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Tag: university

  • 2 Massachusetts men arrested in explosion on Harvard University medical campus

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    Two men were arrested in connection with an explosion on Harvard University’s Longwood Medical Campus, federal officials said Tuesday. The explosion happened Saturday just before 3 a.m. on the fourth floor of Harvard’s Goldenson Building, which is on the university’s medical campus.Special agents and officers with the FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task force and Harvard University Police Department arrested the Massachusetts men, who were not identified. A news conference is planned for 1 p.m.There was no structural damage to the building in the aftermath, and all labs and equipment remained fully operational. “It’s a shame that people do things like that,” said Boston police commissioner Michael Cox. “I’m pretty confident we will hold people accountable for that.”University police released photos of two suspects in the explosion, saying that the two were seen running from the building when police arrived at the scene.Cleaning crews were at the site of the explosion on Sunday, ensuring everything was cleared and fully operational. A sweep of the building was done, and no additional devices were found.”I haven’t heard anything like that going on here, so to hear that is wild,” said student Therese Lipscombe. “Big-name people are going to listen. So whatever their motive was, I’m sure they thought people were going to hear about it.””I do feel like this is a safe area. There’s a hospital nearby and a school, and just a lot of people in general,” said Lindsey Birmingham, who works nearby. “So I usually feel safe. I think I do still feel safe, but it definitely raises a lot of questions and alarms.”A person who lives nearby says they heard two explosions about five minutes apart.No one was injured in the incident.There will be an increased police presence at Harvard’s Longwood campus as officials continue to investigate. There is no threat to the public.

    BOSTON —

    Two men were arrested in connection with an explosion on Harvard University’s Longwood Medical Campus, federal officials said Tuesday.

    The explosion happened Saturday just before 3 a.m. on the fourth floor of Harvard’s Goldenson Building, which is on the university’s medical campus.

    Special agents and officers with the FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task force and Harvard University Police Department arrested the Massachusetts men, who were not identified.

    A news conference is planned for 1 p.m.

    There was no structural damage to the building in the aftermath, and all labs and equipment remained fully operational.

    “It’s a shame that people do things like that,” said Boston police commissioner Michael Cox. “I’m pretty confident we will hold people accountable for that.”

    University police released photos of two suspects in the explosion, saying that the two were seen running from the building when police arrived at the scene.

    Hearst OwnedHarvard University

    Cleaning crews were at the site of the explosion on Sunday, ensuring everything was cleared and fully operational. A sweep of the building was done, and no additional devices were found.

    “I haven’t heard anything like that going on here, so to hear that is wild,” said student Therese Lipscombe. “Big-name people are going to listen. So whatever their motive was, I’m sure they thought people were going to hear about it.”

    “I do feel like this is a safe area. There’s a hospital nearby and a school, and just a lot of people in general,” said Lindsey Birmingham, who works nearby. “So I usually feel safe. I think I do still feel safe, but it definitely raises a lot of questions and alarms.”

    A person who lives nearby says they heard two explosions about five minutes apart.

    No one was injured in the incident.

    There will be an increased police presence at Harvard’s Longwood campus as officials continue to investigate. There is no threat to the public.

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  • Mom shoots escaped monkey from Mississippi highway crash to protect her children

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    One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi highway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out of bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet away.Bond Ferguson said she and other residents had been warned that the escaped monkeys carried diseases so she fired her gun.“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner had found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning but said the office didn’t have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.Before Bond Ferguson had gone out the door, she had called the police and was told to keep an eye on the monkey. But she said she worried that if the monkey got away it would threaten children at another house.“If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me,” said Bond Ferguson, a 35-year-old professional chef. “It’s kind of scary and dangerous that they are running around, and people have kids playing in their yards.”The Rhesus monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university, and they were not being transported by the university.A truck carrying the monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Of the 21 monkeys in the truck, 13 were found at the scene of the accident and arrived at their original destination last week, according to Tulane. Another five were killed in the hunt for them and three remained on the loose before Sunday.The Mississippi Highway Patrol has said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles from the state capital, Jackson.Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass beside the interstate, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson had said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports by the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.The monkeys had recently received checkups confirming they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.Rhesus macaques “are known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officials in the search for the animals.The search comes about one year after 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research because an employee didn’t fully lock an enclosure. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, had set up traps to capture them.

    JASPER COUNTY, Miss. —

    One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi highway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.

    Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out of bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet away.

    Bond Ferguson said she and other residents had been warned that the escaped monkeys carried diseases so she fired her gun.

    “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

    The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner had found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning but said the office didn’t have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.

    Before Bond Ferguson had gone out the door, she had called the police and was told to keep an eye on the monkey. But she said she worried that if the monkey got away it would threaten children at another house.

    “If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me,” said Bond Ferguson, a 35-year-old professional chef. “It’s kind of scary and dangerous that they are running around, and people have kids playing in their yards.”

    The Rhesus monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university, and they were not being transported by the university.

    A truck carrying the monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Of the 21 monkeys in the truck, 13 were found at the scene of the accident and arrived at their original destination last week, according to Tulane. Another five were killed in the hunt for them and three remained on the loose before Sunday.

    The Mississippi Highway Patrol has said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles from the state capital, Jackson.

    Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass beside the interstate, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.

    Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson had said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports by the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.

    The monkeys had recently received checkups confirming they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.

    Rhesus macaques “are known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officials in the search for the animals.

    The search comes about one year after 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research because an employee didn’t fully lock an enclosure. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, had set up traps to capture them.

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  • Opinion | Hamas, Free Speech and Arizona University

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    The anti-Israel encampments on the quad are mostly gone, but we’re starting to learn what happened behind the scenes when universities let antisemitism run rampant on campus. Records recently obtained from the University of Arizona show the school’s faculty threw in with pro-Palestinian protesters in the months after Oct. 7, 2023.

    Arizona-based researcher Brian Anderson issued the Freedom of Information Act request in May 2024 for university communications on such keywords as “Israel,” “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “Hamas,” “Anti-Semitism” and “Jewish.” Mr. Anderson says the school refused the request until his lawyer sent a demand letter. It later produced nearly 1,000 documents with many names redacted. The university didn’t respond to our request for comment.

    The emails reveal that on Oct. 11, 2023, then-Arizona President Robert Robbins issued an unequivocal statement addressing “the horrendous acts of terrorism by Hamas in Israel.” Mr. Robbins called the massacre “antisemitic hatred, murder, and a complete atrocity” and called out Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for “endorsing the actions of Hamas.”

    For that moment of principled clarity, Mr. Robbins was criticized by the faculty. On Oct. 12, faculty chair Leila Hudson received an email from a professor (name redacted) who expressed “concern” that “President Robbins email and others’ smears are chilling SJP dissent.” (Mr. Robbins had noted that while SJP didn’t speak for the university, the group has “the constitutional right to hold their views and to express them in a safe environment.”)

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    The Editorial Board

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  • UC, CSU released troves of personal employee information to the feds. Now the backlash

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    California universities are facing intense backlash for handing over employees’ personal contact information to the Trump administration as it investigates allegations of campus antisemitism, amping up tensions over government incursions into higher education.

    At Cal State, a faculty union filed suit Friday in state court after learning the personal phone numbers and email addresses of 2,600 Los Angeles campus employees were turned over to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is investigating employee complaints of campus antisemitism. In addition, the EEOC is contacting Jewish faculty across the 22-campus system, prompting campus demonstrations against cooperating with Trump.

    At UC Berkeley, protesters recently converged on campus after University of California leaders said they released files from their civil rights office and UC police incident reports containing the names and contact information of 160 faculty and staff to the Education Department, which is also investigating alleged campus antisemitism.

    UC-wide faculty senate leaders are demanding to know whether there have been other campus disclosures. UC has not publicly announced similar actions outside of Berkeley — but has not denied the possibility.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has intervened. The governor said he received a report last week from UC leadership on the data release that made a “compelling case” that UC was legally required to share information with the government. Newsom said he was still “reviewing” the report. The governor also said he may similarly scrutinize CSU’s actions.

    Federal requests for campus data are not unusual in civil rights or employment discrimination investigations, legal experts say. But what is exceptional is the large-scale nature of the demands. CSU was ordered under subpoena to release employee information. UC says it negotiated over government asks to provide employee data — first offering redacted files — before relenting.

    The orders come against the backdrop of President Trump’s aggressive campaign to force higher education institutions to align with his conservative agenda. The administration has suspended billions in research grants and has offered to absolve alleged campus violations in exchange for hefty fines and sweeping policy changes.

    Broad size and scope

    Legal experts said they were not surprised investigations were taking place, citing campus civil rights complaints over the years and Trump administration declarations that prioritize combating antisemitism.

    Brian Soucek, UC Davis law professor, worried the antisemitism investigations — which involve nearly every California public university — are “a witch hunt.”

    The EEOC has powers to subpoena relevant information needed “to advance some lawful purpose,” said Soucek, who teaches about equality and free speech law. “The question is whether these [actions] are overly broad.”

    Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said “asking for information about individuals and groups of individuals in the course of an investigation is about as unusual as traffic on the 405. But it is entirely appropriate to mistrust the Trump administration.” Mitchell, whose group represents 1,600 campuses, said schools are “between a proverbial rock and hard place.”

    Spokespeople for the Education Department and EEOC did not reply to requests for comment.

    UC and CSU’s views

    Caught between the government and faculty are campus administrators, some who have expressed distrust of Trump’s civil rights investigations. But they fear that resisting would not only be illegal but could result in devastating funding cuts.

    In recent faculty meetings, UC President James B. Milliken has declined to say whether other campuses aside from Berkeley have shared personal information of employees or students. Speaking at a UC-wide academic senate meeting Thursday, Milliken said he understood employee concerns and argued that data sharing was routine across presidential administrations.

    He said the university was not handing over lists of faculty names but that broader documents shared with the government contained personnel information.

    Milliken said UC is also working to fulfill data sharing requirements under a December 2024 agreement with the Biden administration that has carried over to this year.

    That agreement resolved civil rights complaints — over antisemitism and bias against Muslim, Arab and pro-Palestinian students — at the Davis, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses. It required UC to share “an electronic sortable spreadsheet” with details on who reported civil rights complaints and who they were lodged against for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years.

    “Failure to comply with government oversight could result in a very significant loss of funding, potentially jeopardizing tens of thousands of jobs, the education of our students, the research careers of thousands of faculty, and the care afforded by our health enterprise,” Milliken recently wrote to campuses.

    Administrators at both systems said they tried to resist or minimize government requests and have made strides to protect privacy while complying with the law.

    At CSU, officials told the EEOC that the Los Angeles campus would only turn over publicly available data — such as university email addresses. But then the campus was subpoenaed for personal data.

    Over the spring, the EEOC also subpoenaed UC for information on hundreds of employees who had signed letters in 2023 and 2024 expressing concern about the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the campus climate for Jewish people, according to faculty contacted by EEOC investigators who they said informed them about the legal order.

    The EEOC’s systemwide CSU investigation has not yet involved a subpoena for other Cal State campuses.

    Tensions grow

    Faculty, staff, students and unions have pushed back, saying university leaders should have rejected government demands, moves many say weaponize antisemitism charges for ideological goals.

    “Rather than taking a stance against an authoritarian regime, CSU leadership has chosen to be complicit,” said the California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 employees.

    The union’s suit in state court asks for a judge to order CSU to avoid disclosing union members’ personal information in response to federal subpoenas without giving notice to affected employees and offering a chance for faculty to reject the request.

    Peyrin Kao, a pro-Palestinian electrical engineering and computer science lecturer, was among those who UC Berkeley notified that their names were in files given to the government.

    “They didn’t tell me why I was reported,” said Kao, who suspects the move was tied complaints in 2023 over an optional lecture he gave against Israel’s war in Gaza and UC’s investments in weapons companies. After the lecture, the university issued him a warning about potential violation of a policy against “political indoctrination.”

    “Showing everyone that you can get reported for pro-Palestine speech does have a chilling effect,” Kao said.

    Jewish voices

    Ryan Witt, president of the CSU Channel Islands chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, agreed. Witt, who is Jewish and organized a recent protest against the investigation and “repressive” CSU free speech policies, felt that antisemitism was not a “major issue” on campus.

    Other Jewish community members elsewhere differed.

    Jeffrey Blutinger, director of Jewish Studies at Cal State Long Beach, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against the university.

    (Gary Coronado/For The Times)

    Referring to Trump’s higher education policies and antisemitism, Cal State Long Beach Jewish Studies professor Jeff Blutinger said he “shouldn’t be required to choose which threat I ignore.”

    Blutinger made a report last summer to the commission about a February 2024 an incident where police shut down a guest lecture he presented at San Jose State University after protesters demonstrated in the hallway outside the classroom. He laid blame on the university and police for not protecting his right to speak about Israelis and Palestinians.

    But he said the EEOC investigator he spoke to last month told him the probe was not tied to that complaint, which was closed for being too old. Instead, it was about a May 2024 public letter to CSU leaders that Blutinger signed, expressing worry over the “well-being of Jewish and Israeli students, staff, and faculty.”

    Another signatory the EEOC contacted last month is Arik Davidyan, an assistant professor of physiology at Sacramento State University. Davidyan said he told the investigator that “our administration has worked a lot with the Jewish community to address our concerns.”

    Tackling discrimination

    Some leaders at UC and CSU have expressed frustration, saying efforts to combat discrimination and anti-Israel sentiment have gone unnoticed by the government.

    At UC, protest rules have been revamped with bans on encampments, masking to hide identity while breaking the law, and student government boycotts of Israel. New training programs on antisemitism are underway.

    CSU also revamped protest policies and in the last fiscal year spent nearly $16 million to expand systemwide and campus-level civil rights programs. In the coming months, it is rolling out a new case management system to track discrimination complaints.

    “We’re working as hard as we possibly can to address antisemitism and to address any of the protected characteristic discrimination issues that may arise,” said Dawn S. Theodora, the system’s interim executive vice chancellor and general counsel. “We take it very seriously.”

    Staff Writer Howard Blume contributed reporting.

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    Jaweed Kaleem, Daniel Miller

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  • As USC considers Trump’s offer tying funding to conservative policies, MIT firmly rejects it

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    As USC weighs its options, MIT has become the first of nine universities to forcefully reject a White House proposal that asks them to adopt President Trump’s conservative political agenda in exchange for favorable access to federal funding.

    In a letter to Trump administration officials, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said Friday the campus disagrees with provisions of the proposal, including some that would limit free speech and the university’s independence. She said that Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is inconsistent with MIT’s belief that scientific funding should be based on merit alone.

    “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” Kornbluth said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House officials.

    The MIT rejection comes as University of Southern California has been roiled by the proposed compact since receiving it earlier this month. The school’s faculty members strongly denounced the offering at a meeting this week, calling it “egregiously invalid,” “probably unconstitutional” and “antithetical to principles of academic freedom.”

    But interim President Beong-Soo Kim told the roughly 500 attendees the university “has not made any kind of final decision.”

    At the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom has aggressively weighed in, challenging USC “to do the right thing” and reject the offer. He threatened to withhold state funding to any California university that agrees to it.

    White House spokesperson Liz Huston said that “the Trump Administration’s only request is for universities to end discrimination. Any university that refuses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform higher education isn’t serving its students or their parents — they’re bowing to radical, left-wing bureaucrats.”

    “The truth is, the best science can’t thrive in institutions that have abandoned merit, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth,” Huston said. “President Trump encourages universities to join us in restoring academic excellence and commonsense policies.”

    What’s in the compact

    The higher-education compact circulated this month requires universities to make a wide range of commitments in line with Trump’s political agenda. In exchange, universities that agree to the terms would get more favorable access to federal research grants and additional funding, as well as other benefits.

    They would have to accept the government’s definition of gender — two sexes, male and female — and would not be allowed to recognize transgender people’s gender identities. Foreign student enrollment would be restricted. The compact also calls for a five-year tuition freeze for U.S. students.

    It asks colleges to require the SAT or ACT for all undergraduate applicants and to eliminate race, sex and other characteristics from admissions decisions. As for free speech, schools would have to commit to promoting a wide range of views on campus — and change or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to the compact.

    The universities were invited to provide “limited, targeted feedback” by Oct. 20 and make a decision no later than Nov. 21.

    Other institutions that received the 10-page proposal are: Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, Brown University, the University of Texas and the University of Virginia. It was not clear how the schools were selected or why.

    Leaders of the Texas system were “honored” that the Austin campus was chosen to be a part of the compact and its “potential funding advantages,” according to a statement from Kevin Eltife, chair of the board of regents.

    University leaders face immense pressure to reject the compact amid opposition from students, faculty, free speech advocates and higher education groups. Leaders of some other universities have called it extortion. The mayor and City Council in Tucson, home of the University of Arizona, formally opposed the compact, calling it an “unacceptable act of federal interference.”

    Some conservatives have criticized it. Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, called it “profoundly problematic” and said the government’s requests are “ungrounded in law.”

    “I am deeply sympathetic to the Trump critique of higher education,” he told The Times on Friday. “I support just about every point in the compact, but even I have real concerns about the way it has been framed and proffered.”

    But Hess noted that the compact has become something of a “Rorschach test.”

    “If you look at it one way, you see a bullying attempt by the administration to impose its will,” he said. “If you look at it another way, it is the Trump administration offering a positive, constructive vision of the federal-university partnership.”

    The view from Los Angeles

    The USC faculty’s vociferous disapproval of the compact during a meeting of the university’s academic senate on Oct. 6 was in line with the reactions of similar bodies at other affected campuses.

    In stark terms, USC department heads, professors and others condemned the compact, with several saying there should be no negotiations with the Trump administration.

    Kim, the interim president, attended the meeting, but did not share his opinion of the compact. He noted that USC did not solicit the offer from Trump. “I wanted to make sure that I heard from the community and received your input,” he said.

    Asked for comment Friday, a USC spokesperson referred The Times to comments Kim made Oct. 3, when he said that he would consult with the school’s board of trustees and other stakeholders to “hear their wide-ranging perspectives” on the proposal.

    Trump’s proposal comes at a fraught time for USC, which is in the midst of widespread layoffs as it faces down a $200-million budget deficit.

    Across town, UCLA has also been grappling with dire financial issues of its own, albeit ones that directly relate to the president’s forceful attempt to remake higher education.

    UCLA has been negotiating with the Trump administration over a $1.2-billion settlement proposal that would resolve a federal investigation into alleged civil rights violations on campus. The claims stem from UCLA’s handling of alleged antisemitism during spring 2024 pro-Palestinian protests. UC leaders say the fine would be “devastating” to the 10-campus system and have broadly indicated that other proposals violate the university’s mission and values.

    Speaking at a UC-wide academic senate meeting Thursday, UC President James B. Milliken said the “landscape changed” after the Trump administration offered the compact last week to non-UC campuses.

    He did not indicate whether the proposal affected UC negotiations but said that there was a “shift from a bespoke pursuit of universities to a wholesale” targeting of higher education, which he suggested put UC in a safer position. He said he did not know the impact of the compact on UCLA.

    In some ways, the compact presented to USC matches the settlement proposed to UCLA. Both, for example, make stipulations about binary definitions of gender that exclude transgender people.

    But the compact differs in proposing strict limits on foreign student enrollment and the tuition freeze for U.S. citizens.

    Although the compact has not been offered to UC, university officials are studying its contents to better understand Trump’s positions on higher education and formulate a negotiation strategy.

    Colleges nationwide debate compact

    Besides USC and MIT, the compact has been the subject of fierce debate at several other campuses that received it.

    At an Oct. 3 convening of the University of Virginia senate attended by interim President Paul G. Mahoney and hundreds of faculty, senate representatives voted down the compact.

    According to notes on the meeting provided to The Times, faculty expressed concern over academic freedom, discrimination against transgender individuals — and said they feared complying with it would have a “chilling” effect on free speech.

    Three days later, at a meeting of the University of Arizona faculty senate, 81% of voting members rejected the government’s proposal.

    At Dartmouth, President Sian Leah Beilock has also expressed hesitation over signing.

    “I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence,” Beilock said in a statement. “You have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.”

    Some university faculty, including at USC, have voiced skepticism over Trump’s willingness to adhere to the terms of the compact should an institution accept it. That, Hess said, is “a valid concern.”

    “If you look at the deal that have been struck [by the Trump administration] around tariffs and tech, there is certainly a sense that deals … are not written in stone,” he said. “Normally, in these conversations, I am usually very skeptical of faculty concerns, but from what we’ve seen … a lot of these practical concerns are very legitimate.”

    Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

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    Daniel Miller, Jaweed Kaleem, Collin Binkley

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  • California physicist and Nobel laureate John Martinis won’t quit on quantum computers

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    A California physicist and Nobel laureate who laid the foundation for quantum computing isn’t done working.

    For the last 40 years, John Martinis has worked — mostly within California — to create the fastest computers ever built.

    “It’s kind of my professional dream to do this by the time I’m really too old to retire. I should retire now, but I’m not doing that,” the now 67-year-old said.

    Born and raised in San Pedro, Martinis said his California high school teachers influenced him to pursue his career. A physics teacher got him interested in the topic, he said, and a math teacher taught him rigor, work ethic and organization.

    “I think before then I’d just write down the solution” rather than showing his process, he joked in an interview with The Times.

    As an undergraduate senior at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, he met John Clarke, a British physicist and professor who would become his graduate advisor and Michel Devoret, a French physicist who worked with him as a postdoctoral researcher.

    John Clarke, right, a professor emeritus of physics, looks on during a celebration at UC Berkeley on Oct. 7, 2025, after he and fellow physicists Michel Devoret and John Martinis were awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in physics for their work on quantum tunneling.

    (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

    “This was a fantastic experience, to be mentored by two wonderful people,” he said during a news conference Tuesday at UC Santa Barbara, where he works as a professor. “I learned so much from them that, through my whole career, I was kind of trying to re-create that spirit that we had in there.”

    Martinis was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in physics, alongside Clarke and Devoret, for his doctoral project, a series of experiments in the mid-1980s that proved quantum tunneling was possible with large objects, which became the basis for the development of quantum computers as well as much of the current research in that field.

    Both Clarke and Devoret are based in the U.S. and associated with the University of California system — Clarke as a professor emeritus at Berkeley and Devoret as a professor at UC Santa Barbara.

    “I loved Berkeley. It was great to be taught by these really amazing professors,” Martinis said, noting the university’s cutting-edge facilities that supported the experiments. “As a student, I could focus on just being a good scientist.”

    Martinis went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship in France, then returned stateside to Boulder, Colo., where he worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a U.S. government lab. In 2008 he moved back to California to work at UC Santa Barbara as a professor, and in 2014, Google hired him and Devoret to create an experimental quantum processor faster than any human supercomputer — which his team completed five years later.

    “It really was all this basic research we did for decades that enabled this to happen and enabled us to have a vision … to build this thing,” Martinis said.

    He chose UC Santa Barbara as a workplace not just because of the great location and weather, but also for its advanced facilities and community. Researchers from other disciplines — such as engineers and materials scientists who build semiconductors — are able to freely communicate and collaborate with his team.

    “Working with talented and friendly people at the university is really special,” he said. “You can actually get things done.”

    Martinis said he has enjoyed hearing back from former students who have reached out to celebrate his award. Speaking to students years after they take his classes and grasp the effect on their lives has been refreshing. His work over the years has spawned an industry that created thousands of well-paying jobs for people across the country, he said.

    He praised the UC system for its culture and collaboration with the private sector and government, but said that research and development for quantum computers in the U.S. must urgently speed up if we expect to see it in our lifetimes.

    After leaving Google in 2020, Martinis co-founded his private company, QoLab, in 2022 with a belief that advanced semiconductor chips are the path to achieving usable quantum computers. The company has begun collaborating with other startup companies and academic groups involved in semiconductor production, he said.

    “I think this collaborative model is going to be more fruitful because we really get a lot of interesting ideas,” Martinis said. “We have a lot to catch up on. But it’s a very good atmosphere to invent things.”

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    Sandra McDonald

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  • With Trump threats on back pay, another blow to public servants

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    WASHINGTON — Sidelined by political appointees, targeted over deep state conspiracies and derided by the president, career public servants have grown used to life in Washington under a constant state of assault.

    But President Trump’s latest threat, to withhold back pay due to workers furloughed by an ongoing government shutdown, is adding fresh uncertainty to the beleaguered workforce.

    Whether federal workers will ultimately receive retroactive paychecks after the government reopens, Trump told reporters on Tuesday, “really depends on who you’re talking about.” The law requires federal employees receive their expected compensation in the event of a shutdown.

    “For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” the president said, while adding: “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

    It is yet another peril facing public servants, who, according to Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, may also be the target of mass layoffs if the shutdown continues.

    The government has been shut since Oct. 1, when Republican and Democratic lawmakers came to an impasse over whether to extend government funding at existing levels, or account for a significant increase in healthcare premiums facing millions of Americans at the start of next year.

    White House officials say that, on the one hand, Democrats are to blame for extending a shutdown that will give the administration no other choice but to initiate firings of agency employees working on “nonessential” projects. On the other hand, the president has referred to the moment as an opportunity to root out Democrats working in career roles throughout the federal system.

    Legal scholars and public policy experts have roundly dismissed Trump’s latest efforts — both to use the shutdown as a predicate to cut the workforce, and to withhold back pay — as plainly illegal.

    And Democrats in Congress, who continue to vote against reopening the government, are counting on them being right, hoping that courts will reject the administration’s moves while they attempt to secure an extension of healthcare tax credits in the shutdown negotiations.

    If the experts are wrong, thousands of government workers could face a profound cost.

    “Senior leaders of the Trump administration promised to put federal employees in trauma, and they certainly seem intent on keeping that promise,” said Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.

    “According to a law that Trump himself has signed, furloughed employees are entitled to back pay,” Moynihan said. “There is no real ambiguity about this, and the idea only some employees in agencies that Trump likes would receive back pay is an illegal abuse of presidential power.”

    A day after the shutdown began, Trump wrote on social media that he planned on meeting with Vought, “of Project 2025 fame,” to discuss what he called the “unprecedented opportunity” of making “permanent” cuts to agencies during the ongoing funding lapse.

    A lawsuit brought in California against Vought and the OMB, by a coalition of labor unions representing over 2 million federal workers, is challenging the premise of that claim, arguing the government is “deviating from historic practice and violating applicable laws” by using government employees “as a pawn in congressional deliberations.” But whether courts can or will stop the effort is unclear.

    Sen. John Thune, the majority leader and a Republican from South Dakota, said last week that Democrats should have known the risk they were running by “shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought.”

    “We don’t control what he’s going to do,” he told Politico.

    The White House has sent mixed messages on its willingness to negotiate with Democrats since the shutdown began. Within a matter of hours earlier this week, the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that there was nothing to negotiate, before Trump said that dialogue had opened with Democratic leadership over a potential agreement on healthcare.

    Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, taught and trained prospective public servants for 45 years.

    “What is happening is profoundly discouraging for young students seeking careers in the federal public service,” he said. “Many of the students are going to state and local governments, nonprofits, and think tanks, but increasingly don’t see the federal government as a place where they can make a difference or make a career.”

    “All of us depend on the government, and the government depends on a pipeline of skilled workers,” Kettl added. “The administration’s efforts have blown up the pipeline, and the costs will continue for years — probably decades — to come.”

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    Michael Wilner

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  • U.K. Government Asked Pro-Palestinian Supporters Not to March on Oct. 7. They Did Anyway.

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    LONDON—After last week’s terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, the U.K. government is struggling over how to manage near daily pro-Palestinian protests that officials say have fueled a rise in antisemitism and left many British Jews feeling alienated in their own country.

    On Tuesday—the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that marked the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust—pro-Palestinian protests were held in university campuses across the country, despite an unusual request from Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the protests to be called off given it was the anniversary of the attack.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Max Colchester

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  • Commentary: McCarthyism in a MAGA hat? Trump’s campus deal sounds familiar to her

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    Bettina Aptheker was a 20-year-old sophomore at UC Berkeley when she climbed on top of a police car, barefoot so she wouldn’t damage it, and helped start the Free Speech Movement.

    “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” she told a crowd gathered in Sproul Plaza on that October Thursday in 1964, quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

    She was blinded by the lights of the television cameras, but the students roared back approval, and “their energy just sort of went through my whole body,” she told me.

    Berkeley, as Aptheker describes it, was still caught in the tail end of the McCarthyism of the 1950s, when the 1st Amendment was almost felled by fear of government reprisals. Days earlier, administrators had passed rules that cracked down on political speech on campus.

    Aptheker and other students had planned a peaceful protest, only to have police roll up and arrest a graduate student named Jack Weinberg, a lanky guy with floppy hair and a mustache who had spent the summer working for the civil rights movement.

    Well-versed in those non-violent methods that were finally winning a bit of equality for Black Americans, hundreds of students sat down around the cruiser, remaining there more than 30 hours — while hecklers threw eggs and cigarette butts and police massed at the periphery — before the protesters successfully negotiated with the university to restore free speech on campus.

    History was made, and the Free Speech Movement born through the most American of traits — courage, passion and the invincibility of youth.

    “You can’t imagine something like that happening today,” Aptheker said of their success. “It was a different time period, but it feels very similar to the kind of repression that’s going on now.”

    Under the standards President Trump is pushing on the University of Southern California and eight other institutions, Aptheker would likely be arrested, using “lawful force if necessary,” as his 10-page “compact for academic excellence” requires. And the protest of the students would crushed by policies that would demand “civility” over freedom.

    If you somehow missed his latest attack on higher education, the Trump administration sent this compact to USC and eight other institutions Thursday, asking them to acquiesce to a list of demands in return for the carrot of front-of-the-line access to federal grants and benefits.

    While voluntary, the agreement threatens strongman-style, that institutions of higher education are “free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forgo federal benefits.”

    That’s the stick, the loss of federal funding. UCLA, Berkeley and California’s other public universities can tell you what it feels like to get thumped with it.

    “It’s intended to roll back any of the gains we’ve made,” Aptheker said of Trump’s policies. “No university should make any kind of deal with him.”

    The greatest problem with this nefarious pact is that much of it sounds on the surface to be reasonable, if not desirable. My favorite part: A demand that the sky-high tuition of signatory universities be frozen for five years.

    USC tuition currently comes in at close to $70,000 a year without housing. What normal parent thinks that sounds doable?

    Even the parts about protests sound, on the surface, no big deal.

    “Truth-seeking is a core function of institutions of higher education. Fulfilling this mission requires maintaining a vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated, and challenged,” the document reads. “Signatories acknowledge that the freedom to debate requires conditions of civility.”

    Civility like taking your shoes off before climbing on a police car, right?

    As with all things Trump, though, the devil isn’t even in the details. It’s right there in black and white. The agreement requires civility, Trump style. That includes abolishing anything that could “delay or disrupt class instruction,” which is pretty much every protest, with or without footwear.

    Any university that signs on also would be agreeing to “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

    So no more talking bad about far-right ideas, folks. That’s belittling to our racists, misogynists, Christian nationalists and conservative snowflakes of all persuasions. Take, for example, the increasingly popular conservative idea that slavery was actually good for Black people, or at least not that bad.

    Florida famously adopted educational standards in 2023 that argue slavery helped Black people learn useful skills. In another especially egregious example from the conservative educational nonprofit PragerU, a video for kids about Christoper Columbus has the explorer arguing, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.”

    And of course, Trump is busy purging the Smithsonian of any hints that slavery was a stain on our history.

    Would it be violating Trump’s civility standards for a Black history professor to belittle such ideas as unserious and bonkers? What about debates in a feminism class that discuss Charlie Kirk’s comment that a good reason for women to go to college is to find a husband?

    Or what about an environmental science class that teaches accurately that climate change denial is unscientific, and that it was at best anti-intellectual when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently referred to efforts to save the planet as “crap”? Would that be uncivil and belittling to conservatives?

    Belittle is a tiny word with big reach. I worry that entire academic departments could be felled by it, and certainly professors of certain persuasions.

    Aptheker, now 81, went on to become just the sort of professor Trump would likely loathe, teaching about freedom and inclusivity at UC Santa Cruz for decades. It was there that I first heard her lecture. I was a mixed-race kid who had been the target of more than one racial slur growing up, but I had never heard my personal experiences put into the larger context of being a person of color or a woman.

    Listening to Aptheker and professors like her, I learned not only how to see my life within the broader fabric of society, but learned how collective action has improved conditions for the most vulnerable among us, decade after decade.

    It is ultimately this knowledge that Trump wants to crush — that while power concedes nothing without a demand, collective demands work because they are a power of their own.

    Even more than silencing students or smashing protests, Trump’s compact seeks to purge this truth, and those who hold it, from the system. Signing this so-called deal isn’t just a betrayal of students, it’s a betrayal of the mission of every university worth its tuition, and a betrayal of the values that uphold our democracy.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has rightfully threatened to withhold state funding from any California university that signs, writing on social media that the Golden State “will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

    Of course, some universities will sign it willingly. University of Texas called it an “honor” to be asked. There will always be those who collaborate in their own demise.

    But authoritarians live with the constant fear that people like Aptheker will teach a new generation their hard-won lessons, will open their minds to bold ideas and will question old realities that are not as unbreakable as they might appear. Universities, far from assuaging that constant fear, should fight to make it a reality.

    Anything less belittles the very point of a university education.

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Newsom chides USC to ‘do the right thing’ for academic freedom and resist Trump compact

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    Gov. Newsom on Friday waded further into the controversy surrounding a higher education compact President Trump has presented to nine universities including USC, chiding campus leadership to “do the right thing” and reject the offer.

    The compact, sent Wednesday to the University of Southern California and other campuses nationwide, has roiled higher education with its demands for rightward campus policy shifts in exchange for priority federal funding.

    On Thursday, Newsom swung back at the Trump proposal and threatened to cut “billions” of dollars in state funding to any California university that agrees to it.

    Newsom offered fiery remarks during a bill signing at UC Berkeley on Friday, escalating the stakes in the high-pressure decision confronting USC.

    “Do the right thing,” he said. “What’s the point of the system? What’s the point of the university? What’s the point of all of this if we don’t have academic freedom? … It’s not a choice, and the fact that I felt I needed to even send that message is rather shocking, because some people think it is.”

    Newsom scoffed at the notion that USC, a private institution, even has to deliberate over the Trump offer — calling it a “false choice.”

    The compact’s conservative goals

    The White House offer to USC and a small group of prominent universities — among them the University of Arizona, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas and Brown University — calls on campuses to follow Trump’s views on admissions, diversity and free speech, among other areas. In exchange, they would get more favorable access to federal research grants and additional funding, in addition to other benefits.

    Universities would also have to accept the government’s definition of gender and would not be allowed to recognize transgender people’s gender identities. Foreign student enrollment would be restricted. In regards to free speech, schools would have to commit to promoting a wide range of views on campus — and change or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to the compact.

    In a campus letter Friday, USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said the White House offer “covers a number of issues that I believe are important to study and discuss.”

    “I have already heard from several members of our community, and in the weeks ahead, I will be consulting with the Board of Trustees; the deans and leadership team; and members of the Academic Senate, the Academic Freedom Task Force, the President’s Faculty Advisory Committee, and other stakeholder groups to hear their wide-ranging perspectives,” Kim said. “These conversations can take time, but they are essential to building trust and community.”

    He said it was his responsibility to “advance USC’s mission and uphold our core values.”

    Speaking at the Berkeley event, Newsom said USC is among California’s “great universities” that are “all in this together” as campuses face an uncertain and rocky future amid the Trump presidency.

    A day earlier the governor threatened to withhold Cal Grants, the state’s largest financial aid program to California public and private universities that sign onto Trump’s deal. The grants are awarded based on income, and students become eligible through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or California Dream Act Application.

    In 2024-25, $2.5 billion in Cal Grants were doled out statewide. USC received Cal Grants worth about $28 million during that academic year.

    UC negotiations ongoing

    In response to a question about the proposal to USC and whether Newsom would issue the same threat of removing state funding to UCLA — the subject of ongoing negotiations over a sprawling U.S. Department of Justice antisemitism investigation — the governor said he was “not concerned” about the UC system.

    “I’m not concerned about their capacity to organize a strategy that’s thoughtful and deliberative that maintains our values … without resorting to the kind of expressed concerns that I have about the university in question that was on that list,” Newsom said.

    As UCLA continues to negotiate with the Trump administration, Newsom said he has confidence in the university system, whose leaders have been working “collaboratively for weeks” to come to a resolution.

    The governor’s more tempered remarks were a shift from his comments in August and September, when he said UC should “sue” Trump and should not “bend the knee,” a reference to his belief that the deals made by Brown and Columbia universities with the White House were bad moves that empowered the government to target more campuses.

    “Governor Newsom, [UC] President [James B.] Milliken and the board of regents are fully aligned in protecting the values, integrity and unparalleled quality of the University of California system,” UC Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly said Friday in a statement to The Times following Newsom’s comments.

    In a Friday letter, Milliken said the Trump compact was also a subject of talks among system leaders.

    “Just within the last few days, the administration has announced a plan to impose a myriad of new requirements on universities seeking federal funding, which we will discuss soon with faculty leadership,” said Milliken, without elaborating on the matter.

    The Trump proposal has not been sent to UC. A White House official said the initial campuses on its list were the first group in potentially many more colleges to receive the terms.

    After the Justice Department found in July that UCLA violated Jewish students’ rights amid its response to spring 2024 pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the Trump administration sought a nearly $1.2-billion penalty from the school. The government is also seeking changes over admissions, foreign student enrollment, diversity programs and other GOP priorities in higher education.

    While praising UC’s handling of federal negotiations, Newsom was less supportive of recent actions by UC Berkeley to release the personal information of 160 employees to Department of Education as part of a federal investigation into alleged campus antisemitism.

    UC officials said they strive to protect employee privacy and were required to share information with the department because it enforces civil rights law on campuses. Faculty have criticized the move, with some likening it to anti-free speech practices during the McCarthy era.

    Newsom said he “requested an independent review” of the data release in order to “make a judgment as to whether or not it was appropriate, whether or not it was consistent with past practices or whether or not it should be adjusted in terms of policy.”

    USC ‘between a rock and a hard place’

    Rick Hess, an education analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said Newsom’s remarks “seemed not inappropriate.”

    “If a [Kamala] Harris administration had tried something like this, I think Republican governors would be equally livid,” said Hess, director of the institute’s education policy studies.

    “USC is between a rock and a hard place,” Hess added. “If they say no, what does any of this mean? What does it mean to not be prioritized for federal research funds? Does that mean the tap will be shut off? On the other hand, once you’ve signed … will the administration abide by the promises it has made? Part of the problem is, it is not entirely clear what it means to say yes and what it means to say no.”

    Newsom blasted institutions that have already “sold out” by signing Trump’s compact. The University of Texas has suggested it could agree to the terms. Leaders of the Texas system were “honored” that the Austin campus was chosen to be a part of the compact and its “potential funding advantages,” according to a Thursday statement from Kevin Eltife, chair of the board of regents.

    “In this state, our state of mind must be resolute,” said Newsom. “I don’t mean to put pressure on people. I need to put pressure on this moment and pressure test where we are in U.S. history, not just California history. And so forgive me for being so firm. This is it. We are losing this country.”

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    Daniel Miller, Melody Gutierrez, Jaweed Kaleem

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  • Newsom threatens to cut state funding to universities that sign Trump’s political compact

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    Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to cut “billions” in state funding, including to USC, from any California campus that signs a Trump administration compact and agrees to sweeping and largely conservative campus policies in exchange for priority access to federal funding.

    “If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly,” Newsom said. “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

    The bold statement came less than a day after the White House asked the University of Southern California and eight other major universities throughout the country to shift to the right and agree to Trump’s views on gender identity, admissions, diversity and free speech among other areas — in exchange for more favorable access to federal research grants and additional funding.

    While USC is the only California university to be sent the Trump proposal, a White House official said universities sent the agreement were a first round among potentially several more campuses that could receive the request. All UC and CSU campuses — in addition to Stanford — are under federal civil rights investigations that could result in federal funding clawbacks.

    Universities were asked to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” committing them to adopt the White House’s conservative vision for America’s campuses. The letter, sent out Wednesday, also suggests colleges should align with Trump’s views on student discipline, college affordability and the importance of hard sciences over liberal arts.

    The request represents the latest tactic by the Trump administration to aggressively reshape universities — which he says are bastions of liberalism that are intolerant of Republicans — by leveraging federal funding to force campuses to adhere to his conservative ideals.

    Newsom’s response echoed a similarly forceful statement over a $1.2-billion Trump fine against UCLA for alleged civil rights violations in August, when he said UC should sue and not “bend the knee” — no suit by the university system has been filed. His quick swing back ratchets up his strident push against the Trump administration — including mocking Trump’s social media. Newsom’s statement Thursday threatening Cal Grants and other funding was issued in all-capital letters, mirroring the president’s social media style.

    Cal Grants, the state’s largest financial aid program to public and private universities, are awarded based on income. Students become eligible through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or California Dream Act Application. In 2024-25, $2.5 billion in Cal Grants were doled out.

    The compact would also severely restrict international student enrollment to 15% of a college’s undergraduate student body and no more than 5% could come from a single country, a provision that would hit hard at USC, where 26% of the fall 2025 freshman class is international. More than half of those students hailing from either China or India.

    Full-fee tuition from international students is a major source of revenue at USC, which has undertaken hundreds of layoffs this year amid budget troubles.

    In a statement released before the Newsom announcement, USC said only that it was “reviewing the administration’s letter.” Officials did not immediately respond to a renewed request for comment.

    “No self-respecting university should sign on to this proposed compact,” said state Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. “Universities will never be able to live down a reputation of selling out their principals of academic freedom and free speech on these enticements of preferential treatment.”

    The proposal, which would change many policies at one of the nation’s largest and most prominent private universities, caught several USC deans and administrators off-guard after they learned of White House request from news reports, according to USC employees and staffers who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

    Parts of the compact are similar in language and ideology to a sweeping federal proposal sent in August to UCLA that offered to re-instate hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants to the campus if the University of California agreed to federal demands and pay a $1.2-billion fine for how UCLA responded to alleged antisemitism on campus.

    But the White House letter to USC and other campuses, including the University of Arizona, takes a different approach than the punitive actions against UCLA and other elite universities. Instead of offering to restore suspended government funding in exchange for campus policy overhauls, the government says it will dole out new money and give preference to the universities over others that do not agree to the terms.

    Signing on would give universities priority access to some federal grants, but government money would not be limited solely to those schools, according to a White House official. Colleges that agree would also have priority access to White House events and discussions with officials.

    The compact asks universities to accept the government’s definition of gender and apply it to campus bathrooms, locker rooms and women’s sports teams. It says colleges would stop considering race, gender and a wide range of other student demographics in the admissions process and to require undergraduate applicants to take the SAT or ACT.

    USC, since a 2023 Supreme Court decision, is not allowed to consider race in admissions, and public California universities have been barred from doing so under state law since 1997. USC is “test optional” in its application process and students can decide whether or not to submit scores.

    “It’s upsetting as a faculty member and a teacher and a product of higher education to see this administration trying to dismantle academic freedom and free speech in such a systematic way,” said Devin Griffiths, a USC associate professor of English and comparative literature. Griffiths said he would “push hard for our university to forcefully reject this and I would hope that there is space here for the universities that are targeted by this order to take a collective stand.”

    Sanjay Madhav, an associate professor of practice at the USC Viterbi engineering school, said the compact appeared to be “blatantly in violation of the First Amendment since it states that the federal government is going to give preference to universities that align with its political views.”

    In an email sent to colleagues Thursday and shared with The Times, USC Cinematic Arts school professor Howard Rodman summed up his position: “It is abundantly clear that either the universities stand together and refuse the gift of ‘prioritized grants,’ or higher education in the United States will become a wholly owned subsidiary of MAGA, LLC…. I would urge USC to remember that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”

    Liam Wady, a junior at USC, said students were openly talking about it as the news broke.

    “It’s a good balance of confusion and concern,” Wady said. He said he was involved in the pro-Palestinian protests at USC and was left feeling like the university failed to protect him. Now, he said he’s worried the university will go along with Trump’s compact.

    “I just wouldn’t be surprised if the school would end up adopting Trump’s political priorities just because of the way they treated us in the past,” Wady said.

    The 10-page proposed agreement was sent Wednesday to public and private universities, including some of the most selective institutions in the county. In addition to USC and the University of Arizona, it went to Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, Brown University and the University of Virginia.

    It was not clear how these schools were selected or why, and whether similar offers might go out to other colleges.

    Some of the schools are in red states that have been more friendly to Trump’s higher education priorities. Texas officials endorsed the compact.

    Leaders of the Texas system were “honored” that the Austin campus was chosen to be a part of the compact and its “potential funding advantages,” according to a statement from Kevin Eltife, chair of the Board of Regents. “Today we welcome the new opportunity presented to us and we look forward to working with the Trump Administration on it,” he said.

    USC has largely maintained a low-profile stance and has avoided making public statements on the president’s higher education agenda.

    In April, when more than 220 university leaders signed onto an American Assn. of Colleges and Universities statement against “undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses,” former USC President Carol Folt said publicly that she declined to sign.

    In February, after the Department of Education released guidance opposing race and ethnicity-themed scholarships, graduations and other programs, USC closed down its diversity offices and renamed related websites while many other California universities refused to comply.

    USC also faces a difficult financial outlook. In a July campus letter, interim President Beong-Soo Kim said that a budget deficit surpassing $200 million coupled with federal funding challenges would require layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. More than 600 layoffs have hit the campus since then, according to Morning, Trojan, an independent outlet that monitors USC news.

    The administration has used its control of federal funding as leverage at several high-profile institutions, cutting off research money at UCLA, Harvard and Columbia as it has sought changes to the schools’ governance and policies.

    University of California leaders are negotiating with the Department of Justice over federal demands, although the urgency for talks has slowed after a federal judge ordered nearly all of the $584 million in suspended health and science research grants at the Los Angeles campus to be restored. Trump said this week that he was “close to finalizing” a deal with Harvard that would include it paying $500 million for a “giant trade school” run by the university.

    Schools that sign on would have to cap tuition for U.S. students for five years and the wealthiest campuses would not charge tuition at all for students pursuing “hard science programs.”

    On free speech, schools would have to commit to promoting a wide range of views on campus. That includes “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to the compact.

    Each school would have to commission an annual poll of students and faculty to evaluate the campuses’ adherence to the pact. The terms would be enforced by the Justice Department, with violators losing access to the compact’s benefits for no less than a year. Following violations bump the penalty to two years.

    “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below,” the compact said, “if the institution elects to forego federal benefits.”

    Kaleem and Gutierrez are Times staff writers. Madhani reports for the Associated Press in Washington. Collin Binkley of the Associated Press also contributed to this story.

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    Jaweed Kaleem, Melody Gutierrez, Aamer Madhani

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  • Four education innovators honored with the 2025 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education

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    Four leaders charting bold new paths in education will be celebrated as the 2025 recipients of the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. Presented by the McGraw Family Foundation in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE), this distinguished award recognizes Rapelang Rabana, Joe Wolf, Dr. Cathy N. Davidson, and Dr. Frederic Bertley for their pioneering contributions that have advanced learning opportunities and impacted countless lives.

    For more than 40 years, the McGraw Prize has championed leaders who have had a profound impact on our world, so that others might follow their example and extend that impact. Prizes are awarded in three categories: pre-K–12 learning, higher education, and lifelong learning. This year’s winners will receive an award of $50,000 and an iconic awards sculpture at a ceremony on November 13.

    “This year’s class of McGraw Prize winners combines highly innovative approaches to learning with results that transform lives,” said Harold McGraw III, former Chairman and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies. “They meet the highest standards of educational excellence and are a tribute to my father’s dedication to literacy and educational opportunity.”

    “The McGraw Prize honors those who push the boundaries of what’s possible in education,” said L. Michael Golden, Vice Dean of Innovative Programs & Partnerships at Penn GSE. “This year’s winners are true innovators — leaders who are rethinking how learning happens, redefining who gets to learn, and creating solutions that will shape the future for generations to come.”

    The 2025 Winners

    Pre-K-12 Education Prize: Rapelang Rabana and Joe Wolf are redefining what’s possible for children who are furthest from educational opportunity. As co-CEOs of Imagine Worldwide, they are delivering a massively scalable, evidence-based education technology solution to the global foundational learning crisis. Imagine’s solar-powered, offline tablets deliver personalized learning to Africa’s most marginalized children — because literacy and numeracy are the keys to unlocking a child’s potential. Under their visionary leadership, Imagine Worldwide has become a global leader in self-guided, tablet-based literacy and numeracy programs that are rigorously tested, grounded in evidence, and delivered in partnership with local communities and national governments. The results are transformational: nine randomized controlled trials across different countries, languages, and contexts have shown substantial gains in learning outcomes, even in the absence of trained teachers, internet, or electricity. Together, these co-winners exemplify the bold innovation and impact that define the McGraw Prize. Learn more about Imagine Worldwide.

    Higher Education Prize: Dr. Cathy N. Davidson has spent her career reimagining higher education for a rapidly changing world. A leading voice in digital literacy, learning science, and interdisciplinary innovation, she is known for translating research into action — and for helping institutions evolve to meet the needs of all students. At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), where she is a Distinguished Professor, she founded the Futures Initiative to promote equity, social mobility, and student-centered learning at every level of the university. She also serves as Senior Advisor on Transformation to the CUNY Chancellor, focusing on student success and inclusive, career-connected learning across CUNY’s 26 campuses. Her work reflects ideals the McGraw Prize was created to honor: bold thinking, equity-driven practice, and a lifelong commitment to transforming education for the public good.

    Lifelong Learning Prize: By re-envisioning how science is shared, taught, and experienced, Dr. Frederic Bertley has ignited a lifelong love of STEM learning in millions. As president and CEO of the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio, he has transformed a regional science museum into a globally recognized leader in STEM education. COSI now reaches more than one million learners annually through immersive exhibits, hands-on outreach, and Emmy Award–winning media programs that extend science education far beyond museum walls. Dr. Bertley exemplifies Harold W. McGraw Jr.’s belief that education is a lifelong pursuit — and a catalyst for individual and societal progress.

    The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation selected Penn GSE as the home for the McGraw Prize in 2020. Penn GSE is recognized internationally for its cutting-edge initiatives, distinguished faculty, and as a training ground for top educators and leaders. The partnership includes administering the annual prize in November, and ongoing programming with more than 100 past winners, including symposia and a webinar series.

    Through a public nomination process, McGraw Prize awardees were submitted for consideration by their peers, with winners then selected during three rounds of judging, including a final round by an independent panel of esteemed leaders in the field. Past winners have included teachers, professors, superintendents, university presidents, non-profit leaders, entrepreneurs, and public officials. Many continue to play major roles across the education landscape.

    To learn more, visit McGrawPrize.com, sign up for our mailing list and follow us on LinkedIn.

    ABOUT THE HAROLD W. MCGRAW, JR. FAMILY FOUNDATION

    The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation, established by Harold W. McGraw, Jr., is a not-for-profit private foundation whose primary mission is focused on education, youth services, community health and medical research. Harold W. McGraw, Jr. was the Chairman and CEO of McGraw-Hill and dedicated his life to education and literacy.

    ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

    Penn GSE is one of the nation’s leading and top-ranked research education schools. The school is notably entrepreneurial, launching innovative degree programs for practicing professionals and unique partnerships with local educators. It is also home to the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition and centers such as Catalyst @ Penn GSE, a hub for global education innovation.

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  • Federal judge orders Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA medical research grants

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    A federal judge Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore $500 million in UCLA medical research grants, halting for now a nearly two-month funding crisis that UC leaders said threatened the future of the nation’s premier public university system.

    The opinion by U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California added hundreds of UCLA’s National Institutes of Health grants to an ongoing class-action lawsuit that already led to the reversal of tens of millions of dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal agencies to the University of California.

    Lin’s order provides the biggest relief to UCLA but affects federal funding awarded to all 10 UC campuses. Lin ruled that the NIH grants were suspended by form letters that were unspecific to the research, a likely violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rulemaking.

    In addition to the medical grant freezes — which had prompted talks of possible UCLA layoffs or closures of labs conducting cancer and stroke research, among other studies — Lin said the government would have to restore millions of Department of Defense and Department of Transportation grants to UC schools.

    Lin explained her thinking during a hearing last week. She said the Trump administration committed a “fundamental sin” in its “un-reasoned mass terminations” of grants using “letters that don’t go through the required factors that the agency is supposed to consider.”

    The preliminary injunction will be in place as the lawsuit proceeds. But in broadening the case, Lin agreed with plaintiffs that there would be irreparable harm if the suspensions were not immediately reversed.

    The suit was originally filed in June by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley professors fighting a separate, earlier round of Trump administration grant clawbacks. UCLA faculty with NIH grants later joined the case.

    The University of California is not a party in the suit.

    The judge, a Biden appointee, told Department of Justice lawyers to make a court filing by Sept. 29 explaining “all steps” the government has take to comply with her order or, if necessary, explain why restoring grants “was not feasible.”

    UC did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment about the ruling.

    Spokespeople for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, and the Department of Justice did not respond to questions from The Times about the government’s next steps. The Trump administration had appealed an earlier ruling in the case to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Last month, the appeals court declined to reverse that ruling by Lin.

    Prior court orders in the case have resulted in government notices to campuses within days saying that funding will flow again.

    “This is wonderful news for UC researchers and should be tremendously consequential in ongoing UC negotiations with the Trump administration,” said Claudia Polsky, a UC Berkeley law professor who is part of the legal team behind the suit. “The restoration of more than half a billion dollars to UCLA in NIH funding alone gives UC the strongest hand it has had yet in resisting unlawful federal demands.”

    Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, worked with Polsky and argued the case in front of Lin.

    “The judge made clear what she said previously and the 9th Circuit held: The termination of grants was illegal and they must be restored,” he said.

    Trump administration lawyers argued against lifting more grant freezes, saying the case was in the wrong jurisdiction.

    A Justice Department lawyer, Jason Altabet, said during the hearing last week that instead of a District Court lawsuit filed by faculty, the proper venue would be for UC to file a case in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Altabet based his arguments on a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the government’s suspension of $783 million in NIH grants — to universities and research centers throughout the country — in part because the issue, the high court said, was not correctly within the jurisdiction of a lower federal court.

    In her Monday opinion, Lin disagreed with the government’s position that professors could not sue in District Court or the federal claims court.

    Lin addressed a hypothetical scenario posed to the government in court filings and during last week’s hearing, in which she asked what recourse a faculty member had if “a future administration terminated all grants to researchers with Asian last names.” The government’s position was that there would be none unless the person’s employer, the university, sued, because the grants are given to the institutions, not the researchers.

    Writing Monday, Lin called that an “extreme” view. “This court will not shut its doors” on researchers suing over “constitutional and statutory rights,” she wrote.

    The Trump administration rescinded $584 million in UCLA grants in late July, citing allegations of campus antisemitism, use of race in admissions and the school’s recognition of transgender identities as its reasons. The awards included $81 million from the National Science Foundation — also restored last month by Lin — and $3 million from the Department of Energy, which is still suspended.

    Last month, the government proposed a roughly $1.2-billion fine and demanded wide campus changes over admissions, protest rules, gender-affirming healthcare for minors and the disclosure of internal campus records, among other demands, in exchange for restoring the money.

    UCLA has said it made changes in the last year to improve the climate for Jewish communities and does not use race in admissions. Chancellor Julio Frenk has said that defunding medical research “does nothing” to address discrimination allegations. The university displays websites and policies that recognize different gender identities and maintains services for LGBTQ+ communities.

    UC leaders said they will not pay the $1.2-billion fine and are negotiating with the Trump administration over its other demands. They have told The Times that many settlement proposals cross the university’s red lines.

    The case wasclosely watched by researchers at the Westwood campus, who have cut back on lab hours, reduced operations and considered layoffs as the crisis at UCLA moves toward the two-month mark.

    Neil Garg, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA whose roughly four-year, $2.9 million grant was suspended over the summer, said that “people on the campus will be overjoyed” by the injunction.

    “From the scientific side of it, it is incredibly warming to hear that, to see that sort of decision,” said Garg said. “But we will wait and see how things play out.”

    Garg’s 19-person lab works on developing new organic chemistry reactions that could have pharmaceutical applications. “We try to invent chemistry that is unknown,” he explained.

    No one in Garg’s lab lost jobs after his grant was frozen. After the suspension, Garg sought new funding sources. “I have been very aggressive, as have many of my colleagues, in applying,” he said. “Even if the funds are restored, we don’t know how quickly that will happen or how permanent that is.”

    Elle Rathbun, a sixth-year neuroscience doctroal candidate at UCLA, had also lost a roughly $160,000 NIH grant that funded her study of stroke recovery treatment.

    “I am really glad that [the suspension] didn’t last more than these two months,” said Rathbun, who hoped grants return “quickly and efficiently” so researchers can “use the money in ways that we desperately need.”

    Rathbun said the experience showed her “how incredibly precarious of a situation we are in as researchers. And how quickly our lives and our life’s work can seemingly be upended.”

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  • Federal judge is ‘inclined’ to order Trump to restore $500 million in UCLA research grants

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    A federal judge Thursday said she was “inclined to extend” an earlier ruling and order the Trump administration to restore an additional $500 million in UCLA medical research grants that were frozen in response to the university’s alleged campus antisemitism violations.

    Although she did not issue a formal ruling late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin indicated she is leaning toward reversing — for now — the vast majority of funding freezes that University of California leaders say have endangered the future of the 10-campus, multi-hospital system.

    Lin, a judge in the Northern District of California, said she was prepared to add UCLA’s National Institutes of Health grant recipients to an ongoing class-action lawsuit that has already led to the reversal of tens of millions of dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal agencies to UC campuses.

    The judge’s reasoning: The UCLA grants were suspended by form letters that were unspecific to the research, a likely violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rulemaking.

    Though Lin said she had a “lot of homework to do” on the matter, she indicated that reversing the grant cuts was “likely where I will land” and she would issue an order “shortly.”

    Lin said the Trump administration had undertaken a “fundamental sin” in its “un-reasoned mass terminations” of the grants using “letters that don’t go through the required factors that the agency is supposed to consider.”

    The possible preliminary injunction would be in place as the case proceeds through the courts. But in saying she leaned toward broadening the case, Lin suggested she believed there would be irreparable harm if the suspensions were not immediately reversed.

    The suit was filed in June by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley professors fighting a separate, earlier round of Trump administration grant clawbacks. The University of California is not a party in the case.

    A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, Jason Altabet, said Thursday that instead of a federal district court lawsuit filed by professors, the proper venue would be the U.S. Court of Federal Claims filed by UC. Altabet based his arguments on a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the government’s suspension of $783 million in NIH grants — to universities and research centers throughout the country — in part because the issue, the high court said, was not properly within the jurisdiction of a lower federal court.

    Altabet said the administration was “fully embracing the principles in the Supreme Court’s recent opinions.”

    The hundreds of NIH grants on hold at UCLA look into Parkinson’s disease treatment, cancer recovery, cell regeneration in nerves and other areas that campus leaders argue are pivotal for improving the health of Americans.

    The Trump administration has proposed a roughly $1.2-billion fine and demanded campus changes over admission of international students and protest rules. Federal officials have also called for UCLA to release detailed admission data, ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors and give the government deep access to UCLA internal campus data, among other demands, in exchange for restoring $584 million in funding to the university.

    In addition to allegations that the university has not seriously dealt with complaints of antisemitism on campus, the government also said it slashed UCLA funding in response to its findings that the campus illegally considers race in admissions and “discriminates against and endangers women” by recognizing the identities of transgender people.

    UCLA has said it has made changes to improve campus climate for Jewish communities and does not use race in admissions. Its chancellor, Julio Frenk, has said that defunding medical research “does nothing” to address discrimination allegations. The university displays websites and policies that recognize different gender identities and maintains services for LGBTQ+ communities.

    UC leaders said they will not pay the $1.2-billion fine and are negotiating with the Trump administration over its other demands. They have told The Times that many settlement proposals cross the university’s red lines.

    “Recent federal cuts to research funding threaten lifesaving biomedical research, hobble U.S. economic competitiveness and jeopardize the health of Americans who depend on cutting-edge medical science and innovation,” a UC spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. “While the University of California is not a party to this suit, the UC system is engaged in numerous legal and advocacy efforts to restore funding to vital research programs across the humanities, social sciences and STEM fields.”

    A ruling Lin issued in the case last month resulted in $81 million in NSF grants restored to UCLA. If the UCLA NIH grants are reinstated, it would leave about $3 million from the July suspensions — all Department of Energy grants — still frozen at UCLA.

    Lin also said she leaned toward adding Transportation and Defense department grants to the case, which run in the millions of dollars but are small compared with UC’s NIH grants.

    The hearing was closely watched by researchers at the Westwood campus, who have cut back on lab hours, reduced operations and considered layoffs as the crisis at UCLA moves toward the two-month mark.

    In interviews, they said they were hopeful grants would be reinstated but remain concerned over the instability of their work under the recent federal actions.

    Lydia Daboussi, a UCLA assistant professor of neurobiology whose $1-million grant researching nerve injury is suspended, observed the hearing online.

    Aftewards, Daboussi said she was “cautiously optimistic” about her grant being reinstated.

    “I would really like this to be the relief that my lab needs to get our research back online,” said Daboussi, who is employed at the David Geffen School of Medicine. “If the preliminary injunction is granted, that is a wonderful step in the right direction.”

    Grant funding, she said, “was how we bought the antibodies we needed for experiments, how we purchased our reagents and our consumable supplies.” The lab consists of nine other people, including two PhD students and one senior scientist.

    So far, none of Daboussi’s lab members have departed. But, she said, if “this goes on for too much longer, at some point, people’s hours will have to be reduced.”

    “I do find myself having to pay more attention to volatilities outside of our lab space,” she said. “I’ve now become acquainted with our legal system in ways that I didn’t know would be necessary for my job.”

    Elle Rathbun, a sixth-year neuroscience PhD candidate at UCLA, lost a roughly $160,000 NIH grant that funded her study of stroke recovery treatment.

    “If there is a chance that these suspensions are lifted, that is phenomenal news,” said Rathbun, who presented at UCLA’s “Science Fair for Suspended Research” this month.

    “Lifting these suspensions would then allow us to continue these really critical projects that have already been determined to be important for American health and the future of American health,” she said.

    Rathbun’s research is focused on a potential treatment that would be injected into the brain to help rebuild it after a stroke. Since the suspension of her grant, Rathbun, who works out of a lab at UCLA’s neurology department, has been seeking other funding sources.

    “Applying to grants takes a lot of time,” she said. “So that really slowed down my progress in my project.”

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  • Loyola Marymount abruptly rescinds recognition of faculty union after months of negotiation

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    After 10 months of negotiations, Loyola Marymount University abruptly announced it would no longer recognize its faculty union.

    The news, delivered in an email to students and employees on Friday, sent shock waves through the union, which represents nearly 400 part-time and full-time educators who do not hold tenure-track positions.

    Paul S. Viviano, chairman of the university’s board of trustees, said in the email that the university was ending its engagement with the union by invoking its “constitutionally protected religious exemption” from the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, which governs collective bargaining for private employers.

    “I was floored,” said Maureen Gonzales, 35, who has worked part-time as a dance instructor on campus since 2016 and serves as an elected member of the union’s bargaining team. “It’s outrageous.”

    The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that religious colleges are not under the purview of federal labor laws and need not recognize unions. Many religious colleges have chosen to do so voluntarily anyway.

    But in recent years, several educational institutions — now including Loyola Marymount — have claimed the religious exemption suddenly and without warning, effectively using it to shut down established faculty unions that they had previously recognized.

    Loyola Marymount’s announcement has sparked protest and drawn allegations of union-busting from faculty members as well as leaders of Service Employees International Union Local 721, the labor group that represents them. Unionized employees have accused the university of aligning with Trump administration efforts “to stomp out the labor movement,” and plan to file an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB.

    “Let’s be clear: This action is illegal,” said David Green, president and executive director of SEIU 721. “[F]aculty members will fight this with everything we have. LMU messed with the wrong union.”

    Administrators are defending the move, arguing that getting rid of the union will help support the university’s financial health, and thus “protect [its] Catholic mission.”

    Kat Weaver, the university’s interim executive vice president and provost, said that after months of bargaining and modeling the union’s proposals, the board of trustees found that the changes would force an 18% tuition increase, 300 layoffs and cuts to student programs, and determined “the responsible path was to invoke the religious exemption.”

    The university’s move is “firmly grounded in law and the U.S. Constitution,” Weaver said in a statement to The Times. “This right cannot be waived and may be exercised at any point.”

    Faculty members voted overwhelmingly last summer to join SEIU, citing issues of low pay and precarious job status. Many work on short, semester-long contracts across three colleges at the university: the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, the College of Communication and Fine Arts and the School of Film and Television.

    They teach subjects such as animation, communications, dance, English, music, philosophy, photography, political science and screenwriting, among others.

    On Tuesday, scores of staff members and union organizers rallied outside the entrance to the university’s campus in Westchester, which sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. Armed with signs reading, “LMU: Back to the table now,” and, “Union busting is not a Jesuit value,” they marched back and forth across Loyola Boulevard.

    Bryan Wisch, a 33-year-old rhetorical arts instructor and alumnus of the university, said 75% of faculty in the union work part time on semester-long contracts for “poverty wages.” Those who work full time typically have slightly longer contracts that last one to three years, he said.

    Wisch said he’s “one of the lucky ones” who works full time. Still, he said his annual pay of $68,000 isn’t sufficient to live in costly Los Angeles, and he’s taken on a second job to make ends meet.

    Wisch said the university has disingenuously characterized the union as an outside party, even though the bargaining committee is made up of 15 employees elected from the three colleges.

    The university said it is still committed to working with non-tenure-track faculty to improve conditions, but wanted to remove the “third-party intermediaries of SEIU and NLRB.” The university said it has already implemented salary and merit wage increases for non-tenure-track faculty that amount to an average 7.8% pay raise, retroactive to August.

    “We are expanding full-time positions, strengthening contracts and promotion pathways,” Weaver said. “Respecting workers and workers’ rights and choosing a different governance path are not contradictions.”

    Many Catholic universities teach social justice doctrines of the Catholic Church, which have a long history of support for organized labor. Pope Leo XIII in 1891 used the platform of the papacy to offer a spirited defense of unions and the rights of workers in his seminal encyclical, “Rerum Novarum.”

    But while some Catholic universities embrace unions in line with such doctrines, others still object, said William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College, City University of New York.

    Typically, universities raise objections at the beginning of the union process, Herbert said. He called it “peculiar” that Loyola Marymount made an about-face after negotiating for months.

    “It raises questions as to the actual motivations. Is it a sincere belief unionization will interfere with the religious education of the school? Or is it to avoid having to engage in collective bargaining?” Herbert said. “It does not sound to me that they’re concerns of religious liberty.”

    Joshua D. Nadreau, an attorney and regional managing partner at the law firm Fisher Phillips, said the motivation may not ultimately have weight, since the labor board, even with a Democratic majority, has sided with universities on this issue in recent years.

    “I don’t foresee a real avenue for actual relief here,” Nadreau said “Courts are incredibly reluctant to weigh in on the authenticity of religious practices.”

    Some 600 Catholic institutions across the U.S., including universities, hospitals and other medical facilities, are unionized, according to a 2024 report by the Catholic Labor Network.

    A 1979 Supreme Court decision regarding the Catholic Bishop of Chicago ruled that the NLRB should not seek to regulate religious institutions, arguing that problems with religious freedom protections enshrined in the First Amendment can arise when a government office tries to determine if certain activities are religious or not.

    In the decades since, rulings by federal courts and the NLRB have focused on creating a standard to deem whether a school is a religious institution, and whether the labor board can assert itself when it comes to employees who are not involved with its religious mission.

    Recent rulings have further curtailed the NLRB’s reach. A U.S. Court of Appeals in 2020 blocked the board from requiring that Duquesne University, a Catholic institution in Pittsburgh, recognize an adjunct faculty union because it could lead to an “intrusive inquiry” that could infringe on the institution’s religious protections.

    In 2021, St. Leo University in Florida moved to nix its 44-year-old faculty union. The union contested the withdrawal of recognition, arguing the university changed the terms and conditions of employment without the union’s consent in violation of federal labor law.

    But in 2024, the NLRB sided with St. Leo, saying it could not exercise oversight at the religious institution.

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    Suhauna Hussain

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  • Schwarzenegger decries polarization, criticizes Newsom’s gerrymandering effort

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    Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke out forcefully Monday against the partisan effort to redraw California’s congressional districts that voters will decide in a November special election.

    “They are trying to fight for democracy by getting rid of the democratic principles of California,” Schwarzenegger told hundred of students at an event celebrating democracy at the University of Southern California. “It is insane to let that happen.

    The Hollywood action star turn Republican governor urged the students to vote against the redistricting measure, Proposition 50.

    The special election in November would redraw the districts and probably boost the number of Democrats California sends to Congress, an effort championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to counter efforts in GOP-led states such as Texas to send more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Schwarzenegger has long championed political reform. During his final year as governor, he prioritized the ballot measure that created independent congressional redistricting. Four former members of the independent commission were recognized by Schwarzenegger at the event, and he had lunch with them and members of the university’s student governmentafterward.

    He said he grew interested in the esoteric process of redistricting when he was governor and realized that districts drawn by politicians protected their political interests instead of voters.

    “They want to dismantle this independent commission. They want to get rid of it under the auspices of we have to fight Trump,” Schwarzenegger said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me because we have to fight Trump, [yet] we become Trump.”

    Since leaving office, Schwarzenegger has prioritized good governance at his institute at USC and campaigned for independent redistricting across the nation. The governor’s remarks were being recorded by the anti-Proposition 50 campaign in what could easily be turned into a television ad.

    Outside, student Democrats passed out fliers in support of Proposition 50.

    The event, a discussion with USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim marking the International Day of Democracy, was scheduled to take place before conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot last week while speaking at a Utah college campus.

    Schwarzenegger reflected on Kirk’s death as he warned about the fragile state of democracy.

    “That someone’s life was taken because they had a different opinion, I mean it’s just unbelievable,” Schwarzenegger said, noting that Kirk was a skilled communicator who connected with young people, even those who disagreed with him. “A human life is gone. He was a great father, a great husband, and I was thinking about his children — they will only be reading about him now instead of him reading to them bedtime stories.”

    He warned that the nation’s political climate was spiraling.

    “We are getting hit from so many angles and we have to be very careful we don’t get closer to the cliff. When you fall down there, there is no democracy,” Schwarzenegger said, blaming social media, the mainstream media and the political parties for dividing Americans. “It’s very important that we turn this around.”

    He urged the hundreds of students who attended the event to show that people can disagree politically without demonizing one another.

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    Seema Mehta

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  • Seven HBCUs across the country on lockdown for threats

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    Seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities are closed or on lockdown because of terroristic threats, according to Hearst sister stations and NBC affiliates.Alabama State University was briefly on lockdown Thursday morning because of a “terroristic threat” aimed at the campus.The university sent a statement to WVTM, stating that campus operations had been shut down that morning into the afternoon: “Alabama State University has received the all-clear from law enforcement and University officials. While the immediate threat has been resolved, all non-essential day-to-day operations remain suspended for the remainder of the day, and the campus is still closed to the public. We are still asking all students to shelter-in-place in their residence halls until further notice. The safety and well-being of our Hornet family continues to be our top priority.”FloridaIn Florida, Bethune-Cookman University is on lockdown and classes have been canceled after “a potential threat to campus safety” was made, the school told sister station WESH.GeorgiaClark Atlanta University received threats and is on lockdown, causing Spellman College to also go under lockdown because of proximity, according to a post on its social media page.”At this time, no threats have been directed toward Spelman’s campus. However, we have increased security presence across campus and at our two main entrances,” Spellman posted.LouisianaSouthern University is on lockdown due to a potential threat, according to NBC affiliate WAFB. VirginiaVirginia State University and Hampton University closed for terroristic threats, according to our NBC affiliates WWBT and WAVY. This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.

    Seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities are closed or on lockdown because of terroristic threats, according to Hearst sister stations and NBC affiliates.

    Alabama State University was briefly on lockdown Thursday morning because of a “terroristic threat” aimed at the campus.

    The university sent a statement to WVTM, stating that campus operations had been shut down that morning into the afternoon:

    “Alabama State University has received the all-clear from law enforcement and University officials. While the immediate threat has been resolved, all non-essential day-to-day operations remain suspended for the remainder of the day, and the campus is still closed to the public. We are still asking all students to shelter-in-place in their residence halls until further notice. The safety and well-being of our Hornet family continues to be our top priority.”

    Florida

    In Florida, Bethune-Cookman University is on lockdown and classes have been canceled after “a potential threat to campus safety” was made, the school told sister station WESH.

    Georgia

    Clark Atlanta University received threats and is on lockdown, causing Spellman College to also go under lockdown because of proximity, according to a post on its social media page.

    “At this time, no threats have been directed toward Spelman’s campus. However, we have increased security presence across campus and at our two main entrances,” Spellman posted.

    Louisiana

    Southern University is on lockdown due to a potential threat, according to NBC affiliate WAFB.

    Virginia

    Virginia State University and Hampton University closed for terroristic threats, according to our NBC affiliates WWBT and WAVY.

    This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.

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  • Students can’t get into basic college courses, dragging out their time in school

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    As colleges reopen for the fall, new research has pinpointed a problem keeping students from graduating on time: Classes required for their majors aren’t taught during the semesters they need them, or fill up so quickly that no seats are left.

    Colleges and universities manage only about 15% of the time to provide required courses when their students need to take them, according to research by Ad Astra, which provides scheduling software to 550 universities. It’s among the major reasons fewer than half of students graduate on time, raising the cost of a degree in time and money.

    Now, with widespread layoffs, budget cuts and enrollment declines on many campuses — including in California — the problem is expected to get worse.

    “What is more foundational to what we do as colleges and universities than offering courses to students so they can graduate?” asked Tom Shaver, founder and chief executive of Ad Astra.

    Fifty-seven percent of students at all levels of higher education spend more time and money on college because their campuses don’t offer required courses when they need them, Ad Astra found in an earlier study last year.

    Independent scholars and university administrators generally confirm the finding.

    “We’re forcing students to literally decelerate their progress to degrees, by telling them to do something they can’t actually do,” Shaver said.

    Scheduling university and college courses is complex. Yet rather than use advanced technology to do it, many institutions still rely on methods that include producing hard-copy spreadsheets, according to some administrators.

    Difficulties at California State University

    The cash-strapped California State University system has eliminated 1,430 course sections this year across seven of its 23 campuses, or 7% of the total at those campuses, a spokeswoman, Amy Bentley-Smith, confirmed. These include sections of required courses.

    At Cal State Los Angeles, for example, the number of sections of a required Introduction to American Government course has been reduced from 14 to nine.

    Emilee Xie, a senior geology major, said required upper-division courses fill up quickly. It’s common to apply for a class needed to graduate, end up on a wait list — and have to apply again next semester.

    “It is what it is,” said Xie, of San Gabriel. Her parents ask her whether she plans to graduate soon and her advisors tell her she’s on track to graduate in spring 2026. But she’s not so sure.

    Those geology classes, due to the small size of her department, aren’t offered during the summer, when most students try to take classes they’ve missed during the academic year.

    “The more courses that aren’t offered as often, like my geology courses, the more expensive your degree will be,” she said.

    Professors at the beginning of the semester warned juniors Victoria Quiran and a friend, Gabriela Tapia, both biology majors, about how hard it would be to register for classes in upcoming semesters during the first days of class.

    Tapia and Quiran have struggled to get into required courses because there aren’t enough seats, they said. They’ve seen wait lists grow to as many as 40 students. Although the school provides advisors, the help can often feel impersonal, Tapia and Quiran said.

    “A bunch of us are first-[generation students] who don’t have anyone to guide us,” Quiran said.

    Consequences mount

    In addition to taking longer and spending more to graduate, students who are shut out of required courses often change their majors or drop out, according to research by Kevin Mumford, director of the Purdue University Research Center in Economics.

    Together with economists at Brigham Young University, Mumford found that when first-year students at Purdue couldn’t get into a required course, they were 35 percentage points less likely to ever take it and 25 percentage points less likely to enroll in any other course in the same subject.

    Students at U.S. colleges and universities already spend more time and money getting their degrees than they expect to. According to a 2019 national survey by a research institute at UCLA, 90% of freshmen say they plan to finish a bachelor’s degree within four years or less. But federal data show that fewer than half of them do. More than a third still haven’t graduated after six years.

    At community colleges nationwide, students who can’t get into courses they need are up to 28% more likely to take no classes at all that term, contributing to graduation delays, a 2021 study by UC Santa Cruz and the nonprofit Mathematica said.

    An increase in students with double majors, minors and concentrations has further complicated the process. So do the challenges confronted by part-time and older students, who typically don’t live on campus and juggle families and jobs; such students are expected to account for a growing proportion of enrollment as the number of 18- to 24-year-olds declines.

    “There are so many obstacles students face, from transportation to work schedules to child care. Some can only take classes in the afternoon or on the weekends,” said Matt Jamison, associate vice president of academic success at Front Range Community College in Colorado.

    Meanwhile, “we have instructors that have [outside] jobs and aren’t always available. And faculty can teach only so many courses.”

    Several colleges and universities are turning to more online courses. In California’s rural Central Valley, for example, community college students struggled to get into the advanced mathematics courses needed for STEM degrees.

    In response, UC Merced launched a pilot program during the summer to offer these required classes online.

    Improving the scheduling of required courses seems a comparatively simple way for universities to raise student success rates, Mumford said.

    “This seems like a much cheaper thing to solve than many of the other interventions they’re considering,” he said.

    Marcus is a reporter for the Hechinger Report, which produced this story and is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. McDonald is a Times staff writer.

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    John Marcus, Sandra McDonald

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  • International student enrollment drops in U.S. amid policy changes

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    Colleges and universities across the United States are preparing for a significant drop in international student enrollment this fall as President Donald Trump aims to overhaul the vetting and admission process for foreign students.Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA), said, “In terms of tuition dollars to universities, that will certainly be an impact, but in addition to universities, they contribute to the local economy.”The Association of International Educators says the drop in foreign enrollment could be as high as 15% this fall, which could deprive the U.S. economy of about $7 billion in spending, result in more than 60,000 fewer jobs, and strain school budgets across the country.Trump acknowledged the importance of international students last week, saying, “I like that other country students come here. And you know what would happen if they didn’t? Our college system would go to hell very quickly.” However, he has also argued that foreign students take slots from Americans and only wants those who “can love our country.”Critics claim that the administration’s policies are contributing to the decline by pressuring colleges to limit enrollment, tightening visa screening, and revoking thousands of visas, arguing that those students broke the law or supported terrorism. Trump stated, “We don’t want troublemakers here.”The administration maintains that these measures are about security, but experts like Aw argue, “This idea that international students are a national security threat is one that there is no evidence to support that at all.”Trump last week suggested doubling the number of Chinese students in American universities, a move that contrasts with his previous crackdown and has sparked criticism from conservatives.

    WASHINGTON —

    Colleges and universities across the United States are preparing for a significant drop in international student enrollment this fall as President Donald Trump aims to overhaul the vetting and admission process for foreign students.

    Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA), said, “In terms of tuition dollars to universities, that will certainly be an impact, but in addition to universities, they contribute to the local economy.”

    The Association of International Educators says the drop in foreign enrollment could be as high as 15% this fall, which could deprive the U.S. economy of about $7 billion in spending, result in more than 60,000 fewer jobs, and strain school budgets across the country.

    Trump acknowledged the importance of international students last week, saying, “I like that other country students come here. And you know what would happen if they didn’t? Our college system would go to hell very quickly.” However, he has also argued that foreign students take slots from Americans and only wants those who “can love our country.”

    Critics claim that the administration’s policies are contributing to the decline by pressuring colleges to limit enrollment, tightening visa screening, and revoking thousands of visas, arguing that those students broke the law or supported terrorism. Trump stated, “We don’t want troublemakers here.”

    The administration maintains that these measures are about security, but experts like Aw argue, “This idea that international students are a national security threat is one that there is no evidence to support that at all.”

    Trump last week suggested doubling the number of Chinese students in American universities, a move that contrasts with his previous crackdown and has sparked criticism from conservatives.

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  • Villanova Says Report Of A Campus Shooter Was A ‘Cruel Hoax’ – KXL

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    A general view of St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the Villanova University campus is seen, Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Villanova, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

    VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP) — False reports of active shooters at Villanova University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Thursday led to panic and temporary lockdowns at the two campuses as they kicked off their fall semesters.

    In Pennsylvania someone called 911 at about 4:30 p.m. reporting a shooter in a Villanova law school building with at least one wounded victim. Students received texts from the school’s alert system saying “ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors.”

    The school’s president later said it was a hoax.

    “Today, as we are celebrating Orientation Mass to welcome our newest Villanovans and their families to our community, panic and terror ensued,” the Rev. Peter M. Donohue said in a statement. “Mercifully, no one was injured and we now know it was a cruel hoax.”

    About four hours earlier, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga locked down its campus, telling students: “Possible active shooter in the University Center or Library. Run. Hide. Fight. More info forthcoming.”

    After multiple law enforcement agencies including the FBI responded alongside local fire and emergency crews, the lockdown was lifted less than an hour later. School officials said there was no evidence of any threat.

    At Villanova, where new student orientation was underway and classes begin next week, the initial report sent police scouring the campus and even had some law enforcement officials suggesting they believed there was a shooter.

    ““He’s in one of these buildings. Law enforcement for the entire tri-state area is here. And we are going door to door, room to room if we have to, to take this situation under control and to make this campus safe,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told WPVI-TV.

    At a news conference later, Stollsteimer said authorities will conduct a full investigation.

    “If this was indeed a cruel hoax, this is a crime,” he said.

    “This is every parent’s nightmare, right? You’re sending your kid off to college, sometimes for their first day, and you get an alert that there could be a shooter on the campus,” he said.

    Courtenay Harris Bond was walking near the law school with her husband and son, a freshman, when word spread of the supposed shooting.

    “Really tough way to start freshman year at college,” she said shortly after getting the all-clear to leave the bookstore where the family spent the lockdown.

    Villanova is a private Catholic university in the Philadelphia suburbs. It borders Lower Merion Township and Radnor Township at the center of the city’s wealthy Main Line neighborhoods.

    The Augustinian school got extra attention this year as the alma mater of new Pope Leo XIV.

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    Jordan Vawter

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