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PFS Editiorial
This is the title of a recently published empirical study in The Missing Data Depot on Substack. The fact that administrative bloat has far exceeded the growth of faculty and students in numbers and power on American campuses is widely acknowledged. And as bureaucrats reshape and control campus life, anecdotal evidence abounds of the corrupting effects of their power on a university’s primary mission, the production and dissemination of knowledge. This first-of-its kind empirical study focuses exclusively on DEI bureaucracies, and concludes that they “often hurt and almost never help the speech climate on college campuses.” The data shows that the bigger the DEI bureaucracy the more pervasive the climate of fear among students, particularly outside the classroom, on social media and in informal conversations in public settings like the quad or dining hall. This study gives evidence for what close observers have long suspected -- that the growth of DEI bureaucracies correlates closely with the demise of free speech and academic freedom on college campuses. Graphs in this study show that Stanford, currently plagued by free speech scandals, has more DEI staff per 1,000 students than any university in the study. And among the Ivy League, Princeton holds the dubious rank of second only to Harvard. Have a look here at this deep dive into the data.
John K. Wilson
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: On Feb. 14, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued an extraordinary Dear Colleague letter ordering all colleges and schools, public and private, that receive federal funds to implement massive changes and repression of free speech within 14 days. As the letter repeatedly warned and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency posted, “Institutions which fail to comply may face a loss of federal funding.”
The Feb. 14 letter is a full-fledged attack on affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion. It is also one of the worst attacks on academic freedom by the government in the history of American higher education.
Ian Bogost
The Atlantic
Excerpt: Jennie Bromberg was somehow still exuberant last weekend about her future career in public health. In January, she interviewed for a competitive Ph.D. program in epidemiology at the University of Washington, one of several to which she has applied. “I loved them. It was amazing,” she told me by phone while on a walk with her Australian shepherd. But the email that arrived from UW shortly after she got home was not the acceptance letter that she’d hoped for. Nor was it even a rejection. Instead, it said that she’d been placed in grad-school purgatory.
The Trump administration has frozen, slashed, threatened, and otherwise obstructed the tens of billions of dollars in funding that universities receive from the government, and then found ways around the court orders that were meant to stop or delay such efforts.
Jessica Blake and Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: President Donald Trump’s plans to reduce the federal workforce; crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and cut spending have faced swift pushback from higher education associations, students, legal advocacy organizations and colleges, and they’ve turned to the courts to seek relief.
So far, federal judges have temporarily prevented Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team from accessing student financial aid data and blocked the National Institutes of Health from capping payments for costs indirectly related to research. Elsewhere, legal challenges blocked a freeze on federal grants and loans and stopped the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from laying off employees.
