Post’s Feb. 3 reporting, Musk on the same day posted on X that Trump “will succeed” in dismantling the agency. 

    Later that week, the Post reported that DOGE staffers were feeding sensitive Education Departmentdata into artificial intelligence software to analyze the agency’s spending. 

    The moves have also attracted lawmakers’ attention. Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the top-ranking Democrat on the House’s education committee, asked the Government Accountability Office on Friday to probe the security of information technology systems at the Education Department’s and several other agencies. 

    An Education Department spokesperson said Monday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation. 

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  • DHS to Temporarily Increase the Automatic Extension Period of Work Permits for Certain Visa Applicants – CUPA-HR

    DHS to Temporarily Increase the Automatic Extension Period of Work Permits for Certain Visa Applicants – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | May 4, 2022

    Effective May 4, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a Temporary Final Rule (TFR) to increase the automatic extension period of expiring employment authorization documents (EADs) for certain renewal applicants from 180 days to 540 days.

    Specifically, the TFR applies to three groups of applicants in EAD categories currently eligible for the previous 180-day automatic extension of employment authorization and EAD validity. They are as follows:

    • Renewal applicants whose renewal Form I-765 application remains pending as of May 4, 2022, and whose EAD has not expired or whose current 180-day auto-extension has not yet lapsed.
    • New renewal applicants who file Form I-765 during the 18-month period following the rule’s publication to avoid a future gap in employment authorization and/or documentation.
    • Renewal applicants with a pending EAD renewal application whose 180-day automatic extension has lapsed and whose EAD has expired will be granted an additional period of employment authorization and EAD validity beginning on May 4, 2022, and lasting up to 540 days from the expiration date of their EAD.

    Categories that are eligible for the lengthened automatic extension can be found here and include refugees and asylees (a3 and a5), spouses of certain H-1B principal non-immigrants with an unexpired I-94 showing H-4 non-immigrant status (c26), and adjustment of status applicants (c9), among others.

    The TFR is part of a trio of efforts USCIS announced on March 29, 2022, to address the agency’s major backlogs and crisis-level processing delays. According to USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou, “as USCIS works to address pending EAD caseloads, the agency has determined that the current 180-day automatic extension for employment authorization is currently insufficient,” and this temporary rule is necessary to “provide those non-citizens otherwise eligible for the automatic extension an opportunity to maintain employment and provide critical support for their families, while avoiding further disruption for U.S. employers.”

    CUPA-HR will continue to monitor the implementation of the new auto-extension period and keep members apprised of further developments.



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