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David Josef Volodzko
The Radicalist, Substack
Excerpt: As a former educator, I believe education is the cornerstone of democracy, not merely because it equips citizens with the tools to thrive professionally, nor because it deepens our understanding of the human condition through exposure to the arts, but because it fosters the critical capacity to make informed decisions.
Yet how can teachers accomplish this critical task if they are too scared to share their actual viewpoints with the class, even within the areas of their expertise?
Jonathan Feingold
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: Trump is coming for higher education. His congressional allies are already armed with measures like HR 6848, which would ban universities from inviting statements that document a professor’s “past or planned contributions to efforts involving diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Outlawing DEI statements makes sense for a president who loves to vilify America’s universities and discredit their democratic commitments. What might be less obvious is that bills like HR 6848, because they curtail university autonomy and undermine DEI initiatives, threaten one of higher education’s most sacred values: academic freedom.
Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: A federal district judge in Kentucky tossed out President Biden’s overhaul of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, ruling Thursday that the regulations exceeded the department’s statutory authority and violated the U.S. Constitution.
The Education Department is now unable to enforce the new regulations, which took effect last summer following a lengthy process to rewrite a rule put in place by the first Trump administration. The decision was part of a lawsuit brought by Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
FIRE
Excerpt: Cornell got a jump on its New Year’s resolutions this winter, unveiling an updated version of its proposed Expressive Activity Policy just before the holiday season. On Dec. 18, the Cornell Committee on Expressive Activity released a much-improved revision of the proposed policy. This comes after FIRE and nearly 500 other organizations and individuals weighed in on an earlier draft from Oct. 30. The final say belongs to university leadership, but this update marks a significant step in the right direction.
