San Jose continues to fail to improve animal shelter services to the community.
A scathing city audit of one year ago has failed to deliver measurable results. The city still fails to provide low-cost public spay and neuter, nor is outreach to rescue groups or trap-neuter-return a priority. The San Jose animal welfare community continues to be ignored.
In response to a number of ethics complaints that I filed regarding staff who have mismanaged SJACC, I was told by a deputy city manager that the “city is experiencing increased communication and complaints from you that is distracting staff from important work.”
This “Ivory Tower” attitude of entitlement, lack of ownership and accountability by city leaders funded by taxpayer money is clearly troubling — especially given that the budget for SJACS has increased to $17.5 million while performance and services have declined.
On this last No Kings Day, we stood along El Camino Real, a few yards from an inflated brown bear holding a “Resist” sign. During our time at the curb, at least half a dozen protesters in frog costumes passed behind us.
That evening, we joined a march through downtown Palo Alto led by a penguin, under the benevolent eye of an inflated frog who bounced at the edge of each crosswalk as we passed.
Later, I realized: On the first No Kings Day in June, the left reclaimed the American flag as a symbol of our commitment to democracy. Last Saturday, we reclaimed the frog as a symbol of life and joy, a counter to the alt-right’s misappropriation of Pepe as a racist meme.
Susan Luttner Palo Alto
Students shouldn’t worry about ICE raids
It is heartbreaking to see the pain and suffering so many families are experiencing. People are forced to live in constant fear that they won’t make it home to their families after a long day of underpaid work.
Despite having worked their whole lives and being positive members of our community, they are labeled as illegal aliens and criminals. So many Latino students are faced with even more anxiety and stress as they are forced to prepare in case their parents are deported. Children who have parents who have been deported are also at risk of developing depression and not doing well academically.
Students should be able to focus on school without having to worry about themselves or their family members being deported. Immigrants pay taxes even though they are not eligible to receive any benefits. Immigrants are an essential part of our society.
Wendy Martinez San Jose
Colleges must increase mental health services
College can be one of the most exciting yet most challenging times in a young person’s life. Between academic pressure, financial stress and the transition to adulthood, many students quietly struggle with anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges. Unfortunately, on many campuses, the demand for counseling services far exceeds the number of available counselors.
Adding more counselors, peer-support programs and wellness activities such as mindfulness workshops, stress-relief events or support groups can make a real difference. These don’t just help students in crisis; they also promote emotional resilience and well-being.
No students should have to wait weeks for an appointment when they’re struggling. By expanding counseling staff and providing accessible mental health programs, colleges can show that they truly care about their students’ success — both academically and personally.
Mireya Ramirez San Jose
Speak up to stop Trump’s wrecking ball
The wrecking ball is in full swing.
Aid to starving countries from USAID is gone; convicted criminals serving their full sentence is gone; civil discourse is gone; the dignified Oval Office is gone, replaced with ostentatious gold everywhere; the East Wing of the White House is gone. The list goes on and on. Will the freedom we all cherish be next?
It’s not about America first. It’s about Donald Trump first; always has been and always will be. These are sad times for America. Only we can stop the wrecking ball. Make your voice heard and vote.
Pat Toby San Jose
Trump’s future plans bode ill for Democrats
The Trump administration, having already commenced the process of desensitizing Americans to military presence in major cities, possibly in preparation for declaring martial law in the event that other measures fail to keep them in power, is perhaps now doing the same, foreshadowing the domestic use of lethality against opponents.
They strategically selected a most unsympathetic group, “foreign drug traffickers,” labeling them as “terrorists” justifying “armed conflict” to creatively legitimize lethal attack and commence the desensitization process for making it acceptable to kill anyone they desire to label as a “terrorist” with no proffered legitimate evidence, oversight or accountability. Thus far, the president’s domestic critics have only been subject to punitive attacks by government agencies, including the Department of Justice, funding elimination and civil suits. But it is noteworthy that Stephen Miller, one of the administration’s top white supremacist henchmen, has ominously described the Democratic Party as fomenting left-wing domestic “terrorism.”
In an April 11, 2025, letter to Harvard University President Alan Garber and Harvard Corporation Lead Member Penny Pritzker, Trump administration officials from the General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education outlined terms of an agreement between the administration and the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. The multi-pronged proposal raised two major questions: Were the government’s complaints against Harvard justified? And did enforcing its demands for reform fall within federal government’s limited powers?
The Trump administration observed that the U.S. government “has invested in” Harvard because the nation benefits from the university’s “scholarly discovery and academic excellence.” However, the letter stressed, “an investment is not an entitlement.” Because “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment,” the administration requested the university to undertake substantial reforms or lose federal funding.
In particular, the April 11 letter called on Harvard to practice merit-based hiring and admissions; recruit and admit international students committed to America’s founding principles and constitutional traditions; stop university programs and faculty from promulgating antisemitism; discontinue diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI); enforce student-discipline policies; establish reliable whistle-blower reporting and protection procedures; and create institutional mechanisms to facilitate transparent cooperation with the government.
The Trump administration’s most controversial demand involved steps to enhance “viewpoint diversity” throughout Harvard. “By August 2025,” the administration’s letter specified, “the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.” Guided by the audit’s findings, the government would require Harvard to eliminate “ideological litmus tests” in admissions and hiring, and to achieve viewpoint diversity in the university’s departments, fields, and teaching units.
Critics accused the Trump administration of overreaching. Even distinguished conservatives who advocate viewpoint diversity objected on free-speech and limited-government grounds to the intrusive oversight that the Trump administration sought over the mix of opinions and perspectives at Harvard.
In “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” published this fall in Academe (the quarterly magazine of the American Association of University Professors), Lisa Siraganian adopted a strikingly different criticism of the Trump administration. Her criticism was also surprising coming from a chair in humanities and professor in the department of comparative thought and literature at Johns Hopkins University, and JHU-AAUP chapter president.
Siraganian neither maintains that universities already adequately feature viewpoint diversity nor does she press the case that the Trump administration overstepped constitutional and statutory boundaries by endeavoring to supervise viewpoint diversity on campus. Rather, she argues that viewpoint diversity is undesirable in higher education because it conflicts with the university’s mission.
Siraganian anticipates that friends of viewpoint diversity will invoke John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” to counter her rejection of viewpoint diversity “in any of its guises.” In his 19th-century classic, Mill offers deft observations about human fallibility and corrigibility and adduces seminal historical examples of the persecution of heterodox figures. These inform his argument that the encounter with competing opinions advances the quest for knowledge because “very few have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial” to progress in understanding without testing their views against those who think differently.
Despite repudiating wholesale the case for cherishing diverse opinions – Mill himself emphasizes dissenting opinions – Siraganian, with a touch of bravado, appeals to the professed Millian dispositions of viewpoint-diversity’s defenders. They, she asserts, “should be open to responding to and refuting” her seven theses. Accordingly, she challenges those who disagree with her “to defend their convictions openly, fearlessly, and logically.”
Challenge accepted.
Siraganian’s first thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity functions in direct opposition to the pursuit of truth, the principal aim of academia.” Citing the playful literary scholar Stanley Fish, she contends in all seriousness that “the pursuit of truth and the value of different opinions” not only “do not work together seamlessly,” which is true, but also that “they are directly opposed,” which is mistaken. Yes, as Siraganian notes, the science is largely settled – at least for now – on DNA structure. Then again, the contentious debates about viewpoint diversity do not generally concern elementary aspects of the natural sciences but rather usually revolve around the humanities and social sciences. And that’s for good reason. Like the natural sciences, the humanities and social sciences rest on and discover facts. But the natural sciences are decidedly closer to mathematics, in which, as Mill in “On Liberty” observes, “there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question.” In contrast, as the great English liberal explains at length, in ethics, politics, and religion there is typically much to be said on the many sides of their hard and enduring questions.
Siraganian’s second thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity can work only as an instrumental value.” She’s right that viewpoint diversity serves as a means to an end. That, however, is no more an argument against viewpoint diversity than it is an argument against valuing the learning of Greek as instrumental to understanding Plato. She further objects that viewpoint diversity is summoned in support of two competing university goals – seeking truth and forming good citizens. The former depends on acquisition of technical knowledge and questioning ruthlessly, while the latter, in the United States, involves gaining an appreciation of, and cultivating the virtues that support, freedom, democracy, and American constitutional government. Yet far from undermining the claims of viewpoint diversity, its importance to both seeking truth and forming good citizens underscores viewpoint diversity’s versatility and doubles its value.
Siraganian’s third thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity assumes a partisan goal based on unproven assumptions.” Contrary to her insouciant assurances that there is little or no reason to suppose that universities have excluded conservative scholars and ideas – and notwithstanding her sly insinuation that conservatism amounts to QAnon – evidence abounds of such exclusion and of the damage it has done to scholarship and teaching. For example, in 2024 in “Beyond Academic Sectarianism,” Siraganian’s Johns Hopkins University colleague, political scientist Steven Teles, examined how the paucity of conservatives scholars has resulted in the decline of scholarship and teaching in vital topics that progressives tend to neglect and disparage. These include American political ideas and institutions, and diplomatic, military, and religious history. A 2024 Foundation on Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) survey provides additional evidence that universities have constructed censorious progressive monocultures. And a July 2025 working paper by professors Jon A. Shields, Yuval Avner, and Stephanie Muravchik demonstrates the drastic left-wing slant of college syllabi on contentious issues. Two of the coauthors discussed their findings in an August Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Evidence Backs Trump on High-Ed’s Bias.”
Siraganian’s fourth thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity undermines disciplinary and specialized knowledge and standards as well as the autonomy of academic reasoning and scholarship.” She again observes that debate has ended about DNA structure. But inquiry into and arguments about human nature, justice, virtue, regimes, citizenship, friendship, romantic love, family, the soul, and God differ from inquiry into and arguments about molecules. That’s in part because molecules do not have opinions, much less divergent opinions about good and bad, right and wrong, noble and base.
Siraganian’s fifth thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity is incoherent.” This, though, does not follow from the key observation she offers in support of the thesis. She rightly maintains that background assumptions about what constitutes a sound argument and a well-ordered university limit the range of viewpoint diversity on campus. To identify an idea’s or a practice’s limitations, however, does not to refute it but rather clarifies it.
Siraganian’s sixth thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity has already been used, both in the United States and abroad, to attack higher education and stifle academic freedom.” On occasion it has. But on occasion science has been used to justify eugenics, enlightenment has been invoked to subjugate peoples, and tenured professors have been known to enforce ideological conformity on students and untenured faculty. Abuses of science, enlightenment, and academic authority discredit the abuser, not the thing abused.
Siraganian’s seventh thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity is an argument made in bad faith.” Sometimes it is. But Siraganian ignores or suppresses the substantial evidence that universities ignore or suppress empirical data, rational arguments, and research paradigms that conflict with – and stymie and shun scholars who depart from – progressive pieties. This represents a failure of scholarly inquiry and moral imagination on her part, and a betrayal of what she herself regards as the university’s principal mission, which is pursuit of the truth.
Siraganian could have avoided these numerous miscues of reason and rhetoric by studying the arguments on the other side of the question. If she had had better opportunities to run her categorical pronouncements by colleagues – in her department, university, and disciplines – with perspectives that differ from her own, perhaps she might have discovered the weaknesses afflicting her opinions and the strengths contained in theirs.
What goes for the attack on viewpoint diversity goes also for its promotion.
The Trump administration would do well in its justified efforts to encourage viewpoint diversity on campus to consider views on the other side of the question, particularly arguments concerning the federal government’s limited role in managing opinions and perspectives at the nation’s wayward universities.
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter. His new book is “Explaining Israel: The Jewish State, the Middle East, and America.”
Cupertino’s De Anza College in Cupertino has been named a Pathway Champion for 2025 for its efforts in ensuring that students are on the path to transfer to a four-year university.
The Campaign for College Opportunity, a statewide research and advocacy group, awarded De Anza top rankings among California community colleges for student success in completing transfer-level math and English in academic year 2023-24. De Anza ranked third in the state for students completing transfer-level math (78.8%) within one year. The community college also ranked second in the state for Black students completing transfer-level English within one year of enrolling in their courses (82.6%).
De Anza earned similar recognition from the group in 2024, when it ranked second statewide in two categories for the 2022-23 academic year: students completing transfer-level math within one year (81.4%) and students completing transfer-level English within one year (81.2%).
The nonprofit compiles the rankings to recognize community colleges that are helping students reach their goals through “equitable course placement practices,” following the passage of state legislation in 2018 requiring community colleges to move away from traditional placement methods that led many students to spend time in remedial courses before they could take transfer-level math and English.
In response to that legislation, De Anza developed new assessment practices, curriculum and other services that support students in completing those college-level courses.
Tavern Talk
The Cupertino Historical Society and Museum is holding its next Tavern Talk on Nov. 12, 6-8 p.m., at Florentine’s Trattoria to celebrate the restaurant’s 61st anniversary and talk about its first location in Cupertino.
Florentine’s Trattoria is now located at 14510 Big Basin Way #11 in Saratoga. Tavern Talk tickets are $25 at http://bit.ly/4nlzcbg.
LOWELL — U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 national rankings of top colleges and universities again this year give high marks to UMass Lowell for the education and economic value it provides to students.
The media outlet, best known for consumer advice and news analysis, places UMass Lowell at No. 11 in Massachusetts for its “Best Colleges” ranking of higher-educational institutions defined as national universities. Such institutions offer a full range of undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs and produce groundbreaking research.
U.S. News also lists UMass Lowell as the No. 1 “best value school” in the Bay State and No. 92 in the country, up 105 spots from last year.
“UMass Lowell delivers a world-class education that is accessible and affordable while helping students succeed today and throughout their careers. We’re proud to be No. 1 among ‘best value schools’ in Massachusetts and No. 92 in the U.S. — rankings that reflect our strong return on investment and emphasis on career-connected experience,” said UMass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen.
The rankings come just months after UMass Lowell was named a Carnegie Research 1 university, a prestigious designation used to identify the nation’s top research institutions.
In acknowledging the university’s leadership in scholarship and economic value, the rankings also reflect UMass Lowell’s commitment to the region’s economic vitality through the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor. Now underway, the initiative envisions a 1.2-million square-foot mixed-use development on and beyond UMass Lowell’s campus that includes offices and research labs, housing, retail businesses and entertainment destinations. The ecosystem is providing UMass Lowell students with paid career experiences at LINC member organizations.
For its 2026 assessments, U.S. News & World Report evaluated nearly 1,700 higher-education institutions. To determine UMass Lowell’s place on the Best Colleges list, the media outlet used 17 key measures of academic quality including student retention and graduation rates, financial resources provided per student, faculty to student ratio, number of full-time faculty and amount of published research.
To determine the “best value” ranking, the outlet additionally examined the 2024-2025 net cost of attendance for an out-of-state student who received the average level of need-based scholarship or grant aid. The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. Only schools ranked in or near the top half of their categories are included, as U.S. News considers the most significant values to be among colleges that are above average academically, according to the media outlet.
A Los Angeles jury has awarded $6 million to a former Cal State San Bernardino administrator who alleged she was subjected to “severe or pervasive” gender harassment that her attorneys claim is systemic across the Cal State system.
Attorney Courtney Abrams, who represented Anissa Rogers, the former associate dean at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus, said in a statement that the jury award Monday, Oct. 20, represented “a resounding rejection of CSU’s long-running denials of gender bias within its ranks.”
“Dr. Rogers stood up not only for herself, but also the other women who have been subjected to gender-based double-standards within the Cal State system,” Abrams said following the three-week trial before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter.
Problem ‘systemic’
Rogers and Clare Weber, the former vice provost at the Palm Desert campus, sued Cal State San Bernardino President Tomas Morales, Jake Zhu, the former dean of the Palm Desert campus, and the Board of Trustees of the California State University system, which comprises 23 campuses statewide and is the largest four-year public university system in the United States, employing nearly 56,000 faculty and staff.
DAVID BAUMAN — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cal State San Bernardino President Tomas Morales, on Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2016.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2023, alleged a pattern and practice of discrimination and sexual harassment against female employees in the CSU system in violation of the state’s Equal Pay Act. Rogers and Weber claim they were either forced to resign or fired for speaking out against mistreatment of and pay disparity for female employees.
“This case exposed what women inside Cal State have been saying for years: the mistreatment of women within the Cal State system is not just a series of one-off incidents; the problem is systemic and structural,” said Andrew Friedman of Helmer Friedman, an attorney who represented Rogers in the lawsuit.
In an email Tuesday, Oct. 21, CSUSB spokesman Alan Llavore said: “We were disappointed by the verdict reached by the jury (Monday) morning, and we will be reviewing our options to assess next steps.” He declined further comment.
Officials at the California State University Office of the Chancellor in Long Beach also declined to comment.
Forced out
Rogers, who was hired as associate dean at the Palm Desert campus in August 2019, alleged in the lawsuit that on Oct. 15, 2021, she fielded multiple complaints from female employees who attended a “coffee with the dean” meeting Zhu hosted in which two male department heads berated a female administrator for about a half-hour. Zhu allegedly witnessed the conduct but did nothing.
Rogers confronted Zhu about what happened the same day after hearing about it from the other employees who attended the meeting. Zhu, according to the lawsuit, subsequently targeted Rogers for termination, pretextually complaining about vacation time she took and for attending an event at her daughter’s college that he initially approved.
On Jan. 1, 2022, Rogers, according to the lawsuit, was “constructively terminated” when she was forced to resign her position.
Evidence presented at trial showed that in addition to Rogers, several other current and former CSUSB employees brought forth complaints that Zhu treated women worse than men, but neither the university’s human resources department nor its Title IX offices ever launched an investigation into the allegations, said David deRubertis of The deRubertis Law Firm in Studio City, who served as the lead trial attorney for Rogers.
Weber alleges in the lawsuit that she wrote to Morales in July 2022 raising concerns that female vice provosts at the university were being paid less than their male counterparts. She said she was one of the lowest paid vice provosts in the CSU system, despite her large assignment portfolio. She called the alleged practice “highly offensive, totally discriminatory, and retaliatory.”
Weber, according to the lawsuit, asked Morales to put an end to the alleged practice and requested an investigation into her concerns. The next day she was fired.
Zhu retires
Two months after Rogers and Weber filed their lawsuit, CSUSB announced Zhu was retiring, commending him for, among other things, being “instrumental in moving the Palm Desert campus forward” and growing the campus to meet the needs of students in the Coachella Valley.
Zhu testified during trial that his retirement was unrelated to the lawsuit, and that he wanted to take care of his ailing mother and spend more time with his children, who were getting older, deRubertis said.
He said evidence at trial showed that allegations of female employee mistreatment by Zhu were brought up during a faculty meeting at the Palm Desert campus on Sept. 20, 2022, and that CSUSB Provost Rafik Mohamed and Morales already were planning to replace him due to so-called “leadership issues” before Zhu decided to retire.
Problems ignored
DeRubertis argued during trial that the gender-based mistreatment of Rogers was “an inevitable result” after CSUSB ignored a climate survey suggesting a culture of fear, intimidation, gender-based mistreatment and bullying at the university. The survey recommended that the university adopt an anti-bullying policy and an audit of HR practices and policies.
Morales acknowledged during trial that neither recommendation was implemented, deRubertis said.
The no-confidence vote and faculty senate resolution was a point of contention in the lawsuit, which described the resolution as “scathing.” It noted that within there years of Morales’ appointment as university president, 89% of the faculty, staff and administrators who were surveyed reported that the climate had become worse, and that Morales had failed to implement the bulk of the recommended changes.
“President Morales continues to be unwilling to acknowledge the severity of the problems of fear and distrust among employees,” according to the lawsuit.
Weber’s case, which was separated from Rogers’ case at trial, is expected to go to a jury next year.
JACKSON, Miss., October 21, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Honor Society and the Phi Theta Kappa Foundation are pleased to announce the appointment of Amanda Karpinski Gorman as its new Executive Director following a national search. A proud PTK alumna and former International President, Karpinski Gorman brings her deep connection to the organization and passion for empowering community college students like her to this leadership role.
Karpinski Gorman’s journey with Phi Theta Kappa began at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, where she experienced firsthand the transformational power of PTK’s mission.
“As a Phi Theta Kappa alum, I know firsthand how life-changing this organization can be,” Karpinski Gorman said. “PTK gave me more than a scholarship-it gave me confidence, community, and a sense of purpose that continues to guide me today. Now, I have the incredible responsibility and privilege of helping provide those same opportunities to the next generation of scholars and leaders.”
After completing her associate degree, Karpinski Gorman earned an undergraduate degree in English and a Master’s in Public Administration from Rutgers University. She is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at Mississippi State University, centered around Community College Leadership.
Karpinski Gorman has served PTK in numerous capacities over the years, including International President and Student Representative to the Board of Directors, where she helped implement the organization’s first constitutional update in more than a century. Karpinski Gorman later served as the Alumni Representative on the Phi Theta Kappa Board of Directors. Most recently, she has led the Foundation as Interim Executive Director, strengthening individual and corporate giving, and donor engagement that expand scholarships, programs and student support.
Prior to joining the PTK Foundation, Amanda served in key roles across New Jersey, including as Commissioner Aide to Bergen County Commissioner Mary Amoroso, Regional Political Director for Governor Phil Murphy’s re-election campaign, Chief of Staff to Assemblywoman Shama Haider, and Public Information Officer for the Bergen County Executive’s Office.
As Executive Director, Karpinski Gorman will lead the Foundation’s efforts to grow philanthropic partnerships and ensure that PTK members have access to the same life-changing opportunities that she had. Her vision centers on empowering alumni, elevating the impact of giving, and expanding the Foundation’s reach to benefit even more students worldwide.
“I have had the privilege of working alongside Amanda for the past decade,” said PTK President and CEO, Dr. Lynn Tincher-Ladner. “She is a remarkable example of PTK’s mission in action. Amanda’s energy, authenticity, and deep understanding of the PTK experience make her the perfect leader to guide the Foundation into its next chapter.”
Karpinski Gorman lives in New Jersey with her husband, Conor, and their dog, Sadie.
About Phi Theta Kappa
Phi Theta Kappa is the first national honor society recognizing the academic achievement of students at associate degree-granting colleges and helping them to grow as scholars and leaders. Recognized by the American Association of Community Colleges as the official honor society for two-year colleges, PTK is made up of more than 4.4 million members and nearly 1,250 chapters in 11 countries, with approximately 220,000 active members in the nation’s colleges. Learn more at ptk.org.
If you are wondering how to vote on Proposition 50 gerrymandering, look no further than who is funding the “yes” campaign. Billionaires Tom Steyer and George Soros are pouring millions of dollars into it. These are far-left-wing elites.
They are not interested in the people or what is good for the state of California. They are only interested in increasing their stranglehold over voters. They are the power-hungry force behind all the terrible policies that are destroying California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom conjured up this gerrymandering scheme. He has created this costly special election, hoping that turnout will be low and that people won’t care.
We do care. We need to say no. Vote no on Proposition 50.
My first reaction to this news was, “Who the hell cares what this guy thinks?” Do only billionaires’ voices matter? If Donald Trump rigs future elections, is peaceful protesting the only power we have? Not by a long shot.
Even as Trump tries to sabotage the power of the vote, we have the power of the purse. It worked on Disney during the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco. It will work on any company that sells to consumers. Www.goodsuniteus.com tracks corporate political donations. When, collectively, people stop shopping and subscribing to the brands that do not share their values, companies notice in a hurry. Trump may not listen to us, but he does listen to his billionaire buddies.
It may be time to start keeping corporate leaders up at night, watching their market shares tank. It may be time to remind billionaires that the money that drives this country comes from us.
Janice Bleyaert El Sobrante
Cal must do more to support students
UC Berkeley is regarded as the No. 1 public university. However, the students who make Berkeley great are facing hunger at an unacceptable rate. The 2022 UC Basic Needs Report shows that 47% of UC students have faced food insecurity.
I’m grateful for the opportunities this university has presented to me. However, a reason I and many other students hesitated in committing to Berkeley is due to the city’s basic cost of living. Attending Berkeley for most will be their greatest investment, so it should be on the university to support students contributing to the legacy of such an institution.
Currently, students can only visit Berkeley’s Basic Needs Center once a week, which is not enough for the students who rely on this resource the most. Working to expand on this resource could make a significant difference in the lives of thousands of the great minds we have at Berkeley.
Kennedy Jones Berkeley
Medical community must loudly denounce RFK Jr.
After eight months of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doing his best to unravel decades of advances in medicine and the development and use of tested and proven vaccines and medications that have saved millions of lives, saved millions of people from years of suffering, and prevented epidemics of many deadly and debilitating diseases — culminating in Donald Trump’s unhinged and unsubstantiated medical advice to America’s pregnant mothers not to take Tylenol because it causes autism in their children — I have one question: Where the hell has the medical community been?
The medical community in this nation has to stand up loudly to condemn and stop this devastation of what has allowed us all to live longer and healthier lives.
State University of New York Chancellor John King Jr. was at Farmingdale State College on Wednesday to announce the expansion of a strategy that is designed to help students graduate on time.
The Advancing Success in Associate Pathways (ASAP) and Advancing Completion through Engagement (ACE) – together, the programs are known as ASAP|ACE – aim to ensure that students get the support and services they need to overcome barriers in obtaining a degree.
Now, the model is expanding across the SUNY system. ASAP supports students pursuing associate degrees, while ACE focuses on baccalaureate students.
“ASAP|ACE is a proven, evidence-based strategy to improve student retention and completion,” King said in a news release about the program’s expansion.
“We will continue our efforts to support more SUNY campuses to implement ASAP|ACE to take full advantage of this program,” he said.
King’s visit comes just days after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York students can apply to nearly 130 colleges and universities – including SUNY, City University of New York and 50 private colleges – for free in October. A complete list of those schools is available here.
Calling it “College Application Month,” Hochul said in a written statement that the initiative “is about breaking down barriers and helping every student take that critical first step toward college success.”
Meanwhile, the ASAP|ACE program was launched at 25 campuses last year, thanks to the SUNY Transformation Fund. In the fall of 2024, it served 4,270 students. A year later, it expanded to more than 7,000 students at 34 SUNY campuses. In addition, 14 currently participating campuses added spots to serve more students. This expansion was made possible through $12 million in allocated funding from the 2025-2026 state budget that places SUNY ASAP|ACE on the path to reach 10,000 students by next fall.
Now in its second year at Farmingdale State, the ACE program increased from 215 students to 230 this year, with the campus program on the path to serving 250 by spring.
“Farmingdale has a robust portfolio of academic support programs, and we are proud to be among the SUNY campuses to participate in ACE,” Farmingdale State College President Robert Prezant said in the news release.
At Farmingdale, the program focuses on “success, retention, persistence, and graduation rates,” Prezant said. “Our ACE students become a part of a welcoming and inclusive community, where they meet success through the support of our talented and dedicated staff, a team that has developed a compassionate network of support to help our students thrive.”
Through the program, eligible students receive financial support for such essentials as textbooks, groceries and transportation, along with personalized advising, academic support and career development resources.
Early results show that students enrolled in the program attempt and earn more credits and re-enroll at higher rates than comparable peers, according to SUNY officials.
ROCKFORD, Ill., October 9, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– GMB, a professional services firm focused on the education market, is thrilled to unveil the acquisition of Richard L. Johnson Associates. This acquisition represents an exciting new chapter for Richard L. Johnson Associates and GMB as we combine our experience, knowledge, and passion for providing the very best in educational architectural and engineering services.
By combining GMB’s strong foundation in education design services with Richard L. Johnson Associates’ deep understanding of the local market, we are building a team that is both nationally connected and locally grounded. This partnership allows us to bring the depth and breadth of national education best practices while remaining closely attuned to the unique needs of individual districts and communities.
“We are excited to welcome Richard L. Johnson Associates’ team and clients to GMB,” said David Bolt, President and CEO of GMB. “This acquisition brings together the strengths of both organizations, enhancing our collective capabilities and allowing us to create an even greater positive impact. By working as one team, we’ll be able to deliver more innovative solutions, support districts in reaching their goals, and ultimately improve the educational experience for students across the Midwest.”
Richard L. Johnson Associates, based in Rockford, Illinois, will continue serving more than 30 school districts in Northwest Illinois.
Scott Johnson, one of Richard L. Johnson Associates’ firm principals, has expressed excitement that clients will benefit from GMB’s additional in-house capabilities and educational design knowledge.
“I am very proud to be a part of this strategic acquisition,” said Johnson. “By combining our expertise in K-12 education, higher education, and broad experience in educational design, we’re building a full-service team that can collaborate across geographies and provide long-term value for our clients.”
The Richard L. Johnson Associates team will become part of GMB’s Team of Teams structure, which encourages autonomy and responsibility over the traditional hierarchical business model. GMB is also a 100% employee-owned company.
“As we grow and expand our educational ecosystem, we are inspired by the transformative work happening in classrooms across the country. We look forward to learning from these new partners and supporting how their clients are addressing today’s educational challenges,” added Bolt.
NYONL members are now eligible for reduced tuition toward an ACE nursing program
INDIANAPOLIS, IN, October 8, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– American College of Education® (ACE) recently established a partnership with the New York Organization for Nursing Leadership (NYONL), an affiliate of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. The collaboration makes NYONL members eligible for reduced tuition toward an ACE nursing program, furthering both organizations’ missions to equip nursing leaders.
ACE is committed to offering accessible education that aids industries facing critical staff shortages, like nursing. The college offers fully online nursing programs at industry-low tuition rates that equip registered nurses (RNs) with the advanced skills, knowledge and technology needed to advance into leadership and educator roles.
Programs include an RN to BSN, RN to MSN, BSN to MSN, Ed.S. in Nursing Education and Ed.D. in Nursing Education, along with the nation’s first and only travel nursing certificate.
“Partnering with NYONL enhances the widespread influence of accessible nursing education,” ACE President and CEO Geordie Hyland said. “Once the pandemic hit, higher education saw a rising need for online nursing programs, and we’re proud to offer our healthcare heroes the flexibility they deserve. We also ensure they’re effectively equipped with evidence-based, innovative and quality learning they can apply immediately to their daily practices.”
NYONL members include nurse leaders at all levels in practice and academia, including aspiring, retired and student leaders, and affiliate members – all committed to the organization’s mission of advancing the practice of nursing and ensuring access to care for all New Yorkers.
“We’re thrilled to offer our members access to affordable, career-oriented education,” NYONL President Robert Church, RN, MS, MBA, NE-BC, FACHE, Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President, SBH Health System, St. Barnabas Hospital. “It’s great to partner with an institution of higher learning that values the daily efforts of our members by ensuring they have opportunities for career advancement. We look forward to the future impact of our collaboration and how New York’s nurse leaders will shape the future of healthcare in New York and beyond!”
American College of Education (ACE) is an accredited, fully online private college specializing in high-quality, affordable programs in education, business, healthcare and nursing. Headquartered in Indianapolis, ACE offers more than 60 innovative and engaging programs for adult students to pursue a doctorate, specialist, master’s or bachelor’s degree, along with graduate-level certificate programs.
About the NYONL
The New York Organization for Nursing Leadership (NYONL) represents over 600 nurse leaders across New York State, united in advancing nursing leadership and shaping the future of healthcare. Through education, advocacy, and strategic partnerships, NYONL promotes evidence-based leadership and works to strengthen the nursing workforce, eliminate health disparities, and influence healthcare policy. Learn more at https://nyonl.nursingnetwork.com.
Pennsylvania’s state universities reported the first system-wide enrollment increase in over a decade and its highest-ever student retention rate.
Seven of the 10 schools in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, including West Chester University and Cheyney University, saw a rise in their student populations. Enrollment in the network has been at a steady decline since 2010, when it had119,513 students. That figure fell all the way to 82,509 last year before the slight increase to 83,000 this fall. Meanwhile, the percentage of students in the system returning for a second year reached a record 81%.
“We are proud that Pennsylvania students are choosing PASSHE universities,” Cynthia Shapira, chair of the PASSHE Board of Governors, said in a statement. “These enrollment gains and record-setting retention rates demonstrate the value, affordability and career relevance of PASSHE education across the Commonwealth.”
Cheyney University, a historically Black college whose campus spans Chester and Delaware counties, went from 617 students last fall to 851 this year — a spike attributed to a 144% increase in freshman enrollment. West Chester University is the largest school in the network, with more than 3,000 first-year students, 1,040 transfers and a total population of around 17,400 this fall.
PASSHE said the number of students transferring from a state community college increased by 14.3%, and 22% of students in its network identify as an underrepresented minority.
“We are focused on providing high-quality, affordable education that prepares students for real opportunities after graduation,” Chancellor Christopher Fiorentino said in a statement. “Pennsylvania needs more skilled workers in health care, STEM, business and education, and our universities are helping meet that demand. Our graduates are making a difference in communities and contributing to the strength of the state’s economy.”
In July, PASSHE introduced a pilot program that would increase students’ access to specialized or advanced courses by allowing them to take classes from other schools in the network at their home campus.
Tuesday’s announcement comes four months after the PASSHE raised tuition by $278 — the first increase since 2018. Three years ago, six schools merged into two regional campuses in an attempt to reverse declining enrollment.
Trump asks colleges to get serious: Yesterday, the White House sent 10-page compacts to nine of colleges and universities—Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University, and the University of Virginia—asking them to assent to certain commitments in order to receive access to a wider array of federal funding.
Called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” most of the asks are eminently reasonable, and would make it so colleges now conform with the law instead of flouting it outright.
“The memo demands that schools ban the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions,” reportsThe Wall Street Journal. It also calls for schools to “freeze tuition for five years; cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%; require that applicants take the SAT or a similar test; and quell grade inflation.”
The Reason Roundup Newsletter by Liz Wolfe Liz and Reason help you make sense of the day’s news every morning.
But the memo also asks that universities abolish any departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas” and strengthen policies meant to deter such ideological conformity. Of course, “institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits,” reads the document.
“The first round of schools received the compact along with a letter that frames the pledge as an opportunity to proactively partner with the administration and its effort to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system,” perThe New York Times. Interestingly, “the demands in the compact also include providing free tuition to students studying math, biology, or other ‘hard sciences’ if endowments exceed $2 million per undergraduate.”
In a sense, this is federal government intrusion into the affairs of universities. Who is a federal bureaucrat to decide how many international students a college ought to admit, when the college should be able to decide what’s in their best interest and what’s not? It’s not like a system of arbitrary nationality limits is especially meritocratic. But the case made by Trump administration officials like May Mailman is that we don’t get to pour tons of American taxpayer dollars into the higher education system and then routinely educate the world’s students; that’s not a good return on investment or aligned with what’s in the nation’s best interest.
The solution Mailman and the Trump administration more broadly offer is, I think, sound: If you’re a university that doesn’t want to sign onto these demands, you may forego federal funding and retain full independence. But if you’d like to dip into federal coffers, you must agree to certain standards and maintain environments that foster more intellectual diversity. We’ll see whether this holds up whenever it’s challenged in court.
Also, I think it’s interesting—and a welcome development—that the administration also snuck in some lines about tuition-freezing. Ballooning cost of attendance has been a huge problem for years, and shedding light on administrative bloat and wasteful spending is surely in the American public’s best interest.
Scenes from New York: Last night, I hosted a book party for Leah Libresco Sargeant at my home in Brooklyn, alongside my dear friend Nicole Ruiz. We had in attendance homemakers, journalists from The Dispatch and The Atlantic, a pastor’s wife and mother of five, and a woman who detransitioned (and wrote about it), among many others. An eclectic bunch for sure.
Liz Wolfe
Leah’s book, The Dignity of Dependence, is premised on two claims: The first, that “women’s equality with men is not premised on our interchangeability with men”; the second, that “dependence on others is not a temporary embarrassment at the beginning (and end) (and much of the middle) of our lives but the pattern for how we live together.” I highly recommend it.
QUICK HITS
If you enjoy this newsletter, would you do me the extraordinary favor of forwarding it to a friend? (Ideally with accompanying text like “I think you’d enjoy this newsletter that keeps me informed in a crowded and ever-stupider news environment” not “this libertarian chick belongs in the loony bin.”)
“They say my generation is wasting our lives watching mindless entertainment,” writes Freya India at Jonathan Haidt’s After Babel. “But I think things are worse than that. We are now turning our lives into mindless entertainment. Not just consuming slop, but becoming it.…Someday this generation, these influencers, will discover with dread what every celebrity and contestant and cast member has realized before them. That after offering everything up, every inch of their lives, every finite moment on this Earth, it does not matter how much they stage, how much they rehearse, how much they trade, how long they leave the cameras rolling, we will always wonder, eventually, what else is on?“
“The White House is halting $18 billion in New York infrastructure funding due to concerns over diversity and inclusion practices and as the first day of a federal shutdown grinds government work to a halt,” reportsBloomberg. Honestly, fair. Why should the rest of the country subsidize my state and city? And why should the city let so many residents off scot-free—i.e. rampant fare evaders—instead of choosing to enforce laws and improve the city’s fiscal situation?
“The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job for now and announced it will hear a case in January over President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove her,” reportsThe Washington Post. “The temporary ruling lasts until the justices hear the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to allow Cook to remain on the job. The Trump administration had asked the high court to remove Cook immediately.”
— Washington Post Communications (@WashPostComms) October 1, 2025
“More than two years into a conservative takeover of New College of Florida, spending has soared and rankings have plummeted, raising questions about the efficacy of the overhaul,” notesInside Higher Ed. “While state officials, including Republican governor Ron DeSantis, have celebrated the death of what they have described as ‘woke indoctrination’ at the small liberal arts college, student outcomes are trending downward across the board: Both graduation and retention rates have fallen since the takeover in 2023. Those metrics are down even as New College spends more than 10 times per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend, on average. While one estimate last year put the annual cost per student at about $10,000 per member institution, New College is an outlier, with a head count under 900 and a $118.5 million budget, which adds up to roughly $134,000 per student.”
Yep:
The zero-interest-rate era is going to become lost history because people want to make up a narrative around AI. The white collar bloodbath didn’t happen because of a chat app release, it happened because of the end of ZIRP which occurred rapidly in 2022. https://t.co/tIV88Myioepic.twitter.com/fos5fQfidX
I mostly agree with Aella, but grad school? Let’s maintain some standards.
Stop infantilizing young women. We should respect their agency, not assume they are incapable of making decisions that require long term sacrifice. Stand up for women’s right to choose motherhood, sex work, or even grad school. https://t.co/nq17TyPGyY
The Trump administration has restored almost all of the 500 National Institutes of Health grants it suspended at UCLA in July in response to a federal judge’s order last week.
Attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice submitted a court-mandated update on the status of the grant restorations Monday evening. They report that the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, has restored all but nine grants to UCLA health science researchers, though that figure may be even smaller.
In response to a similar court order in August, the federal National Science Foundation restored 300 grants it had suspended in July.
The restorations cap a remarkable turnaround for UCLA, which lost access to more than $500 million in research in July after the Trump administration froze 800 science grants to the esteemed public university. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health accused UCLA of tolerating antisemitism as part of their justification for the grant funding freezes. Those claims followed months of efforts at the university to implement the recommendations of a task force on antisemitism that campus administrators appointed to examine bias at the school.
The science grants pay for research into life-saving drugs, dementia, heart disease in rural areas, robotics education and a vast array of science inquiries across the country. They help propel the country’s research enterprise and are the top source of federal research grants at the University of California. The UC system has battled the Trump administration over various efforts to slash its funding since President Donald Trump’s second term began. Science funding is also a key source of income and training for graduate students, who are the next generation of publicly funded academics. Still, UCLA and the rest of the UC remain in the hot seat as the system contends with settlement demands from Trump that amount to $1.2 billion. Trump sought that settlement over a litany of accusations, including that the campus tolerates antisemitism.
More than 600 Jewish faculty, students, staff and alumni of the University of California wrote in a public letter that stripping funding in response to those claims is “misguided and punitive.”
“Cutting off hundreds of millions of research funds will do nothing to make UCLA safer for Jews nor diminish antisemitism in the world,” the public letter says. A coalition of UC faculty and staff have sued to halt Trump from pursuing his settlement demands. The California federal judge who ordered the grants returned to UCLA, Rita Lin, has issued a string of decisions since June that have restored hundreds of other research grants from multiple agencies across the UC system. Her injunction last week is preliminary and the trial is ongoing. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld some of her other preliminary injunctions that forced the Trump administration to restore scores of science, humanities and environmental research grants.
Lin last week also ordered the Department of Defense and Department of Transportation to restore grants to at least several dozen UC researchers, not just those at UCLA. Attorneys for the government say they need more time — until Oct. 10 — to bring back the defense grants, but said funding for all the terminated defense grants will be restored. Lin is also the judge in the Trump settlement lawsuit.
This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
ACE’s unique operational model and student-centric focus allow it to add staff, programs, partnerships and scholarships even as financial uncertainty forces layoffs and tuition hikes throughout higher education.
INDIANAPOLIS, September 30, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– As U.S. colleges and universities cut staff, eliminate programs and hike tuition in response to political and economic uncertainty, American College of Education (ACE) is expanding. ACE is investing in people, programs, and technology, demonstrating that its mission-aligned, efficiency-driven model can thrive even as most of the higher education sector struggles.
“At ACE, we constantly work to keep costs down while developing academic programs that generate real economic value in the workplace for our graduates,” said Geordie Hyland, president and CEO of ACE.
Founded in 2005, ACE is a national innovator providing quality, affordable and accredited online undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees. ACE is the third-highest conferrer of education master’s degrees in the United States1, and its low tuition enables nearly nine out of 10 students to graduate debt-free2.
Most U.S. higher education institutions accept federal Title IV student loans, which makes them vulnerable to changes in federal funding. ACE is virtually unique in that it does not accept federal Title IV student loans, avoiding the high overhead and bureaucratic expenses of administering the program.
That also allows the college to avoid uncertainty around federal spending that is forcing cutbacks and price increases across the sector: Renowned institutions including Cornell University and Duke University have announced layoffs, while public universities in Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Oklahoma have increased tuition significantly.
Instead, ACE can focus on maintaining low tuition and creating degree and certificate programs that appeal to students seeking career advancement.
“We are absolutely committed to transparency about how much an ACE degree will cost, which allows students to make the best decision for their future,” Hyland said. “With student debt approaching $2 trillion, our growth reflects a broader shift toward accessible, value-driven education.”
To support its growing student base, ACE is investing in the tools and infrastructure required for high-quality online learning. Upgrades in technology, platforms, and user experience are helping the college deliver a seamless and scalable educational model tailored for adult learners. In forgoing the costs associated with dormitories and athletic facilities, ACE can deliver essential academic services while passing the savings along to its students.
Those investments pay off in student success. ACE has an 85% graduation rate for all degree programs combined, significantly exceeding the national six-year completion rate of 62%. ACE students also receive a strong return on investment (ROI): According to a study by the consulting firm Lightcast, ACE students gain $19.20 in future earnings for every dollar of tuition, for a 120.7% annual return.
This performance and growth underscores ACE’s resilience and adaptability during a time of sector-wide instability. The college’s operating model, focus on transparency, and mission-driven approach continue to differentiate it from traditional institutions facing deep financial and operational strains.
American College of Education (ACE) is an accredited, fully online college specializing in high-quality, affordable programs in education, business, leadership, healthcare and nursing. Headquartered in Indianapolis, ACE offers more than 60 innovative and engaging programs for adult students to pursue a doctorate, specialist, master’s or bachelor’s degree, along with graduate-level certificate programs. In addition to being a leader in online education, ACE is a Certified B Corporation and part of a global movement to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.
Should a college professor be able to share information about gender identity in a children’s literature class? Can an elementary school teacher offer an “unpopular opinion” about the Charlie Kirk murder on her personal Facebook page? Not without consequences, and not as long as Republican leaders are micromanaging public institutions, free speech advocates say.
Four people lost their jobs at Texas A&M University this month after a student objected to a discussion about a book involving a nonbinary child, falsely claiming such a conversation is not allowed under the Trump administration. The student took a recording of her classroom exchange with the professor to the university president, and a Republican lawmaker made it his mission to publicize the situation and rally support for the ouster of the A&M officials involved.
The termination of professor Melissa McCoul; the demotions of College of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Zoran and English Department Head Emily Johansen; and the subsequent resignation of University President Mark Welsh III prompted a firestorm of controversy and debate about government overreach into higher education institutions.
Academics across the country have strong opinions on these topics, but many professors, including those at Houston universities, are uncomfortable talking about them publicly.
The incident in McCoul’s Texas A&M classroom was publicized by Texas Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, and had members of the public calling for the professor’s firing, tagging Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican lawmakers.
🚨CAUGHT ON TAPE: TEXAS A&M STUDENT KICKED OUT OF CLASS AFTER OBJECTING TO TRANSGENDER INDOCTRINATION… and A&M President defends “LGBTQ Studies.”
Harrison did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
Days after McCoul lost her job, conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk was murdered on the Utah Valley University campus, and as people weighed in on social media, a campaign was launched to get people fired from their jobs who spoke in a negative way about Kirk, who was an ally of President Donald Trump.
Governor Abbott called for the expulsion of a student at Texas State University who allegedly mocked Kirk’s death at a memorial. “Hey Texas State. This conduct is not accepted at our schools. Expel this student immediately. Mocking assassinations must have consequences,” Abbott wrote on X. The student was expelled later that day.
Texas Education Agency officials reported earlier this month that 280 complaints have been filed against teachers who commented on Kirk’s death on social media. While some of the posts were no-doubt inflammatory, suggesting that Kirk “got what he deserved,” others pointed out that they thought Kirk was a racist and posted clips that they presumably believed illustrated their point.
Randal Scamardo, a Texas A&M graduate who works as an assistant professor of Spanish at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina, said the situation at his alma mater is troubling. It appears that while it’s acceptable to laud Republican and Christian ideology in all public classrooms, differing opinions are shut down, he said.
“Since governments are expected to provide public education, it’s easier for them to create something that looks like education but is more akin to indoctrination,” Scamardo said. “People interested in doing that should be kept far away from the content of public education.”
Ironically, the indoctrination argument goes both ways. Harrison has argued that rogue educators must be fired for indoctrinating students into a “woke” ideology that includes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices and gender identity.
University of Houston lecturer Nancy Sims said on the Houston Matters radio show earlier this month that she devotes the first 15 minutes of her Women in Politics class to discussing the issues of the day, such as something President Trump said, action taken by the Legislature, or “any kind of policy that’s affecting women’s lives.”
“I think it’s very challenging to teach situations in the real world when the Legislature is trying to put parameters around you to not allow that,” Sims said on the radio show. “How can you discuss women’s rights without discussing the role of gender identity in women’s rights? You’re trying to put parameters on us that don’t allow us to discuss reality in the world that students will face when they leave campus.”
“It’s had a chilling effect on all public universities,” Sims told the Houston Press, declining to comment further.
Details are still unfolding in McCoul’s case, but accusations have been made that the topic of gender identity wasn’t relevant to a discussion on children’s literature.
According to reports, McCoul’s students were reading a novel called Jude Saves the World, featuring a 12-year-old protagonist who comes out as nonbinary. The professor shared a graphic of a “gender unicorn” to teach the differences between gender identity and sexuality.
According to the video released by Rep. Harrison, the student who later complained to the administration said, “I just have a question, because I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching. Because, according to our President, there’s only two genders and he said that he would be freezing agencies’ funding programs that promote gender ideology. This also very much goes against, not only myself, but a lot of people’s religious beliefs.”
McCoul told the student she had the right to leave the class when concerns about the topic were raised.
No state or federal law prohibits instruction on race, gender, or sexual orientation in Texas universities, nor is there a university policy. An executive order issued by Trump in January states that U.S. government policy is to recognize two sexes and that federal funds could not be used to promote gender identity. However, legal experts have said that the order doesn’t prohibit a professor from teaching lessons on the topic.
McCoul’s children’s literature class, held over the summer, was canceled after the incident but the professor was back in the classroom teaching in the fall. She was not officially reprimanded for the incident until the video surfaced.
McCoul’s notice of termination, according to her attorney Amanda Reichek, “alleges that she was instructed on numerous occasions to change the course content to align with the catalog description and the course description that was originally submitted and approved, yet failed to do so.”
“However, Professor McCoul’s course content was entirely consistent with the catalog and course description, and she was never instructed to change her course content in any way, shape, or form,” Reichek said in an emailed statement. “In fact, Dr. McCoul taught this course and others like it for many years, successfully and without challenge. Instead, Dr. McCoul was fired in violation of her constitutional and contractual rights, and the academic freedom that was once the hallmark of Texas higher education.”
The professor appealed her termination and is “exploring further legal action,” Reichek said.
A tenured faculty member sent an anonymous letter last week to the student body at Texas A&M, noting that, for the second time in two years, a university president has stepped down “under public criticism from Texas political leaders and social media actors – accompanied by the resignation or removal of academic administrators and, in this most recent case, the firing of a faculty member in what appears to be a response to political pressure.”
M. Katherine Banks was the university president prior to Welsh. She retired in the wake of a controversy over the hiring of a Black female to lead A&M’s revitalized journalism program but received backlash from conservative groups that alleged a DEI hire.
“This follows years in which faculty have been lampooned in partisan media and by state officials as ‘woke’ activists, supposedly more concerned with ideology than with research and education,” the anonymous faculty member wrote. “We come to work knowing that serving your interests carries the risk of public ridicule, doxing, and, now it appears, loss of one’s job.”
“What makes this moment even more distressing is that outside agitators are trying to pit students against faculty, encouraging you to use the classroom as their weapon. I feel a long way from my first day standing in front of a classroom of Aggies, when students lined up to say howdy and introduce themselves. Now I wonder if they are recording.”
Texas A&M junior Ian Curtis, a journalism major and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The Battalion, said last week that his peers were not particularly outraged about McCoul’s firing, but they were concerned that President Welsh was seemingly forced to resign amid the controversy.
Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh III, pictured with his wife Betty, resigned last week amid a controversy over a professor teaching gender identity in a children’s literature class.
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The retired U.S. Air Force four-star general exited campus on September 19 with his wife Betty as students displayed signs that read, “American Hero & Our Hero. The Student Government Association rounded up dozens of current and former student leaders to sign a letter of support for Welsh and students protested for academic freedom.
“The professor situation, that gets into the politics of the day,” Curtis said. “People’s opinions are really divided on that on campus, but there was a lot of popular support for President Welsh. There’s an interesting dynamic here. It’s all the same scandal so it all gets thrown into one, but I think, among the student body, there’s a lot of support for Welsh because of everything he did for the university, which isn’t always the same as the reaction to the firing of the professor.”
Following the Course Description
The course description in McCoul’s publicly listed syllabus for the “Literature for Children” course states that the class will “tease out the boundaries of children’s literature,” including what counts as children’s literature and what differentiates writing for children from writing for adults, the Texas Tribune reported.
The syllabus lists Jude Saves the World as a course text and describes it as a children’s book by Ronnie Riley about a “nonbinary, bisexual 12-year-old who uses they/them pronouns.”
“Some of the material in this class might be controversial, and it is likely differing opinions will emerge,” the syllabus states. “You are certainly not required to agree with me (or your peers), or to adhere to any particular viewpoints. However, I do insist upon respectful, courteous dialogue, especially in matters where emotions run high.”
So it appears the students knew — or at least were provided information — on what the class would entail when they signed up for it.
Scamardo, the North Carolina professor, who earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. at the Universidad de Cadiz in Spain, said in general, course catalog descriptions are supposed to be four lines or less.
“We’re trying to make the courses look interesting,” he said. “We want students to register for these courses, and these descriptions have to be used semester after semester without having to be constantly altered. That is not very easy to do, but you also have a syllabus that gives more in-depth information. The students are supposed to read the syllabus at the beginning of the semester, when they still have time to drop the class and get their money back if they don’t like what they see planned out for the next 17 weeks.”
The professor added that students need to “lighten up, learn as much as they can, and go with the flow a little bit,” particularly when taking a political science course or a class that covers current events.
“Trust your college professors; they are the experts,” he said. “Take away what you like and disregard the rest. Keep the culture wars out of the classroom. You’re there to learn, not fight.”
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said recently on the Houston Matters radio program that the course catalog references general topics but “it’s a rubric that you fill in throughout the course.”
“Especially in something like politics, you often are filling it in as the course evolves because you often try to use examples that come from current-day politics,” he said. “If you’re talking about democracy or elections, you’re probably not going to bring in some type of political philosophy that has nothing to do with politics, but it’s tough to say from the start exactly what you’re going to be covering in a course, especially for topics that are ever-changing, like politics.”
State Officials Also Get Involved in Secondary Education
As the so-called scandal at Texas A&M got a lot of attention this month, it became clear that secondary education classrooms are not immune to the watchful eye of the state government.
The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a bill earlier this year requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public K-12 classrooms as long as the posters are donated. Two lawsuits have been filed to challenge the legislation and courts have ruled that such a measure is unconstitutional.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated a legal victory against Austin ISD on September 15, prohibiting the district from teaching critical race theory.
“Critical race theory is anti-American propaganda and in no world will I allow the woke indoctrination of Texas children,” Paxton said in an emailed statement. “While this order is an important step forward, I want to make clear to any school district considering any breach of this law: we will be watching.”
And in the Facebook post heard ‘round Texas, Abilene ISD Superintendent John Kuhn lamented that the “burden is heavy” for administrators in public education.
“Yesterday I spent hours at an update listening to the impacts on teachers and admins at public schools of bill after bill passed by our lege,” he wrote. “Did you know that one bill says teachers are going to be required to catalogue every book in their classrooms? Kindergarten teachers have hundreds of tiny books. With what time? When? Did you know that another bill says nurses can’t provide any health care whatsoever and counselors can’t provide any emotional support whatsoever without a written permission slip from parents?”
“Legislators have been convinced by political groups who hate public schools that everyone inside them are wicked, evil people,” Kuhn added.
Kuhn went on to say that Abilene teachers were referred to as “demons” by social media commenters who objected to the teaching of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in an honors English class. The book is about a child who lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and it contains a few curse words, Kuhn said.
“My teachers aren’t demons,” Kuhn wrote. “They may have made a mistake in assigning this book to 15-year-olds rather than 17-year olds and for that there are people online saying they need to be fired. Today, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is likely temporarily coming off our library shelves while we review our book challenge policies. Read the book. It’ll make you cry.”
He went on to say that “we can’t win in public ed anymore” and he was thinking about retiring when he is eligible in January.
“I’m sick of politicians playing divisive politics and leaving local public servants to clean up the mess,” Kuhn wrote. “Public schools are apolitical entities with the job of teaching kids to think critically and become awesome humans. We aren’t perfect. We have missteps because we are human organizations. But don’t call my teachers DEMONS while you cuss in the comments.”
“There is a political movement to pull the teeth of local officials at schools and on city councils and county commissioners courts so that all we have is centralized state leadership. So local yokels like yours truly have to be continually demonized and legislated into submission.”
Academic Freedom
The controversy at A&M has prompted free speech advocates to question whether McCoul’s firing not only was unfounded but endangers academic freedom in Texas.
Lindsie Rank, director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said public institutions can’t fire employees for exercising their First Amendment rights. Such occurrences are likely to prompt some educators to seek employment in other states, Rank said in a published report.
A recent survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors and the Texas Faculty Association found that 25 percent of Texas professors have applied for out-of-state jobs in the last two years. Over 60 percent said they would not recommend that colleagues or graduate students seek positions in the state. The chief complaint among those surveyed was the political climate.
Texas A&M’s College Station campus is home to more than 76,000 students.
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Caro Achar, engagement coordinator for free speech at the ACLU of Texas, said free speech is the “cornerstone of our — and any — democracy, and it must apply to all Texans regardless of the viewpoints they express.”
“All public colleges and universities have a constitutional obligation to protect academic freedom on their campuses,” she said. “For decades, the Supreme Court has emphasized the importance of public universities maintaining learning environments where students and faculty are free to learn and explore new ideas. The censorship of certain topics and viewpoints destroys these environments and threatens the very foundation of our democracy.”
Curtis, the A&M junior, said he didn’t think students are concerned about what they can talk about in class, but they are concerned about the political overreach that’s preventing universities from handling their business internally.
“I’ve been in classes where professors have had to say, ‘This is a class where we discuss current events.’ I think it’s a fear, maybe a nervousness or anxiety, that extends to the students sometimes, but a lot of us … we’ve still got to pass our exams. Maybe the severity of what’s going on hasn’t hit the student body yet,” he said.
“I think the resignation of Welsh really put that into perspective for a lot of people,” he added. “It was like, this political thing that I wasn’t paying attention to extended to someone I’ve met. I shook his hand and he came to my awards events. That really shocked a lot of people into caring and looking into the situation.”
Senate Bill 17, requiring state universities to dismantle DEI offices and cease various programs, activities, and trainings that were traditionally conducted by them, became effective in January 2024. That got students’ attention because it affected some of their clubs and extracurricular activities, Curtis said.
Texas A&M is a diverse institution with more than 70,000 people at the main campus, but the perception, based on the visual displayed on televised football games, is a majority-white, conservative campus with a military-style Corps of Cadets and male “yell leaders” instead of cheerleaders, said Curtis, who grew up in College Station.
Texas A&M University is known for its Corps of Cadets and military traditions. The institution began accepting women in 1963.
Screenshot
“There’s a community for everyone; there are representative bodies for queer students, every ethnic group or international student,” he said. “The campus and the school itself is a community and there’s something for everyone here.”
Former A&M President Welsh at first said he wouldn’t fire McCoul but then reversed course and did so, saying at the time, “This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility.”
But some students believe that academic freedom is under attack, Curtis said, pointing to a reportThe Battalion did earlier this year on the conservative influence that far-right publication Texas Scorecard has on A&M’s policies and personnel discussions.
“Virtually every article they publish is not fully factual, sometimes not even close to factual,” Welsh is quoted saying in the article. “They have never printed a retraction when we provided them with the facts.”
And yet members of the A&M Board of Regents repeatedly pointed to published reports in the Scorecard to justify policy-making decisions, according to The Battalion.
Curtis said students are aware of the political pressure on university administrators but they typically don’t get involved until it affects their daily lives. He said he didn’t think anything would change among students other than reacting to changes at the institutional level.
“I think you’re going to see a shift in how other people conduct themselves more than how students conduct themselves,” he said. “I think there will be a domino effect from that. I think the issue is that you have people on social media seeing one moment out of context, and it being shared by a politician, and then you have people in Austin with their eyes on it. You have university systems that feel like they need to make changes based on that.”
“It’s reactionary. An uneducated opinion is being shared and it’s leading to all this change,” he added. “I think that frustrates a lot of students.”
Should a college professor be able to share information about gender identity in a children’s literature class? Can an elementary school teacher offer an “unpopular opinion” about the Charlie Kirk murder on her personal Facebook page? Not without consequences, and not as long as Republican leaders are micromanaging public institutions, free speech advocates say.
Four people lost their jobs at Texas A&M University this month after a student objected to a discussion about a book involving a nonbinary child, falsely claiming such a conversation is not allowed under the Trump administration. The student took a recording of her classroom exchange with the professor to the university president, and a Republican lawmaker made it his mission to publicize the situation and rally support for the ouster of the A&M officials involved.
The termination of professor Melissa McCoul; the demotions of College of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Zoran and English Department Head Emily Johansen; and the subsequent resignation of University President Mark Welsh III prompted a firestorm of controversy and debate about government overreach into higher education institutions.
Academics across the country have strong opinions on these topics, but many professors, including those at Houston universities, are uncomfortable talking about them publicly.
The incident in McCoul’s Texas A&M classroom was publicized by Texas Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, and had members of the public calling for the professor’s firing, tagging Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican lawmakers.
🚨CAUGHT ON TAPE: TEXAS A&M STUDENT KICKED OUT OF CLASS AFTER OBJECTING TO TRANSGENDER INDOCTRINATION… and A&M President defends “LGBTQ Studies.”
Harrison did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
Days after McCoul lost her job, conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk was murdered on the Utah Valley University campus, and as people weighed in on social media, a campaign was launched to get people fired from their jobs who spoke in a negative way about Kirk, who was an ally of President Donald Trump.
Governor Abbott called for the expulsion of a student at Texas State University who allegedly mocked Kirk’s death at a memorial. “Hey Texas State. This conduct is not accepted at our schools. Expel this student immediately. Mocking assassinations must have consequences,” Abbott wrote on X. The student was expelled later that day.
Texas Education Agency officials reported earlier this month that 280 complaints have been filed against teachers who commented on Kirk’s death on social media. While some of the posts were no-doubt inflammatory, suggesting that Kirk “got what he deserved,” others pointed out that they thought Kirk was a racist and posted clips that they presumably believed illustrated their point.
Randal Scamardo, a Texas A&M graduate who works as an assistant professor of Spanish at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina, said the situation at his alma mater is troubling. It appears that while it’s acceptable to laud Republican and Christian ideology in all public classrooms, differing opinions are shut down, he said.
“Since governments are expected to provide public education, it’s easier for them to create something that looks like education but is more akin to indoctrination,” Scamardo said. “People interested in doing that should be kept far away from the content of public education.”
Ironically, the indoctrination argument goes both ways. Harrison has argued that rogue educators must be fired for indoctrinating students into a “woke” ideology that includes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices and gender identity.
University of Houston lecturer Nancy Sims said on the Houston Matters radio showearlier this month that she devotes the first 15 minutes of her Women in Politics class to discussing the issues of the day, such as something President Trump said, action taken by the Legislature, or “any kind of policy that’s affecting women’s lives.”
“I think it’s very challenging to teach situations in the real world when the Legislature is trying to put parameters around you to not allow that,” Sims said on the radio show. “How can you discuss women’s rights without discussing the role of gender identity in women’s rights? You’re trying to put parameters on us that don’t allow us to discuss reality in the world that students will face when they leave campus.”
“It’s had a chilling effect on all public universities,” Sims told the Houston Press, declining to comment further.
Details are still unfolding in McCoul’s case, but accusations have been made that the topic of gender identity wasn’t relevant to a discussion on children’s literature.
According to reports, McCoul’s students were reading a novel called Jude Saves the World, featuring a 12-year-old protagonist who comes out as nonbinary. The professor shared a graphic of a “gender unicorn” to teach the differences between gender identity and sexuality.
According to the video released by Rep. Harrison, the student who later complained to the administration said, “I just have a question, because I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching. Because, according to our President, there’s only two genders and he said that he would be freezing agencies’ funding programs that promote gender ideology. This also very much goes against, not only myself, but a lot of people’s religious beliefs.”
McCoul told the student she had the right to leave the class when concerns about the topic were raised.
No state or federal law prohibits instruction on race, gender, or sexual orientation in Texas universities, nor is there a university policy. An executive order issued by Trump in January states that U.S. government policy is to recognize two sexes and that federal funds could not be used to promote gender identity. However, legal experts have said that the order doesn’t prohibit a professor from teaching lessons on the topic.
McCoul’s children’s literature class, held over the summer, was canceled after the incident but the professor was back in the classroom teaching in the fall. She was not officially reprimanded for the incident until the video surfaced.
McCoul’s notice of termination, according to her attorney Amanda Reichek, “alleges that she was instructed on numerous occasions to change the course content to align with the catalog description and the course description that was originally submitted and approved, yet failed to do so.”
“However, Professor McCoul’s course content was entirely consistent with the catalog and course description, and she was never instructed to change her course content in any way, shape, or form,” Reichek said in an emailed statement. “In fact, Dr. McCoul taught this course and others like it for many years, successfully and without challenge. Instead, Dr. McCoul was fired in violation of her constitutional and contractual rights, and the academic freedom that was once the hallmark of Texas higher education.”
The professor appealed her termination and is “exploring further legal action,” Reichek said.
A tenured faculty member sent an anonymous letter last week to the student body at Texas A&M, noting that, for the second time in two years, a university president has stepped down “under public criticism from Texas political leaders and social media actors – accompanied by the resignation or removal of academic administrators and, in this most recent case, the firing of a faculty member in what appears to be a response to political pressure.”
M. Katherine Banks was the university president prior to Welsh. She retired in the wake of a controversy over the hiring of a Black female to lead A&M’s revitalized journalism program but received backlash from conservative groups that alleged a DEI hire.
“This follows years in which faculty have been lampooned in partisan media and by state officials as ‘woke’ activists, supposedly more concerned with ideology than with research and education,” the anonymous faculty member wrote. “We come to work knowing that serving your interests carries the risk of public ridicule, doxing, and, now it appears, loss of one’s job.”
“What makes this moment even more distressing is that outside agitators are trying to pit students against faculty, encouraging you to use the classroom as their weapon. I feel a long way from my first day standing in front of a classroom of Aggies, when students lined up to say howdy and introduce themselves. Now I wonder if they are recording.”
Texas A&M junior Ian Curtis, a journalism major and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The Battalion, said last week that his peers were not particularly outraged about McCoul’s firing, but they were concerned that President Welsh was seemingly forced to resign amid the controversy.
Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh III, pictured with his wife Betty, resigned last week amid a controversy over a professor teaching gender identity in a children’s literature class. Credit: Screenshot
The retired U.S. Air Force four-star general exited campus on September 19 with his wife Betty as students displayed signs that read, “American Hero & Our Hero. The Student Government Association rounded up dozens of current and former student leaders to sign a letter of support for Welsh and students protested for academic freedom.
“The professor situation, that gets into the politics of the day,” Curtis said. “People’s opinions are really divided on that on campus, but there was a lot of popular support for President Welsh. There’s an interesting dynamic here. It’s all the same scandal so it all gets thrown into one, but I think, among the student body, there’s a lot of support for Welsh because of everything he did for the university, which isn’t always the same as the reaction to the firing of the professor.”
Following the Course Description
The course description in McCoul’s publicly listed syllabus for the “Literature for Children” course states that the class will “tease out the boundaries of children’s literature,” including what counts as children’s literature and what differentiates writing for children from writing for adults, the Texas Tribune reported.
The syllabus lists Jude Saves the World as a course text and describes it as a children’s book by Ronnie Riley about a “nonbinary, bisexual 12-year-old who uses they/them pronouns.”
“Some of the material in this class might be controversial, and it is likely differing opinions will emerge,” the syllabus states. “You are certainly not required to agree with me (or your peers), or to adhere to any particular viewpoints. However, I do insist upon respectful, courteous dialogue, especially in matters where emotions run high.”
So it appears the students knew — or at least were provided information — on what the class would entail when they signed up for it.
Scamardo, the North Carolina professor, who earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. at the Universidad de Cadiz in Spain, said in general, course catalog descriptions are supposed to be four lines or less.
“We’re trying to make the courses look interesting,” he said. “We want students to register for these courses, and these descriptions have to be used semester after semester without having to be constantly altered. That is not very easy to do, but you also have a syllabus that gives more in-depth information. The students are supposed to read the syllabus at the beginning of the semester, when they still have time to drop the class and get their money back if they don’t like what they see planned out for the next 17 weeks.”
The professor added that students need to “lighten up, learn as much as they can, and go with the flow a little bit,” particularly when taking a political science course or a class that covers current events.
“Trust your college professors; they are the experts,” he said. “Take away what you like and disregard the rest. Keep the culture wars out of the classroom. You’re there to learn, not fight.”
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said recently on the Houston Matters radio program that the course catalog references general topics but “it’s a rubric that you fill in throughout the course.”
“Especially in something like politics, you often are filling it in as the course evolves because you often try to use examples that come from current-day politics,” he said. “If you’re talking about democracy or elections, you’re probably not going to bring in some type of political philosophy that has nothing to do with politics, but it’s tough to say from the start exactly what you’re going to be covering in a course, especially for topics that are ever-changing, like politics.”
State Officials Also Get Involved in Secondary Education
As the so-called scandal at Texas A&M got a lot of attention this month, it became clear that secondary education classrooms are not immune to the watchful eye of the state government.
The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a bill earlier this year requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public K-12 classrooms as long as the posters are donated. Two lawsuits have been filed to challenge the legislation and courts have ruled that such a measure is unconstitutional.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated a legal victory against Austin ISD on September 15, prohibiting the district from teaching critical race theory.
“Critical race theory is anti-American propaganda and in no world will I allow the woke indoctrination of Texas children,” Paxton said in an emailed statement. “While this order is an important step forward, I want to make clear to any school district considering any breach of this law: we will be watching.”
And in the Facebook post heard ‘round Texas, Abilene ISD Superintendent John Kuhn lamented that the “burden is heavy” for administrators in public education.
“Yesterday I spent hours at an update listening to the impacts on teachers and admins at public schools of bill after bill passed by our lege,” he wrote. “Did you know that one bill says teachers are going to be required to catalogue every book in their classrooms? Kindergarten teachers have hundreds of tiny books. With what time? When? Did you know that another bill says nurses can’t provide any health care whatsoever and counselors can’t provide any emotional support whatsoever without a written permission slip from parents?”
“Legislators have been convinced by political groups who hate public schools that everyone inside them are wicked, evil people,” Kuhn added.
Kuhn went on to say that Abilene teachers were referred to as “demons” by social media commenters who objected to the teaching of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in an honors English class. The book is about a child who lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and it contains a few curse words, Kuhn said.
“My teachers aren’t demons,” Kuhn wrote. “They may have made a mistake in assigning this book to 15-year-olds rather than 17-year olds and for that there are people online saying they need to be fired. Today, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is likely temporarily coming off our library shelves while we review our book challenge policies. Read the book. It’ll make you cry.”
He went on to say that “we can’t win in public ed anymore” and he was thinking about retiring when he is eligible in January.
“I’m sick of politicians playing divisive politics and leaving local public servants to clean up the mess,” Kuhn wrote. “Public schools are apolitical entities with the job of teaching kids to think critically and become awesome humans. We aren’t perfect. We have missteps because we are human organizations. But don’t call my teachers DEMONS while you cuss in the comments.”
“There is a political movement to pull the teeth of local officials at schools and on city councils and county commissioners courts so that all we have is centralized state leadership. So local yokels like yours truly have to be continually demonized and legislated into submission.”
Academic Freedom
The controversy at A&M has prompted free speech advocates to question whether McCoul’s firing not only was unfounded but endangers academic freedom in Texas.
Lindsie Rank, director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said public institutions can’t fire employees for exercising their First Amendment rights. Such occurrences are likely to prompt some educators to seek employment in other states, Rank said in a published report.
A recent survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors and the Texas Faculty Association found that 25 percent of Texas professors have applied for out-of-state jobs in the last two years. Over 60 percent said they would not recommend that colleagues or graduate students seek positions in the state. The chief complaint among those surveyed was the political climate.
Texas A&M’s College Station campus is home to more than 76,000 students. Credit: Screenshot
Caro Achar, engagement coordinator for free speech at the ACLU of Texas, said free speech is the “cornerstone of our — and any — democracy, and it must apply to all Texans regardless of the viewpoints they express.”
“All public colleges and universities have a constitutional obligation to protect academic freedom on their campuses,” she said. “For decades, the Supreme Court has emphasized the importance of public universities maintaining learning environments where students and faculty are free to learn and explore new ideas. The censorship of certain topics and viewpoints destroys these environments and threatens the very foundation of our democracy.”
Curtis, the A&M junior, said he didn’t think students are concerned about what they can talk about in class, but they are concerned about the political overreach that’s preventing universities from handling their business internally.
“I’ve been in classes where professors have had to say, ‘This is a class where we discuss current events.’ I think it’s a fear, maybe a nervousness or anxiety, that extends to the students sometimes, but a lot of us … we’ve still got to pass our exams. Maybe the severity of what’s going on hasn’t hit the student body yet,” he said.
“I think the resignation of Welsh really put that into perspective for a lot of people,” he added. “It was like, this political thing that I wasn’t paying attention to extended to someone I’ve met. I shook his hand and he came to my awards events. That really shocked a lot of people into caring and looking into the situation.”
Senate Bill 17, requiring state universities to dismantle DEI offices and cease various programs, activities, and trainings that were traditionally conducted by them, became effective in January 2024. That got students’ attention because it affected some of their clubs and extracurricular activities, Curtis said.
Texas A&M is a diverse institution with more than 70,000 people at the main campus, but the perception, based on the visual displayed on televised football games, is a majority-white, conservative campus with a military-style Corps of Cadets and male “yell leaders” instead of cheerleaders, said Curtis, who grew up in College Station.
Texas A&M University is known for its Corps of Cadets and military traditions. The institution began accepting women in 1963. Credit: Screenshot
“There’s a community for everyone; there are representative bodies for queer students, every ethnic group or international student,” he said. “The campus and the school itself is a community and there’s something for everyone here.”
Former A&M President Welsh at first said he wouldn’t fire McCoul but then reversed course and did so, saying at the time, “This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility.”
But some students believe that academic freedom is under attack, Curtis said, pointing to a reportThe Battalion did earlier this year on the conservative influence that far-right publication Texas Scorecard has on A&M’s policies and personnel discussions.
“Virtually every article they publish is not fully factual, sometimes not even close to factual,” Welsh is quoted saying in the article. “They have never printed a retraction when we provided them with the facts.”
And yet members of the A&M Board of Regents repeatedly pointed to published reports in the Scorecard to justify policy-making decisions, according to The Battalion.
Curtis said students are aware of the political pressure on university administrators but they typically don’t get involved until it affects their daily lives. He said he didn’t think anything would change among students other than reacting to changes at the institutional level.
“I think you’re going to see a shift in how other people conduct themselves more than how students conduct themselves,” he said. “I think there will be a domino effect from that. I think the issue is that you have people on social media seeing one moment out of context, and it being shared by a politician, and then you have people in Austin with their eyes on it. You have university systems that feel like they need to make changes based on that.”
“It’s reactionary. An uneducated opinion is being shared and it’s leading to all this change,” he added. “I think that frustrates a lot of students.”
Charlie Kirk and his intellectual godfather, William F. Buckley Jr. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty
When Jimmy Kimmel returned to television on Tuesday evening, the late-night host had sharp words for the conservatives who’d briefly forced him off the air. President Donald Trump had put Disney, which owns ABC and made the call to suspend Kimmel, at risk by making “it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs,” the comedian said. “Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”
Kimmel had attracted Trump’s ire by suggesting Kirk’s murderer was one of the “MAGA gang,” but previously he was not the most obvious target of the anti-speech right. Once known for co-hosting The Man Show, his late-night persona has always been a bit sedate. As he’s since discovered, the Kirk murder has become a useful pretext for political repression. Kimmel might be the right’s most famous target, but he isn’t alone: Public universities and school districts have fired educators for criticizing Kirk and his work. At least eight servicemembers have been disciplined for comments about the late influencer, and conservative social-media users have targeted “dozens” more across most branches of the military, Task & Purpose reported. Apple TV has postponedThe Savant, which stars Jessica Chastain as an undercover researcher focused on right-wing extremism. The Washington Postfired columnist Karen Attiah for Bluesky posts arguing, in part, against “the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.” Last week, a conservative influencer claimed a Starbucks barista refused to write Kirk’s name on her drink, citing company policy. Amid backlash, Starbucks announced that customers could force workers to write political “names,” but not slogans, on cups.
By punishing Kimmel and others for speech, the right has opened itself up to the accusation of hypocrisy. Conservatives often say they are victims of progressive intolerance, and Trump fashioned himself into their champion. Not long after he returned to power in January, he signed an executive order to restore “freedom of speech” and end “federal censorship,” loosely defined. FCC chair Brendan Carr said he would defend the First Amendment or, as he tweeted in 2024, “We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.” Kimmel must not count. Last week, Carr kicked off the Kimmel suspension by telling the far-right podcaster Benny Johnson that media companies should “change conduct to take action on Kimmel” or “there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Yet Carr is not a hypocrite, and neither is Trump. They aren’t inconsistent; they simply do not share a basic commitment to free speech with their liberal critics. Instead, they operate within a much older and more restrictive tradition on the right. To a subset of prominent conservative writers and thinkers, free speech has always been a limited concept. There is good speech, which must be privileged, and bad speech, which must be punished.
Conservatives who favor the asymmetric right to free speech do so because it serves a deeper political project. That essential dynamic has played out on the American campus for decades, but it is not limited to the Ivy League; it has censored journalists, ended acting careers, and deported immigrants. If dissent no longer exists, neither does a meaningful opposition. An anonymous Kimmel writer got it right. “Even if Jimmy was willing to publicly apologize and donate money to whatever ghoulish conservative group that is demanding it … MAGA people will never be happy,” they told journalist Rick Ellis. “It will never be enough.”
A few years before William F. Buckley Jr. founded the National Review, he picked a fight with his alma mater. In his mind, Yale University had nurtured atheism and a certain anti-Americanism under the guise of academic freedom. “Individualism is dying at Yale, and without a fight,” he wrote in 1951’s God and Man at Yale, his first book. Buckley’s evidence was thin. Outspoken Marxists and communists were rare on campus, as the writer McGeorge Bundy pointed out at the time, and that forced Buckley to rely on the more nebulous charge of “collectivism.” Buckley attacked a selection of assigned economic texts for “unsound” collectivist principles and complained, “Not one of them so much as pays lip-service to the highly respectable doctrine that it is anti-democratic to take from someone what the people in the first instance decide to give him.” Yale had also drifted too far from its Christian origins, Buckley charged, and cited the chair of the Religion Department, who was an ordained minister but “does not seek to persuade his students to believe in Christ, largely because he has not, as I understand it, been completely able to persuade himself.” The young Buckley wanted to change the way Yale operated so it would promote good speech, not bad speech, as he set the terms. He wrote that Yale’s charter bestowed the “responsibility to govern” on the institution’s alumni, who were more Christian and individualistic than its current leaders, so they should take charge. “Freedom is in no way violated by an educational overseer’s insistence that the teacher he employs hold a given set of values,” he argued.
God and Man at Yale enthralled conservatives as the Second Red Scare dawned. Even a facetious charge of Bolshevism could ruin a person’s career or life; to Buckley, this was less a problem than an opportunity. With his friend and brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell Jr., he published McCarthy and His Enemies in 1954. The best-selling book was not wholly uncritical of Joseph McCarthy but defended his tactics and goals from detractors. As one contemporary review in the Times put it, Buckley and Bozell believed that “while damage to a reputation may result from McCarthy’s practice of this method, the result would not appear to be part of the method” itself. McCarthy, they added, deserves praise for promoting a “conformity” of thought. As Buckley rose, McCarthyism racked up casualties. In 1952, Queens College fired Vera Shlakman, an economics professor, because she refused to tell Senate investigators whether she had ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. A New York Times obituary published at her death in 2017 observed that she “neither taught economics again nor wrote a sequel” to her seminal work, Economic History of a Factory Town.
The MAGA world has many influences, of which Buckley is merely one, but it’s not all that difficult to detect his McCarthyism, campus obsessions, and flair for spectacle in the conservatives who have followed. Roger Kimball published Tenured Radicals in 1990. Before Dinesh D’Souza started selling fake Christmas trees, the Dartmouth graduate published Illiberal Education in 1998. The genre is still potent, as Jacob Heilbrunn recently noted at Washington Monthly: Christopher Rufo, another campus crusader, published America’s Cultural Revolution in 2023. Buckley was “certainly a pioneer of politics as entertainment,” writer Sam Adler-Bell argued in a review of Sam Tanenhaus’s new biography of the man. Despite his intellectual affect and patrician accent, Buckley’s true heirs are “MAGA celebrities” like the late Kirk, in form as well as substance, Adler-Bell wrote. Buckley once defended the Jim Crow regime in an editorial for the National Review because white Southerners are “for the time being, the advanced race,” and the central problem the South faced was “not how to get the vote” for Black Americans, “but how to equip” them along with “many whites to cast an enlightened and responsible vote.” Decades later Buckley said he’d erred by thinking America would “evolve” out of Jim Crow without intervention, but he was hardly a champion of civil rights, and his prejudices are still potent. Kirk once accused “prowling Blacks” of targeting white city dwellers and said that prominent Black women such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
The object of that shared project is domination. A thriving network of Christian colleges and universities existed well before 1951, when he wrote his first book, but that wasn’t good enough. He wanted the Ivy League, too. If he could force Yale to teach the right ideas — to say the right words in the right order — future elites would have the right values and the right politics. The campus has been a conservative object of desire ever since. In 2023, Rufo helped take control of the New College of Florida at the behest of Governor Ron DeSantis and conducted an ideological purge. In one example, Rufo said the public university would not renew a visiting professor’s contract on account of his left-wing speech. “It is a privilege, not a right, to be employed by a taxpayer-funded university,” he tweeted.
When Trump regained power earlier this year, he trained the full might of the federal government on immigrant scholars with inconvenient ideas. Masked ICE agents arrested Rümeysa Öztürk on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, because she had co-authored a pro-Palestinian editorial. The Trump administration is still trying to deport Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestinian activism — an act of repression that Kirk, the supposed defender of free speech, supported. What’s more, the right wing’s war for the campus was never limited to higher education at all. Kimmel is back on air now, but the era of the Hollywood blacklist does not feel so distant.
When institutions capitulate, individual liberties soon follow, and courage can have life-altering consequences. After Queens College fired Vera Shlakman, it moved on to her former student, economist Mark Blaug, then a tutor. “For a day or two, I contemplated a magnificent protest,” Blaug wrote in 2000, “a statement that would ring down the ages as a clarion bell to individual freedom, that would be read and cited for years to come by American high school students — and then I quietly sent in my letter of resignation.” Conformity is popular because it feels safe, and that is as true now as it has been during each iteration of the Red Scare. Disney sacrificed Kimmel at the slightest pressure from the White House, and although they brought him back, their cowardice bodes ill. By the end of July, nine elite law firms “capitulated” to White House pressure by “pledging nearly $1 billion in free work” to the administration, Reuters reported. The University of California at Berkeley recently shared 160 names of students and faculty with White House officials in response to a purported antisemitism probe.
Still, some liberals are pondering accommodation. In the New York Times, the president of Barnard College condemned “groupthink” and wrote, “The purpose of higher education is not to advance one viewpoint over another, but to provide our students with the tools and training they need to examine and challenge all beliefs, including their own.” The writer Jerusalem Demsas offered a more radical solution in a piece for The Argument. Universities should prioritize the hiring of conservative faculty even if they are “less qualified” than their liberal peers. “A university made up of only the left-leaning sons and daughters of the wealthy will reproduce an unrepresentative elite and an unrepresentative body of work, thus precipitating its own undoing,” she argued, but that misunderstands the problem. Elite schools are skewed to the wealthy, certainly, and we should make them more egalitarian. But if conservatives are sorting themselves into less-selective institutions, as she says, we should also entertain the possibility that they seek the conformity of Buckley and Bozell. My alma mater, Cedarville University, promises students “exceptional academics with a biblical worldview.” The goal is to create a bubble.
Worse: As the right-wing embraces the fringe, it will produce writers and thinkers who are more likely to espouse nonsense. It doesn’t make much sense for Yale to hire a creationist who studied geology at Cedarville in the name of disagreement on campus. Reality is not a viewpoint, but it can look like one to those who deny it. Any college that teaches factual science or history or medicine will face accusations of groupthink, if it has not already. Trickier still, some ideologies are more evidence-based than others. Conspiracy theorists have the right to believe what they want, but that doesn’t mean they should get a megaphone whenever they ask for one. Conservatives including Vice-President J.D. Vance have defended the Kimmel suspension because liberals hurt free speech first; they’re still angry that the Biden administration urged social-media platforms to curb COVID misinformation. But the acts are not equivalent to each other. When people spread lies about a deadly pandemic, it’s not obviously a virtue to let them continue.
If we’re to defend free speech from its enemies, we can’t be content with platitudes. We will have to think more critically about conservative politics and what they signify for the future of our democracy. By this, I do not mean that we should strip conservatives of their First Amendment rights. Instead I favor a certain bitter honesty. At this point in the MAGA era, there is no reason to assume that the right wing and its critics speak the same language, share foundational values, or live in the same reality. There are exceptions, and I think we should always strive to persuade, but we must be realistic about the intellectual and political challenges we face. They aren’t exactly new. As the socialist critic Irving Howe wrote in 1954, “No easy certainties and no easy acceptance of uncertainty.” We do not have to accept the terms the foes of democracy would impose on us. To Howe, “the banner of critical independence, ragged and torn though it may be, is still the best we have.” Now is not the moment to set that banner down.
Offers over 300 flexible courses, badges and certificates
Employers can create custom training programs with Molloy
Talent solutions summit set for Sept. 30 at Rockville Centre campus
To support workforce development on Long Island, Molloy University is launching its Talent Solutions program, an employer-focused initiative designed to provide customized education strategies to upskill workers and improve employee retention.
The university is hosting a talent solutions summit, with academic and business leaders, on Tuesday, Sept. 30, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. in the Larini Room of the Public Square Building on its Rockville Centre campus.
“This is about listening to Long Island employers first and then building right-sized, right-now learning together with our partners,” James Lentini, president of Molloy University, said in a news release about the program.
“From short, targeted badges to stackable certificates and, ultimately, degrees, Molloy Talent Solutions is built to be responsive and resilient for Long Island’s evolving economy,” he added.
The program is designed to provide flexible education and training options that align with the needs of both employers and learners. It offers micro-badges, certificates, noncredit training and pathways that can lead to degree completion, aiming to bridge the gap between traditional blue-collar and white-collar workforce development.
Developed with Core Education, which works with colleges and universities, the program includes an initial catalog of approximately 300 courses and custom modules. Topics include supply chain fundamentals, business communication, healthcare skills such as phlebotomy and pharmaceutical production, as well as biotech and laboratory competencies. Employers can choose from existing course offerings or work with Molloy to develop customized training tailored to specific workforce needs. Credentials earned through the program can be applied toward degree programs at Molloy.
Panelists will include leaders such as Matt Cohen from the Long Island Association, Jamie Moore from Ignite Long Island, Rosalie Drago from Haugland Group, union representation, Molloy academic leadership, and a representative from Core Education. It will be moderated by Ed Thompson of Molloy University.
By PAUL WISEMAN, BARBARA ORTUTAY and PIYUSH NAGPAL, Associated Press
The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to slap a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas has stunned and confused employers, students and workers from the United States to India and beyond.
Since announcing the decision Friday, the White House has tried to reassure jittery companies that the fee does not apply to existing visa holders and that their H-1B employees traveling abroad will not be stranded, unable to re-enter the United States without coming up with $100,000. The new policy took effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Sunday.
Despite the effort at reassurance, “there’s still some folks out there recommending to their H-1B employees that they not travel right now until it’s a little clearer,” Leon Rodriguez, a partner at the Seyfarth law firm who was director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama administration.
Other questions remain, some of them basic. “What actually is the process for paying this $100,000,” Rodriguez said. “Usually, when an agency is going to charge a fee, there’s a whole process. There’s the creation of forms for collecting that fee. … At this point, we don’t actually know what that process will be like.”
“Key questions remain, such as whether the new fee will apply to universities and nonprofit research organizations, employers that Congress has exempted from the annual limit on H-1B visas,” said Bo Cooper, partner at the immigration law firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy.
Here’s a look at what the H-1B visa program is and what the Trump administration is doing to it.
What are H-1B visas and who uses them?
Created by the 1990 Immigration Act, they are type of nonimmigrant visa, meant to allow American companies to bring in people with technical skills that are hard to find in the United States. The visas are not intended for people who want to stay permanently. Some eventually do, but only after transitioning to different immigration statuses.
An H-1B allows employers to hire foreign workers who have specialized skills and a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent. They are good for three years and can be extended another three years, suggesting that there are now “around 700,000 H-1B visa holders in the country and another half a million or so dependents,” economist Stephen Brown of Capital Economics wrote in a commentary Monday.
At least 60% of the H-1B visas approved since 2012 have been for computer-related jobs, according to the Pew Research Center. But hospitals, banks, universities and a wide range of other employers can and do apply for H-1B visas.
The number of new visas issued annually is capped at 65,000, plus an additional 20,000 for people with a master’s degree or higher. Those visas are handed out by a lottery. Some employers, such as universities and nonprofits, are exempt from the limits.
According to Pew, nearly three-quarters of those whose applications were approved in 2023 came from India.
What did Trump do?
The White House announced the $100,000 fee. The application fee is currently $215, plus other relatively nominal processing charges. It took effect barely 24 hours later.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the fee would be applied annually, for a total of $600,000 over the maximum number of renewals allowed. The White House clarified Saturday that it was a one-time fee and said it would not apply to current visa holders.
Trump also rolled out a $1 million “gold card” visa for wealthy individuals.
The moves are certain to draw lawsuits charging that the president was improperly sidestepping Congress with a dramatic overhaul of the legal immigration system.
Why target H-1B visas?
Critics say they undercut American workers, luring people from overseas who are often willing to work for less than American tech workers do. Staffing companies such as Tata Consultancy Services often supply Indian workers to corporate clients.
“To take advantage of artificially low labor costs incentivized by the program, companies close their IT divisions, fire their American staff, and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers,” the White House said in its proclamation Friday.
In a 2020 report, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that 60% of the H-1B positions certified by U.S. Labor Department are assigned wages below the median for the job.
Brown at Capital Economics wrote that “it is hard to disagree with the administration’s argument that the program needs reform.”
Giovanni Peri, director of the Global Migration Center at the University of California, Davis, said that abuses of the program — such as bringing in mid-level coders to replace higher-paid Americans — do occur but are relatively rare.
Most H-1B visa holders, he said, really are highly skilled workers who are hard to find. “Most of these people come in, and they have helped the productivity of firms; they have helped innovation,” Peri said. “They have complemented the work of Americans, and they have allowed growth.’’
What impact will the H-1B crackdown have?
Brown said that many tech firms can probably afford to pay $100,000 to bring in skilled workers.
“Nonetheless,″ he wrote, “the upfront fee will clearly be too high for many companies to stomach. Last year, the healthcare, retail and accommodation & food services sectors accounted for a quarter of H-1B visas between them, and firms in those sectors will probably find it harder to afford the fee.″
The higher fee — along with other Trump administration attempts to curb immigration — is likely to reduce the U.S. labor supply and push wages higher, Brown said.
Foreign workers like Alan Wu are worried – and stunned by the speed with which Trump disrupted the H-1B process. “Can you release some policy which impacts tons of people just like that?” said Wu, who is working in Indianapolis as a data scientist for a pharmaceutical company.
He is working legally on his student visa after earning a doctorate. He’s failed to win the H-1B lottery for two consecutive years. And he’s now rethinking his plan to live permanently in the United States, where he’s lived for more than a decade. “I am definitely concerned about my job now that the cost and risk of hiring a foreigner is so high,” he said.
Navneet Singh, who runs a consultancy “Go Global Immigration” in India’s Punjab state, said changes to H-1B visa policies are likely to significantly impact future migration to the U.S., particularly from India.
“Trump is trying to suffocate new immigrants who are skilled, so that they won’t take the jobs away from the average American. But by doing so, they will be making (U.S.) production expensive,” Singh said.
He said the new policy is likely to create advantages for competitors in other countries. “Countries like France, Netherlands, Germany and Canada are set to gain from this move,” he added.
Some Indian students aspiring to pursue higher studies in the U.S. are disappointed. “It feels like a door closing,” said one aspiring student who requested anonymity.
What businesses will be hurt the most?
Greg Morrisett, dean and vice provost at Cornell Tech, said startups and small businesses are likely to be the most affected by the fees since there’s “no way they can” pay them. Cornell Tech, for instance, has launched about 120 startups and the “vast majority” have students coming from overseas. The result? “They’ll pick up and move to Europe or Asia, wherever they can find,” he said.
“The big tech companies will likely move a lot of operations and things into other countries. We saw this when, for example, you know, Ireland made it really attractive from a tax perspective. All of a sudden all the headquarters move to Ireland,” Morrisett said.
And startups, he added, “the next Amazon, the next Google will give up here and go somewhere else and then we won’t have that advantage in the next generation of tech leadership.”
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Barbara Ortutay reported from Oakland, California, and Piyush Nagpal from New Delhi, India.
