More DEI Shenanigans, New Wrinkles in the Still Disruptive Student Protests – or Are They Outside Agitators? And DOJ Pays $380 Million to 139 Girls Abused by Larry Nassar
You can’t make this stuff up, but it has finally entered the presidential politics and commencement arenas
PURPOSE
DEI Rebranding
The pushback on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has been growing in the last year, with dozens of states and campuses beginning to shut down a decades-long effort to institutionalize what supporters believed would allow neglected minorities to share more fully in the benefits offered by colleges by establishing separate offices of DEI and requiring employees to sign DEI statements (see Further Reading below). Baruch seemed to be a lone DEI success story when the New York Times hailed the school as “a model college in a new report on diversity in higher education” last month. And Harvard choosing a DEI proponent and former McKinsey consultant “who has criticized meritocracy and published controversial research on the benefits of diversity in business,” according to the Washington Free Beacon, to be included in its presidential search committee was a quiet nod to Claudine Gay, its recently defrocked leader. But it was news-making when professor Randall Kennedy, an eminent African American scholar of race and civil rights at the school, wrote an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson denouncing the use of DEI statements in academic hiring. “I am a scholar on the left committed to struggles for social justice,” Kennedy wrote. “The realities surrounding mandatory DEI statements, however, make me wince.” As it turns out, Kennedy may be a step ahead of what the Times unveiled last month as a “workaround” for avoiding the attacks on DEI: “Welcome to the new ‘Office of Access and Engagement.’ Schools are renaming departments and job titles to try to preserve diversity programs.”
Sources
Mandatory DEI Statements Are Ideological Pledges of Allegiance. Time to Abandon Them (Harvard Crimson)
Baruch College, an Upward-Mobility Machine (New York Times)
Harvard Taps Longtime DEI Advocate To Help Pick University’s Next President (Washington Free Beacon)
With State Bans on D.E.I., Some Universities Find a Workaround: Rebranding (New York Times)
Further Reading
Dozens of Campuses Shed or Alter DEI Efforts as Political Pressure Mounts (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Texas’ diversity, equity and inclusion ban has led to more than 100 job cuts at state universities (Wisconsin State Journal)
Abolish DEI Statements (The Atlantic)
Kansas’ higher ed board adopts an anti-DEI policy after pressure from GOP legislators (AP)
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI (Chronicle of Higher Education)
New wave of job cuts follows DEI bans (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Faculty diversity at universities lags behind students: Watchdog (The Hill)
University of Texas professors demand reversal of job cuts from shuttered DEI initiative (Associated Press)
GOVERNANCE
Campus Protests: A Few New Wrinkles
This week’s protests offered some interesting twists on what were the fairly predictable “crackdowns” by university officials this week; the latter best summarized by this Los Angeles Times front-page headline, UCLA Defends Dimantling Camp. Hundreds of camps were taken down and more hundreds of students arrested. But new this week was the idea that the students were being used. Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf (not Naomi Klein Wolf) was certainly there, warning that American students were actually “targets” in these protests and may in fact be “walking into a terrifying trap.” Wolf, a la Jonathan Haidt (see PTW), says that “a generation which has grown up on its phone, finally
has a battle, replete with heroes and villains, risk and tactics, exciting enough ‘IRL’ [IN REAL LIFE] to compete with Mortal Kombat; and ignorance, as naive students who have no knowledge of the complexities of the agony of Israel/Palestine’s conflict, credulously mouth reductive, inflammatory slogans, including `We are Hamas,’ `Intifada Now’ and `From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.’
“Students more knowledgeable and compassionate,” says Wolf, “could as easily call for a ceasefire, for peace talks; and for all sides to obey the international rules of war,” which is something of what happened at Brown last week when “Brown University and others have agreed to consider ending investments linked to Israel.” At the same time Wolf’s worry about “students being used” was similar to what the mayor of New York City voiced in blaming the protests on “external actors” and the New York Times to actually find some.
And leave it to the Times to find the next wrinkle in the protest movement, in a cagey headline on Sunday morning: A New Issue Flares in the 2024 Race: Campus Protests, suggesting that the ostensible free speech brouhaha on campus might help determine who the country’s next president is. We can let David Brooks, also of the Times, explain. Leaving aside the outside agitator talk and assuming that “most of the protesters are operating with the best of intentions — to ease the suffering being endured by the Palestinian people,” Brooks points out that the “protests have unexpected political consequences,” including who we elect president. It’s worth a read. See also Further Reading below for more, but I can’t help but end with these words from Naomi Wolf,
These protests are not solely organic. It is important at a time such as this to remember something that I have tried to warn the world since 2007, during the “Global War on Terror.” An event can be both real and orchestrated or hyped. A threat can be both real and exaggerated. People involved in an “action” or protest can be authentically moved by an issue, and also be pawns in the strategy of cynical infiltrators or agitators, working with guidance from much higher up, who are themselves directing activity on a very big chessboard.
Sources
UCLA Defends Dimantling Camp (Los Angeles Times)
US Campus Chaos: A New Oct 7 on the Way? (Substack)
Calls to Divest From Israel Put Students and Donors on Collision Course (New York Times)
Outsiders Were Among Columbia Protesters, but They Dispute Instigating Clashes (New York Times)
A New Issue Flares in the 2024 Race: Campus Protests (New York Times)
Why the Protests Help Trump (New York Times)
Further Reading
Biden Fails the Campus Protest Test (Wall Street Journal)
Why Are Prestigious Colleges In Chaos? Perhaps Because Students Are Bored (Forbes)
Columbia Faculty Call for No Confidence Vote in Shafik (Daily News)
College Idiots Calling for ‘Intifada’ Have No Clue (New York Post)
Columbia’s Violence Against Protesters Has a Long History (The Nation)
Police Officer Fired Gun at Columbia (Associated Press)
America’s Colleges Are Reaping What They Sowed (The Atlantic)
Half of Arrests at Columbia and CCNY Not Affiliated with Schools (CNN)
These 3 Colleges Struck Deals With Their Protesters
(Chronicle of Higher Education)
How Trustees Can Save Columbia, Brown, Penn, Yale (Real Clear Education)
Jailed students, a canceled ceremony and angry parents (Los Angeles Times)
Substack: More Colleges Closing, More Athletes Transferring, More Protest News, and Some Good Ideas
· When a Pro-Free-Speech Dean Shuts Down a Student Protest (The New Yorker) An online argument erupted after a video of a law professor grabbing a microphone from a student went viral. But the debate has obscured some fairly basic truths.
· Sending college students into classrooms to help our struggling students could be a winning post-pandemic solution (The Hechinger Report) If we remove obstacles, the federal work-study program could bring thousands of tutors into the nation’s schools
· Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students? (The Hechinger Report) Most never finish their degrees, and alumni wonder about the value of degrees they’ve earned
· They Entered College in Isolation and Leave Among Protests: The Class That Missed Out on Fun (Wall Street Journal) The pandemic left many students anxious and lonely, still choosing to go to class online, watch games on their phones and eat meals in their rooms. ‘We’ve never had a calm time when we can just focus on being kids.’
· Defining Free Speech Down on Campus (Wall Street Journal) Anti-Israel protesters invoke a First Amendment they don’t understand.
· Athlete Transfers Are on the Rise. So Is the ‘Grueling’ Work That Makes Them Possible. (Chronicle of Higher Education) Twenty college athletes wanted to transfer to a new campus. Could they? It fell to Ronald Moses to help sort it out.
· Winning a Fulbright Was a High Honor for Russians. Now It Could Jeopardize Scholars Who Go Home. (Chronicle of Higher Education) For scholars from around the world, a Fulbright award is an academic triumph, a chance to study and live in the United States.
· How Columbia’s Campus Was Torn Apart Over Gaza (The New Yorker) The university asked the N.Y.P.D. to arrest pro-Palestine student protesters. Was it a necessary step to protect Jewish students, or a dangerous encroachment on academic freedom?
· Cornell Becomes Latest Ivy-League to Reinstate Standardized-Testing Requirement for Admissions (National Review) Cornell University is reinstating the standardized testing admissions requirement for applicants seeking admission for Fall 2026.
· Faculty-administrator distrust is making US universities ungovernable (Times Higher Education) We must rethink higher education’s intellectual mission in terms that transcend Manichaean critiques of the neoliberal university, says Nicholas Dirks
· ‘DIVEST’: College endowments turn into flash point of student protests (Washington Post) Student groups are pushing schools to cut any financial ties to Israel. Experts say that wouldn’t be so easy.
EXTERNAL ORDERS
Debt Relief Revolution
The rallying cry echoes: “Student loan forgiveness is an investment, not a handout!” Amidst the weight of $30,000 average debt, President Biden’s latest announcement of a $7.4 billion loan cancellation aims to ease the burden for 277,000 borrowers. Among them: over 200,000 who borrowed smaller amounts and are enrolled in income-driven repayment plans, and 65,000, including educators and public-service workers, who will see adjustments or forgiveness in their student debt. Targeting young voters, this broader strategy includes a focus on minority-serving institutions and for-profit colleges. Biden’s new plan offers up to $10,000 in relief per borrower, extending a much-needed lifeline to communities disproportionately burdened by education debt. All the good news didn’t stop attorney generals in eight states from suing.
—-Amy Genito
Sources
Biden Wipes Out Another $7.4 Billion in Student Loan Debt (New York Times)
Biden rolls out major new student debt forgiveness plan (Times Higher Ed)
Missouri Attorney General leads coalition challenging Biden student debt relief (Missouri Independent)
Further Reading
Biden Administration Announces Plan to Shift Another $7.4 Billion in Student Debt to Taxpayers (National Review)
Biden will once again try to pay off student loan debt for millions of Americans (NPR)
President Biden’s Plan B to Cancel Student Debt Faces Legal Challenge (AEI)
Missouri, Six Other States Sue Biden Administration over Student-Debt Plan (National Review)
Biden’s Student-Loan Plan Seeks to Slash Debt for 30 Million Americans (Wall Street Journal)
Biden’s New Student-Loan Forgiveness Plan: Who Qualifies and How It Would Work (Wall Street Journal)
PUBLIC TRUST
FAFSA Fiasco: Lawmakers Slam Bumpy Rollout of Student Aid Overhaul
Despite aims to simplify, the revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid triggered a 40% decline in high school senior completion rates, igniting bipartisan uproar. The goal of the FAFSA Simplification Act was to reduce the number of questions students and their families had to answer and increase the amount of aid they could receive. “Regrettably, it hasn’t worked out that way,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat. While colleges scramble to mend aid packages with persistent errors and amidst the chaos, a beacon of hope emerged: the California Student Aid Commission introduced the Dream Act Application offering relief for low-income students and those with a parent lacking a social security number, providing access to vital aid for aspiring attendees of UC, Cal State, and California community colleges.
—-Amy Genito
Sources
‘Crisis of credibility’: FAFSA rollout panned during congressional hearing (Higher Ed Dive)
There’s a lot happening with the FAFSA (Washington Post)
Caught up in the FAFSA chaos? Some students now have a workaround (Los Angeles Times)
Further reading
A FAFSA Fiasco Has Students Still Asking: Which College Can They Afford? (New York Times)
Frustrations with FAFSA linger as groups rush to get students to apply (Washington Post)
Visualizing FAFSA Fiasco by Geography (ON Ed Tech)
Federal Student Aid office chief to step down amid criticism over FAFSA (Washington Post)
PUBLIC TRUST
A Larry Nassar Settlement: Unmasking FBI Blunders
In a landmark move, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a $380 million settlement with victims of Larry Nassar`s sexual abuse, marking a significant step in the pursuit of justice for survivors. The settlement follows a damning investigation into the FBI’s mishandling of Nassar’s case, which included more than 150 women and girls alleging that the Michigan State employee sexually abused them over the course of 20 years. More than a dozen survivors filed claims against the government over its negligence in the investigation. Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said that the “allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset.” The settlements “won’t undo the harm,” Mizer continued, “our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes [139 of whom have settled] some of the critical support they need to continue healing.” An apology from Acting President Satish Udpa at a MSU Board of Trustees meeting in February of 2019 -- “We were too slow to grasp the enormity of the offenses” – appear all too frequently on MSU’s website.
—-Amy Genito
Sources
Justice Dept. Reaches $138.7 Million Settlement Over F.B.I.’s Failures in Nassar Case (New York Times)
Justice Department nearing settlement with sexual assault survivors of disgraced USA Gymnastics doctor Nassar (CNN)
US government agrees to $138.7M settlement over FBI’s botching of Larry Nassar assault allegations (AP)
Nassar-related information (Michigan State)
Further Reading
Larry Nassar Fallout at Michigan State Keeps on Spreading (Paideia Times Quarterly)
U.S. to Pay Victims of Larry Nassar $100 Million Over FBI Failures (Wall Street Journal)
PUBLIC TRUST
From Michigan to California: Unveiling Title IX's Tangled Web
As Michigan State University faced renewed scrutiny for its mishandling of sexual abuse allegations against Larry Nassar in 2018, multiple colleges grapple with their own Title IX challenges today. MSU's failures highlight a culture of indifference some twenty years ago, but UC Davis's mandatory training session faux pas today reveal a blend of advocacy and ambiguity that can cause problems. While billed as essential for campus inclusivity, the training at UC Davis left students and staff grappling with vague policies and blurred boundaries, similar to what befell the University of Maryland with Chad Cradock and the multi-year sexual assault fiasco that enveloped UMBC as it ignored multiple violations of Title IX, including sexual assault. Cradock’s case underscores systemic challenges still facing many colleges, including what befell a University of Nevada faculty member after she accused her adviser of abuse.
—-Amy Genito