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This past April, the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education delivered a final report to university president Maurie McInnis on the problem of declining trust in higher education. The work of the 10-person faculty committee, established by President McInnis in spring 2025 and co-chaired by me and Professor Beverly Gage, focused in part on how Yale could right its own ship, ultimately recommending 20 steps that the university should take to help restore trust.
Fortunately, President McInnis took the report and its recommendations seriously, starting by taking responsibility (the report’s first recommendation) on behalf of the university for its role in the trust crisis.
More than half of respondents to The Crimson’s annual faculty survey opposed Harvard’s efforts to solicit donations for a viewpoint diversity initiative — rejecting a push to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through $10 million endowed professorships meant to broaden ideological representation.
Nearly 47 percent of faculty respondents also disagreed that Harvard has a troubling lack of ideological diversity among its faculty, while roughly 31 percent agreed. The split was little changed from last year, when 45 percent disagreed and 34 percent agreed — putting most respondents at odds with critics, including Trump administration officials, who have charged that Harvard’s faculty is too ideologically narrow.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk generated a wave of censorship at America's colleges over the past year, further contributing to a climate in which too many students fear expressing themselves on campus.
Encouragingly, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s seventh annual College Free Speech Rankings found the percentage of students who said it was acceptable to shout down a speaker, block entry to a campus speech, or use violence to stop a campus speech declined slightly from last year’s record highs.
The Trump administration is threatening to revoke the tax-exempt status of private nonprofit colleges that “engage in racial discrimination,” which it claims includes the adoption or enforcement of any admissions policies, scholarships or other programs intended to support Black, Hispanic or other minority students. It’s the latest effort in the administration’s ongoing push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion at American universities.
As many as 18,000 private schools—which includes K–12 and postsecondary institutions—could have their 501(c)(3) tax exemption revoked if they are found to “discriminat[e] on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational, admissions, scholarship, athletic, or other policies,” according to a draft of the proposed rule released Thursday.
It’s been a month since the Department of Education issued a public letter to college presidents and boards, calling on them to answer questions about how they’re meeting the priorities of the Trump administration. Public-college systems in Florida and North Carolina have replied enthusiastically, but most institutions seem to be doing some version of waiting and seeing.
The sparse replies contrast with how college leaders reacted to a similar letter that the Education Department posted last year, the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” That document drew a number of relatively swift, high-profile rejections. This time, colleges have until the end of the year to respond to the letter, issued August 3 and titled “A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards.”
Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors will focus its efforts on open expression and faculty governance this academic year.
The group, which spans the University’s 12 graduate schools, organizes instructors and researchers to advocate for causes on campus. Communication professor and AAUP-Penn chapter president Jessa Lingel outlined the organization’s upcoming advocacy plans in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian. “Open expression is a really important issue for our group because it affects every part of teaching and learning at Penn,” Lingel said.
