Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed
A federal district judge on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its new regulations for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in Alaska, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming.
Judge John Broomes of the District of Kansas wrote in a 47-page opinion that the Education Department lacked the authority to expand prohibited sex-based discrimination under Title IX to include discrimination based on gender identity and that the new regulations could chill speech “through vague and overbroad language.” The protections for LGBTQ+ students are at the heart of the Kansas lawsuit and other legal challenges.
Jake Offenhartz
Associated Press
Excerpt: New York University said it would deny a diploma to a student who used a graduation speech to condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and what he described as U.S. “complicity in this genocide.”
Logan Rozos’s speech Wednesday for graduating students of NYU’s Gallatin School sparked waves of condemnation from pro-Israel groups, who demanded the university take aggressive disciplinary action against him.
Alice Speri
The Guardian
Excerpt: Parker Hovis was four courses away from getting his computer science degree from the University of Florida when he was arrested along with several other students at a pro-Palestinian protest on campus last spring. While the charges against him were dismissed and a school conduct committee recommended only minor punishment – a form of probation – the university administration suspended him for three years. He’ll be required to reapply if he wants to come back after that.
Hovis, who has since left Florida and is working to pay off his student loans despite never graduating, is one of more than 1,000 students or student groups that were targeted by their universities for punishment between 2020 and 2024 over their speech, according to a report published today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire). About 63% of them were ultimately punished.
Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: All the pieces of House Republicans’ plan to cut trillions in federal spending are now public, and if the package becomes law, colleges and universities could face crippling repercussions, higher education experts say.
“It is a full-out assault on the ability of students—especially low-income students—to access and afford higher education,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. “It will have a dramatically negative impact, not just on higher ed, but on the whole population.”