Robert Shibley
FIRE
Excerpt: Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services accused Harvard of violating Title VI, which bans discrimination based on race or nationality at any school that takes federal funding. Last week, it was reported that Harvard is nearing a $500 million settlement with the administration to end legal battles.
In the past two years alone, HHS noted, Harvard has accepted nearly $800 million from the government. But the threat to Harvard’s funding is just the headline. The sweeping theory of “harassment” HHS used to justify its claim has the potential to cause huge damage, not just at Harvard but across the nation, by collapsing protected speech and misconduct into a single charge that could turn campus protest into a civil rights violation.
Ariel Kaminer, Sian Beilock, Jennifer L. Mnookin and Michael S. Roth
New York Times
Excerpt: It’s an eventful moment in American higher education: The Trump administration is cracking down, artificial intelligence is ramping up, varsity athletes are getting paid and a college education is losing its status as the presumptive choice of ambitious high school seniors.
To tell us what’s happening now and what might be coming around the corner, three university leaders — Sian Beilock, the president of Dartmouth; Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan; and Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison — spoke with Ariel Kaminer, an editor at Times Opinion.
Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: The Education Department is planning to move TRIO and numerous other higher education programs to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.”
Instead of moving whole offices, the department detailed a plan Tuesday to transfer certain programs and responsibilities to other agencies. All in all, the department signed six agreements with four agencies, relocating a wide swath of programs.
Associated Press/NPR
Excerpt: The Trump administration cannot fine the University of California or summarily cut the school system's federal funding over claims it allows antisemitism or other forms of discrimination, a federal judge ruled late Friday in a sharply worded decision.