Tag: Trump

  • U.S. Universities Eye Branch Campuses as Way to “Survive Trump”

    U.S. Universities Eye Branch Campuses as Way to “Survive Trump”

    Establishing branch campuses abroad—often used as a crisis mitigation strategy—could become more important for U.S. universities facing increasing threats at home, but scholars are divided on their likelihood of success.

    Illinois Institute of Technology has announced that it is to build a campus in Mumbai, while Georgetown University, one of six U.S. universities with satellite campuses in Doha, recently renewed its contract in Qatar’s Education City for another 10 years.

    Research-intensive colleges and universities in the U.S. are faced with “new and profound uncertainties” over future funding and the strength of their endowments under the Trump administration, said Geoff Harkness, formerly postdoctoral teaching fellow at Northwestern and Carnegie Mellon Universities’ Education City campuses.

    “This means that R-1 institutions will have to seek alternative sources of revenue, including partnering with nations in the Middle East. For Georgetown, which has a long-established branch campus at Education City, the renewal was a no-brainer in 2025.”

    It comes just a year after Texas A&M closed its campus in Education City, citing “instability” in the region. However, academics said the decision was more likely a reflection of growing pro-Israel politics in the U.S. and unease with Qatar’s role mediating for Hamas in the Gaza conflict.

    Harkness, now associate professor of sociology at Rhode Island College, said the Israel-Palestine conflict put Qatar in a difficult position but warned that Texas A&M could regret its decision to leave from a fiscal perspective.

    “The nation’s vast resources and relative political moderation make it an appealing partner for U.S. colleges and universities, particularly in light of current economic uncertainties.”

    Although not all partnerships are as lucrative as those with the Qatar Foundation, research by Jana Kleibert, professor for economic geography at the University of Hamburg, found that uncertainty around Brexit triggered U.K. universities to explore opening campuses in continental Europe—as Lancaster University did in Leipzig, Germany.

    “Branch campuses are often used as a crisis mitigation strategy by universities,” she said.

    “In this sense, it is no surprise to me that in situations of financial and geopolitical turbulence, branch campuses become more attractive to decision-makers at universities.”

    University leaders hope that overseas campuses can contribute financially to the well-being of the overall institution, either through direct transfers from these sites to the main institutions or through accessing a broader pool of students, said Kleibert.

    Recent figures show that U.S.-Chinese collaborative campuses have experienced record-breaking application numbers from both domestic and international students over the past few years.

    Illinois Tech began planning its Indian outpost long before President Trump’s unprecedented assault on the U.S. higher education system. But Nigel Healey, professor of international higher education at the University of Limerick, said Trump’s culture wars could increase the “push factors” toward overseas expansion in the future.

    “In the medium to long term, branch campuses may offer elite U.S. institutions an alternative way of maintaining their internationalization, accessing international talent and maintaining a global profile at a time when Trump is fostering a new national culture of xenophobia and isolationism,” he said.

    However, he warned that the risks of being pushed into a strategy by suddenly changing political winds is that poor, reactive decisions might be made.

    “The winds may change in the opposite direction, leaving the institution with a branch campus that is suddenly a white elephant.”

    Philip Altbach, professor emeritus at Boston College, agreed that there are significant risks in establishing branches overseas and that they are not a high priority for elite universities right now.

    “In the current situation of total instability in U.S. higher education due to the Trump administration, U.S. universities will not be thinking much about branch campuses but about their own survival.”

    Although partnering with many countries may be politically safe, he said universities are unlikely to want to risk making “controversial political moves in the current environment.”

    “Top U.S. universities are more interested in establishing research centers and joint programs overseas that can help their research and be a kind of embassy for recruiting students and researchers for the home campuses.”

    And Kevin Kinser, professor of education and head of the department of education policy studies at Pennsylvania State University, said overseas partners are not free from scrutiny from the White House.

    “The turmoil in the U.S. also includes scrutinizing foreign donations, contributions, collaborations and investments. Looking overseas does not create a safe haven for current federal attention.”

    As a result, he said, Texas A&M may have gotten ahead of the narrative on foreign activities by universities by quitting Education City when it did.

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  • Trump Sends Mixed Signals on Apprenticeship and Job Training

    Trump Sends Mixed Signals on Apprenticeship and Job Training

    President Trump issued an executive order last month instructing federal officials to “reach and surpass” a million new active apprenticeships. It was an ambitious target that apprenticeship advocates celebrated, anticipating new federal investments in more paid on-the-job training programs, in new industries and via a more efficient system.

    “After years of shuffling Americans through an economically unproductive postsecondary system, President Trump will refocus young Americans on career preparation,” federal officials wrote in a fact sheet on the order. They also emphasized that the federal government spends billions on the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act, or WIOA, and Career and Technical Education, but “neither of these programs are structured to promote apprenticeships or have incentives to meet workforce training needs.”

    Ryan Craig, author of the book Apprenticeship Nation, managing director of Achieve Partners, co-founder of Apprenticeships for America and an occasional contributor to Inside Higher Ed, said it was the first time a president set a goal for the number of apprentices in the U.S., as far as he’s aware.

    Apprenticeships are “one of the few, perhaps the only area of education, of workforce development, where this administration has said, ‘We want more of this,’” he said shortly after the executive order dropped.

    But the excitement for an expanded apprenticeship model in the U.S. might be short-lived. Craig and other apprenticeship advocates worry that Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 doesn’t reflect the executive order’s vision. The proposal doesn’t promise any significant new investments in apprenticeship and slashes workforce development spending over all.

    “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing here,” Craig said. “It’s not the sea change that the executive order promised.”

    Mixed Signals

    Among many highlights for advocates, the order also calls for a workforce development strategy with a focus on scrutinizing workforce programs’ outcomes, which currently aren’t carefully tracked.

    Federal officials were given 90 days to review all federal workforce development programs and come out with a report on strategies to improve participants’ experiences, measure performance outcomes, identify valuable alternative credentials and reform or nix ineffective programs. The executive order also generally called for more transparent performance outcomes data, including earning and employment data, for such programs.

    Trump’s skinny budget makes good on his promise to consolidate workforce development spending and cut programs the administration deems ineffective, but it also offers apprenticeships a small slice of that shrinking pie.

    The proposal includes a $1.64 billion cut to workforce development funding under the Department of Labor and eliminates Job Corps, a free career training program for youth, and the Senior Community Service Employment Program, which offers job training and subsidized employment for low-income seniors. The administration also proposed a new program called Make America Skilled Again, or MASA. States would be required to spend 10 percent of their MASA grants on apprenticeships. Almost $3 billion, including WIOA funding, remains to fund the program, down from $4.6 billion, Work Shift reported.

    The budget promises to “give states and localities the flexibility to spend workforce dollars to best support their workers and economies, instead of funneling taxpayer dollars to progressive non-profits finding work for illegal immigrants or focusing on DEI.”

    Craig supports offering states more flexibility and cutting “train-and-pray programs that have little to no connection to employers or employment outcomes”—but he hoped money saved from those cuts would go toward apprenticeships, which are “by definition good jobs with career trajectories and built-in training.”

    He said a mere 10 percent of block grant funding directed to apprenticeships feels “inconsistent” with the bold goals laid out in the executive order. He had high hopes Trump would consider radically changing how apprenticeships are funded, moving away from time-limited, individual grants to a more robust federal funding structure. At the very least, he believes apprenticeships should get the “lion’s share” of workforce development funding.

    “My hope is it’s just the budget proposal and that things get worked out [to be] more consistent with the executive order,” he said, “but it was disappointing to see that.”

    Vinz Koller, vice president of the Center for Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning at Jobs for the Future, said he similarly felt hopeful about the executive order’s messaging, in particular its commitment to “further protect and strengthen” registered apprenticeships.

    The wording represented a shift in approach.

    During Trump’s previous term, the president sought to create industry-recognized apprenticeships, an entirely separate apprenticeship system to sidestep what he viewed as inefficiencies in the current system and excessive federal regulation. Koller was glad to see Trump interested in reforming and investing in the current system this time rather than making plans to “throw out the rule book.”

    But the proposed budget isn’t “backing it up,” he said.

    His organization recently put out a policy blueprint for expanding and improving apprenticeship—including calling for stronger incentives for employers and more investment in intermediary organizations that offer programs’ support—but those strategies aren’t possible without more federal funding, Koller said. The policy blueprint points out that in fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent at least $184.35 billion on higher education, while the Department of Labor’s apprenticeship budget was just $285 million.

    But Koller also doesn’t believe slashing higher ed spending is the answer, and he’s worried about the proposed cuts to workforce training and to higher ed in the administration’s proposal. He said the goal is to give learners “choice-filled pathways,” including apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning, not to “rob Peter to pay Paul.”

    Grant consolidation and streamlining can be “positive,” he said, but “we just want to make sure that the support is there to actually do what is needed on the ground,” across program types. “We don’t want to dismantle the other aspects of a healthy educational workforce infrastructure as we build the new parts.”

    Kerry McKittrick, co-director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard University, said the budget poses a double threat to workforce development funding. Not only would the proposal cut more than a billion dollars, but the budget would also dole out the remaining funds in block grants to states, a funding structure that has been shown to lack oversight and generally decrease funding over time.

    The project’s research found “governors do want more flexibility,” she said. “At the same time, we continue to hear from them that the lack of resources is really the biggest problem with the workforce system and meeting workforce needs … There’s no way we’ll see an expansion in apprenticeship with such a massive cut.”

    Lingering Hopes

    Some apprenticeship proponents remain optimistic.

    John Colborn, executive director of Apprenticeships for America, agreed the skinny budget doesn’t seem like “a recipe for substantial growth of apprenticeship,” but he isn’t giving up on the possibility of bold changes just yet.

    He noted that the budget makes no mention of other possible funding sources for apprenticeship mentioned in the executive order fact sheet, such as career and technical education funds, so there may be plans for other funding streams in the works.

    The proposed budget also alludes to a “reallocation” of adult education funding struck from the Education Department to “better support the innovative, workforce-aligned, apprenticeship-focused activities the Department seeks to promote,” though it doesn’t go into further detail.

    He said, based on the executive order, federal officials still have time to draft a plan, and he’s going to wait until they do before arriving at any final conclusions about how apprenticeships will fare under a second Trump term.

    “It’s probably a mistake to look at the skinny budget as a blueprint for the funding of an apprenticeship growth initiative,” he said. He plans “to take it seriously, because it’s a statement of intent from the president, but to not look to it as a constraining document for how we might be thinking about growing apprenticeships going forward.”

    Shalin Jyotishi, managing director of the Future of Work and Innovation Economy Initiative at the left-wing think tank New America, emphasized that “any administration’s policy direction on apprenticeships should be judged on actions, not only words.”

    He pointed out that multiple executive orders, including a recent one on artificial intelligence education, have called for expanding apprenticeships, but some such programs have also undergone cuts under Trump. He wants to instead see renewed investments, like those Trump made in degree-connected apprenticeships during his first term, and argued the field is “ripe” for such efforts.

    “It’s heartening to see the administration emphasize the importance of registered apprenticeships,” Jyotishi wrote to Inside Higher Ed, “and education and workforce leaders will be looking for follow-through through actions, implementation, and resources.”

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  • Sen. Marshall Proposes Legislation to Fulfill Trump Campaign Pledge on “No Tax on Overtime” – CUPA-HR

    Sen. Marshall Proposes Legislation to Fulfill Trump Campaign Pledge on “No Tax on Overtime” – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | May 12, 2025

    On May 6, Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS), along with Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Jim Justice (R-WV), and Pete Ricketts (R-NE), introduced the Overtime Wages Tax Relief Act, which is intended to fulfill President Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate taxes on overtime pay. The proposal provides an income tax deduction for overtime pay up to a certain threshold. Marshall explained that his goal with the legislation was to target the benefit to lower- and middle-income workers in industries and occupations that traditionally pay overtime.

    Under the proposal, individuals would be able to deduct up to $10,000 of overtime pay from their income taxes. For married couples, the cap would be set at $20,000. This is an “above-the-line” income tax deduction, so workers would have the ability to claim the deduction whether they itemize their deductions or take the standard deduction.

    Additionally, the proposal phases out the benefit for top earners, identified as individuals earning $100,000 or more and married couples earning $200,000 or more. The deduction is reduced by $50 for every $1,000 in income the individual or married couple earns above their respective threshold.

    The legislation also includes reporting obligations for employers “to ensure transparency and accuracy in claiming the deduction.” Employers will be required to report overtime earnings to employees in their annual wage and tax statements.

    Marshall is hoping to have the legislation included in the Republican’s fiscal year 2025 budget reconciliation bill, which is expected to cover everything from border security to extensions for the expiring 2017 tax cuts President Trump signed into law during his first term.

    CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of additional updates on this bill and others related to overtime laws and regulations.



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  • A history lesson on Europe for Donald Trump

    A history lesson on Europe for Donald Trump

    “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it.” So said U.S. President Donald Trump in February. He repeats this assertion whenever U.S.-European relations are a topic of debate.

    Trump voiced his distorted view of the EU in his first term in office and picked it up again in the first three months of his second term, which began on January 20 and featured the start of a U.S. tariff war which up-ended international trade and shook an alliance dating back to the end of World War II.

    What or who gave the U.S. president the idea that the EU was “formed to screw” the United States is something of a mystery. If he were a student in a history class, his professor would give him an F.

    Trump’s claim does injustice to an institution that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 in recognition for having, over six decades, “contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe” as the Nobel committee put it.

    So, here is a brief guide to the creation of the EU, now the world’s largest trading bloc with a combined population of 448 million people, and the events that preceded its formal creation in 1952. 

    Next time you talk to Trump, feel free to brief him on it. 

    Staving off war

    With Germans still clearing the ruins of the world war Adolf Hitler had started in 1939, far-sighted statesmen began thinking of ways to prevent a repeat of a conflict that killed 85 million people. 

    The foundation of what became a 28-country bloc lay in the reconciliation between France and Germany. 

    In his speech announcing the Nobel Prize, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, singled out then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman for presenting a plan to form a coal and steel community with Germany despite the long animosity between the two nations; in the space of 70 years, France and Germany had waged three wars against each other. That was in May 1950. 

    As the Nobel chairman put it, the Schuman plan “laid the very foundation for European integration.”

    He added: “The reconciliation between Germany and France is probably the most dramatic example in history to show that war and conflict can be turned so rapidly into peace and cooperation.”

    From enemies into partners

    In years of negotiations, the coal and steel community, known as Montanunion in Germany, grew from two — France and Germany — to six with the addition of Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The union was formalized with a treaty in Paris in 1951 and came into existence a year later. 

    The coal and steel community was the first step on a long road towards European integration. It was encouraged by the United States through a comprehensive and costly programme to rebuild war-shattered Europe.

    Known as the Marshall Plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the programme provided $12 billion (the equivalent of more than $150 billion today) for the rebuilding of Western Europe. It was part of President Harry Truman’s policy of boosting democratic and capitalist economies in the devastated region.

    From the six-nation beginning, the process of European integration steadily gained momentum through successive treaties and expansions. Milestones included the creation of the European Economic Community and European Atomic Energy Community.

    In 1986, the Single European Act paved the way to an internal market without trade barriers, an aim achieved in 1992. Seven years later, integration tightened with the adoption of a common currency, the Euro. Used by 20 of the 27 member states, it accounts for about 20% of all international transactions.

    Brexiting out

    One nation that held out against the Euro was the United Kingdom. It would later withdraw from the EU entirely after the 2016 “Brexit” referendum led by politicians who claimed that rules made by the EU could infringe on British sovereignty. 

    Many economists at the time described Brexit as a self-inflicted wound and opinion polls now show that the majority of Britons regret having left the union.

    In decades of often arduous, detail-driven negotiations on European integration, including visa-free movement from one country to the other, no U.S. president ever saw the EU as a “foe” bent on “screwing” America. That is, until Donald Trump first won office in 2017 and then again in 2024.

    What bothers him is a trade imbalance; the EU sells more to the United States than the other way around; he has been particularly vocal about German cars imported into the United States.

    Early in his first term, the Wall Street Journal quoted him as complaining that “when you walk down Fifth Avenue (in New York), everybody has a Mercedes-Benz parked in front of his house. How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not many, maybe none, you don’t see anything at all over there. It’s a one-way street.”

    This appears to be one of the reasons why Trump imposed a 25% tariff, or import duty, on foreign cars when he declared a global tariff war on April 2. 

    His tariff decisions, implemented by Executive Order rather than legislation, caused deep dismay around the world and upended not only trade relations but also cast doubt on the durability of what is usually termed the rules-based international order

    That refers to the rules and alliances set up, and long promoted by the United States. For a concise assessment of the state of this system, listen to the highest-ranking official of the European Union: “The West as we knew it no longer exists.”

    So said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the Brussels-based European Commission, the main executive body of the EU. Its top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, a former Prime Minister of Estonia, was even blunter: “The free world needs a new leader.”


     

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why was the European Union formed in the first place?

    2. How can trade serve to keep the peace?

    3. In what ways do nations benefit by partnering with other countries?


     

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  • America’s Undocumented Educators Unsure of What’s Next Under Trump – The 74

    America’s Undocumented Educators Unsure of What’s Next Under Trump – The 74


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    This story was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of The 19th.

    LOS ANGELES — Scattered among the shrubs on the southern border lie belongings migrants left behind — toothbrushes, water bottles, baseball caps. Some of the owners forged north, crossing the boundary undetected. Others were apprehended or succumbed to dehydration, drowning or one of the unimaginable dangers in the harsh desert that straddles Mexico and the United States.

    Angélica Reyes survived. At nine months old, she made the journey that could have claimed her life just as it started.

    Since 1994, approximately 10,000 migrants have died in the borderlands. That year, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect. Designed to open trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico, the now-defunct policy has faced criticism for depressing Mexican wages. Their income flatlining, Reyes said, her parents left the city of Guadalajara, in the western part of Mexico, and headed with her to Los Angeles. They did not have authorization to live in the United States.

    Reyes is now 32, though she remembers knowing she was undocumented as early as first grade.

    “My mom was very cognizant of the discrimination and the obstacles that I would face throughout my life,” she said. “She made it clear, like, ‘You can’t mess up. You need to be twice as good to get half of the respect. You need to really prove that you earned your spot.’”

    To do that, Reyes earned the good grades that set her up to become a history teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is one of about 15,000 teachers — and among the more than 835,000 undocumented people — who have received temporary permission to live, work and study in the United States through an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Women represent over half of DACA recipients, whose future in this country has been under threat by legal challenges to the program’s existence and the anti-immigration agenda of President Donald Trump.

    https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nA5Cv/10/

    If DACA ends, the goal of ongoing litigation,  700 education personnel, including teachers and teacher aides, would lose their jobs each month for two years as their work permits are revoked, according to FWD.us, an immigration reform organization. In California, the state with the most DACA recipients, 200 educators would lose their jobs monthly. In Texas, 100 would.

    DACA-recipient teachers relate firsthand to the estimated 620,000 undocumented K-1 2 students, who confide in them about their experiences in immigrant families. They show youth that regardless of legal status, it’s possible to attain one’s professional goals. Many of these teachers are also activists, fighting for their students, themselves and other marginalized people. They see themselves as assets to schools.

    “My immigration status inspires both my undocumented and documented students because they know all the obstacles that are faced by folks with my immigration status can be overcome,” Reyes said. “They know that if I could do it, that’s something that they could do as well.”

    Without undocumented teachers, educator shortages across states could worsen. California has spent about $1.6 billion since the 2016-17 school year to tackle its teacher shortage. Still, the state issued 11 percent fewer teaching credentials between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. Last year, it enacted legislation to eliminate barriers to entry, dropping a standardized test teaching candidates had to pass to demonstrate competence in math, reading and writing. But since undocumented immigrants aren’t widely perceived to be career professionals, the fact that schoolchildren nationwide depend on them has received scant attention in the broader immigration debate.

    Maria Miranda, elementary vice president of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) labor union, said undocumented teachers “bring a different perspective to the table, a different skill set.”

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teacher labor union, said DACA recipients in classrooms have strengthened the United States.

    “They are role models, like all teachers, and should be treated as such, but instead, they are made to feel uncertain and fearful as their protections are challenged in court and as the Trump administration promotes mass deportations, even from sensitive locations like schools that were once considered off limits,” Weingarten said. “Immigration reform can’t be used as an excuse to rip teachers out of classrooms, where they are so desperately needed.”

    Reyes at 1 year old with her father. (Angelica Reyes)

    When Reyes was about to register for the SAT during her senior year in high school, one misinformed guidance counselor asked her why she planned to take the college entrance exam, insisting that higher education was off limits to undocumented students.

    “I was devastated. It broke my heart,” Reyes said. “I remember crying and telling my mom, ‘I worked hard, for what?’”

    Since 2001, however, California has extended access to in-state college tuition to undocumented students who have lived there long term. Unaware of this law and under the assumption that her counselor was correct, Reyes missed the deadline for the SAT and for the application to University of California schools, so she enrolled in a community college she could afford, a common path for many undocumented immigrants.

    Then, in 2011, a state law was enacted that made her cry tears of gratitude: the California DREAM Act. The policy allows undocumented immigrants who entered the United States before they were 16 to obtain financial aid if they’ve earned qualifying credits at California schools. These young people have been nicknamed Dreamers after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a 2001 federal bill that would have given them legal status had it succeeded.

    Reyes said that when she decided to apply to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a community college counselor took in her light brown skin and wavy black mane and without so much as seeing the 4.0 GPA in her transcript, told her to apply somewhere less competitive.

    “I’m a competitive student!” Reyes recalled balking. “She opened my chart and she was, like, ‘Oh, you actually are.’ Her tune changed so quickly. It was really infuriating because if I had believed her, like many students believe counselors, I would have not gone to UCLA.”

    In college, Reyes had to make a choice about her career path. Her research project on youth activism at Abraham Lincoln High School, where she graduated in 2010, had drawn her to education. “I realized that’s where I was needed,” she said.

    It was at Lincoln High in March 1968 that students spearheaded the protests known as the Chicano Blowouts or East Los Angeles Walkouts. With signs stating “School Not Prison” and “We Are Not Dirty Mexicans,” almost 15,000 youth from Lincoln and other schools in historically Mexican-American East L.A. walked out of classes for a week to protest their substandard education.

    Black-and-white photo of students holding protest signs outside Abraham Lincoln High School demanding equal education and language rights.
    Chicano student walkouts in front of Abraham Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles during the 1968 blowouts. (LAPL)

    Back then, students could be paddled for speaking Spanish, and with few advanced courses at Eastside schools, they were routinely steered to vocational classes like auto shop. These inequities contributed to a 60 percent dropout rate in the area. Jailed for their activism against these circumstances, the teenagers garnered community support that ushered in sweeping policy changes — bilingual instruction, ethnic studies and more Latino teachers.

    Today, the carnicerías, bungalow homes and palm trees along North Broadway Avenue, leading to 93 acres of green hills, offer no hint of the past tumult, but a mural at Lincoln commemorates the walkouts of nearly six decades ago.

    Through her research, which also explored youth activism of the 2010s, Reyes learned that contemporary Lincoln High students continued to have unmet needs, such as support applying for college financial aid or accessing legal services as members of immigrant households. So when Lincoln High teachers asked if she wanted to develop a space to serve students, Reyes threw herself into the effort. The Paula Crisostomo Dream Center — named after a lead activist of the Chicano Blowouts and the inspiration for the 2006 film “Walkout” — opened at Lincoln in 2015.

    “We established programming for immigrant students, for immigrant parents. We did immigrant and educational history,” Reyes said. “It’s still a resource for students at Lincoln, and we’ve expanded it to several other schools.”

    Working at the Dream Center for three years convinced her that teaching was the best way to reach undocumented and marginalized youth. Rather than dismiss them, as she had been dismissed by school counselors, she would inspire students to excel academically regardless of legal status. In 2012, four years before she graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and six years before she earned her master’s in education from the university, DACA enabled undocumented students like herself to become career professionals.

    In 2017, the year Reyes began teaching, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that as many as 20,000 DACA-eligible individuals were involved in education occupations. But today the number of DACA-recipient educators is 25 percent lower as litigation has frozen new applications.

    Reyes wears a cap and gown, holding flowers and standing with three smiling family members on graduation day.
    Reyes surrounded by family at her high school graduation. (Angelica Reyes)

    It’s complicated: Those two words capture Reyes’ feelings about DACA. Although the program allowed her to teach, she has long viewed it as flawed, exploitative and a “constant reminder” she isn’t “fully accepted.”

    DACA stems from the activism of undocumented college students frustrated that the DREAM Act failed and that their immigration status would limit their potential, said Jennifer R. Nájera, author of “Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education.” Fighting for immigrant rights, they found a purpose.

    Like the DREAM Act, DACA was reserved for young people who came to the United States as children and didn’t have criminal histories. “They had to graduate from high school or college or go to the military, show ‘good moral character,’” said Nájera, an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Instead of citizenship, Obama’s executive order “provided temporary relief from deportation, a two-year relief specifically, that could be renewed, and a work permit, which was a big deal.”

    While DACA recipients cherished their professional opportunities, some contended that the policy cast them as second-class citizens, Nájera said.

    That includes Reyes.

    “I knew it was a Band-Aid,” she said. “In fact, when I first started teaching, my DACA expired because of an issue with the application. They had asked me if I was in a gang, and apparently I didn’t check off the X hard enough, so I wasn’t hired at the beginning of the year. I remember feeling this immense frustration.”

    Los Angeles Unified employs about 300 DACA-recipient school personnel, according to Miranda of the UTLA labor union. As Reyes’ teaching career started, DACA weathered the first of multiple legal challenges. Trump rescinded the program during his first term, a move the Supreme Court later blocked; at the time, Reyes told her students about possibly losing her job. Since then, she has endured several other threats to DACA , though she’s now pained to tell her students that the program isn’t accepting new applicants.

    DACA, she said, must be replaced with a sustainable alternative.

    In a December interview, Trump said, “We’re going to have to do something with” DACA recipients. “They were brought into this country many years ago” and “in many cases, they’ve become successful.”

    But that sympathy has been absent from his immigration policies since he resumed office. He has issued an executive order prohibiting undocumented college students from receiving in-state tuition. He has also lifted restrictions on immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations” such as churches, hospitals and schools, prompting parents nationwide to keep kids out of class.

    A young girl looks out from the arms of an adult while holding a small Mexican flag during an immigration rights protest.
    A protester waves the Mexican flag during a demonstration for immigration rights outside Los Angeles City Hall on February 5, 2025. (Qian Weizhong/Getty Images)

    “A lot of times, the children are U.S. citizens and the parents are concerned,” Reyes said. “But I’ve had students who shared that their parents are U.S. citizens, and they’re still scared because they know that U.S. citizens are also caught up in these raids. So, this isn’t about criminality. It’s about the targeting of Brown folks.”

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal authorities reportedly detained or deported at least 10 U.S. citizens, including children, in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term.

    Last month, the California state superintendent presented Senate Bill 48 to limit ICE appearances at schools as absences have spiked — and schools could lose millions of dollars since their funding is tied to average daily student attendance. About half of California children belong to families that include at least one immigrant parent, while one in five live in mixed-status families with at least one undocumented parent.

    “It’s very taxing emotionally for our members and our students,” Miranda said of ICE enforcement. “We have students at the elementary level who are terrified of seeing anyone in uniform. Some of them are so young that they don’t know the difference between the police and immigration. It’s a very scary moment.”

    When Trump targeted DACA during his first term, Reyes warned in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that disbanding the program could upend public education. But now she says her students deserve more than DACA’s “breadcrumbs.”

    “We need to fight for something new because my kids want to be chefs and doctors and lawyers, but they’re being held back by their immigration status,” she said. “It’s excruciating in two ways: One, I want my students to have the opportunities that they deserve to serve the community. And, two, I don’t know when I’m going to be taken from them because of my own uncertainty.”

    For now, she knows that her presence makes a difference at her high school. Los Angeles Unified has an immigrant student body of about 30,000 students, according to UTLA. Of those, one in four is undocumented. After Reyes shared her immigration status with students during a recent lunchtime conversation, she said a ninth grader confessed that she planned to quit school because she, too, is undocumented. Learning Reyes managed to become a teacher made the girl reconsider.

    “It was really beautiful to see that, like it reignited her hope to have a bright future,” Reyes said.

    Although the risks of revealing her status frighten her, her conscience compels her to, Reyes said. She quoted Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata: “It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”

    Staying silent as the president attacks immigrants would make it hard for Reyes to face the youth in her life — her son, especially.

    Reyes smiles in her graduation gown, holding flowers and wearing a decorated cap that reads “abolish ICE — not 1 more!”
    Reyes after receiving her master’s degree in education from UCLA. (Angelica Reyes)

    Whenever a state turned red on Election Night, Nathan Reyes felt his anxiety shoot up. Still, he held out hope Kamala Harris would win. Then the Electoral College math made it plain: Donald Trump would be president again.

    Although he’s a U.S. citizen, Nathan wondered what lay ahead for his undocumented relatives under a president promising mass deportations.

    “I feel worried for them because if they get deported, what am I going to do?” he asked. “Where am I going to stay?”

    So, he began to plan. He and his family would “have to pick our poison” — stay in a country hostile to their presence or self-deport together to Mexico regardless of citizenship status.

    That her son, with a pile of ringlets and a round cherubic face, was even considering these options stunned Reyes. Nathan is in seventh grade.

    “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this kid is 12,’” Angélica Reyes said. “Why is he talking about this?’”

    Rummaging through a bin of childhood possessions in her mother’s bedroom last year, Reyes found a poem she wrote in fourth grade about her fear of police. Her parents were street food vendors, an occupation California criminalized until 2018, so Reyes realized growing up that one brush with the law could have seen them deported.

    Just as she did not have a childhood free of deportation fears, neither has her son.

    Nathan, now 13, is hardly the only youth pondering the possibility of a relative’s departure, according to Lisette Sanchez, a psychologist in Long Beach, California. She said children are leaving school with “Know Your Rights” cards advising them of their civil liberties during ICE encounters, but they may not understand the information.

    “They’re just feeling fear,” she said. “They’re being told something’s gonna happen. So mental health wise, you’re looking at chronic anxiety. You’re looking at hypervigilance.”

    Reyes and her teenage son Nathan stand side-by-side holding hands in front of a yellow school building, both looking directly at the camera.
    Angélica Reyes and her son Nathan Reyes in front of Abraham Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles, California, on February 9, 2025. (Zaydee Sanchez/The 19th)

    To gain some sense of control, they may overconsume social media, leading to racing thoughts, rapid heart rate and sleeping difficulties.

    “It’s this chronic nonstop anxiety because the state of uncertainty feels never-ending, and in many ways, it is not ending, right?” Sanchez said. “There’s different news every day.”

    By speaking openly with children, parents can help them better manage stress, she said. Teachers, if they’re permitted, can broach the topic of immigration. Nathan appreciated how his Spanish teacher led a class discussion after the election.

    “Sharing your feelings and emotions and finding that a lot of other people are feeling very similar can bring comfort to you,” he said.

    Reyes gave birth to her son while she was in college and briefly wed to his father. She applied for legal status as an immediate family member of a U.S. citizen, her spouse. But years passed before the federal government responded to her request, she said. By then, her marriage had ended.

    “I don’t think people understand how long the path to citizenship can be, what it looks like, how costly and time-intensive it is,” Sanchez said.

    Reyes, who has not remarried, said being undocumented seeps into every aspect of her life, including romantic relationships. She feels obligated to tell prospective partners about her status.

    “I remember to always be upfront, like, ‘Hey, I’m undocumented. I don’t want you to think I’m going to use you for papers,’” she said.

    Reyes lives in one of the country’s 4.7 million mixed-status households, which include undocumented individuals and people with legal status or U.S. citizenship. If she gets deported, she has arranged for others to care for her son.

    Her sister, two years younger, is a U.S. citizen. Asked if she resents that twist of fate, Reyes said, “I’m happy that she gets to be safe. I think that there’s a lot of pain and guilt for her.”

    Her sister realizes, Reyes said, that her entire family could be taken away.

    A younger Reyes and her son Nathan smile and throw their arms up while seated at a table with a bubbling orange bowl.
    Reyes and her son Nathan doing a science experiment when he was little. (Angelica Reyes)

    Should she be forced out of the only country she considers home, Reyes wants her son to know this: “I would never willingly leave you. I am dedicated to you. I love you, and I will always be working as hard as possible to get back to you.”

    For Nathan, it is mind-boggling that anyone would want his mother out. He doesn’t understand why politicians demonize immigrants. Trump launched his first presidential campaign calling them criminals and continues to malign them.

    “My mom has done a lot of good for her community,” Nathan said. “She has organized a finders keepers closet where people who don’t have some resources they need, like canned food or clothes, can take what they need.”

    Just as Nathan defends her honor, Reyes vouches for her parents. Her mother is now a nail technician and her father is a food vendor. Growing up, she said, she watched them visit the sick, volunteer at churches and fundraise for the poor.

    “Whenever they saw a need, they stepped up, and they didn’t wait for someone else to help,” she said.

    She’s hurt when people sympathize with Dreamers while disparaging their parents, that the immigration system paints family members as saints or sinners. The DACA recipients she’s researched feel similarly, Nájera said.

    “Many of the students that I interviewed were always talking about their parents,” Nájera said. “They did not want their stories to be divorced from their parents and their family stories. These families, they’re units.”

    But the Dream Act caused a migrant generational divide, insinuating that those who arrived in this country as children deserve citizenship, while their parents and others who arrived as adults do not, Nájera said.

    A colorful mural shows scenes from Chicano and immigrant activism, including raised fists, “HUELGA” signs, Day of the Dead skulls, and depictions of farmworkers and students.
    Angélica Reyes helped paint the red and yellow skulls on the mural across the street from Abraham Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles, where she graduated. (Zaydee Sanchez/The 19th)

    Migration often occurs out of necessity. For example, after NAFTA took effect in 1994, U.S. agricultural exports flooded Mexico, displacing workers, according to Edward Alden, a distinguished visiting professor in the College of Business and Economics at Western Washington University. Four years earlier, over 4 million Mexican migrants were in the United States, a figure that ballooned to nearly 13 million — around 9 percent of Mexico’s population — by 2008.

    Reyes said NAFTA crushed the bakery business her father’s side of the family owned because it could not compete with the U.S. companies that swooped in. Her parents migrated north to earn higher wages.

    Today, economic instability is but one of the reasons that motivate migrants.

    “A lot of the Venezuelans are leaving Venezuela because it’s a violent, dangerous place, and the government has destroyed the economy in different ways,” Alden said. “Same thing out of Central America. These are people who aren’t necessarily leaving for economic reasons. They’re doing it for personal safety reasons.”

    Reyes said she has Central American students who fled horrors. She wants them to feel safe in the United States, and the fact Los Angeles Unified has pledged not to cooperate with immigration officials voluntarily provides some comfort. Run by a formerly undocumented superintendent, the sanctuary district blocked Homeland Security agents from entering two schools in April.

    The fear of raids on campuses has traumatized her students, Reyes said. “It’s so difficult to convince my students that they are worthy of love and that they’re worthy of respect and that they deserve civil rights.”

    It is equally difficult to keep advocating for herself, she said. But as the threat of deportation looms, she has no choice but to keep fighting.

    “It’s hard to know that I can’t earn citizenship and that I can’t give my kid stability or safety,” she said. “I feel like if I could earn it, I would have three citizenships. I would have put in the work.”


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  • This week in 5 numbers: Trump eyes 15.3% cut for Education Department

    This week in 5 numbers: Trump eyes 15.3% cut for Education Department

    The number of college presidents who testified before the House Committee on Education and Workforce this week about how they’ve handled alleged campus incidents of antisemitism. While Republicans have said they’re trying to combat antisemitism, some Democrats accused GOP lawmakers of using those concerns to quell constitutionally protected speech during the hearing with the leaders of Haverford College, DePaul University and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

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  • How the Trump Administration’s FSA Notice Doubles Down on Student Debtors While Privileging the Higher Education Racket

    How the Trump Administration’s FSA Notice Doubles Down on Student Debtors While Privileging the Higher Education Racket

    The U.S. Department of Education, under the renewed influence of the Trump Administration and its deep-pocketed friends in the for-profit and debt collection industries, has issued a chilling reminder of just how little it cares for the tens of millions of Americans drowning in student debt. Cloaked in bureaucratic language and peppered with sanctimonious calls for “shared responsibility,” the Department’s latest notice is, in truth, a battle cry in its war to privatize higher education, scapegoat the vulnerable, and enrich corporate cronies at the expense of working families.

    Let’s call this what it is: a renewed assault on the student debtor class—the adjunct professors, the first-generation college students, the single mothers, the underemployed graduates who were sold a dream of economic mobility and handed a lifetime of debt servitude.

    According to the Department, only 38% of borrowers are current on their loans, and nearly a quarter of all loans are in default or severe delinquency. Rather than treating this figure as evidence of systemic failure—ballooning tuition, predatory lending, lack of loan forgiveness—the Department responds by resuming draconian collection measures like the Treasury Offset Program and Administrative Wage Garnishment. This means that the government will begin seizing tax refunds and garnishing wages of those already pushed to the economic brink.

    Worse, the Department has the audacity to wrap this cruelty in the rhetoric of “support” and “outreach.” Borrowers are told that they’ll be reminded of their “repayment obligations” as if they have simply forgotten—not that they’ve been buried under compound interest, stagnating wages, and fraudulent institutions that peddled worthless degrees. The supposed “enhancements” to income-driven repayment plans are little more than PR spin, insufficient to address the tidal wave of suffering inflicted by a broken system.

    Then comes the most insulting part: the Department deflects blame onto institutions while simultaneously pressuring them to track down and guilt-trip former students. Colleges are urged to contact former enrollees and remind them they’re obligated to pay. Why? Not out of concern for their welfare—but because high cohort default rates (CDRs) might threaten those institutions’ eligibility for federal aid money.

    So we see the real game here: this isn’t about protecting students. It’s about protecting the federal loan program as a revenue engine and shielding the reputations of colleges—especially the for-profit diploma mills that flourished under prior Republican administrations. These institutions can continue hiking tuition and churning out underprepared graduates because the government, under Trump and his Department of Education appointees, would rather collect on unpayable loans than hold schools accountable.

    Even more dystopian is the Department’s plan to publicly release “loan non-payment rates by institution.” While transparency sounds virtuous, this move will undoubtedly be weaponized—not to shut down abusive schools but to further stigmatize borrowers, especially those from marginalized backgrounds who attended underfunded schools with few resources.

    Nowhere in this document is there any meaningful discussion of debt relief, student protections, or reining in college costs. Nowhere is there a reckoning with the fact that federal student aid has been transformed from a tool of opportunity into a tool of coercion. Instead, the Trump Administration signals it is open for business—the business of extracting wealth from the poor and funneling it into the private sector.

    This notice is more than a policy update. It is a declaration of values. And those values are clear: Profit over people. Compliance over compassion. Privatization over public good.

    The Higher Education Inquirer stands with the debtors. We see through the lies of “fiscal responsibility” and “integrity.” And we will continue to expose every cynical maneuver designed to crush the educated underclass in the name of neoliberal orthodoxy.

    To student borrowers: You are not alone. You are not a failure. You are a victim of a system that was never built to serve you.

    Here’s the actual post from the US Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, dated May 5, 2025:

     

    The
    United States faces critical challenges related to the federal student
    loan programs. According to estimates from the U.S. Department of
    Education (Department), only 38% of Direct Loan and Department-held
    Federal Family Education Loan Program borrowers are in repayment and
    current on their student loans. We also estimate that almost 25% of the
    entire portfolio is either in default or a late stage of delinquency. 

    Given these challenges, the Department is taking immediate steps to
    engage student borrowers and support the repayment of their federal
    student loans. As announced in an April 21, 2025, press release,
    today, the Department will resume collections on its defaulted federal
    student loan portfolio with the restart the Treasury Offset Program and,
    later this summer, Administrative Wage Garnishment. The Department has
    also initiated an outreach campaign to remind all borrowers of their
    repayment obligations and provide resources and support to assist them
    in selecting the best repayment plan for their circumstances. The
    Department has also launched an enhanced income-driven repayment (IDR) plan process,
    simplifying how borrowers enroll in IDR plans and eliminating the need
    for many borrowers to manually recertify their income each year. 

    Maintaining the integrity of the Title IV, Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA)
    loan programs has always been a shared responsibility among student
    borrowers, the Department, and participating institutions. Although
    borrowers have the primary responsibility for repaying their student
    loans, institutions play a key role in the Department’s ongoing efforts
    to improve loan repayment outcomes, especially as the cost of college
    set solely by institutions has continued to skyrocket. Institutions are
    responsible for providing clear and accurate information about repayment
    to borrowers through entrance and exit counseling, and colleges and
    universities are responsible for disclosing annual tuition and fees and
    the net price to students and their families on the costs of a
    postsecondary education. The financial aid community has demonstrated
    its commitment to providing direct advice and counsel to students
    regarding their borrowing, but institutions must refocus and expand
    these efforts as pandemic flexibilities come to an end.

    Under section 435 of the HEA, institutions are required to
    keep their cohort default rates (CDR) low and will lose eligibility for
    federal student assistance, including Pell Grants and federal student
    loans, if their CDR exceeds 40% for a single year or 30% for three
    consecutive years. The Department reminds institutions that the
    repayment pause on student loans ended in October 2023, and CDRs
    published in 2026 will include borrowers who entered repayment in 2023
    and defaulted in 2023, 2024, or 2025. The Department further reminds
    institutions that those borrowers whose delinquency or default status
    was reset in September 2024 could enter technical default status / be
    delinquent on their loans for more than 270 days beginning in June and
    default this summer. As such, we strongly urge all institutions to begin
    proactive and sustained outreach to former students who are delinquent
    or in default on their loans to ensure that such institutions will not
    face high CDRs next year and lose access to federal student aid. 

    Given
    the urgent need to ensure that more student borrowers enter repayment
    and stay current on their loans, the Secretary urges each participating
    institution to provide the following information to all borrowers who
    ceased to be enrolled at the institution since January 1, 2020, and for
    whom they have contact information: 

    • Remind
      the borrower that he or she is obligated to repay any federal student
      loans that have not been repaid and are not in deferment or forbearance;

    • Suggest that the borrower review information on StudentAid.gov about repayment options; and 

    • Request that the borrower log into StudentAid.gov
      using their StudentAid.gov username and password to update their
      profile with current contact information and ensure that their loans are
      in good standing. 

    The
    Department urges that this outreach be performed no later than June 30,
    2025. We do not stipulate how institutions reach out to borrowers, nor
    the specific information provided, as long as it covers the three
    categories described above. 

    We also encourage institutions to focus their initial outreach on
    students who are delinquent on one or more of their loans in order to
    prevent defaults. We will provide additional information in the future
    to assist schools with identifying and communicating with these
    borrowers.

    The
    Department is committed to overseeing the federal student loan programs
    with fairness and integrity for students, institutions, and taxpayers.
    To that end, the Department believes that greater transparency is needed
    regarding institutional success in counseling borrowers and helping
    them get into good standing on their loans. 

    The Department maintains data on the repayment status of federal
    student loan borrowers and in the past has provided information in the
    College Scorecard about the status of each institution’s borrowers at
    several intervals after they enter repayment. The Department plans to
    use this data to calculate rates of nonpayment by institution and will
    publish this information on the Federal Student Aid Data Center later
    this month. The Department will provide more information about this
    publication process soon. 

    Thank you for your continued efforts to maintain the integrity of the Title IV, HEA
    loan programs. The Department values its institutional partners and
    looks forward to continued collaboration to place borrowers on the path
    to sustainable repayment of their loans.

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  • Trump administration court filing may spell end of overtime final rule

    Trump administration court filing may spell end of overtime final rule

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    U.S. Department of Justice attorneys asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to temporarily suspend the Labor Department’s appeals in two cases challenging its 2024 Fair Labor Standards Act overtime rule, according to an April 24 court filing.

    Texas district court judges twice blocked DOL’s final rule, which increased the minimum salary threshold for overtime pay eligibility in two steps. First, a November 2024 decision sided with plaintiffs including the state of Texas and enjoined the rule nationwide. A second judgment set aside and vacated the rule in response to a lawsuit by marketing agency Flint Avenue.

    The government asked that the 5th Circuit place its appeals in abeyance “pending the agency’s reconsideration of the rule.” It said counsel for the appellees in both cases did not oppose its request.

    The Biden administration’s effort to expand overtime eligibility to millions of U.S. workers would have pushed the annual minimum threshold under the FLSA to $58,656 in 2025 with automatic, additional increases every three years beginning in July 2027. An initial increase to $43,888 per year took effect before Texas federal judges blocked it along with the rule’s other components.

    The entire policy is almost certain to be erased by the second Trump administration, according to attorneys who previously spoke to HR Dive. Prior to the Biden-era rule, DOL had last increased the overtime-pay threshold during Trump’s first administration in 2019.

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  • Harvard Faculty Pledge 10% of Salary to Defend Against Trump

    Harvard Faculty Pledge 10% of Salary to Defend Against Trump

    Nearly 100 senior faculty members at Harvard have committed to taking a pay cut to support the institution’s legal defense against the federal government.

    The Trump administration has frozen more than $2 billion in federal funding, threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and said it would end the institution’s ability to enroll international students.

    Last month, Harvard filed a lawsuit to halt the federal freeze on $2.2 billion in grants after university officials refused to comply with a sweeping list of demands from the government.

    On Friday, President Trump repeated his calls to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he said in a post on his social media platform, TruthSocial.

    Harvard president Alan Garber said taking away the institution’s nonprofit tax exemption would be “highly illegal” and that its mission to educate and research would be “severely impaired” if the status were revoked.

    In their pledge, 89 senior faculty signatories said they would take a 10 percent pay cut for up to a year to protect the institution, as well as faculty and students who are more exposed to efforts to shore up costs, including by limiting graduate student enrollment and implementing hiring and salary freezes.

    “The financial costs will not be shared equally among our community. Staff and students in many programs, in particular, are under greater threat than those of us with tenured positions,” the pledge says.

    Ryan Enos, a signatory and professor of government at Harvard, estimated that the donations could amount to more than $2 million.

    The group said it intends to move quickly but has not decided how the salary cuts will be implemented.

    “We envision that faculty who have made the pledge will hold a vote and if the majority agrees that the university is making a good faith effort to use its own resources in support of staff, student, and academic programs, faculty will proceed with their donation.”

    Last week the institution announced changes to its admissions, curriculum and disciplinary procedures after two internal task forces launched last year investigating anti-Muslim bias and antisemitism on campus found the university’s response lacking.

    In response to the efforts, a White House official told CNN, “Harvard’s steps so far to curb antisemitism are ‘positive,’” but “what we’re seeing is not enough, and there’s actually probably going to be additional funding being cut.”

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