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John Tomasi 
Heterodox Academy 

Excerpt: Last week, the Manhattan Institute issued a statement on university reform, calling on the “President of the United States to draft a new contract with the universities.” Many of the signatories hold university and faculty appointments. Two days after the statement was issued, UATX President Carlos Carvalho responded with a forceful endorsement of the statement, which has led to controversy that has already prompted the resignation of Lawrence H. Summers from that institution’s board of advisors.

The Manhattan Institute statement’s recommendations for university reform are not novel; in fact, they are similar to a number of the reforms HxA recommended last month in our Open Inquiry U Reform Agenda. But there are important distinctions between the two reform agendas that must be explicitly called out.

Christopher F. Rufo
City Journal

Excerpt: America’s colleges and universities have long been the bright lights of our civilization. For nearly four centuries, they have pioneered new fields of knowledge, brought the arts and sciences to new heights, and educated the men who built our republic. But over the past half-century, these institutions gradually discarded their founding principles and burned down their accumulated prestige, all in pursuit of ideologies that corrupt knowledge and point the nation toward nihilism.

Now, the truth is undeniable. Beginning with the George Floyd riots and culminating in the celebration of the Hamas terror campaign, the institutions of higher education finally ripped off the mask and revealed their animating spirit: racialism, ideology, chaos.

Jennifer Lundquist and the Stand Together for Higher Leadership Team
Academe Blog

Excerpt: I, along with the undersigned leaders of Stand Together for Higher Ed, a national faculty-led movement to defend US higher education, are deeply concerned by reports that Harvard University is engaged in negotiations with the Trump administration to settle ongoing legal disputes. While negotiation is not inherently wrong, in this case it risks setting a dangerous precedent for faculty governance, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy across higher education. All eyes have been on Harvard’s lawsuit because its outcome will shape these values for the rest of us.

William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: One in two faculty members who responded to a survey of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences said the Trump administration’s actions have discouraged them from expressing their political views.

More than 70 percent reported feeling negatively about the state of academic freedom at United States colleges and universities. Pressure from the government was the most cited threat to academic freedom, with 85 percent of respondents identifying it as a major fear.

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

Excerpt: The University of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, has told the board overseeing the school that he will resign in the face of demands by the Trump administration that he step aside in order to help resolve a Justice Department inquiry into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter.

Emily Chamlee-Wright
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: American higher education is on its back foot. As part of the Trump administration’s broader project of regime consolidation, universities are facing new and shockingly direct threats to their independence and academic freedom. And in the past few months, we’ve seen that reality start to sink in.

 Sometimes there is no more compromise to be had and the only way to stand on principle is to forthrightly say no. In the process, the academic community can reclaim fundamental values that had been eroding well before the present crisis.

Robert Shibley
The Eternally Radical Idea

Excerpt: Last month, during the ongoing fight between the Trump Administration and Harvard University over student visas, research funding, anti-Semitism, and seemingly everything else under the sun, Vice President J.D. Vance weighed in on X, suggesting that universities should see Trump’s actions as a “necessary corrective.”

Ignoring legally required due process, as too many of the administration’s attacks on Harvard have done so far, has certainly not been “necessary.” But the underlying problems to which Vance points are real. They have done serious damage to knowledge production in America. And they’re poised to do even more, as they contain within them the seeds of destruction for Harvard — or any other university targeted by the federal government.

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.

Greg Lukianoff
The Atlantic

Excerpt: On May 22, the Department of Homeland Security stripped Harvard University of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, instantly jeopardizing the visas of nearly 6,800 international students—27 percent of the student body.

Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein
Persuasion

Excerpt: On May 5, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent Harvard University a letter declaring that the school “should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” effectively rendering Harvard ineligible for government funding for any new research. It was the latest volley in what has been a contentious battle between Harvard and the Trump administration.

Harvard has absolutely earned everyone’s scorn. For years, our organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), has been criticizing Harvard for creating an ideological monoculture, cultivating an environment hostile to viewpoint diversity, and failing to address the problem of anti-Semitism on its campus. However, the administration’s actions towards Harvard pose a far greater threat to higher education and the principles of academic freedom than any of the sins committed by Harvard itself.

Emily Glazer, Douglas Belkin, Juliet Chung
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Leaders of some of the nation’s most prestigious universities have assembled a private collective to counter the Trump administration’s attacks on research funding and academic independence across higher education, according to people familiar with the effort.

J. D. Tuccille 
Reason 

Excerpt: Given the censorious conduct of colleges and universities in recent years, it takes a lot to get free speech advocates to treat them as aggrieved parties. But the Trump administration has accomplished that by using the power of the state to coerce changes in campus political climates, disciplinary procedures, and hiring practices. Harvard University is digging in its heels and suing the federal government in response. 

But if institutions of higher learning really want to assert their independence, they should emulate a school with a lower profile and fewer resources that won its freedom by cutting ties with the government decades ago: They should follow the example of Hillsdale College.

Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The Education Department accused Harvard University of not fully complying with a federal law that requires colleges to disclose all foreign gifts and contracts totaling $250,000 or more.

The department said Friday that its review of Harvard’s disclosures showed they were “incomplete and inaccurate.” As a result, the department requested records related to all of Harvard’s foreign gifts and contracts and procedures related to complying with Section 117, the federal law that requires the disclosures. Additionally, the department wants information about foreign students who have been expelled since January 2016 as well as lists of funding sources for “any research conducted by foreign expelled students” and of all researchers, scholars, students or faculty affiliated with foreign governments.

Keith E. Whittington
The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Yesterday the Trump administration launched yet another massive financial blow at a university because it has done some things the administration does not like. This time the University of Pennsylvania's medical research is being decimated because the administration disagrees with the Penn athletic department's transgender policies.

Troy Closson, Alan Blinder and Katherine Rosman
New York Times

Excerpt: Many professors saw it as surrender, a reward to the Trump administration’s heavy hand. Conservative critics of academia celebrated it as an overdue, righteous reset by an Ivy League university.

Columbia University’s concession on Friday to a roster of government demands as it sought to restore about $400 million in federal funding is being widely viewed as a watershed in Washington’s relationships with the nation’s colleges. By design, the consequences will be felt immediately on Columbia’s campus, where, for example, some security personnel will soon have arrest powers and an academic department that had drawn conservative scrutiny is expected to face stringent oversight. But they also stand to shape colleges far from Manhattan.

Kathryn Palmer
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: A $10,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services is allowing a tribal college in northern Michigan to continue offering library services during a building renovation. The IMLS, which is the largest federal funding source for U.S. museums and libraries, also awarded a historically Black university in Virginia $52,000 to digitize an archival collection about the women’s college it absorbed in 1932. And an academic researcher in Florida is counting on a $150,000 grant to help school librarians better support students who are autistic.

But as of last week, those and hundreds of other federally funded programs at museums and libraries—many housed at cash-strapped colleges and universities—are in jeopardy.

Katherine Franke
Academe Blog

Excerpt: For the last year and a half, as students at Columbia University and across the globe have protested against the Israeli government’s genocidal assault on Palestinians after the October 2023 attacks, a response that has resulted in horrendous devastation in Gaza, I have ardently defended students’ right to peaceful protest on our campus and across the country.  I truly believed that student engagement with the rights and dignity of Palestinians continued a celebrated tradition at Columbia University of student protest.

Instead, the University has allowed its own disciplinary process to be weaponized against members of our community, including myself. I have been targeted for my support of pro-Palestinian protesters – by the president of Columbia University, by several colleagues, by university trustees, and by outside actors.

Bridget O'Neill
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 shared in an interview with The Daily Princetonian that the University will not consider institutional neutrality. The University administration will maintain the current policy of institutional restraint although Eisgruber expressed plans to issue statements “less frequently.”

FIRE

Excerpt: After Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano sued Oklahoma historian James P. Gregory Jr. for criticizing his academic research, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is stepping in to defend James’ First Amendment right to question powerful public officials.

James is a museum director and Ph.D. candidate who did nothing more than raise legitimate concerns about the quality of Mastriano’s academic scholarship, engaging in expression squarely protected by the First Amendment.

Laura Spitalniak
Higher Ed Dive

Excerpt: In August, regional AAUP conferences surveyed 2,924 faculty members from twelve Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Roughly 60% of survey participants hold tenure.

Over half of faculty cited salary concerns and their state’s political climate as factors pushing them to pursue other employment, at 56.5% and 53.3% respectively. And 49.6% cited concerns over academic freedom.

Sara Weissman
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: University of Austin, a new higher ed institution founded by high-profile conservative figures, officially welcomed its inaugural class on Monday.

The university, sometimes referred to as UATX, markets itself as an institution born out of alarm over the “rising tide of illiberalism and censoriousness prevalent in America’s universities” and says it is committed to “the pursuit of truth.”

Douglas Belkin
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Jewish students at Columbia University were threatened, attacked, shunned and harassed on campus last school year, and many faculty refused to believe their complaints or act to stop the problem, a new report said.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: In the summer of 2022, Florida newspapers reported on the strange appearance of $3 million in one-time funds from Florida’s GOP-controlled state Legislature for something called the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civics Education at the University of Florida. The university said it hadn’t asked for this new entity.

Two years later, this center—backed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis and now embraced by university officials—is rapidly expanding to become a UF college. But the center has remained beset with controversy, from its murky origins to university investigations of its alleged faculty opponents to a summer Faculty Senate approval of its degrees that left some professors feeling “railroaded.”

Jocelyn Gecker

Associated Press

Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value and cost of college, with most saying they feel the U.S. higher education system is headed in the “wrong direction,” according to a new poll.

Overall, only 36% of adults say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, according to the report released Monday by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. That confidence level has declined steadily from 57% in 20

Sammy Feldblum
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: The American Association of University Professors has denounced the militarized response to student dissent: “At this critical moment,” the organization writes, “too many cowardly university leaders are responding to largely peaceful, outdoor protests by inviting law enforcement in riot gear to campus and condoning violent arrests. These administrators are failing in their duty to their institutions, their faculty, their students, and their central obligation to our democratic society.”

In an interview for The Review, I spoke with Irene Mulvey, president of the AAUP. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Randall L. Kennedy
The Harvard Crimson

Nearly forty years ago, then-University President Derek C. Bok wrote an open letter championing a libertarian ethos of free speech at Harvard that would satisfy even its most ardent defenders. His views, he noted, were “in keeping with the main lines of Constitutional thought. . . . Despite recognizing that Harvard is a private institution and thus outside the sweep of the First Amendment, Bok nevertheless maintained that Harvard should not “have less free speech than the surrounding society — or than a public university.” . . .  

The Harvard community, however, ought not be doctrinaire in its reliance on the First Amendment. Harvard should govern speech on campus according to a separate standard anchored solely by academic concerns . . . . For example, if Harvard were bound by the First Amendment, the University would be compelled to permit students to chant, in the middle of Harvard Yard, “no means yes, and yes means anal” or “send the Blacks back to Africa”or “exterminate the Jews!” — all phrases that, standing alone, are protected when uttered in a public space like Cambridge Common or the quad at the University of Massachusetts. . . . Ought Harvard be so permissive?

Lisa Tolin
PEN America

Excerpt: Amid its high-profile struggle around free speech on campus, Harvard University invited PEN America to convene a Free Speech Summit on Friday for 100 student leaders from Harvard and other universities.

The event kicked off with a lively keynote panel about free expression in higher education featuring PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy, and University of Chicago Dean of the College John W. Boyer, moderated by Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana.

Carole Hooven
The Free Press

Excerpt: Since early December, the end of my 20-year career teaching at Harvard has been the subject of articles, op-eds, tweets from a billionaire, and even a congressional hearing. I have become a poster child for how the growing campus DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—bureaucracies strangle free speech. My ordeal has been used to illustrate the hypocrisy of the assertions by Harvard’s leaders that they honor the robust exchange of challenging ideas.

To be a central example of what has gone wrong in higher education feels surreal. If there is any silver lining to losing the career that I found so fulfilling, perhaps it’s that my story will help explain the fear that stalks campuses, a fear that spreads every time someone is punished for their speech.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: The litany of college wokeness, and especially the harm it causes, is now being discussed by the mainstream media, including the Atlantic and the Washington Post. Here, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the most respected venue for discussing college affairs, published a long piece (ca. 6000 words) discussing how “a decade of ideological transformation”—and that means “wokeness”—is no longer off limits to criticism.

Susan H. Greenburg
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Seven former presidents of public institutions in Florida published in an op-ed in The Tampa Bay Times Wednesday criticizing the legislative steps the state has taken to reshape higher education by dictating what faculty can teach, curtailing the power of accrediting bodies and banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“These measures erode academic freedom, prohibit instructors from accurately conveying history to their students and, ultimately, limit students’ access to the full range of information and ideas they need to become engaged citizens,” they wrote.

Jordan Howell
Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression

Excerpt: It’s not everyday that presidents from more than a dozen of the nation’s leading universities announce an ambitious initiative advocating for free expression in higher education, but that’s exactly what happened last week, according to a press release from The Institute for Citizens & Scholars and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

These are all laudable actions, and FIRE is excited to see presidents from these institutions answering the call to protect freedom of speech on their campuses, especially in the wake of numerous events in recent years that have had a chilling effect on free speech — from retaliation against faculty for expressing their political views to student-led shout-downs of speakers with controversial views.

Patricia Okker
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: On Friday, January 6, 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican of Florida, announced six new members to the Board of Trustees at New College of Florida, where I was serving as president. The announcement was not surprising. For weeks I had heard reports that appointments were likely, and everyone expected trustees with strong conservative backgrounds.

In the weeks leading up to the board’s first meeting on January 31 — at which I was fired as president — the logic of this militaristic rhetoric became clear. Far more than a political shift in the governance of our small liberal-arts college, New College had become the epicenter of a debate about the future of academic freedom, shared governance, freedom of expression, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

By Liam Stack
New York Times

Excerpt: When Raegan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot decided to include their pronouns at the end of their work emails, they thought they were doing a good thing: following what they viewed as an emerging professional standard, and also sending a message of inclusivity at the Christian university where they worked.

By Mitch Dudek
Chicago Sun Times

Excerpt: Former University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer led the South Side institution for 15 years as a champion of free speech on campus at a time when the notion was being widely challenged.

Garrett Gravley
FIRE

Imagine wearing an “I Voted” sticker to class and having the school investigate you for it. Or handing out pocket editions of the Constitution on campus for Constitution Day, only for your school to deem this disruptive.

On Nov. 7, individuals identifying with Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine left chalkboard messages around campus while classes were out of session. These messages read, “Trinity is suppressing freedom of assembly,” “Disclose Divest Protest,” “Trinity Invests in Genocide,” “You are on stolen land,” and “Free Palestine.” That evening, Trinity President Daniel Lugo emailed the campus community, announcing an investigation of the messages for disruption, intimidation, and harassment.

Nick Gillespie
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Nick Gillespie speaks with Dr. Wolf von Laer of Students for Liberty, and Sean Themea of Young Americans for Liberty about how campus activism may change after the murder of Charlie Kirk. They discuss how the tragedy has affected their organizations, what it means for the future of student organizing, and how libertarian ideas about free expression and individual rights fit in today's campus climates.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression

Excerpt: If America’s colleges could earn report cards for free speech friendliness, most would deserve an “F”— and conservative students are increasingly joining their liberal peers in supporting censorship.

Len Gutkin 
Chronicle of Higher Education 

Excerpt: Princeton’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, has fiercely defended DEI initiatives in the face of pressure to disavow them from the Trump administration. But in his forthcoming book, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, he recommends that colleges jettison at least one such initiative, namely “politically loaded practices like mandatory diversity statements for job candidates.” 

Given that Eisgruber has accused other college leaders, as The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch put it, “of carrying water for the Trump administration,” his concession on diversity statements matters. If even the Ivy League’s biggest defender of the status quo ante Trump has turned against diversity statements, it seems likely that they’re on the way out.

Robert Manzer
AEI

Excerpt: Whatever their political persuasion, most observers of American higher education now agree that the real or apparent politicization of universities has become a major problem. Accreditors, the member most responsible for academic quality in the higher education regulatory triad, should be at the forefront, helping universities confront this problem.

Accreditation can most effectively address universities’ politicization by strengthening faculty governance. Faculty play a central role in shaping academic life, and their authority over curricula and standards is well established by tradition and regulation.

Nathan Honeycutt
FIRE

Excerpt: Supporters claim that requiring diversity, equity, and inclusion statements in job applications can help foster those values. But critics say it does just the opposite. Findings from a new study I conducted supports the latter position, and they come just as schools are backing away from DEI.

The University of California said last week it will stop requiring standalone DEI statements in faculty hiring. The Chronicle of Higher Education has tracked the dismantling of DEI efforts at colleges, including the 10 states passing legislation to restrict the use of DEI statements on campuses.

Vimal Patel
New York Times

Excerpt: The University of California said on Wednesday that it would stop requiring the use of diversity statements in hiring, a practice praised by some who said it made campuses more inclusive but criticized by others who said it did the opposite.

The Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Justice Clarence Thomas filed a peppy dissent, but the Supreme Court was otherwise silent and cryptic on Monday in declining to hear a challenge to Indiana University’s “bias response team.” As a result, the circuit courts will stay split, since lower judges are divided on whether such campus bodies chill student expression. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said no in Speech First v. Whitten.

Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights
United States Department of Education 

Excerpt: Discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal and morally reprehensible. Accordingly, I write to clarify and reaffirm the nondiscrimination obligations of schools and other entities that receive federal financial assistance from the United States Department of Education (Department). This letter explains and reiterates existing legal requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, and other relevant authorities.

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.