Tag: Trumps

  • Trump’s transgender sports ban challenged in expanded New Hampshire lawsuit

    Trump’s transgender sports ban challenged in expanded New Hampshire lawsuit

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    Dive Brief:

    • Two transgender high school athletes are challenging in federal court President Donald Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order banning transgender girls and women from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity.
    • Originally filed against a New Hampshire state law that bars transgender girls in grades 5-12 from playing school sports, the lawsuit filed by Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, is expanding to include Trump and the federal departments of justice and education among the defendants.
    • Tirrell and Turmelle, represented by GLAD Law and the ACLU of New Hampshire, allege Trump’s executive order is discriminatory and violates their federal equal protection guarantees under the 14th Amendment and their rights under Title IX. 

    Dive Insight:

    Henry Klementowicz, deputy legal director at ACLU of NH, said in a Wednesday statement that every child in the state deserves “a right to equal opportunities at school.”

    “We’re expanding our lawsuit to challenge President Trump’s executive orders because, like the state law, it excludes, singles out, and discriminates against transgender students and insinuates that they are not deserving of the same educational opportunities as all other students,” Klementowicz said. 

    The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire previously ordered in September that the two students could play sports on teams corresponding with their gender identities while Tirrell and Turmelle v. Edelblut advanced. 

    Trump’s “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order, which is now being targeted by the lawsuit, calls for a recission of all federal funds from educational programs that allow transgender girls and women to participate in girls’ sports. The order also directs the U.S. secretary of education to zero in on Title IX enforcement against K-12 schools and colleges where girls and women are required “to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”

    The day after Trump issued that executive order, the U.S. Department of Education opened Title IX investigations into a middle and high school athletics association in Massachusetts, as well as two universities, on the basis that they allowed transgender girls and women to play on teams aligned with their gender identity. 

    Trump’s order further directs the U.S. Department of Justice to abide by the nationwide vacatur from a recent court order by a federal judge who struck down the Biden administration’s Title IX rule in January. The Biden-era Title IX rule was the first time protections were codified for LGBTQI+ students and employees at federally funded schools under the anti-sex discrimination law. 

    After that January court decision, the Education Department said it would enforce the Title IX regulations finalized in 2020 during the first Trump administration.

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  • Few students protest Trump’s executive orders on campus

    Few students protest Trump’s executive orders on campus

    As President Donald Trump churned out more than 80 executive orders over the past three weeks, sending the higher education community into a panic, some students were surprised to see a lack of campus protests—even at institutions traditionally rife with activism.

    “I haven’t seen a whole lot, which is kind of uncharacteristic of our campus,” said Alana Parker, a student at American University in Washington, D.C. Though she’s heard of certain student political groups protesting on Capitol Hill, things have been quiet on campus.

    “I don’t really know why that is, because, in my opinion, there should be more of an outcry. But from my perspective, I think people feel really disenfranchised and like there’s nothing we can do,” she said.

    It’s a stark contrast from two semesters ago, when AU was one of dozens of campuses that made national news after pro-Palestinian students set up encampments in opposition to their universities’ investments in companies with ties to Israel.

    Students and faculty at AU—and on campuses across the nation—also protested in 2017 after Trump prohibited individuals from seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the United States, according to a news report from the time.

    Angus Johnston, a historian of student protest movements and a professor at Hostos Community College, said that he’s not entirely surprised that campuses seem relatively calm. Over the past 20 years, institutions have grown less and less permissive of student protests, culminating in a harsh crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests in spring 2024—in some cases involving police arrests. Since then, many campuses have introduced new—or enforced existing—rules restricting when, where and how students can demonstrate.

    Aron Ali-McClory, a national co-chair of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, said that universities’ restrictions on free speech are “100 percent a factor” in why there aren’t many protests happening on campuses right now.

    But they noted that the YDSA is mobilizing, just in different ways. Many campus chapters are currently focused on campaigning for their institutions to become “sanctuary campuses,” in the vein of sanctuary cities, municipalities that do not comply with federal immigration laws. Ali-McClory said the chapters involved in that movement are currently distributing petitions, informing their peers about the movement and handing out “know your rights” materials that aim to inform immigrants of how to handle conversations and interactions with immigration officers.

    “Looking at what our YDSA chapters are doing across the country, we’re seeing people pivoting to meet the moment on their campus. A lot of that looks less like, ‘Let’s go out and do a protest’ and more, ‘How do we make material gains when the cards are stacked against us?’” they said.

    Parker, the AU student, has also chosen to make her voice heard in a different way. An editor of the student newspaper, The Eagle, she and her colleagues penned a staff editorial calling on the university to speak out against Trump’s executive orders, particularly those targeting immigrants and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. She said the article seemed to be effective: A few days after its publication, the institution sent an email to the campus community, signed by President Jonathan Alger, outlining resources available for immigrant students and employees.

    Alger also addressed DEI, writing, “As we continue fostering an inclusive and welcoming community, we are working with teams across campus to determine the impacts on our inclusive excellence strategy and programs.”

    ‘A Powerful Force’

    A handful of campuses have seen protests, primarily in response to their institutions taking steps to comply with Trump’s executive orders by shuttering DEI offices or removing DEI-related language and resources from webpages, for example.

    At Missouri State University, students staged a protest after administrators announced they would close the Office of Inclusive Engagement and end other DEI programs “in response to changes nationwide and anticipated actions regarding DEI at the state level.”

    According to the student newspaper, The Standard, 50 students gathered outside the main administrative building on Jan. 31 to call for the removal of the university’s president and to advocate for the passage of two bills that would require Missouri schools to teach about Black history and “the dehumanization of marginalized groups.”

    At Stanford University, a group of about 15 students participated in a chalking event, writing messages of dissent, like “DEI makes Stanford Stanford,” on bike paths around White Plaza, a central outdoor area on campus.

    “Here at Stanford, the important thing to me was that my leaders at my school knew that there would be people who would resist anything that they did to cave to Trump,” said freshman Turner Van Slyke, who organized the demonstration. “I think those leaders just knowing that there’s going to be resistance can be a powerful force for maintaining decency against Trump.”

    Various other student news sources have reported that students at their institutions have joined outside groups in protesting at their state capitols, hoping to register their objections to Trump’s orders with governors and state representatives.

    Johnston noted that more protests may erupt elsewhere as students begin to see the ways that the executive orders are impacting their campuses more directly.

    “There’s a lot of stuff that is happening now that is essentially a hand grenade or a time bomb that’s going to explode in days or weeks or months,” he said. “To a large extent, I think this stuff is not having direct impact on a lot of [students] as of yet. Some stuff may be beginning to percolate down to the campus level. But a lot of this is real stuff that is happening, but the effects of it are not being felt directly by students just yet.”

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  • McMahon confirms Trump’s plans to dismantle Department of Ed

    McMahon confirms Trump’s plans to dismantle Department of Ed

    Linda McMahon told senators Thursday that she won’t shut down the Education Department without their approval, quelling any doubt that the majority Republicans may have had about whether she deserved to be appointed to President Donald Trump’s cabinet.

    But that doesn’t mean that McMahon and the Trump administration aren’t still looking to make considerable changes to the agency’s programs and potentially dismantle it from the inside out. She said at her confirmation hearing that the department has to go, or at the very least is in need of a major makeover, because it’s rife with bureaucracy that fails to serve students well.

    The goal, the former wrestling CEO told the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, is to “reorient” the federal agency and ensure it “operate[s] more efficiently”—not defund education, as some critics have suggested.

    “We’d like to do this right,” she said. “We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with, and our Congress to get on board with.”

    Questions about the department’s future and whether McMahon would stand up to President Trump if he tries to break the law dominated the nearly three-hour hearing. McMahon, a Trump loyalist and veteran of the first administration, weathered the hearing just fine and will likely be confirmed by the Senate. The committee will vote Feb. 20 on her nomination.

    McMahon largely stuck by Trump and defended his actions so far. She also pledged to comply with and uphold the law, respecting Congress’s power over the purse strings by disbursing funds as lawmakers order. “The president will not ask me to do anything that’s against the law,” she later added.

    McMahon’s comments break slightly from the president’s record so far. In the first three weeks alone, Trump and Elon Musk have entirely shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, cut countless contracts and attempted to freeze all federal grants. The president has said he wants to get rid of the Education Department entirely, suggesting he didn’t need congressional action to do so.

    During and after the hearing, the majority of Republicans praised McMahon as the right person for the job.

    “It is clear that our current education system isn’t working. We have the status quo and that’s actually failing our kids,” Senator Katie Britt of Alabama said in her opening remarks. “Linda McMahon is someone who knows how to reform our education system.”

    But for Democrats and Senator Susan Collins, a more centrist Republican from Maine, McMahon’s comments left quite a few questions still lingering and seemed to be, at times, self-contradictory.

    “The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me,” said Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire. “It’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very eloquent gaslighting here.”

    While many of the senators’ questions focused on special education, K-12, the separation of powers and getting rid of the Education Department, colleges and universities did come up a few times, offering some insight into McMahon’s plans as secretary.

    Here are five key higher ed takeaways from the hearing:

    Commitments but Few Specifics

    Prior to the hearing, Trump’s comments suggested his Education Department would prioritize cutting red tape, returning education to the states, cracking down on campus antisemitism and banning what he calls “gender ideology,” among other things. But speculation swirled about what McMahon would put at the top of her agenda.

    On Thursday she made it clear that she’s in lockstep with the president, saying in her opening remarks that “Trump has shared his vision and I’m ready to enact it.” She failed to provide much detail beyond that.

    The business mogul, who has limited experience in education, indicated she’ll have some studying to do if she gets confirmed. When asked about topics like diversity, equity and inclusion programs or accreditation, she said, “I’ll have to learn more” or “I’d like to look into it further and get back to you on that.”

    For example, when it came to addressing civil rights complaints filed by Jewish students, McMahon was quick to assure Republican lawmakers that colleges will “face defunding” if they don’t comply with the law. She also said that international students who participate in protests Trump deems antisemitic should have their visas revoked. But she didn’t provide further detail on how exactly either repercussion would be enforced.

    Additionally, when asked about how she would address a backlog of cases at the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination, she said, “I would like to be confirmed and get into the department and understand that backlog.”

    ‘Pretty Chilling’ Approach to DEI

    McMahon declined to say what specific programs or classes might violate Trump’s recent executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion during a tense exchange with Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

    Policy experts said Trump’s executive order should have had little immediate impact on higher ed, as most of its provisions require agency action, but several colleges and universities moved quickly to comply after the order was signed Jan. 21, canceling events and scrubbing websites of DEI mentions.

    Murphy highlighted one of those examples, telling McMahon that the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., had shut down a number of its student affinity groups and clubs like the Society of Black Engineers.

    He then went on to ask her, “Would public schools be in violation of this order, would they risk funding if they had clubs that students could belong to based on their racial or ethnic identity?” To which McMahon responded, “Well, I certainly today don’t want to address hypothetical situations.”

    Murphy said that should be “a pretty easy question,” adding that her lack of response was “pretty chilling.”

    “I think you’re going to have a lot of teachers and administrators scrambling right now,” he said.

    McMahon did note, however, that all schools can and should celebrate Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She suggested that in saying individuals should be judged by “content of their character,” King was supporting a colorblind approach to policy and looking at all populations as the same, rather than addressing systemic inequities.

    Dems Take Issue With DOGE

    Several lawmakers had questions for McMahon about Trump’s efforts to cut spending via the Elon Musk–led Department of Government Efficiency, but she didn’t have many answers.

    Democrats, in particular, took issue with recent reports that DOGE staffers have access to sensitive student data and recently canceled $881 million in contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences. The Education Department is just one of several agencies under DOGE’s microscope. The Trump administration is also laying off employees at the agency or putting them on administrative leave as part of a broader plan to shrink the federal workforce.

    McMahon said she didn’t know “about all the administrative people who have been put on leave,” adding she would look into that. She also didn’t have more information about the IES cuts. But she defended DOGE’s work as an audit.

    “I do think it’s worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door,” she said.

    But Democrats countered that Congress, not the executive branch, has the authority to direct where federal funds should go.

    “When Congress appropriates money, it is the administration’s responsibility to put that out as directed by Congress, who has the power of the purse,” said Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat. “If you have input, if you have programs you have looked at that you believe are not effective, then it is your job to come to us, explain why and get the support for that.”

    Brief Mention of Accreditation

    Despite Trump’s promise to fire accreditors, the accreditation system and the federal policies that govern it received little attention during the hearing—aside from one round of questions.

    Senator Ashley Moody, a Florida Republican, said she thinks the current system is unconstitutional, echoing claims that she made as Florida attorney general. The state argued in a 2023 lawsuit that Congress ceded power to private accrediting agencies, violating the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge rejected those claims and threw out the lawsuit in October.

    Currently, federal law requires that colleges and universities be accredited by an Education Department–recognized accreditor in order to receive federal student aid such as Pell Grants. But in recent years, Republican-led states—most notably Florida—have bristled at what they see as undue interference from the accreditors and their power to potentially take away federal aid. State lawmakers in Florida now require public colleges to change accreditors regularly. But that process has been sluggish, and officials blame the Education Department.

    Moody asked McMahon to commit to review regulations and guidance related to colleges changing accreditors.

    “I look forward to working with you on that,” McMahon said. “And there’s been a lot of issues raised about these five to seven accreditors … I think that needs to have a broad overview and review.” (McMahon didn’t specify, but she seemed to refer to the seven institutional accreditors.)

    Support for Short-Term Pell

    Throughout the hearing, McMahon also reiterated her support for expanding the Pell Grant to short-term workforce training programs that run between eight and 15 weeks, and bolstering other nontraditional means of higher education like apprenticeships.

    The nominee noted multiple times that though “college isn’t for everyone,” there should be opportunities for socioeconomic mobility and career development for all. She believes promoting programs like short-term Pell “could stimulate our economy” by providing new routes to pursue skills-based learning and promote trade careers. This mindset could likely lead to less restriction on for-profit technical institutions like cosmetology schools.

    One thing neither McMahon nor the Senate panel spent much time on, however, was the Office of Federal Student Aid, its botched rollout of a new application portal or how she would manage the government’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio. One of the few mentions of the student debt crisis came up in committee chair Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana’s opening remarks.

    “Too many students leave college woefully unprepared for the workforce while being saddled with overwhelming debt that they cannot pay off,” he said. “Your previous experience overseeing [Small Business Administration] loans will be a great asset as the department looks to reform its student loan program.”

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  • Trump’s vision for dismantling the Department of Education (PBS News Hour)

    Trump’s vision for dismantling the Department of Education (PBS News Hour)

    The Department of Education is on the Trump chopping block. Details have not been fully released yet, but the president has signaled plans to dismantle it and move some of its key functions elsewhere. The department oversees student loans, federal funds for lower-income students, special education programs and more. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Laura Meckler of The Washington Post.

     

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  • Indian Students getting Swept Up in Donald Trump’s Deportation Drive? (Palki Sharma, Vantage)

    Indian Students getting Swept Up in Donald Trump’s Deportation Drive? (Palki Sharma, Vantage)

    From FirstPost:

    Reports say that Indian Students in the US are becoming collateral damage amidst President Donald Trump’s Mass Deportation Drive. The Indian students entered the US legally, on valid visas. But they say they are now being subjected to more frequent questioning from US immigration officials. They say uniformed officers have been questioning them more frequently, and demanding to see their student IDs and documents. Is Trump’s deportation drive becoming an all out purge of migrants, irrespective of whether they’re in the US legally or not?

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  • Nils Gilman on Trump’s coming assault on universities (Matthew Sheffield, Theory of Change)

    Nils Gilman on Trump’s coming assault on universities (Matthew Sheffield, Theory of Change)

    The second term of Donald Trump has officially begun, but despite all the things he’s unveiled in the past several weeks, we don’t know fully what his policies are going to be over the next four years. 

    That is in part because Trump himself is a very erratic figure who says things that are nonsensical, even by his own standards. And also because while there are documents such as Project 2025 which were created by Trump’s ideological allies in the reactionary movement, that document itself is not particularly detailed in a number of ways.

    But one thing we can be sure is going to happen in the second Trump administration is that he will conduct a full-scale assault on America’s colleges and universities. As a candidate, he did promise to create taxes on private university endowments. And he also talked about removing the funding for universities that don’t bow to his various censorship demands.

    Unlike a number of other Trumpian boasts and threats, he is very likely to follow through on these ones because Republicans in a number of states and localities have enacted many of the policies that Trump has talked about doing on the campaign trail.

    Joining me today to talk about all this is Nils Gilman, a friend of the show who is the chief operating officer at the Berggruen Institute, a think tank in Southern California that publishes Noema Magazine. He is also the former associate chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he saw first-hand just what the [00:02:00] Republican vision for education in the United States is. He’s also the co-author of a new book called Children of a Modest Star, which we discuss at the end of the episode.
       

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  • Media outlets must not cave to Trump’s lawfare

    Media outlets must not cave to Trump’s lawfare

    What happens to freedom of the press when the president can bully media outlets he doesn’t like into paying big money to end his meritless lawsuits against them?   

    Buckle up. We’re about to find out.

    Per reports, Paramount Global — the parent company of CBS News — is in talks to settle a $10 billion dollar lawsuit President Donald Trump filed against the network last November shortly after the election. The president’s lawsuit claims “60 Minutes,” the network’s flagship news program, violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by editing an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to make her more appealing to viewers.

    The suit is flatly without merit. For starters, editing interviews is standard journalistic practice. Just ask FOX News, which has edited its own interviews and coverage of the president to tighten up rambling answers. Those cuts are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees the press broad freedom to make editorial decisions about the content they print or air. And laws like Texas’ are designed to prevent used car salesmen from passing off lemons to unsuspecting buyers, not to police journalism.

    That’s why CBS’ initial public statements about Trump’s suit rightly struck a defiant and principled tone. The network promised it would “vigorously defend” itself, correctly arguing Trump’s attempt to “punish” CBS for its editorial choices is “barred by the First Amendment.”

    So what happened? Why is CBS now reported to be capitulating? There are two reasons, neither of them good for our free and independent press: Money and power. 

    Trump’s lawsuit isn’t concerned with winning so much as imposing a financial and political cost on people that say things he doesn’t like.

    First, the money. Paramount Global hopes to merge with Skydance Media, a deal worth some $8 billion to heiress Shari Redstone, Paramount’s owner — but only if it’s approved by the Federal Communications Commission.

    That’s where the raw governmental power comes in. Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick to run the FCC, has made clear in public comments that the agency’s review of the merger will take into consideration Trump’s “news distortion complaint.” And in private, Carr reportedly warned Paramount that addressing Trump’s dissatisfaction was a precursor to approval. In other words: Nice little network you got there — be a shame if anything happened to it.

    This kind of pressure from government regulators — “jawboning” — is all the more objectionable when it’s aimed toward the personal benefit of the president. Rather than stand up for the journalists at CBS, Redstone appears to be playing ball, even handing over an unedited transcript to the FCC after refusing to do so for months.

    What is jawboning? And does it violate the First Amendment?

    Issue Pages

    Indirect government censorship is still government censorship — and it must be stopped.


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    That’s bad enough. But wait — there’s more.

    Our litigious president is fresh off settling his 2021 lawsuit against Meta, which alleged the company’s decision to ban Trump from Facebook after Jan. 6, 2021, violated his First Amendment rights. Like his suit against CBS, Trump’s class action suit was without merit; private social media companies have their own First Amendment right to run their platforms as they see fit. They are not government actors, as the district court dismissing the cases against social media companies easily concluded. Nevertheless, the company agreed this week to pay $25 million to end the appeal. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who attended the president’s inauguration, appears to have concluded that settling the suit was a small price to pay for political favor and access.

    Late last year, Trump also settled with ABC News for $15 million dollars, ending a defamation suit. That suit centered on a George Stephanopoulos interview with Rep. Nancy Mace during which Stephanopoulos mischaracterized the outcome of writer E. Jean Carroll’s successful sexual abuse and defamation claims against the former president. Stephanopoulos stated that Trump was “found liable for rape” and “defaming the victim of that rape,” when a jury had concluded Trump sexually abused Carroll — not that he raped her, as the term is narrowly defined in New York’s criminal code.

    Trump’s dictatorial appetite to use lawfare to silence or punish outlets that publish content he doesn’t like is most plainly on display in his ongoing suit against pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register. 

    ABC’s case presented real challenges, but the network may have been able to mount a sturdy defense. The First Amendment provides news outlets significant breathing room when commenting on public figures like President Trump, as established in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 ruling New York Times v. Sullivan. While the jury specifically rejected finding Trump guilty of rape, the district court judge noted the “definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere.”

    Per reports, however, the network ultimately chose to settle what might have proven to be a challenging case rather than risk Trump’s ire — or provide the current Supreme Court a potential opportunity to weaken Sullivan’s broad protections. After all, the plaintiff has been loud and clear about his desire to “open up” American libel law. 

    Trump’s dictatorial appetite to use lawfare to silence or punish outlets that publish content he doesn’t like is most plainly on display in his ongoing suit against pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register. 

    FIRE’s defense of pollster J. Ann Selzer against Donald Trump’s lawsuit is First Amendment 101

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    A polling miss isn’t ‘consumer fraud’ or ‘election interference’ — it’s just a prediction and is protected by the First Amendment.


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    Selzer, hailed for decades by political observers as the dean of Iowa polling, conducted an early November poll published by The Register giving Harris a three-point lead in the Hawkeye State. Despite correctly forecasting Trump’s Iowa victories in 2016 and 2020, Selzer’s polling missed the mark this cycle. But Trump wasn’t content to take the win, choosing instead to file a claim against her under Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act. 

    FIRE represents Selzer against the president’s bogus claim. Americans have a First Amendment right to make political predictions, and newspapers have a First Amendment right to publish them. But Trump’s lawsuit isn’t concerned with winning so much as imposing a financial and political cost on people that say things he doesn’t like. That’s un-American.

    Elections have consequences, it’s true. But silence cannot be one of them. We must protect our free press against meritless lawsuits and the coercive power of the federal government — lest we miss it when it’s gone.

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  • Accreditors brace for Trump’s promised higher ed shakeup

    Accreditors brace for Trump’s promised higher ed shakeup

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    WASHINGTON — On the 2024 campaign trail, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump accused the nation’s faculty of being “obsessed with indoctrinating America’s youth” and declared, “The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left.”

    His administration’s “secret weapon” in this conflict would be the accreditation system for colleges and universities. 

    “When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” he said in a July 2023 campaign video. “We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.”

    Earlier this week, officials and professionals from the accreditation system that Trump vowed to upend met in Washington, D.C., for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s annual conference to discuss the major topics facing the sector — not least among them being the second Trump administration that took office a week earlier.

    Along with the wholesale replacement of accreditors that Trump promised, plenty of other aspects of accreditation work could change under the new administration and with a Republican majority in Congress. Here is a look at some of the big political and policy questions under discussion. 

    Working with a new Education Department

    The U.S. Department of Education recognizes accreditors, which in turn vet and accredit institutions, rendering them eligible for Title IV federal financial aid, such as student loans and Pell Grants. 

    That makes the department’s relationship with accreditors of paramount importance to the latter group, and it would make the department the agent for enacting Trump’s policies. 

    “There will be — and we don’t know the scope of it yet — efforts to use accreditors to advance the administration’s policies, particularly around areas of DEI,” Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, said during a panel Wednesday.

    One of Trump’s campaign pledges was to remove “all DEI bureaucrats” from higher education. As a senator, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, introduced a federal bill last year that would have barred accreditors from enacting DEI requirements at colleges. A bill with a similar aim passed the House last year, but died in committee in the Senate. 

    With the change in administration will come a new Education Secretary. Fansmith described Trump’s pick to head the Education Department, Linda McMahon, as “pragmatic.” He also said her stint as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term went “remarkably smoothly.”

    “There are reasons to think that where she has weighed into the [higher ed] policy space, there’s opportunities to work with her,” Fansmith added.

    As for Trump’s stated desire to eliminate the department altogether? “Spoiler, the department won’t be abolished,” Fansmith said. 

    Jan Friis, CHEA’s senior vice president for government affairs, pointed out that the first bill proposing the elimination of the Education Department so far during the current House of Representatives term had no cosponsors. 

    Further attacks on DEI

    Colleges across the country have faced a Republican-led crusade against their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts over the past few years — and those attacks are only poised to grow stronger under the Trump administration. 

    On the first full day of his presidency, Trump issued an executive order calling for agencies to identify organizations, including colleges with endowments worth over $1 billion, for potential investigations into their DEI work. 

    The mounting backlash against DEI means that higher education leaders will have to frame “compelling narratives” about their equity work to help people see what they’re doing and why, Debra Humphreys, vice president of strategic engagement at Lumina Foundation, told conference attendees Tuesday.

    “How do we talk about all of that work in a way that more people can understand?” Humphreys said. “That’s become harder.”

    That’s because people who hear words like “equity” and “inclusion” often fall into two camps, Humphreys said.

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  • Trump’s threat to deport anti-Israel protesters is an attack on free speech

    Trump’s threat to deport anti-Israel protesters is an attack on free speech

    This article originally appeared in MSNBC on Jan. 31, 2025.

    The campus controversies inflamed by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza have reached a worrying conclusion. Now, with President Donald Trump’s promise to deport those he deems “pro-jihadist” protesters, we’re facing questions not just about which ideas and speech should be allowed on campus, but whether foreign students should be deported for expressing disfavored views.

    On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order on antisemitism that directs leaders of agencies, including the secretary of homeland security, to familiarize universities with grounds for inadmissibility for foreign nationals “so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds.” Those reports will then lead “to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”

    This development should worry all Americans, regardless of their position on the Israel-Hamas war.

    The order implies that universities should be monitoring and reporting students for scrutiny by immigration officials, including for speech that is protected by the First Amendment. It follows last week’s executive order threatening denial of entry to foreign nationals, or even deportation of those currently in the country, who “espouse hateful ideology.”

    Free Speech Dispatch

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    The Free Speech Dispatch is a new regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression.


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    Student visa holders in the U.S. already risk deportation by engaging in criminal activity, and did so long before the enactment of this order. Students who commit crimes — including vandalism, threats or violence — must face consequences, including potential revocation of visas when appropriate.

    The First Amendment does not protect violence, for visitors and citizens alike, and an executive order narrowly confined to targeting illegal acts would not implicate First Amendment rights.

    But a fact sheet released by the White House alongside the executive order goes well beyond criminal grounds for removal of foreign nationals to instead threaten viewpoint-motivated deportations. “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

    If that’s what the Trump White House expects agencies to read into its formal orders, this development should worry all Americans, regardless of their position on the Israel-Hamas war.

    Advocates of ideological deportation today should not be surprised to see it used against ideas they support in the future.

    Our nation’s campuses are intended to be places of learning and debate that facilitate a wide range of views, even ones that some consider hateful or offensive.

    This openness, albeit unpleasant or controversial at times, is a defining strength of American higher education. It’s one of the features attractive to students traveling from abroad who may hope to take part in the speech protections Americans have worked so hard to preserve. These are protections that they may very well be denied in their home countries.


    We won’t protect freedom on campus by making it inaccessible to the international students who study there. But, given the warning accompanying the order, international students will now be rightfully afraid that their words — not just their conduct — are under a microscope.

    There are already signs that critics of campus demonstrations expect the administration will expel protesters from the country. In the lead-up to the signing of this latest order, pro-Israel advocates claimed to be in contact with officials in the incoming Trump administration concerning lists of student protesters they hope to see deported. One group, Betar, told the New York Post it’s “using a combination of facial recognition software and ‘relationship database technology’” to identify protest attendees who are foreign nationals.

    Freedom of speech was never meant to be easy.

    At the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), where I work, we have seen firsthand the many speech-related controversies that have plagued higher education over the decades. In every case, adhering to viewpoint-neutral principles, rather than censorship, has been the proper solution. 

    If we open the door to expelling foreign students who peacefully express ideas out of step with the current administration about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we should expect it to swing wider to encompass other viewpoints too. Today it may be alleged “Hamas sympathizers” facing threats of deportation for their political expression. Who could it be in four years? In eight?

    Advocates of ideological deportation today should not be surprised to see it used against ideas they support in the future.

    Why (most) calls for genocide are protected speech

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    Creating a “genocide” exception to free speech only opens the door to more speech restrictions and selective enforcement.


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    In Bridges v. Wixon, the Supreme Court’s 1945 decision rejecting the deportation of Australian immigrant Harry Bridges over alleged Communist Party connections, Justice William Douglas wrote, “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.”

    Later decisions from the court complicate the question. The federal government retains significant authority over those who may enter and stay in the country. But the court’s reasoning in Wixon should provide lasting guidance.

    In his concurring opinion, Justice Frank Murphy stated that he “cannot agree that the framers of the Constitution meant to make such an empty mockery of human freedom” by allowing the government to deport an alien over speech for which it could not imprison him.

    Freedom of speech was never meant to be easy. But it allows us the space we need to work through thorny social and political challenges, even when it’s fraught with friction and discomfort. The United States should preserve this freedom on our campuses — spaces for free learning that set us apart from more authoritarian nations around the world — not make an “empty mockery” of it.

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  • Trump’s federal funding freeze concerns colleges

    Trump’s federal funding freeze concerns colleges

    President Trump’s plan to temporarily freeze federal grants and loans set off a wave of confusion and concerns across higher ed Tuesday. But just minutes before it was set to take effect, a federal judge blocked the order.

    It is now on hold until next Monday, at least.

    College leaders worried they would lose access to a wide variety of federal funds, though the specific programs affected by the pause remained in flux throughout the day. Education Department officials said Pell Grants, student loans and Federal Work-Study would not be subject to the pause. But critical STEM research and student success initiatives were among the thousands of programs whose funding would have been paused until at least Feb. 10, according to the original White House directive released late Monday night.

    University lobbyists and administrators predicted earlier Tuesday that the president’s unprecedented action would be blocked in the courts, but they warned of significant consequences as they worked to gather more information about the order. Comparable to a government shutdown, they said, the impact of a freeze, if it ever comes to pass, would largely depend on how long it lasts. 

    “Obviously it’s of great concern,” said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning. “Most of us are finding the memo to be so broad and so incomprehensible that we don’t even quite know what the long-term impact is … But it makes no sense. Rather than helping ‘make America great again,’ it absolutely debilitates America.”

    Conservative policy experts say Trump’s actions are necessary to combat years of misguided spending and argue that institutions shouldn’t run budgets so razor-thin that a short-term loss of federal funds empties their coffers. But McGuire and other higher ed representatives say the proposed freeze along with other executive actions raises questions about whether they can count on stable federal funding in the long run.

    Universities have already seen some disruptions to research funding since Trump took office eight days ago, as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation canceled meetings to review grant applications last week. Before the federal court released its ruling, the proposed extension of that freeze had only further fueled academics’ initial concerns.

    The White House Office of Management and Budget had directed all federal agencies to pause any grants and loans they supervised in order to ensure that federal spending aligns with the president’s priorities, such as cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and illegal immigration. OMB specifically said it is aiming to cease any funding to activities that “may be implicated by the executive orders, including but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” according to the memo.

    The two-page directive specifically exempted Social Security, Medicare and other programs that provide direct financial assistance to individuals. But colleges and universities would still lose access to grants that are targeted at minority-serving institutions, college preparation programs, childcare for student parents, food banks, student retention and graduation initiatives, campus hospital systems, and more. Over all, more than 2,600 grant programs are up for consideration across dozens of agencies, Bloomberg reported.

    A follow-up memo was published Tuesday in an attempt to help clarify the president’s orders, but higher ed stakeholders said much uncertainty remains.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said early Tuesday afternoon that the freeze would not be “a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs,” and she repeatedly said that direct federal assistance to individuals wouldn’t be affected. But she didn’t have a clear answer about what would happen to federal money that goes to states, organizations or colleges that support individuals. She also pushed back on questions about the legality of the pause and said the move was aimed at ensuring that federal spending aligns with the president’s priorities.

    “No more funding for illegal DEI programs,” she said. “No more funding for transgenderism and wokeness.”

    Leavitt was asked about funding for minority-serving institutions and said she hadn’t “seen the entire list” of programs either affected or exempted from the pause.

    Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education, said concerns remain despite the legal injunction.

    In the initial memo, OMB instructed agencies to conduct a comprehensive review by Feb. 7 of federal programs to ensure they comply with Trump’s executive orders. White House officials offered more guidance Tuesday about what that would entail. Agencies will have to answer a series of questions for each program listed on the 52-page document by Feb. 7. Those questions include whether the programs fund DEI or support “illegal aliens,” the promotion of “gender ideology” or “activities overseas.”

    It’s just going to cause a lot of chaos when it comes to planning. It is definitely a developing story.”

    —Sarah Spreitzer, American Council on Education

    It’s unclear whether the judge’s order affects the broader review.

    To Spreitzer and others, that broader review could threaten more federal programs, as those considered unaligned with the president’s agenda could be altered or cut back entirely.

    “If there’s an injunction within a week and everything can start up again, I think that the impact is minimal,” Spreitzer said. But “there’s so much in that [memo] about the examination of all grants going forward … that go beyond just the pause that I think I’d have to see the further implementation instructions to understand the complete impact on the scientific and education enterprise.”

    ‘Unnecessary and Damaging’

    Higher ed officials and student advocacy groups warned throughout the day that the pause, in addition to a recent flurry of executive orders, would cause unnecessary disruption to the primary goals and functions of American colleges and universities and could jeopardize crucial scientific research. The National Association of College and University Business Officers said in a statement that the pause could cause “unnecessary disruption to the lives of tens of thousands of students and families at colleges and universities across the country.”

    “The overall impact to programs … could be both significant and chaotic,” NACUBO president Kara D. Freeman said. “College and university chief business officers will be front and center with their presidents, boards, and executive leadership in developing plans to mitigate immediate exposure and impacts. We urge the Trump administration to reconsider and rescind this misguided policy.”

    Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, called the memo’s orders “unnecessary and damaging.”

    “While we understand the Trump administration wants to review programs to ensure consistency with its priorities, it is imperative that the reviews not interfere with American innovation and competitiveness,” Becker said. “It will have far-reaching impacts in every corner of the country and hamper American innovation at a moment when it’s being fiercely challenged on a global stage.”

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement that she hopes Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill will see how the pause could hurt American citizens and address the gap by resuming grant distribution.

    “Federal programs need to be more efficient, but no one voted for a president to halt their services—services that were appropriated, authorized and extended by Congress,” she said in a statement. “Americans need a federal government that works for them, not against them.”

    Democratic lawmakers have also raised the red flag, responding with outrage and “extreme alarm,” warning that the pause would undermine Congress’s authority and have “devastating consequences across the country.”

    Reactions from professors and student advocacy groups were swift late Monday and early Tuesday.

    “I don’t see how any Democrat can get away with voting to confirm Linda McMahon after this memo. The entire hearing should be focused on how the U.S. government is tearing apart everyday life for regular people,” Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, wrote on X.

    Jody Freedman, a professor at Harvard Law School, took to BlueSky. “What is going on here?” she wrote. “I think what’s going on here is that Russell Vought (perhaps others in the administration too, but certainly him) … are testing the Republicans in Congress on this issue to see if they spring to life.”

    “It’s like Hey, the door’s open, no one’s home, let’s rob the place. And by rob I mean, let’s take all the power Congress thinks it has over the appropriations,” she added.

    ‘Extremely Widespread’ Abuse

    Congressional Republicans have said little in response to the pause, and conservative policy experts say the freeze is a necessary step to address years of “illegal spending” by Democrats to advance their political motives.

    Inside Higher Ed reached out to both Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy and Representative Tim Walberg, chairs of the congressional committees that handle education policy, but neither responded with comment.

    Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, said that the Trump administration’s actions—though “aggressive”—are justified decisions aimed to restore the rule of law and ensure that government money “isn’t being set on fire at every turn.”

    “What you’re seeing overall across the administration is an attempt to get a handle on the waste and the abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Brickman said.

    He went on to say that though it would be ideal to only freeze certain programs and limit the consequences of stalled grants, breadth was a necessity in this scenario.

    “We saw during the Biden administration, brazen attempts again and again to ignore the law” when utilizing federal funds, Brickman said. “Why let good money continue to go out the door when we know for the last four years that so much of it has been wasted … I wish it were narrow and targeted, but unfortunately, the abuse is extremely widespread.”

    And if colleges don’t have a contingency plan in place for any kind of budgetary disruption, “that’s malpractice on their part,” he added.

    ‘Plan for the Worst’

    McGuire, from Trinity, said the pause would likely affect grants for predominantly Black institutions, which her university uses to provide student advising, new lab materials and certification programs in high-demand areas of the workforce.

    Trinity has already received its $250,000 in such grants for the current academic year, so no programs will have to shut down immediately if the freeze is reinstated, she said. But she worries about the reliability of federal funds moving forward. She explained that uncertainty about grants could mean cuts and amendments to the budget for fiscal year 2026. 

    “We hope for the best but plan for the worst,” she said. “We’re going into budget season right now, so we will probably have to plan alternative support for the programs funded through the PBI [grants].”

    Spreitzer, from ACE, echoed the future impact but also noted that certain colleges could pay the price more immediately. Many large research universities require billions of dollars in federal grants to keep their labs and hospitals running every day, she said, and there’s variation in when grant funds are dispersed, so many may have yet to receive the dollars needed to keep the lights on.

    “It’s going to depend on whether institutions have existing grants and whether they’re waiting for disbursements. It’s just going to cause a lot of chaos when it comes to planning,” she said. “It is definitely a developing story.” 

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