Archives for category: Academic Freedom
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Trump Adminstration Asks MIT to Abandon Academic Freedom to Secure Funding

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2025 //
7

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/04/business/white-house-university-compact-mit/

The new conditions for federal funding the Trump administration offered to MIT put the school in a no-win situation, people on the Cambridge campus and throughout academia said Friday: Agree to the federal government’s terms and surrender some academic freedom, or refuse and risk further punishment.

The White House’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” — sent to MIT and eight other top-tier universitiesthis week — ties access to federal money to a string of conditions that, if agreed to, would effectuate the most substantial changes MIT has seen to date and fundamentally transform an economic powerhouse of Greater Boston. 

The 10-point document asks the list of schools — which also includes Brown and Dartmouth — to cap international student enrollment, freeze domestic tuition rates for five years, and commit to strict definitions of gender. Some of those requests, such as reducing tuition and the number of international students, are popular with many Americans. But others, including one to limit the speech of university employees, strike at the heart of freedom and independence that universities have long prized.

While MIT declined to comment, on campus and in academia, there doesn’t appear to be much inclination to make a deal with the White House.

The offer amounts to “a loyalty oath to the federal government,” said Catherine D’Ignazio, an MIT professor of urban studies and planning. 

MIT and other schools face new set of demands from White House.

“They’re asking us to sacrifice science. They’re asking us to sacrifice international students. They’re asking us to sacrifice our trans students. They’re asking us to sacrifice our whole idea of shared governance,” D’Ignazio said. “No amount of money is worth that great long list.”

The mandate also says that universities should transform or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” That’s troubling, said Tyler Coward lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, because it conflates allowing speech with condoning violence.

“This mandate basically forces these institutions to remain silent in order to secure some government benefit,” Coward said. “I think that is a problem, a First Amendment problem.”

MIT is free to decline, the administration wrote in the compact, but doing so would mean the institution “elects to forgo federal benefits” that power much of the school’s vast research operations, spurring innovations and paychecks that ripple across Greater Boston and around the globe.

MIT is the birthplace for countless startup companies, forms the backbone of Kendall Square, and serves as a first landing place for many students — roughly 30 percent of whom come from abroad — who stay and build careers in Massachusetts. 

MIT’s endowment is heavily invested in Kendall Square real estate. Here’s why that could be a problem.

Federal money plays a key role in seeding all that. Last year, MIT collected $648 million in government funding for sponsored activities, including research, which federal agenciescould simply choose to award elsewhere.

The provisions in the compact, said Sandy Baum, a higher education finance expert with the think tank The Urban Institute, amount to “dramatic requests” of MIT from a dollars-and-cents perspective. 

MIT is already bracing for a $300 million reduction in its central budget from the newfound 8 percent tax on its endowment and potential losses of federal science funding that powers much of its massive research arm, university administrators said in a September staff forum. (A recording of the meeting was reviewed by the Globe.) 

In the spring, MIT saved roughly $100 million by freezing hiring and instituting a 5 percent cut to department budgets. It plans to close the remaining $200 million gap by terminating some real estate leases and seeking outside private funding for some academic priorities, including climate change, life sciences, and artificial intelligence, according to details shared at the staff forum. Administrators said that they may also withhold merit raises for employees next year. 

“We do need to treat the $300 million amount as a permanent burden on the central budget that requires a permanent budgetary solution,” Glen Shor, MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer said at the September meeting. “Even if power at some point changes hands in Washington, we can’t count on these policies being reversed.”

Meanwhile, signing onto the compact could impact the number of international students at MIT, who make up around 10 percent of its undergraduate population — less than the limit set in the agreement. (Around 40 percent of MIT graduate students are from abroad.) Many international students pay full price to attend MIT, which can cost nearly $90,000 between tuition, housing, and other expenses. MIT would also pledge to cover the cost of attendance for all students studying hard sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology. 

“If [MIT] had to freeze tuition and limit [the] number of international students, that would be a huge hit,” said Baum, the university finance expert. 

Multiple MIT student organizations signed a letter Friday asking MIT to “firmly refuse” to sign the document, claiming that “accepting such a compact would effectively destroy the institutional culture of MIT as we know it.”

Nadia Zaragova, a material sciences PhD student and vice president of the graduate student union, said it would give the federal government “undue oversight over what we do here at the university, including our classrooms, what we study, what we research.”

And Governor Maura Healey, who has proposed $400 million in state funding to help make up for lost federal funds to Massachusetts universities, urged MIT to stand strong, describing the White House offer as “yet another attempt by President Trump to silence speech.”

MIT supporters note the university has already taken up some measures pushed by the Trump administration, including winding down its Institute Community and Equity Office and taking disciplinary actions against students — including a commencement speaker — who participate in pro-Palestinian protests. 

Indeed, MIT was chosen among the schools who received the compact because they are seen as “good actors,” according to May Mailman, senior adviser for special projects at the White House.

“They have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education,” she said to The Wall Street Journal. 

But Ian Hutchinson, an MIT emeritus professor and co-president of its Council of Academic Freedom, said that even those in favor of those moves have sour feelings about the new offer from the administration. 

“Many of us on the council think that the modern academy needs to reform and [is] beginning to do so and that the compact has the risk of alienating a large fraction of the faculty,” he said. 

Others fear that some professors could leave entirely, should the school sign onto the compact. 

A better approach, Hutchinson added, would be if “the government makes clear what it is interested in funding in the way of research and what it is not interested in funding.”

The compact also frames preserving “single-sex spaces” such as bathrooms and locker rooms as necessary for “women’s equality” and stipulates institutions must commit to defining gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”

Mila Halgren, an MIT postdoctoral associate, said including such language is an affront to what the values of American higher education should be. 

“In a personal capacity, every moment MIT even considers this compact is a betrayal of every marginalized group on campus,” she said. “That MIT did not immediately reject a proposal which defines trans people out of existence is shameful.”

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Funding, Gender, Higher Education, Trump

Trump Plans to Award Research Grants to Universities That Endorse His Values

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2025 //
6

There is no end to the Trump administration’s assault on academic freedom. Particularly poisonous is its withdrawal of billions of dollars for scientific research to punish universities that defy his policies. Trump is determined to obliterate any sign of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or any tolerance of anti-Semitism.

Speaking for myself, I wholeheartedly support diversity, equity, and inclusion. Speaking as a Jew, I resent Trump’s hypocritical, duplicitous use of anti-Semitism, an issue he has never cared about and that he cynically exploits.

Until now, research grants were awarded based on scientific merit and peer review. In the proposed changes, the universities that adhere to Trump policies and values would have a competitive advantage.

The Trump cabal is prepared to withhold funding from the nation’s top researchers if they are suspected of including nonwhite, non-male researchers in order to increase D or E or I. They assume that “merit” is found only in white males.

They are willing to deny research grants to Harvard and UCLA and give them to No-Name State Agricultural University, just to make a point.

They are willing to sacrifice research into pediatric cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other afflictions just because they include researchers who are not white men.

What a disgrace this administration is.

Laura Meckler and Susan Svrluga of The Washington Post wrote:

The White House is developing a plan that could change how universities are awarded research grants, giving a competitive advantage to schools that pledge to adhere to the values and policies of the Trump administration on admissions, hiring and other matters.

The new system, described by two White House officials, would represent a shift away from the unprecedented wave of investigations and punishments being delivered to individual schools and toward an effort to bring large swaths of colleges into compliance with Trump priorities all at once.

Universities could be asked to affirm that admissions and hiring decisions are based on merit rather than racial or ethnic background or other factors, that specific factors are taken into account when considering foreign student applications, and that college costs are not out of line with the value students receive.

“Now it’s time to effect change nationwide, not on a one-off basis,” said a senior White House official, who like the other official described the plan on the condition of anonymity because it is still being developed.

Under the current system, the federal government’s vast research funding operation awards billions of dollars’ worth of grants based on peer reviews and scientific merit.

The administration says it is working to enforce civil rights laws, which it contends many universities have violated by embracing diversity, equity and inclusion programs or failing to adequately protect Jewish students or staff from antisemitism. But the effort is almost certain to add to criticism from outside experts who say the administration is already overstepping its authority to try to impose its values on higher education.

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said the outlines of the proposal amounted to an “assault … on institutional autonomy, on ideological diversity, on freedom of expression and academic freedom.”

“Suddenly, to get a grant, you need to not demonstrate merit, but ideological fealty to a particular set of political viewpoints. That’s not merit,” he said. “I can’t imagine a university in America that would be supportive of this…”

Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, his administration has launched investigations of and pulled research funding from universities including Columbia, Harvard and UCLA, and then worked to extract concessions in exchange for restoring the money. Officials say the punishments are an effort to enforce federal laws that bar funding for schools that discriminate on the basis of sex, race or national origin.

The White House has faced setbacks in court — including a big loss this month in its high-profile fight with Harvard and another setback this week in California — and has not reached as many settlement agreements as Trump officials had hoped for.
The senior White House official described the new system as an opportunity for schools to show they are in compliance, as interpreted by the administration. Those that do so, the official said, would be rewarded with a “competitive advantage” in applying for federal grants…

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s law school, said “no one will object” if the White House simply requires universities to pledge compliance with existing law.
But Chemerinsky, one of the attorneys representing UC researchers in a lawsuit challenging terminated federal research funding, also said the administration’s view of what the law requires could be at odds with other interpretations: “It all depends on what the conditions are, and whether those conditions are constitutional.”
Chemerinsky said it would be a First Amendment violation to put schools at a disadvantage in competing for funding if they profess a belief in diversity, for example, because government is not allowed to discriminate based on viewpoint. He said it “would be very troubling” if the White House proposal deviates from the standards that have been used in awarding grants based on the quality and importance of the science, peer review and merit, and uses ideology as the judgment standard instead.

Categories Academic Freedom, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Funding, Higher Education, Medicine, Science, Trump

Mississippi: Federal Judge Enjoins State Ban on DEI

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2025 //
7

I am reposting this news because the earlier version did not have a link. I added additional information about the decision and the Judge.

This decision blocks all efforts to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the state of Mississippi. If ever there was a state that needs DEI to heal from the burden of a racist history, it’s Mississippi.

The Mississippi Free Press reported that Federal District Judge Henry Wingate blocked the implementation of the state’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public schools.

Mississippi’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools remains blocked after a federal judge granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction in an Aug. 18 decision.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi also denied the defendants’ requests to dismiss the case, calling the defendants’ points “moot.”

“This Court generally agrees with Plaintiffs’ view of the challenged portions of (House Bill 1193).

It is unconstitutionally vague, fails to treat speech in a viewpoint-neutral manner, and carries with it serious risks of terrible consequences with respect to the chilling of expression and academic freedom,” U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate wrote in the Court’s decision.

The law, which the Mississippi Legislature approved and Gov. Tate Reeves signed in April, prohibits Mississippi public schools and institutions of higher learning from teaching, creating or promoting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The Republican-backed law also bans schools from requiring diversity statements or training during hiring, admission and employment processes in educational institutions.

Public institutions are also not allowed to teach or “endorse divisive concepts or concepts promoting transgender ideology, gender-neutral pronouns, deconstruction of heteronormativity, gender theory (or) sexual privilege,” the law says.

H.B. 1193 would prohibit public schools from requiring diversity statements or training in hiring, admission and employment processes at educational institutions.

Preliminary injunctions are dependent upon four qualities: “a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; the irreparable injury to the movants if the injunction is denied; whether the threatened injury outweighs any damage that the injunction might cause the defendant; and the public interest.”

Wingate Highlights Threat to Academic Freedom

Judge Wingate also granted the plaintiffs’ request to add class action claims to the lawsuit, meaning the injunction will apply to teachers, professors and students across the state. The plaintiffs’ lawyers sought the addition after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June limited the ability of federal judges to grant sweeping injunctions.

Judge Wingate was born in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa and received his law degree from Yale Law School. He was appointed as a federal district judge by President Ronald Reagan.

Justice Henry Wingate
Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Curriculum, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Justice, Mississippi

Prominent Scholar Cancels Class at Columbia to Protest Capitulation to Trump

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2025 //
14

Rashid Khalidi is a noteworthy Palestinian-American scholar of Middle East history and politics. Born in New York City, he was educated at Yale University and Oxford University, where he received his doctorate. He taught at several universities, mostly at Columbia University, where he spent many years and retired as the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of modern Arab studies. He is also an activist on behalf of the Palestinian cause. He recently released an open letter in opposition to Columbia’s deal with the Trump administration, which punished Columbia for tolerating anti-Semitism.

As long-time readers of this blog may remember, I was appalled by the brutal attack on peaceful Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. I was horrified by the wanton slaughter of men, women, and children, of young people at a dance, of farm workers and Bedouins, the brutal rape of young women, and the hostage-taking. The rage of Israelis was understandable to me. I am not a Zionist but I have always supported Israel’s right to live in peace among its Arab neighbors.

I have no sympathy for terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the others who would like to obliterate Israel and who have no interest in a negotiated settlement that produces a two-state solution. Two states living side by side, in peace.

But, it has become clear that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is not pursuing peace. The war should have ended long ago. Negotiations should have concluded, with a release of the hostages, an end to armed conflict, and plans for a new Palestinian state and a rebuilt Gaza. Instead, far-right Israeli politicians talk about controlling Gaza and establishing a permanent presence. Instead, the IDF continues to kill innocent civilians and to block the distribution of food and medical supplies.

As a Jew, I am ashamed of Netanyahu’s actions and policies. I’m also ashamed of the Israeli West Bank settlers who attack Palestinians trying to live a peaceful life.

As a Jew, I’m sick of Trump using “anti-Semitism” as a shield for his attacks on academic freedom and universities. This is a cynical ploy, coming from a man who welcomes the company of Nazi sympathizers and enjoys their support.

As a Jew, I support academic freedom, the freedom to teach and to learn, the freedom to read what one chooses, and the rights of those who hold different views to speak without fear or censorship.

That is why I am posting Rashid Khalidi’s letter.

Professor Khalidi wrote an open letter to Columbia’s acting president, published in the Guardian on Friday.

Khalidi wrote:

Dear Acting President Shipman,

I am writing you an open letter since you have seen fit to communicate the recent decisions of the board of trustees and the administration in a similar fashion.

These decisions, taken in close collaboration with the Trump administration, have made it impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my scholarship and teaching for more than 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia. Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer”, but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by capitulating to the Trump administration in June.

Specifically, it is impossible to teach this course (and much else) in light of Columbia’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition deliberately, mendaciously and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews. Citing its potential chilling effect, a co-author of the IHRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern, has repudiated its current uses. Yet Columbia has announced that it will serve as a guide in disciplinary proceedings.

Under this definition of antisemitism, which absurdly conflates criticism of a nation-state, Israel, and a political ideology, Zionism, with the ancient evil of Jew-hatred, it is impossible with any honesty to teach about topics such as the history of the creation of Israel, and the ongoing Palestinian Nakba, culminating in the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza with the connivance and support of the US and much of western Europe.

The Armenian genocide, the nature of the absolute monarchies and military dictatorships that blight most of the Arab world, the undemocratic theocracy in Iran, the incipient dictatorial regime in Türkiye, the fanaticism of Wahhabism: all of these are subject to detailed analysis in my course lectures and readings. However, a simple description of the discriminatory nature of Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law – which states that only the Jewish people have the right of self-determination in Israel, half of whose subjects are Palestinian – or of the apartheid nature of its control over millions of Palestinians who have been under military occupation for 58 years would be impossible in a Middle East history course under the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

It is not only faculty members’ academic freedom and freedom of speech that is infringed upon by Columbia’s capitulation to Trump’s diktat. Teaching assistants would be seriously constrained in leading discussion sections, as would students in their questions and discussions, by the constant fear that informers would snitch on them to the fearsome apparatus that Columbia has erected to punish speech critical of Israel, and to crack down on alleged discrimination – which at this moment in history almost invariably amounts simply to opposition to this genocide. Scores of students and many faculty members have been subjected to these kangaroo courts, students such as Mahmoud Khalil have been snatched from their university housing, and Columbia has now promised to render this repressive system even more draconian and opaque.

You have stated that no “red lines” have been crossed by these decisions. However, Columbia has appointed a vice-provost initially tasked with surveilling Middle Eastern studies, and it has ordained that faculty and staff must submit to “trainings” on antisemitism from the likes of the Anti-Defamation League, for whom virtually any critique of Zionism or Israel is antisemitic, and Project Shema, whose trainings link many anti-Zionist critiques to antisemitism. It has accepted an “independent” monitor of “compliance” of faculty and student behavior from a firm that in June 2025 hosted an event in honor of Israel. According to Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration, this “Monitor will have timely access to interview all Agreement-related individuals, and visit all Agreement-related facilities, trainings, transcripts of Agreement-related meetings and disciplinary hearings, and reviews”. Classrooms are pointedly NOT excluded from possible visits from these external non academics.

The idea that the teaching, syllabuses and scholarship of some of the most prominent academics in their fields should be vetted by such a vice-provost, such “trainers” or an outside monitor from such a firm is abhorrent. It constitutes the antithesis of the academic freedom that you have disingenuously claimed will not be infringed by this shameful capitulation to the anti-intellectual forces animating the Trump administration.

I regret deeply that Columbia’s decisions have obliged me to deprive the nearly 300 students who have registered for this popular course – as many hundreds of others have done for more than two decades – of the chance to learn about the history of the modern Middle East this fall. Although I cannot do anything to compensate them fully for depriving them of the opportunity to take this course, I am planning to offer a public lecture series in New York focused on parts of this course that will be streamed and available for later viewing. Proceeds, if any, will go to Gaza’s universities, every one of which has been destroyed by Israel with US munitions, a war crime about which neither Columbia nor any other US university has seen fit to say a single word.

Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former self, an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions. Disgracefully, all of this is being done to cover up one of the greatest crimes of this century, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a crime in which Columbia’s leadership is now fully complicit.

– Rashid Khalidi

Categories Academic Freedom, Censorship, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Higher Education, Trump

Trump Assaults Academic Freedom in Universities

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2025 //
6

Trump’s hatred of universities continues to wreak vengeance, especially on elite institutions. Columbia University was the first to feel his wrath and the first to capitulate. The administration cut off $2 billion in research grants, allegedly as punishment for Columbia’s failure to police anti-Semitism. Columbia negotiated and agreed to pay the federal government $200 million as a fine and accept a federal “monitor.”.

This agreement threatened the independence of the university.

The Washington Post wrote:

Columbia University agreed to pay more than $200 million to settle allegations of civil rights violations from the Trump administration. It agreed to a long list of changes on campus. But one concession struck some observers as particularly troubling: an outside monitor to ensure the school complies.

To critics, the deal represents an unprecedented governmental intrusion into the affairs of a private university that could erode the independence of universities across the country. The White House has said it sees this agreement as a template for other schools that it is investigating for allegations of antisemitism and racial discrimination.

Much of the oversight will relate to diversity, equity and inclusion, as the Trump administration seeks to stamp out any effort by Columbia to increase racial diversity in its student body, faculty or staff. The monitor will also be charged with assuring that university programs do not promote “unlawful DEI goals” — a term that is not defined.

This agreement clarifies the administration’s goal: to stamp out any efforts by the university to increase racial diversity. Every appointment of a nonwhite or female faculty member will set off alarm bells. Every student who increases diversity will be suspected of being DEI.

Trump continues his unpredicted assault on Harvard, threatening to remove its accreditation, threatening to bar foreign students, withholding billions in research grants. It has been rumored in the press that Harvard is close to making a deal to pay $500 million to settle with the Trump administration.

Other colleges and universities are under investigation and subject to painful cuts. John’s Hopkins has been threatened. The latest is Duke University and its health center. What sense does it make to stop funding research on deadly diseases to punish anti-Semitism? None. Zero. Zilch.

Make no mistake: these demands and payoffs have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. if anything, they increase anti-Semitism as “the Jews” are seen as a Trump-favored, protected class and as complicit with Trump’s vicious war on DEI.

What Trump really wants is to narrow the path to higher education for students of color.

Categories Academic Freedom, Higher Education, Trump

Florida: Ousted Staff at New College Say DeSantis’ Allies Raided Restricted Funds to Pay President’s Bloated Salary

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2025 //
0

As part of his war on “woke,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis packed the board of New College with likeminded right wingers intent on purging the small college’s progressive character.

Two financial officers who were ousted during the transition revealed that the DeSantis board dipped into restricted gifts to pay the bloated salary of DeSantis-selected President, Richard Corcoran, a politician with no academic credentials. In other words, one of DeSantis’s cronies.

Suncoast Searchlight reported:

Two former top finance officers at the New College Foundation say they were ousted in 2023 after pushing back against college administrators who sought to use donor-restricted funds to cover President Richard Corcoran’s salary and benefits — a move they said would violate the terms of the donations.

Ron McDonough, the foundation’s former director of finance, and Declan Sheehy, former director of philanthropy, said they warned administrators not to misuse a major gift — the largest donation in the school’s history — which they said was not intended to fund administrative salaries.

Both said their contracts were terminated after they raised concerns internally. 

“The college was trying to find the money to pay the president,” McDonough said. “And I kept on going back, saying, ‘We don’t have this unrestricted money.’”

The accounts of their final days on the job, shared publicly for the first time with Suncoast Searchlight, come as former foundation board members and alumni demand greater transparency and accountability from New College amid rising costs and sweeping institutional change.

Since Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new slate of trustees in early 2023, the small liberal arts college has undergone a dramatic transformation — eliminating its Gender Studies program, reshaping student life, and launching a costly new athletics department. Critics say the administration has also sidelined financial safeguards, raising questions about whether the college is honoring donor intent and maintaining public trust.

Last month, a group of former foundation board members sent Corcoran and New College Foundation executive director Sydney Gruters a demand letter requesting an audit of how restricted donor funds were used and threatening legal action if they do not comply. The letter follows a string of high-profile board resignations and dismissals, including those who held key financial oversight roles.

Their exits, and the college’s move last year to hand Corcoran the unilateral power to fire foundation board members, have deepened fears that independent checks on the foundation’s spending are being systematically dismantled.

A “direct support organization” with close ties to New College, the foundation has never operated independently of the school. But in giving the college president the power to unilaterally remove board members last year, the Board of Trustees further eroded its autonomy. 

“Good governance is not a side item,” said Hazel Bradford, a former foundation board member who sat on the organization’s investments committee and resigned in April, citing concerns about the college’s handling of the foundation. “It’s the beginning and end of any foundation handling other people’s money…”

After the DeSantis-backed overhaul of the Board of Trustees, New College named Corcoran president in early 2023, approving a compensation package that made him the highest-paid president in the college’s history —earning more than $1 million a year in salary and perks.

Because state law limits taxpayer funding for university administrator compensation to $200,000 — an amount that covered only the first four monthsof Corcoran’s salary — New College has turned to its foundation, which manages the school’s endowment and donor funds, to make up the difference.

“Corcoran’s salary is not a one-time thing,” said McDonough. “It’s not sustainable…” 

So the new leadership had to find money to pay Corcoran’s lavish salary, and they turned to the College’s foundation. Most of its funds were restricted by donors for purposes like scholarships. Donor intent is a crucial concept. If a donor give $1 million for scholarships, it should not be used to pay the College president’s salary. Future fundraising will be crippled by violation of that trust.

The older alumni, graduates of the only progressive college in the state, are not likely to make new donations to New College. The new alumni do not yet exist. Maybe Betsy DeVos will bail out New College, which is no longer “new.”

Categories Academic Freedom, DeSantis, Education Reform, Ethics, Florida, Funding, Higher Education

John Merrow: It’s Not Enough to Oppose Trump. What Are We For?

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2025 //
12

John Merrow was the education correspondent for PBS for many years. Now, in retirement, he continues to write and help us think through the existential moments in which we live.

He writes:

More than five million demonstrators in about 2000 communities stepped forward to declare their opposition to Donald Trump, on June 14th. “No Kings Day” was also Trump’s 79th birthday, Flag Day, and the anniversary of the creation of the American army.

So now we know what many of us are against, but the central question remains unanswered: What do we stand FOR? What do we believe in?

Just as FDR called for Four Freedoms, the Democratic party needs to articulate its First Principles.  I suggest three: “The Public Good,” “Individual Rights,” and “Rebuilding America after Trump.” 

 THE PUBLIC GOOD: Democrats must take our nation’s motto, E pluribus unum, seriously, and they must vigorously support the common good.  That means supporting public libraries, public parks, public schools, public transportation, public health, public safety, public broadcasting, and public spaces–almost anything that has the word ‘public’ in it.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Because the fundamental rights that are guaranteed in our Constitution are often subject to interpretation, debate, and even violent disagreement, Democrats must be clear.  Free speech, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, and other fundamental rights are not up for debate, and nor is a woman’s right to control her own body.  

Health care is a right, and Democrats must make that a reality.  

Conflict is inevitable–think vaccination requirements–and Democrats should come down on the side of the public good.  

Because Americans have a right to safety, Democrats should endorse strong gun control measures that ban assault weapons that have only one purpose–mass killing. 

REBUILDING AMERICA AFTER TRUMP:  The Trump regime was and continues to be a disaster for a majority of Americans and for our standing across the world, but it’s not enough to condemn his greed and narcissism, even if he goes to prison.  Let’s first acknowledge that Trump tapped into serious resentment among millions of Americans, which further divided our already divided country.  

The challenge is to work to bring us together, to make ‘one out of many’ in the always elusive ‘more perfect union.’  The essential first step is to abandon the ‘identity politics’ that Democrats have practiced for too long.  Instead, Democrats must adopt policies that bring us together, beginning with mandatory National Service: 

National Service: Bring back the draft for young men and women to require two years of (paid) National Service, followed by two years of tuition or training credits at an accredited institution.  One may serve in the military, Americorps, the Peace Corps, or other helping organizations.  One may teach or work in distressed communities, or rebuild our national parks, or serve in other approved capacities.  JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”  Let’s ask BOTH questions.  

Additionally: 1) Urge states to beef up civic education in public schools, teaching real history, asking tough questions.  At the same time, federal education policies should encourage Community schools, because research proves that schools that welcome families are more successful across many measures.

2) Rebuild Our Aging Infrastructure: This is urgent, and it will also create jobs.

3) Adopt fiscal and monetary policies to address our burgeoning national debt. This should include higher taxes on the wealthy, emulating Dwight Eisenhower. 

4) Adopt sensible and realistic immigration policies that welcome newcomers who arrive legally but close our borders to illegal immigration.

5) Rebuilding America also means rebuilding our alliances around the world.  Democrats should support NATO and Ukraine, and rejoin efforts to combat climate change. 

Categories Academic Freedom, Creativity, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Funding, Guns, Hope, Joy, Justice

Trump Administration Forces Resignation of UVA President Over DEI

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2025 //
7

James Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia since 2018, announced his resignation under intense pressure from the Trump administration.

The Civil Rights Division of the Trump administration pressured the Board of Governors of the university to remove Ryan because of his support for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

They said that he pretended to comply with the federal demands to eliminate DEI but merely renamed them.

For the past half century, DEI was considered a hallmark of compliance with civil rights laws. DEI programs encouraged women and nonehites to enroll in higher education and to study the history of discrimination.

Under Trump, DEI has been reinterpreted to mean favoring those groups at the expense of white men and thus discriminating against white men.

The Trump administration has cut federal grants to universities that are slow or unwilling to dismantle DEI programs.

The New York Times reported that lawyers for the Civil Rights Division demanded Ryan’s ouster.

The demand to remove Mr. Ryan was made over the past month on several occasions by Gregory Brown, the deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, to university officials and representatives, according to the three people briefed on the matter.

Mr. Brown, a University of Virginia graduate who, as a private lawyer, sued the school, is taking a major role in the investigation. He told a university representative as recently as this past week that Mr. Ryan needed to go in order for the process of resolving the investigation to begin, two of the people said.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights lawyer, has also been involved in negotiations with the university. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia, where she was a student in the law school at the same time as Mr. Ryan…

Mr. Ryan, hired in 2018 as the university’s ninth president, has leaned into issues like making the school more diverse, increasing the number of first-generation students and encouraging students to do community service. But his approach, which he says will make the university “both great and good,” has rankled conservative alumni and Republican board members who accuse him of wanting to impose his values on students and claim he is “too woke.”

Before becoming the University of Virginia’s president, Mr. Ryan served as the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was praised for his commitment to D.E.I. programs. Harvard has been one of the Trump administration’s chief targets since it began its assault on higher education.

The administration’s attempt to assert federal influence over state university leadership decisions is also illustrative of how Mr. Trump’s political appointees continue to wield the Justice Department’s investigative powers to achieve policy goals long sought by a top Trump adviser, Stephen Miller.

Legal experts said they could think of few other instances in which an administration had demanded that a school have its president removed in order to resolve a Justice Department investigation.

“This is a tactic you would expect the government to use when it’s playing hard ball in a criminal case involving a corporation accused of serious wrongdoing or pervasive criminal activity,” said Daniel C. Richman, who is a law professor at Columbia University and a former federal prosecutor.

Categories Academic Freedom, Civil Rights, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, Higher Education, History, Injustice, Race, Racism, Trump, Virginia

Trump Strips Protection from 58 Million Acres of Wilderness

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2025 //
32

Henry David Thoreau wrote: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” Thoreau understood that as humans we need to be nourished by contact with or immersion in the natural world. Environmentalists understand this. They fight the inexorable march of what we call progress, which clear-cuts forest and paves over what once were boundless plains. Today, most of us get into a car and drive for hours to connect to wilderness. And we find solace in those encounters.

Most presidents take pride in the number of acres of wilderness that they have saved for future generations and the number of national monuments they designated to preserve unique natural formations. Not Trump. Trump has been openly hostile to environmental protection and to any measures that reduce the risks of climate change.

Yesterday the administration announced that it was opening up 58 million acres for commercial development.

Lisa Friedman wrote in The New York Times:

The Trump administration said on Monday that it would open up 58 million acres of back country in national forests to road construction and development, removing protections that had been in place for a quarter century.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced plans to repeal the 2001 “roadless rule” that had preserved the wild nature of nearly a third of the land in national forests in the United States. Ms. Rollins said the regulation was outdated.

“Once again, President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to common-sense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive roadless rule,” Ms. Rollins said in a statement. She said the repeal “opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests.”

Environmental groups said the plan could destroy some of America’s untouched landscapes and promised to challenge it in court.

The unspoiled land in question includes Tongass National Forest in Alaska, North America’s largest temperate rainforest; Reddish Knob in the Shenandoah Mountains, one of the highest points in Virginia; and millions of acres of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho.

“Most Americans value these pristine backcountry areas for their sense of wildness, for the clean water they provide, for the fishing and hunting and wildlife habitat,” said Chris Wood, the chief executive of Trout Unlimited, an environmental group.

Businesses are eager to chop down the timber. There’s profit in those untouched forests, maybe even tracts for homes. The word “pristine” in not in their vocabulary.

Tags
Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Alabama, Albuquerque, Cruelty, Deregulation, Disruption, Environment, Extremism

The Stench of Censorship Spreads in Higher Education in Red States

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2025 //
8

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that legislatures in Republican-controlled states are passing laws to restrict teaching about racism or any kind of DEI in higher education. Such state laws follow the lead of Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, who was first to launch the war on academic freedom, but also the policies of Trump, who has declared that he too will make war on “woke” (that is, anything that is honest about the dark side of the American past.)

Katharine Mangan reported:

Teaching social work in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Cassandra E. Simon often assigns readings that describe how the families her students might one day serve have been impacted by more than a century of housing, employment, and education discrimination. The associate professor has encouraged her students to engage in spirited discussions about race, even assigning a project in which they advocate for or against a social-justice issue.

Doing any of those things today, she argues in a federal lawsuit, could get her fired from the state flagship, where she’s taught for 25 years. Last year, the state’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed into law a sweeping bill that restricts what professors can teach about race. If any of their lessons veer into what conservative politicians have deemed “divisive concepts,” faculty members risk being reported, investigated, and potentially fired.

That kind of incursion into the curriculum is growing and prompting a flurry of First Amendment challenges from Simon and other plaintiffs. It’s a line state lawmakers did not cross early on in their push to dismantle DEI efforts, even as universities shuttered offices, laid off employees, canceled scholarships, and called off diversity training. But over the past two years, more than a dozen laws have been enacted that either limit which classes can be taught or imposed restrictions on what professors can say in the classroom, according to a Chronicle analysis of state legislation and a compilation of what PEN America calls “educational gag orders.”

This year especially “has been a banner year for censorship at a state level across the country,” said Amy B. Reid, senior manager at PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program. “The point of a lot of these restrictions is to put people on guard, worried that anything or everything could be prohibited so you really have to watch what you say.”

Some of the chief architects of the DEI-dismantling playbook have insisted that they’re not trying to silence anyone. In a January 26 letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal by Ilya Shapiro and Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute, the institute declared that “Conservatives Have No Interest In Censorship.”

“By ending practices such as identity-based discrimination and compulsory, politically coercive diversity statements,” these laws “protect the rights of professors and students to engage freely on all topics, including race,” they wrote.

Despite such reassurances, recent bills seeking to eliminate diversity efforts are encroaching on curricula in a variety of ways. Some states, like Texas, Florida, and Utah, are giving boards more control over what goes into the core curriculum, as well as the ability to shut down programs with low enrollments or questionable work-force advantages. Others, like Alabama and Mississippi, have erected guardrails on topics that can be discussed in the classroom.

Supporters say these laws are needed to prevent liberal professors from veering off into lessons that amount to activism. Some conservative lawmakers argue that it’s their responsibility, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, to ensure public universities are offering degrees that will help students be successful and land jobs.

Critics see these incursions as infringements on free speech and academic freedom. 

The intentions of those who launched “the war on woke” are irrelevant to the reality of what happens when their concerns are taken up by legislatures intent on stamping out disturbing but historically accurate discussions of race and gender. When red-state legislators restrict academic freedom, they do it with an axe, not a scalpel. The result is to instill fear in professors about what they teach and whether they will be fired for thought crimes.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, Higher Education, History, Racism
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »