National Free Speech News & Commentary

ED Pressures Accreditor to Act on Columbia

Josh Moody  June 04, 2025 1 min read

Josh Moody 
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The Department of Education has publicly called on Columbia University’s accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, to take action against the university’s alleged noncompliance with federal nondiscrimination laws.

In a Wednesday news release, officials wrote that Columbia was found to have acted “with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students, thereby violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Officials said, “Columbia failed to meaningfully protect Jewish students against severe and pervasive harassment on Columbia’s campus and consequently denied these students’ equal access to educational opportunities to which they are entitled under the law.” As a result of that finding, ED called on MSCHE to take action on the matter.

Read More

Commentary: We Are All Harvard Now

John Warner June 04, 2025 1 min read

John Warner
Academic Freedom On The Line, Substack 

Excerpt: If you were to page through the decade-plus years of archives of my Inside Higher Ed blog you will find many criticisms of our nation's elite private universities.

My complaints and grievances as catalogued in these pieces are almost too numerous to mention. I do not approve of their distorting effects on college admissions; I find their claims of being meritocracies hollow; I decry their lousy leadership; I lament the amount of attention and money they suck up relative to their paltry share of the overall higher education sector. I'll end whatever suspense I've generated and say that no, Trump's proposal to significantly increase the tax on university endowments is not something I support.

Read More

Columbia University fails to meet accreditation standards, Education Department alleges

Dan Mangan June 04, 2025 1 min read

Dan Mangan
CNBC

Excerpt: The U.S. Department of Education said Wednesday that Columbia University has failed to meet the standards for accreditation because the Ivy League school “is in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws” for allegedly tolerating harassment of Jewish students on campus.

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accrediting institution that Columbia belongs to, of the alleged violation. The department noted that by federal regulations, “accreditors are required to notify any member institution about a federal noncompliance finding and establish a plan to come into compliance.”

Read More

Where International Students Stand Now

Liam Knox June 03, 2025 1 min read

Liam Knox
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Almost three months after the arrest of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, international students in the U.S. still face unprecedented challenges and threats from the federal government. For many, this semester has been a roller coaster of existential fear, fleeting hope and, above all, uncertainty about their future. 

Read More

Opinion | JD Vance Wanted to ‘Aggressively Attack’ American Universities. His Wish Has Been Trump’s Command.

Thomas B. Edsall June 03, 2025 1 min read

Thomas B. Edsall
New York Times

Excerpt: Gregory Conti, a political scientist at Princeton, is not a left-wing academic. He is a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and the editor at large of Compact, a heterodox online magazine that leans to the right. In the case of Trump v. Harvard, Conti wrote in Compact, the university “is close to being an appendage of the Democratic Party.”

Despite Conti’s indisputably conservative credentials, he has come to believe that the Trump administration’s approach to higher education — and toward Harvard in particular — not only violates due process but also threatens to destroy the reputation of the United States as an international center of learning.

Read More

A Stephen Miller Staffer and Tough Talk: Inside Trump’s Latest Attack on Harvard

Michael S. Schmidt and Michael C. Bender June 02, 2025 1 min read

Michael S. Schmidt and Michael C. Bender
New York Times

Excerpt: The Justice Department quietly approached Harvard University last month with startling claims, even by the extraordinary standards of the Trump administration’s monthslong assault on the elite college.

The department signaled that it was reviewing claims of discrimination against white men at The Harvard Law Review, and accused the renowned publication of destroying evidence in an open investigation. The administration demanded that Harvard “cease and desist” from interfering.

Read More


Previous 1 62 63 64 65 66 235 Next