US Bulletin Archive

Scholars at Risk monitors reports of threats to academic freedom and higher education communities worldwide, including media articles, blogs, opinion pieces and other announcements. Scholars at Risk identifies situations of concern on its own and welcomes reports submitted by faculty, students and volunteers at participating higher education institutions. Submissions can be made here.

The below articles have been featured in all media reviews published in 2025. View the most recent edition of the media review here.

Subscribe to SAR’s bi-monthly US Bulletin

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 8/14/26

This week’s US Bulletin includes reports on responses to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s “National Call to Action” letter to university presidents and governing boards, damaging impacts to institutions from continuing federal civil rights investigations, and a federal court’s dismissal of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Harvard University for allegedly failing to combat antisemitism. Taken together, they illustrate ongoing efforts by the US administration to pressure universities into “alignment” with its ideological priorities.

McMahon’s letter calls on every US higher education institution to publish by the end of 2026 a “statement of principle” addressing seven key areas: admissions, campus speech and protest, faculty “intellectual pluralism”, affordability, academic rigor, foreign influence in research, and research alignment with US national interests.

On its face, the letter is a considerably softer instrument than last year’s proposed Compact for Academic Excellence. It is less prescriptive and attaches no formal penalties. Asking universities to publicly account for their curricula, hiring, and research agendas reads like moderation. But the letter frames its call for compliance as “long overdue” and an “essential first step”, suggesting–especially in the aftermath of the overtly coercive Compact–negative consequences for institutions whose leaders fail to comply to the administration’s satisfaction. One Department of Education official even suggested as much, stating the administration will interpret silence as a lack of commitment to rigorous scientific research and that “it would be only natural” for the administration to partner with institutions that are “most committed” when considering the future of government research funding.

Combined with the administration’s earlier proposed change to OMB rule-making (which would allow political appointees, rather than independent expert review panels, to control grant making decisions) and the administration’s Science: A New Golden Age report, the Call for Action suggests an overall aim to divert power and funding from universities to individuals—a move advocates warn could undermine future research excellence. Add in ongoing civil rights investigations against colleges and universities and the persistent threat of withheld funding, and the Call for Action, in context, seems less like a neutral call for voluntary transparency and accountability, and more like a coercive loyalty test.

Media
Federal Policies and Actions

McMahon’s Call To Action Raises Questions About University Independence [Commentary], Marybeth Gasman, Forbes, 8/10

A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards, Secretary of Education Linda E. McMahon, U.S. Department of Education, 8/3

Senate finalizes funding patch that would block Trump’s grant overhaul, Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus, Politico, 8/2

Trump officials plan to shift more research funding to individual scientists, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 7/23

Judge agrees with states that White House misused policy to revoke grant funding, Mayah Nachman, Maryland Matters, 7/22

‘A razor’s edge’: How colleges are navigating civil rights probes under Trump, Danielle McLean, Higher Ed Dive, 7/20

State and University Policies

Judge Dismisses Federal Government’s Antisemitism Case Against Harvard, Mark Arsenault, The New York Times, 8/13

Palestinian Americans File Discrimination Lawsuit Against Columbia, Caitlyn Freeman, The New York Times, 8/11

How Should Leaders Respond to McMahon’s Letter?, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 8/10

Columbia joins 35 universities in amicus brief supporting Harvard lawsuit against Trump, Aubrey Rogers and Fiona Hu, The Columbia Daily Spectator, 8/5

Ottessa Moshfegh, a Fired Professor, and a Prudish College President: When creeping puritanism and red-state politics meet, literature loses. [COMMENTARY], Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/4

Professors sue Texas A&M System to block restrictions on race, gender teachings, Milla Surjadi, The Dallas Morning News, 8/4

One year after $584 million federal funding freeze, UCLA research still recovering, Kyan Wang, Daily Bruin, 7/31

Florida’s Great Conservative Crack-Up: The fight for the flagship and the fracturing of the academic-reform movement, Garrett Shanley, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/28

“Orwellian flavor”: FIU disciplines students for silent protest, Sommer Brugal, Axios, 7/23

The Long Shadow of Columbia’s Deal With Trump: A year later, enforcement is uneven and suspicions remain., Francie Diep, Eric Kelderman, and Shea Vance, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/22

Higher Education Responses

A Call for Unity in the Aftermath of the Department of Education’s “National Call to Action”, Alliance for Higher Education and PEN America

VU AAUP Releases Statement Against the BoT’s “Declaration” and the Dept. of Education’s “Call”, Vanderbilt AAUP, 8/11

In advertisements and letters, alumni rally against potential Trump deal, Aria Lynn-Skov, Yale Daily News, 8/1

Trump adviser’s Golden Age report on U.S. science is a missed opportunity, critics say, Jeffrey Mervis, Science, 7/28

3 dozen of Harvard’s peers back its court fight against the Trump administration, Ben Unglesbee, Higher Ed Dive, 7/23

Lawsuit challenges Texas Tech directives that altered teaching at El Paso medical school, Daniel Perez, El Paso Matters, 7/21

Free Expression on Campus

Fired Over Speech, Professors Take Their Employers to Court—and Win, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 7/30

Universities Say They Value a Free Press. Student Journalists Tell a Different Story., Ella Carter-Klauschie, The Nation, 7/30

How a Network of Pink-Slime News Sites and Conservative Activists Went After Campus DEI, Miranda Green, Columbia Journalism Review, 7/30

International Students & Scholars

Detentions of International Scholars at Airports Raise Alarm, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 8/5

Trump administration caps student visa stays at 4 years under final rule, Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 7/17

Tracking

Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Witness (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk, The College of Wooster, and the University of Chicago invite you to Chicago from November 13–14, 2026 for the 2026 SAR U.S. General Assembly, hosted at the Ida Noyes Building at the University of Chicago. The General Assembly will bring together SAR members, higher education leaders, scholars, professionals, and partners to exchange ideas, strengthen collaboration, and advance shared efforts to protect scholars and promote free inquiry. More details, including registration information and the full agenda, will be shared soon. Sign up for updates on the 2026 SAR U.S. General Assembly »

Save the Date: 2027 SAR Global Congress: Scholars at Risk and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki invite you to Thessaloniki, Greece from June 15 -1 17, 2027 for the 2027 SAR Global Congress. In an era of democratic backsliding and rising threats to free inquiry, we gather in the cradle of the Academy to discuss the essential role of academic freedom in a democratic society. Join hundreds of global higher education leaders, professionals, scholars, and partners to learn from each other and share ideas. Sign up for updates on the 2027 SAR Global Congress »

Florida Campus Discourse Watch, an independent watchdog and documentation project focused on academic freedom within Florida higher education, invites direct accounts from students, faculty, staff, and graduate assistants regarding the current climate of communication, academic freedom, and institutional pressure in Florida higher education. Share your experience here »

The Proud Sponsor Campaign is a grass-roots movement aimed at reminding people of the countless ways that higher education makes American life better – regardless of whether you have a college degree. They’ve developed a free messaging toolkit with downloadable digital and print ads that the public is encouraged to share widely across the country. Join the campaign »

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for and share the course today in English and Spanish »

Help Build an Open Repository of Pro-Democracy Teaching and Learning Resources: The AAC&U is seeking submissions to a new, open-source collection of educational materials designed to strengthen learning for a democracy in question. They invite submissions for teach-ins, curricular inserts, and cross-disciplinary programs (including the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, and professional studies).

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 7/17/26

This week’s US Bulletin message looks at the situation at Yale University as an example of continuing efforts by the US administration to use the threat of federal investigations and sanctions to pressure universities.

Following a June Department of Justice finding of discrimination in Yale University’s medical school admissions process—with investigations into Yale Law School and the undergraduate Yale College still pending—Yale’s leadership is reportedly trying to negotiate a settlement with the administration. This comes despite legal experts arguing that the DOJ’s accusation—that the university has failed to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act under the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling—rests on an overly broad interpretation of the Court’s decision and lacks sufficient evidence.

Though details of the DOJ’s investigations remain opaque, reports of the potential settlement have prompted opposition from various campus stakeholders. Faculty from Yale’s AAUP chapter called on the university to combat the DOJ’s accusations in court, rather than negotiate a settlement, and to engage in transparent dialogue about the status of the case with all members of the Yale community. Student leaders from Yale College Council warn that a settlement would compound existing pressures on international students while other undergraduates voiced concern that a potential deal would create long-term negative repercussions for the university’s reputation. Stand Up for Yale, an alumni group, initiated an anti-deal petition that has since garnered over 4,600 signatures. Faculty at the law school, meanwhile, are reportedly lobbying their administration that any settlement would threaten the rule of law and the university’s reputation.

The solidarity exhibited by many of Yale’s faculty, students, and alumni underscores broad concern in US higher education that the government is bullying institutions into terms that undermine autonomy and academic freedom; terms that it would not be able to secure through normal investigative or judicial actions. For leaders fearing the costs of retaliation if they resist the government’s demands, evidence from those that have already acquiesced shows that signing a settlement is no guarantee that the government will stop; rather, it means consenting to further government interference.

Surrendering to a government that has proven its promises are illusory is not a responsible choice.
Standing firm and forcing the government to follow the law, even if it comes at a cost, buys time and preserves options. It also preserves academic freedom.

Media
Federal Policies and Actions

The Think Tank Fueling Trump’s War on Higher Ed: How the Manhattan Institute is reshaping the sector — one tweet, article, and investigation at a time., Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/30

Education Department Moves Special Ed. and Civil Rights to Other Agencies, Mark Lieberman, Education Week, 6/16

Rewriting the Accreditation Playbook, Jeffrey Adam Sachs and Amy Reid, PEN America, 6/11

State and University Policies

North Carolina Republicans ban DEI at public colleges, Laura Spitalniak, HigherEd Dive, 6/29

Yale Seeks Trump Administration Deal as It Faces Sprawling Investigation, Michael S. Schmidt, Alan Blinder, and Michael C. Bender, The New York Times, 6/26

Public universities face escalating involvement from state lawmakers, Anna Claire Vollers, Arkansas Advocate, 6/26

What It Would Mean for These Public Colleges to Ban Undocumented Students, Amann Mahajan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/26

Texas college watchdog received nearly 70 complaints, opened one investigation, records show, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 6/18

A Lecturer Was Investigated Under Indiana’s Intellectual-Diversity Law. Now She’s Out of a Job., Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/10

Higher Education Responses

How Va. leaders are working to strengthen and depoliticize public college governing boards, Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury, 7/15

3,800 Yalies Urge: Yale, Don’t Cave to Trump Administration Demands, Stand Up for Yale

Texas Tech sued over policy ‘erasing’ LGBTQ+ and Black history from classrooms, Tom Hutt-Dixon, Pink News, 7/9

Yale Law School Fights to Stop Trump Deal, Alan Blinder and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times, 7/7

Comments Flood OMB Proposal to Cement Political Control of Grants, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 7/7

Reinstated professor sues California university, alleging retaliation over pro-Palestinian protests, Ruben Vives, Los Angelos Times, 6/30

Cited Professors Say the Vanderbilt Report Misrepresents Their Work, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 6/10

Free Expression on Campus

Eleventh Circuit crushes Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE Act’ at state universities, Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix, 7/7

FIU moves to discipline 7 students for ‘indoor’ silent protest on immigration policies, Daniel Rivero, WLRN Public Media, 7/1

Professor Fired for Criticizing Charlie Kirk Reaches $1.9 Million Settlement, Madaleine Rubin, The New York Times, 7/1

‘Dialogue is all the rage’: why is the right pouring millions into ‘civil discourse’ initiatives on US campuses?, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 6/28

Complying with a new Kansas Board of Regents directive, The University of Kansas, 6/22

A family scholar’s experience with coordinated harassment shows why universities need stronger systems to protect scholar safety and academic freedom., Kayla Masterman, Beck Haberstroh, and Amanda Wells, PEN America, 6/22

International Students & Scholars

DHS Finalizes Rule Limiting How Long International Students Can Stay in U.S., Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 7/16

Latitudes: Taking stock of new education-abroad data, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/15

International students in the US are increasingly anxious, Richard T Herman, University World News, 7/1

AFMP Incidents

In late June 2026, Florida International University (FIU), a public research university that is part of the state university system, issued disciplinary penalties against seven students for participating in a peaceful and non-disruptive protest on campus. The disciplinary penalties included a written reprimand and a requirement that the students record videos expressing an understanding of the university’s expression action policies.

On June 5, 2026, the Auburn University Board of Trustees unanimously approved two policies that weaken the faculty’s role in university governance and curricular decisions.

On June 5, 2026, Louisiana State Police removed five researchers from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) annual meeting for distributing an editorial criticizing the US administration’s research funding policies.

Tracking

Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Witness (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 6/12/26

This week’s US Bulletin warns of the US administration’s latest attempt to pressure higher education by restricting research funding.

The administration’s early efforts to restrict research funding relied on measures that bypassed existing procedures and regulations (such as directing federal agencies to freeze payments on previously awarded grants). Those actions are the subject of multiple lawsuits. Now, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is attempting to insulate the administration from legal challenges by proposing sweeping regulatory changes. If enacted, these measures will codify political appointee control over the distribution of all federal awards, encompassing not only university research funds, but also grants and contracts for transportation, childcare, rural healthcare, clean water systems, and other critical public services.

The proposed regulations include restrictions on funding for research-related travel, limitations on international research collaboration, and reduced constraints for terminating awards in the middle of a grant period. Perhaps most troubling, however, are changes that would empower non-expert, senior political appointees to overrule the grant-making decisions of traditional, apolitical, merit-based, peer review processes. Removing the focus on academic merit, the regulations would allow appointees to veto funding for projects that the appointee considers not “aligned with administration policies and priorities.” The proposed changes would therefore have the effect of imposing political litmus tests on research grant proposals, distorting research agendas and silencing research on topics that, however valuable scientifically, are politically unpopular with the administration. Studies on health disparities, vaccine development, climate change, and more would be vulnerable to political veto, undermining the health, safety, and well-being of the public.

The next few weeks will be critical for the future of American research quality and leadership. Many science advocates and researchers have already spoken out about the dangers of the proposed changes to OMB rules. SAR encourages the higher education community and civil society—including individual scholars, universities, professional societies, patient advocacy groups, and the public—to speak up and share their concerns, including by submitting public comments. (The deadline for the formal public comments period is July 13, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST.)

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Trump’s Assaults on Scientific Research Just Got Worse [Commentary], Melissa L. Finucane, The New York Times, 6/9

Trump officials went after dozens of colleges. Now they’re rewriting the rules for all of academia, Collin Binkley, Associated Press, 6/4

DOJ opens 15 new investigations into medical schools’ admissions, Finya Swai, The Hill, 6/4

White House proposes new rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants, Dan Vergano, Scientific American, 5/28

State and University Policies

Pro-Palestinian activists accused of intimidation campaign against University of Michigan officials, The Guardian, 6/10

DOJ accuses UC Davis medical school of illegally using race in admissions, Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 6/10

DOJ Investigates CUNY’s Black Male Initiative, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 6/10

Mandatory UI civics classes raise concerns about academic freedom, Jessica Rish, Iowa City Press-Citizen, 6/9

How Colleges Extend the Reach of Anti-DEI Laws [Commentary], Jackie Pedota, Liliana M. Garces, and Eliza Morse Bentley Epstein, Inside Higher Ed, 6/5

Police remove UW diabetes researcher and other experts from conference, Elise Takahama, Seattle Times, 6/4

One Year Later: The Impact of Anti-Diversity Laws in Ohio and Kentucky, News USA, 6/3

Arizona State faces DOJ investigation over DEI practices, Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 6/3

The Form That Fractured a Campus: Inside Auburn University’s chaotic attempt to police its curriculum., Gavin Escott, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/1

Florida budget language bolsters state control over university gen-ed courses, Stephany Matat, The Gainesville Sun, 5/29

Teaching restrictions prompted half of surveyed Texas Tech faculty to alter courses, results show, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 5/29

Higher Education Responses

AAUP Investigating Academic Freedom, Shared Governance Across Texas Colleges, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 6/10

The Science Community Is Stepping Up. Let’s Go Bigger., Gretchen Goldman, The Equation, Union of Concerned Scientists, 6/9

Researchers say this new Trump rule could destroy American science as we know it. They’re fighting back, Ella Nilsen and Andrew Freedman, CNN, 6/4

What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule, Elizabeth Ginexi, Substack, 5/29

Free Expression on Campus

A Lecturer Was Investigated Under Indiana’s Intellectual-Diversity Law. Now She’s Out of a Job., Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/10

International Students & Scholars

Mohsen Mahdawi Appeals Retaliatory Ruling from Board of Immigration Appeals to Federal Appeals Court, ACLU, 6/10

Florida’s international students are graduating. Travel bans put them in limbo, Nakylah Carter, Lucy Marques and Juan Carlos Chavez, Tampa Bay Times, 6/9

Judge blocks $100k fee for H-1B visas imposed by Trump, Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, 6/8

AFMP Incidents

On April 17, 2026, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) placed Savneet Talwar, a tenured faculty member and chair of the school’s art therapy and counseling program, on paid leave because of a class assignment.

On May 7, 2026, Indiana University’s police department temporarily locked Biology professor Roger W. Innes and three other faculty members out of their labs, apparently at the direction of US Department of Agriculture officials. US authorities provided no public justification for closing the labs, creating the appearance that the action may have been taken in retaliation for Innes’s public criticism of the US’s investigations and deportations of two Chinese postdoctoral researchers.

Tracking

Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Witness (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 5/29/26

This week’s US Bulletin reports on the faculty, staff, and students suing–and winning–over universities firing, suspending, investigating or otherwise sanctioning individuals for speech or expression disfavored by the institution, or more often third parties, including government officials.

Texas State University was ordered to reinstate, pending completion of the litigation, a professor who had been fired over remarks delivered at a conference a year earlier. Ball State University reportedly settled with a former administrator it had fired over private speech criticizing the views of murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Student activist Josiah Walker is suing the University of Michigan for carrying out a campaign against him, including hiring private investigators to surveil and eavesdrop on him, allegedly resulting in physical and psychological harm. While the allegations in Walker’s case are extreme, many students have been improperly sanctioned for nonviolent expression of their views (particularly pro-Palestinian views during 2023–2024 campus protests), including through arrests, disciplinary suspensions, and frozen financial aid, among other actions.

Will university leaders be chastened by these outcomes, and do more to protect, or at least not penalize, unpopular expression in the future? Or are the costs already baked into a “violate now, pay later” strategy? One that deems the benefits to the institution of visibly and aggressively punishing disfavored views as outweighing the financial costs of settlements or judgments months or years later?

That some individuals might have their expressive rights vindicated eventually, whether by the courts or through settlements, doesn’t make up for the harms being done to free inquiry and expression on campus. Some suggest that university crackdowns on protected expression have already created an inhospitable environment, not just for protest, but for disagreement and dissent. Lawsuits won’t be able to change that. We need institutional and political leaders who will stand up for academic freedom and free speech on campus.

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

White House Aims to Establish Political Oversight of Federal Grants, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 5/29

Exclusive: NSF puts new research grants to top universities on hold, Dan Garisto, Nature, 5/27

Trump administration sues UC, alleges anti-semitic environment at UCLA, NBC Los Angeles, 5/26

U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators, Jeffrey Brainard, Science, 5/20

State and University Policies

Harvard’s Viewpoint Diversity Push Turns to Faculty Hiring, Abigail S. Gerstein and Alexa M. Schmitt, Harvard Crimson, 5/27

New Report Reveals Stark Concerns About Academic Freedom at Yale, AAUP Yale, 5/26

Gov. Reynolds to consider bill that would mandate Center for Intellectual Freedom classes for UI students, Brandon Winn, We are Iowa, 5/24

UT System makes it easier to shutter programs, fire faculty, Ben Unglesbee, HigherEd Dive, 5/21

GOP-Backed Civics Schools Have Proliferated. Now This One Wants to ‘Expand Its Impact.’, Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/20

Texas State ordered to reinstate professor after pro-Palestinian speech dispute, Lily Kepner, Austin-American Statesman, 5/15

Connecticut to give UConn $35 million for research to offset cuts by Trump administration, Natasha Sokoloff, CT Insider, 5/14

Higher Education Responses

Portland State professor seeks $7 million in discrimination, retaliation lawsuit against university, Tiffany Camhi, Oregon Public Broadcasting, 5/21

Student sues University of Michigan over alleged surveillance tied to Gaza protests, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, 5/21

UT students, faculty stage mock funeral to protest academic freedom concerns, Jessica Cham, KVUE, 5/20

Black community fights for legacy of former cultural center after ISU changed name, mission, Aubrey Wright, Indiana Public Media, 5/15

Free Expression on Campus

Fired for Criticizing Charlie Kirk, They’re Now Getting Big Payouts, Jeremy W. Peters and Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 5/27

US judge halts West Point faculty speech curbs under Trump-era policy, Nate Raymond, Reuters, 5/27

Woman fired by Indiana university over Charlie Kirk post to receive $225,000 legal settlement, Russ Bynum, Associated Press, 5/26

Cal Poly students protest use of controversial surveillance cameras, Sadie Dittenber, The Tribune, 5/18

Kent State professors ‘censoring’ in the classroom following SB1, Kent State News Lab, 5/18

Students Want Debate, Yet Tend to Self-Censor, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 5/18

Where Are All the Student Protesters Now? The new surveillance state violates the university’s democratic mission. [Commentary], Rachel J. Webster, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/14

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On July 8, 2025, Texas State University informed Idris Robinson, an assistant professor of philosophy, that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 2025-26 academic year.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Call for Applications: Scholars at Risk is pleased to invite early-career researchers to apply for remote 2026-2027 research fellowships on academic freedom and related higher education values. Two tracks—one centered on global academic freedom and another focused on the United States—are available. Applications are due on May 29, 2026. Learn more about the fellowships, apply, and register for a virtual information session on the application process »

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 5/29/26

This week’s US Bulletin reports on the impacts of laws censoring scholarship around race, gender, and sexuality; the progress of legal challenges against universities for their sanctioning students involved in pro-Palestinian protests; and controversies that have arisen regarding speakers at some recent commencement ceremonies.

Regarding commencements, while for some years commencement speakers have sparked the occasional protest–whether for who they are, what they are presumed to represent, or for the remarks they actually deliver–the most recent commencement-related controversies reflect the heightened pressures on US higher education campuses. At Utah Valley University, state leaders and Turning Point USA successfully campaigned to revoke a speaker’s invitation over past criticisms of rhetoric used by murdered activist Charlie Kirk. At South Carolina State University, administrators rescinded an invitation to the Lieutenant Governor following student protests against her stance on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies (triggering a letter to the Lieutenant Governor from nine state legislators urging that “no funding for South Carolina State University be included in the second version of the budget”). At the University of Michigan, Derek Peterson, a history professor and outgoing chair of the university’s Faculty Senate and Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, was criticized for commencement remarks that invited graduates to remember pro-Palestine student activists along with a suffragette, one of the university’s first Jewish faculty members, and members of a movement which fought for the rights of students of Color on campus.

Where past commencement controversies might have largely been contained to an institution, recent incidents regularly involve actors outside the university community, including state executive or legislative officials pressuring university leadership with threats to funding, positions, or other sanctions, threatening academic freedom and free expression on campus. Some are even extending calls for “commencement neutrality,” in an effort to spare graduation audiences the discomfort of hearing contentious views. However well-intended such calls might be, if widely adopted they would further circumscribe the role of the university in public discourse, to the detriment of the university and democratic society.

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Trump administration again suspends UC Berkeley research grants, Felicia Mello, Los Angeles Times, 5/10

When Targeting DEI Means Restricting Research and Academics, Liliana M. Garces, Eliza Epstein and Jackie Pedota, US News & World Report, 5/6

Trump administration alleges UCLA medical school illegally uses race in admissions, Julia Barajas and Ross Brenneman, LAist, 5/6

NIH grant cuts disproportionately hit minority and female scientists, Max Kozlov, Nature, 5/5

Why GSA’s anti-DEI certification is raising alarm in higher education, David Weisenfeld, Higher Ed Dive, 5/4

State and University Policies

Tenure is not what it used to be, as eight Tufts professors found out, Diti Kohli, Boston Globe, 5/11

UT-Austin defends its handling of pro-Palestinian protest in federal trial, Sneha Dey, Texas Tribune, 5/11

Tech critics decry policy as academic ‘straitjacket’, Noah Davila, The Daily Toreador, 5/11

Locked doors and emergency buttons: UVA professors raise safety concerns amidst growing online scrutiny and records requests, Allie Pitchon, Charlottesville Tomorrow, 5/8

Higher Education Responses

Law overhauling KSU would cause ‘irreparable harm,’ lawsuit filed by alumni says, Monica Kast, Taylor Six, Lexington Herald-Leader, 5/11

Open Letter To Congress Demanding the Restoration of the NSB, Stand up for Science, 5/10

Iowa’s Higher Ed Overhaul Bills Mostly Fizzled. State Regents May Act Instead., Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 5/8

Professors sue Atlanta’s Emory University over handling of Israel-Gaza protests, Timothy Pratt, The Guardian, 5/7

Texas Tech restricted teaching on gender identity. Now students are holding a funeral in protest., Samantha Ketterer, Houston Chronicle, 5/5

Free Expression on Campus

Graduation Brings Cancellations and Controversies, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 5/13

Colleges Using Institutional Neutrality to Suppress Student Speech, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 5/6

Rutgers graduation speaker canceled for pro-Palestinian posts says decision sends ‘dangerous’ message, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 5/6

Morton Schapiro withdraws as Georgetown Law commencement speaker after student petition, backlash, Sydney Carroll, The Georgetown Voice, 5/6

Professor’s speech praising pro-Palestinian students sparks backlash at University of Michigan, Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press, 5/5

9 Republican representatives urge defunding SC State after Evette invite withdrawn, Raphael James, Live 5 WCSC, 5/1

International Students and Scholars

A Professor Defended a Postdoc Who Was Deported. Now His Lab Has Been Suddenly Locked Down., Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/11

US reinstates deportation proceedings against pro-Palestinian student Mahdawi, Kanishka Singh, Reuters, 5/6

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On May 1, 2026, Tennessee governor Bill Lee signed into law the “Charlie Kirk Act,” prohibiting the state’s public colleges and universities from disinviting campus speakers, among other stipulations.

On April 16, 2026, Tennessee governor Bill Lee signed into law a bill amending the faculty disciplinary policies at the state’s public higher education institutions to concentrate disciplinary authority in a single official, eroding procedural due process protections and shared governance.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 5/1/26

This week’s US Bulletin reports on the censorship of race, gender, and sexuality programming, the professional repercussions facing professors who express pro-Palestinian views, and the persistent destabilization of the higher education research sector a year after the suspension of billions in government grants.

Despite court orders and Congressional action reinstating some funding, the academic community reports persistent funding gaps or delays and an overall decline in grant awards. At Johns Hopkins University, these fiscal constraints have resulted in critical staffing shortages within the cancer research center, compromising the efficiency of its clinical programs. The University of Washington has seen research funding decrease by 74%, a decline that jeopardizes the local community’s “innovation economy” and pioneering research in AI, aerospace, and engineering.

In an increasingly austere funding environment, higher education institutions (here and here) are engaging in record-level federal lobbying to maintain research funding. Nevertheless, researchers report being forced to shift their focus toward topics viewed as less controversial, such as nutrition, rather than vaccine research. These shifts in resources to other priorities compromise academic merit—as allocations are determined by political alignment rather than the rigor or potential impact of the inquiry—and threaten the future health and wellbeing of generations of Americans. In the long term, these conditions erode the capacity of research universities to serve the public good.

Rob Quinn

PS: SAR is dedicated to supporting scholars conducting research on academic freedom. We are pleased to invite early-career researchers to apply for remote 2026-2027 research fellowships on academic freedom and related higher education values. Two tracks—one centered on global academic freedom and another focused on the United States—are available. Applications are due on May 29, 2026. Learn more about the fellowships, apply, and register for a virtual information session on the application process »

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Here’s Who Was Harmed by Trump’s Cancellation of Research Grants, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/29
Scientists see Trump’s firing of the National Science Board as an attack on research, Scott Neuman, Katia Riddle, NPR, 4/28
Here’s Who Was Harmed by Trump’s Cancellation of Research Grants, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/29

State and University Policies

New State Laws Land Blows Against Shared Governance, Tenure, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 4/30
Texas Politicians Are Taking Curricular Control. Where Is the Accreditor?, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 4/27
Harvard Spends $220,000 on Federal Lobbying in First Quarter of 2026, Megan L. Blonigen and Graham W. Lee, Harvard Crimson, 4/26
Johns Hopkins’ funding squeeze isn’t over — and it’s threatening lifesaving research, Ellie Wolfe and Meredith Cohn, Baltimore Banner, 4/24
What does UW’s disappearing research money mean for Seattle’s innovation economy?, Joshua McNichols, KUOW, 4/24
US universities are seeing an influx of ‘antisemitism centers’. Some Jewish scholars are worried, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 4/24
U. spent $240,000 on lobbying first quarter of 2026, second-highest total in history, Gray Collins, The Daily Princetonian, 4/23
How the Trump Administration’s Pressures on Higher Education Are Shaping Union Negotiations, Taylor M. Bierwerth and Noah A. Ferris, The Harvard Crimson, 4/21
Tenn. Passes ‘Charlie Kirk Act’ Defending Campus Speakers From Disruption, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 4/21
Sit and Stay Seated? Walkouts at One State’s Public Universities Could Soon Be Banned., Sophia Bailly, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/17

Higher Education Responses

How Not to Talk About Your Colleagues in Texas and Florida [Commentary], Ben Wright, Inside Higher Ed, 4/27
Faculty Actually Are Trying to Flee Red States, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 4/24
Three current professors sue Emory University over April 2024 arrests at campus protest, Ellie Fivas, Georgia Recorder, 4/24
‘History Has to Be Felt’: As politicians dictate the way professors talk about race in the classroom, Marvin Dunn has pitched a lone battle to fight back., Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/24
Higher education groups challenge Trump’s latest anti-DEI order, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 4/22
‘We Need a NATO for Universities’, Susan H. Greenberg, Inside Higher Ed, 4/22
Protesters challenge premise of Texas A&M civil discourse symposium amid new restrictions, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 4/20

Free Expression on Campus

What does DEI repeal really mean at NC State? A Pride Center firing raises fears, Jane Winik Sartwell, The News & Observer, 4/29
Nearly One-Third of Faculty in Red States Say They’ve Censored Their Research, Sonel Cutler and Jacquelyn Elias, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/24
2 Years Later, Professors Still Face Consequences for Pro-Palestinian Speech, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 4/23
What’s at stake? ‘The future of higher education and democracy’, Ava Hilton, University Press, 4/22

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On April 9, 2026, Texas Tech University introduced a new policy ending student research related to sexual orientation and gender identity and phasing out academic programs “centered on” those topics.
On March 26, 2026, the University of Arkansas (UA) dismissed Shirin Saeidi, a tenured associate professor of political science and the former director of the university’s King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies, overriding a unanimous faculty committee recommendation that she be reinstated after a suspension in December 2025.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 4/17/26

This week’s US Bulletin includes reports of continuing censorship of race, gender, and sexuality studies; another round of proposed cuts to federal research spending; and state intrusions on institutional autonomy undermining tenure and shared governance.

A number of the reports draw attention to the ways that some state governments are attempting to influence university hiring decisions. In Alabama, the state legislature introduced a bill that would empower the University of Alabama’s governing board—appointed by the state’s governor—to fire tenured faculty for vaguely defined reasons. The university’s AAUP chapter has warned that the vague and subjective phrasing in the bill “exposes all faculty to arbitrary political power.” In Kentucky, the state legislature is close to approving a new policy that would empower public college and university boards—also gubernatorial appointees—to lay off faculty for low course enrollment. While purportedly aimed at addressing a “misalignment of revenue and costs,” observers have argued that the policy could be “weaponized for purposes that have nothing to do with genuine fiscal emergencies,” including “to silence faculty members whose speech board members dislike.”

There are also reports that at some universities with new externally-imposed “civic centers” political considerations are influencing hiring. For example, professors from across the political spectrum have accused the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Civic Life and Leadership of imposing ideological litmus tests on potential new hires. Some of the center’s original founders claim that this undermines the very purpose of civic centers, which was ostensibly to encourage debate, elevate diverse points of view, and promote civil discourse.

These examples illustrate the danger of state intrusions on institutional autonomy, especially into hiring and teaching. While elected officials and others promoting these initiatives often invoke principles of meritocracy, fiscal responsibility, or “civic duty” to justify them, in practice ideological pressures seem to dominate—undermining, rather than promoting, broad intellectual inquiry and discourse.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Many of the Education Dept.’s Accreditation Ideas May Be Illegal, Experts Say, Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/10

Slasher sequel: Trump again proposes major cuts to U.S. science spending, Science, 4/3

The slow death of academic freedom [Commentary], Tracy Kuo Lin, Salon, 4/2

Lawsuits Are the New Trump Tactic in the Fight to Overhaul Education, Michael C. Bender and Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 4/1

Judge orders UPenn to provide list of Jewish employees sought by Trump administration, Gary Grumbach and Raquel Coronell Uribe, NBC News, 3/31

State and University Policies

Are College Presidents Now Political Appointees?, Nell Gluckman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/14

Kansas governor signs bill to curb race-related instruction at public colleges, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 4/10

Texas Tech System leader cancels academic programs “centered on” sexual orientation, gender identity, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 4/10

Incivil (and Wasteful) Civic Centers [Commentary], John Warner, Academic Freedom on the Line, 4/10

4 State Bills Faculty Should Watch, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 4/10

In first report on ‘active’ compliance with Trump deal, Columbia mandates civil discourse attestation, increases oversight through new administrators, Joseph Zuloaga, Columbia Daily Spectator, 4/9

Only Republicans Invited to Iowa Intellectual Freedom Event, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 4/9

Kentucky Lawmakers Want to Make It Easier to Lay Off Faculty, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 3/30

How a Civics School With a Conservative Bent Divided Its Supporters, Stephanie Saul, The New York Times, 3/30

In Charlie Kirk, State Lawmakers Find a Muse for Their Higher-Ed Reforms, Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/26

Higher Education Responses

‘I am deeply sorry’: BU president pauses Pride flag removals following backlash, Lauren Albano, Boston Globe, 4/7

Student leaders back faculty academic freedom demands in resolution, Jaeha Jang, Yale Daily News, 4/7

AHA Opposes Proposed Bill Attacking Tenure in Kentucky, American Historical Association, 4/2

Free Expression on Campus

Law Student Disciplined for ‘Celebrating’ Charlie Kirk’s Death Sues Texas Tech, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 4/15

Politicians say left-wing professors push their views. New poll shows students don’t see it that way, Meredith Kolodner, The Sacramento Bee and The Hechinger Report, 4/13

Mizzou’s Black Student Government Latest Casualty in Trump’s DEI Crackdown, Pike Temple, Columbia Missourian, 4/5

International Students & Scholars

Student Visa Refusals Reached High of 35% Last Year, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 4/11

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 3/27/26

This week’s US Bulletin includes developments in Texas, Iowa, and Florida, where state legislatures continue to censor disfavored topics related to race, gender, sexuality, structural inequality, and more. It also includes efforts by the federal administration to use civil rights legislation against universities, including Harvard and UCLA, to silence teaching and debate on issues relating to Israel and Palestine. These pressures have caused many faculty to reevaluate their courses and teaching out of fear of facing harassment, sanctions, and firings, or out of concern for vulnerable students who may be targeted for statements made during class discussions.

Still, many faculty are finding ways to continue drawing on their professional training and judgement to teach and facilitate discussions. In Florida, some sociology professors have quietly continued to teach their regular curricula, “not as an act of defiance, but as a professional responsibility to provide students with a full and rigorous education.” In Alabama, where “anti-DEI” laws like Senate Bill 129 have passed, colleges have relied on faculty self-assessments, leaving professors with a wider latitude for deciding, according to their academic expertise, how to comply with legislative requirements. These efforts suggest that even in places where state lawmakers have implemented broad and far-reaching censorship laws, administrators and faculty may still have opportunities to communicate quality, evidence-based content on disfavored, disputed, or sensitive issues without formally violating restrictions in law or policy.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Trump Administration Begins Inquiries Into 3 Medical Schools in Show of Power, Michael C. Bender and Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 3/26

Breaking Down ED’s Interagency Agreements, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 3/24

Trump Administration Sues Harvard over Civil Rights, Schuyler Velasco, Harvard Magazine, 3/20

Federal Court Finds Columbia U May Have Acted as Government’s Instrument to Suppress Palestinian Advocacy – in Violation of the First Amendment, CAIR, 3/19

Why Is the NIH Abandoning Science? [Commentary], Elizabeth Ginexi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/17

UCLA Jewish Faculty Say Justice Department’s Lawsuit ‘Will Do Absolutely Nothing to Protect Jews’, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/16

State and University Policies

As political pressure mounts, medical school accreditor drops requirement to teach about health equity, Anil Oza, STAT News, 3/27

Inside the ‘minefield’ of Indiana’s intellectual diversity law, Danielle McLean, Higher Ed Dive, 3/24

States Are Demanding Curricular Changes. How Are Colleges Responding?, Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/20

One Year After Trump’s $400 Million Ultimatum, a Different Columbia, Sharon Otterman, The New York TImes, 3/21

Iowa Senate panel blocks anti-DEI bill targeting private colleges, Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 3/17

Texas A&M’s course crackdown signals new era for academic freedom, Tannistha Sinha, The Defender, 3/17

Is Sociology Being Saved — or Debased — in Florida? A new textbook and course framework has left some scholars reeling., Emma Pettit, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/16

Higher Education Responses

The Trump Feud You Haven’t Heard About: San José State joins Harvard as the only other university to sue after being targeted., Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/25

120 Harvard Jewish Affiliates Condemn Justice Department Antisemitism Lawsuit, Abigail S. Gerstein and Amann S. Mahajan, The Harvard Crimson, 3/25

Texas State University professor sues to block firing after Israeli-Palestinian comments, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 3/25

Getting Academic Freedom in Writing, John Warner, Academic Freedom on the Line, 3/25

Florida professors quietly defy restrictions on race and gender: ‘This is how authoritarianism works’, Brianna Holt, The Guardian, 3/18

Scholars press on with lawsuit against DOGE-led grant cuts, Nathan M Greenfield, University World News, 3/18

An Open Letter from UCLA Jewish Faculty and Staff Opposing the DOJ’s Title VII Lawsuit Against UCLA, 132 signatories, 3/16

Free Expression on Campus

From shuttered print editions to firings, student journalists clash with universities, Cathryn J. Prince, Christian Science Monitor, 3/23

Private Colleges Are Getting Stricter About Student Speech, Sophia Bailly, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/17

BU faculty decry removal of pride flags from campus offices, Suevon Lee, WBUR, 3/17

Closure of UNT art show points to larger climate of fear on college campuses, Marcheta Fornoff and Lucinda Breeding-Gonzales, Denton Record-Chronicle, 3/16

Professors Are Changing What They Teach, Even Far From Trump’s Gaze, Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 3/16

International Students & Scholars

How to Prepare for When ICE Shows Up on Campus, Dan Berger and Stephen Yale-Loehr, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/19

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 3/13/26

This week’s US bulletin features examples of push-back against the US government’s pressures on higher education ranging from state lawmakers finding innovative ways to fund minority-serving institutions that have faced federal cuts to “Stand Up for Science” rallies once again mobilizing researchers across the country. One commentator contends that the administration’s assault on higher education has “hit a snag” as evidenced by ongoing court actions that have blocked “many, if not most” of the administration’s efforts.

Yet, despite these judicial setbacks for the federal government, international and undocumented students and scholars remain in a uniquely precarious position. Florida has joined Texas in temporarily banning the hiring of new foreign faculty (Iowa is trying to do the same), while US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have aggressively detained students on campus, including from their residences. The consequences of policies like these are already measurable: State Department data shows that increasingly restrictive borders contributed to a 35.6% drop in new international student visas during the summer of 2025. Schools in states that ICE officials have targeted, such as Minnesota, are reporting declines in enrollment as students decide not to return or take temporary leaves of absence. If this targeting persists, it will erode not only the safety of individual students and scholars but result in less diverse, less competitive, and academically diminished universities.

In response, students, faculty, and administrators are organizing to shield international members of their communities. When ICE officials recently detained an international student from her Columbia University dorm, the university’s president moved quickly to condemn the action and mobilize public attention. Though the student was released the same day, she remains in removal proceedings—a stark reminder that detainment is just the first of a series of legal barriers students can face. On other campuses, organizers are advocating restrictions on data-sharing with immigration authorities, negotiating for free legal support, and demanding that universities divest from companies that contract with ICE. Still, self-censorship and general fear of retaliation can stymie these efforts, making it difficult for organizers to rally other university stakeholders. Defending the university and its core values will require more of the difficult, intentional work of rebuilding trust within each institution, and with the public.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

US science budgets have been spared. So why is no one celebrating?, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 3/9

Hegseth Is Waging War on University Partnerships. His Targets Are Unclear., Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 3/6

State and University Policies

OIE reports a 122 percent increase in discrimination allegations in 2024-25 academic year, fuels debate over academic freedom, Dora Gao, Celine Chien, and Madeline Lee, The Columbia Daily Spectator, 3/11

Judge to decide if Penn must produce records in probe of antisemitism at Ivy League school, Assanee Vejpongsa and Mark Scolforo, Associated Press, 3/10

State Lawmakers Step In to Support Minority-Serving Institutions, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 3/9

The UT System Creates a Catchall Policy to Preemptively Silence Faculty, John Warner, Academic Freedom on the Line, 3/6

Higher Education Responses

This Is What Democracy Looks Like [Commentary] Sara Custer, Inside Higher Ed, 3/12

Trump’s Assault on Higher Education Has Hit a Snag [Commentary], Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic, 3/11

San José State Claps Back at Trump Threats to Withhold Student Funding, Katie DeBenedetti, KQED, 3/10

The Danger of Silence When Academic Freedom Is Under Threat [Commentary], Dominique J. Baker, Inside Higher Ed, 3/10

Stand Up for Science protests spread to more than 50 cities, Dan Vergano, Scientific American, 3/9

UA peers back suspended professor Shirin Saeidi’s reinstatement, Daniel Caruth, KUAF, 3/6

Free Expression on Campus

GOP-led fight over allegations of student indoctrination raises tensions at University of Houston, Jessica Priest, Associated Press/The Texas Tribune, 3/9

Fire First, Ask Questions Later, Sonel Cutler, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/4

ACLU sues Ball State over punishment of student protesters, Cate Charron, Indianapolis Star, 3/4

International Students & Scholars

After ICE Surge, Colleges in Minnesota Saw Enrollment Drop and Disengagement Spike, Emmy Martin, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/11

Inside the “ICE Off Campus” Movement, Heather Chen, The Nation, 3/11

New Student Visas Dropped 35.6% Last Summer, Johanna Alonso and Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 3/10

Iowa House passes legislation to restrict employment contracts in higher education, Brooklyn Draisey, Iowa Capital Dispatch, 3/3

Florida bans new foreign faculty hires via H1-B visas for 1 year, Tarah Jean, Tallahassee Democrat, 3/2

A Tale of Two Seasons at Columbia, and Two Responses to Student Arrests, Troy Closson, Sharon Otterman and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, The New York Times, 2/28

If ICE Won’t Show a Warrant, What Can Campuses Do?, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 2/27

Student Remains in Honduras After ICE Vows to Deport Her Again, Mattathias Schwartz, The New York Times, 2/27

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On February 27, 2026, US Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the department would cut academic ties with 21 higher education institutions in retaliation for their allegedly engaging in “woke indoctrination.”

On February 26, 2026, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials entered an apartment building owned by Columbia University (CU) under false pretenses and without a warrant and detained Elmina (Ellie) Aghayeva, an undergraduate senior majoring in neuroscience and politics.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 2/27/26

This week’s US bulletin highlights continuing efforts by elected officials, state legislatures, and universities in certain states to undermine academic freedom by weakening tenure protections and restricting freedom to research and teach on disfavored topics. These include:

A state-mandated sociology curriculum in Florida.

New rules permitting University of Texas students to avoid studying “controversial” topics.

The end of higher education partnerships with racial equity focused organizations at 31 colleges and universities.

The Kansas legislature’s efforts to make higher education funding contingent on restrictions of DEI curriculum and programming.

A new bill requiring post-tenure review at public universities in Kentucky.

Meanwhile, the federal government is manipulating standards around privacy, accountability, and transparency to further its pressures on higher education. In recent weeks, the Department of Education issued a warning to higher education leaders that sharing student information with the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement—a 13 year research project providing data that enables universities to support students’ civic engagement—may violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law protecting the privacy of student records. Advocates disputed the warning’s legal assertion and cautioned that it appeared to be an attempt to suppress student engagement in public affairs, including voting. The Department of Education is also now partnering with the Department of State to assess foreign gifts and contracts to US colleges and universities, ostensibly for national security concerns, a move that could be used to justify more investigations and coercive settlement actions against universities.

Reassuringly, higher education groups are pushing back. Yale’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors has launched a campaign to add academic freedom protections to the faculty handbook that will, amongst other things, protect faculty governance and the freedom to research. Students at the University of North Carolina have formed a “political education project” aimed at increasing awareness of quietly introduced policies, such as a new one permitting University of North Carolina officials to secretly record classrooms. Nationally, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education has partnered with the ad agency BVK on a new campaign, “College: Proud Sponsor of America at Its Best.” The campaign aims to illuminate the socially-beneficial research conducted on college campuses and demystify the returns of protecting the higher education sector.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

ED Partnering With State Dept. to Track Universities’ Foreign Funding, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 2/24

The Ed Department Is Weaponizing FERPA to Restrict Student Voting [Commentary], Amanda Fuchs Miller, Inside Higher Ed, 2/20

Trump administration drops appeal of order blocking $1.2 billion UCLA settlement, Josephine Murphy and Victor Simoes, Daily Bruin, 2/13

Pentagon may bar tuition aid for top universities in Hegseth’s crackdown on ‘biased’ schools, Natasha Bertrand & Haley Britzky, CNN, 2/13

Higher-Ed Groups Dealt a Blow in Court Fight Over Trump’s Anti-DEI Orders, Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2/9

State and University Policies

Iowa House lawmakers pass bill banning DEI offices at some private universities, Isabella Warren, Dakota News Now, 2/24

Conservative-leaning civic centers now teach courses at public colleges, Meredith Kolodner and Sarah Butrymowicz, The Hechinger Reporter, 2/24

Florida Hands Down Sociology Curriculum to State Colleges, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 2/20

After Researching Tenure’s History, Tennessee Lawmaker Drops Bill to End It, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 2/19

University of Texas regents approve limits on teaching “unnecessary controversial subjects”, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 2/19

Colleges quietly cut ties with organizations that help people of color, Todd Wallack, Washington Post, 2/19

KY professors say bill could erode academic tenure. Sponsor says it’s ‘not about tenure.’, McKenna Horsley, Kentucky Lantern, 2/18

Indiana lawmakers tried to make campuses less liberal. Is it working?, Cate Charron, Indianapolis Star, 2/18

Kansas Budget Provision Threatens $12M in University Funding Over DEI Curriculum, Walter Hudson, EDU Ledger, 2/18

Censorship Is Bigger in Texas [Commentary], John K. Wilson Insider Higher Ed, 2/17

At the University of Minnesota, neutrality has become censorship [Commentary], Michael Gallope, Minnesota Star Tribune, 2/13

Oklahoma Is ‘Phasing Out’ Tenure. Will the Idea Catch On?, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2/13

UNC Administrators Can Now Secretly Record Faculty, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 2/11

What’s the Matter with Florida? An Interview with Zachary Levenson, Victor Ray, Group Threat, 2/6

Higher Education Responses

The National Campaign to Change America’s Mind About Higher Ed, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 2/20

UNC Student Group Illuminates Administration’s Opaque Decisions, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 2/19

Faculty group launches campaign for new academic freedom protections, Jaeha Jang, Yale News, 2/18

Legal Experts Say DOJ Lawsuit Over Harvard Admissions Records Faces FERPA Hurdle, Celine Muir and Alexa M. Schmitt, The Harvard Crimson, 2/16

Barnard, Columbia join Harvard legal fight against Trump administration’s blocking of international student enrollment, Joseph Zuloaga, Columbia Daily Spectator, 2/9

Free Expression on Campus

Texas University Cancels Exhibition Critical of ICE, Sarah Cascone, Artnet, 2/13

The Chilling Effect of Student-Visa Vetting: The government’s scrutiny of social media is at odds with our commitment to free speech. [COMMENTARY], Maëline Eray, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2/6

International Students & Scholars

Judge blocks deportation of Palestinian activist who led protests at Columbia, Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press, 2/17

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On February 11, 2026, the University of North Texas (UNT) canceled an art exhibit, Ni De Aquí Ni De Allá (“Not From Here, Not From There”), by artist Victor Quiñonez. The cancellation took place one week after the exhibit opened.

On February 5, 2025, Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt issued an executive order that immediately eliminated tenure for new hires at the state’s public regional universities and community colleges and required faculty working at the state’s public research universities to undergo post-tenure performance reviews.

On January 24, 2026, the Dean of Emory University’s School of Medicine announced that Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, an assistant professor of hematology and medical oncology, was no longer employed at the university, apparently because of her familial relationship with top Iranian officials.

On January 23, 2026, Texas Tech University’s Health Sciences Center canceled a talk scheduled to be given by retired doctor and abortion rights activist Shelley Sella on January 26, 2026.

On November 20, 2025, Darcie Little Badger, an Apache writer and invited keynote speaker for Weber State University’s annual Native Symposium, reported on social media that Weber State University had sent her a list of words and phrases that she could not use during her keynote speech.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Expert Voices Together (Support for journalists and researchers who are targets of harassment and intimidation), Right to Be

Example Protocol and Messaging about Employee Role and ICE, Alliance for Higher Education

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

The application is now open for the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom fellowship program. CDAF Fellows’ primary role is to produce research, public writing, or other work that advances the defence of academic freedom.

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 2/6/26

This week’s bulletin highlights new developments in the US administration’s efforts to pressure individual universities like Harvard, the University of Virginia, and San Jose State University, as well as a “barrage of bills” targeting higher education in state legislatures in North Carolina, Texas, and Iowa. As this bulletin has pointed out before, these laws are fundamentally reshaping higher education in some states. For instance, the state of Florida deleted whole chapters from a state-mandated sociology textbook that addressed race and systemic inequality. Texas A&M University eliminated the Women’s and Gender Studies program entirely, denying students even the choice to study the subject, to align with state policies.

Other administrators are acting not out of legal compliance, but due to external pressure—something that may be indicative of a troubling cultural shift. For example, the University of Arkansas explicitly cited “feedback from key external stakeholders including elected officials and others” when rescinding a deanship offer to law professor Emily Suski. Similarly, South Dakota’s Board of Regents pointed to “immense pressure, from both internal and external forces” when developing a new policy that weakens faculty tenure.

This erosion of university autonomy—the essential buffer between the state and the practice of research and teaching—poses a direct threat to academic freedom. When institutional decisions are dictated by political ideology rather than academic merit, the ability for universities to foster knowledge, inquiry, and honest debate is compromised.

The good news is the higher education sector is continuing to find new ways to collectively insulate US universities and colleges from external interference and prove their value to public welfare. Johns Hopkins University launched a “Research Saves Lives” campaign, championing the life-saving treatments that would be lost without university research. A newly launched Alliance for Higher Education promises to make higher education fulfill its “democratic promises” and insulate universities from government interference. Both campaigns, and others like them, welcome public engagement and freely share reports and/or response toolkits. We encourage you to explore their resources and remain actively engaged in campaigns to protect academic freedom.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Trump escalates Harvard feud with $1B demand, Bianca Quilantan, Politico, 2/3

Trump’s Education Department Offers San Jose State a Deal to Avoid Title IX Penalties, Barry Holtzclaw, San Jose Inside, 1/28

Education Department halts effort to implement controversial anti-DEI letter, Naaz Modan, HigherEd Dive, 1/22

State and University Policies

A ‘Barrage of Bills’ Would Overhaul Higher Ed in Iowa—If They Actually Pass, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 2/4

Texas A&M ends Women’s and Gender Studies program to comply with system policies, Adrienne DeMoss, KBTX, 1/30

UVa to Trump: No Illegal DEI Here, Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/30

Texas governor pauses new H-1B visas at public colleges, Laura Spitalniak, HigherEd Dive, 1/28

Some NC professors fear new ‘academic freedom’ policy will censor faculty, Brianna Atkinson, WUNC, 1/28

Tenure Under Threat, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 1/26

Florida escalates its battle on sociology with new curriculum, textbook. Professors push back, Daniel Rivero, WLRN South Florida, 1/22

Higher Education Responses

Trump Seeks to Silence Critics. These Scholars Are Pushing Back., Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 2/3

New Alliance Aims to Protect Colleges and Universities From Government Meddling, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 1/28

A Home for Homeless DEI Strategies and Research, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 1/27

Virginia AG searches for university general counsels to counter ‘federal overreach’, Laura Spitalniak, HigherEd Dive, 1/27

Their value attacked and funding cut, universities and colleges start fighting back, Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report, 1/27

After Another ICE Killing, Minnesota’s Flagship Faces a Test, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/26

Free Expression on Campus

Surveilled on Your Own Campus, Hannah Epstein, The Nation, 2/4

UMass student suspended after organizing protest sues university, Morgan Rousseau, Boston.com, 1/31

Latitudes: A landmark but limited decision: What’s next after a free-speech ruling?, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/28

DHS Targeted Students for Protected Speech, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 1/26

Lectures on race and history canceled in latest assault on academic freedom in Arkansas, Austin Gelder, Arkansas Times, 1/24

International Students & Scholars

DHS Targeted Students for Protected Speech, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 1/26

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On January 17, 2026, the University of Arkansas (UA) announced that it had rescinded its offer to Emily Suski, a law professor and associate dean at the University of South Carolina’s Joseph F. Rice School of Law, to serve as the dean of its law school. The announcement noted that the reversal came after the university received feedback from elected officials.

On December 11, 2025, the South Dakota Board of Regents announced a new policy that weakens tenure protections for faculty at the state’s public universities and colleges.

On December 1, 2025, the University of Alabama’s Office of Student Media informed the staff of two student publications that their magazines would be immediately and indefinitely “paused” in connection with non-binding US Department of Justice guidance recommending restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion activities on campus.

On October 30, 2025, Anastasios Kamoutsas, Florida’s education commissioner, unilaterally removed Phillip Wiseley, a sociology professor at Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW), from a statewide sociology working group.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International have released a new, free, 90-minute course titled “Dangerous” Questions, Why Academic Freedom Matters. Created with input from academic and legal experts, this self-paced course explores what academic freedom means, how it connects to human rights and higher education values, and why it matters for scholars, students, and society. Sign up for the course today, and share it with your networks »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 1/23/26

This week marks one year of heightened federal and state government pressures on US universities and colleges. It is clear that over the last year the higher education landscape has undergone dramatic structural change, including in ways that may have long-lasting repercussions for the relationship between universities and the federal government.

Among the areas most affected by the federal government are university autonomy and research:

In 2025, 23 states passed laws or policies that undermined autonomy and censored higher education—either by restricting teaching or by creating opportunities for external actors to influence university decisions.

Antagonism towards the study of race and gender fueled the federal government’s revocations of research funds, affecting scholars and researchers working in nearly every discipline. In the past year, more than 7,800 research grants have been terminated or frozen, with select universities facing hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen or cancelled funding.

While the courts have ordered that more than half of the terminated grants be reinstated, it remains unclear whether the funding has been distributed and 2,600 grants remain un-reinstated or frozen.

Moreover, many researchers are being asked to navigate their funding claims in unfamiliar, specialized courts, such as the little-known Court of Federal Claims.

These pressures are not likely to ease in 2026. Nevertheless, there are some positive signs of growing consensus on the importance of university research and teaching to US prosperity and democracy. New reports, projects, and alliances are forming to defend higher education and its role in American society. Even Congress has implicitly acknowledged the importance of a robust research and higher education sector by acting on a bipartisan basis to reject the administration’s proposed 2026 budget cuts to NIH, NASA, NSF, and the Energy Department. While much uncertainty about the future of US academia remains, it is clear from the last year that many institutions and individuals are prepared to continue defending a robust, inclusive US higher education and research sector, free from government interference, that serves the public good.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Investigations and a Billion-Dollar ‘Shakedown’: How Trump Targeted Higher Education, Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder, Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times, 1/21

US science after a year of Trump, Max Kozlov, Jeff Tollefson, Dan Garisto, Nature, 1/20

Trump 2.0’s impact on higher ed: The first year in 8 numbers, Laura Spitalniak, HigherEd Dive, 1/20

After a year of Trump, fear is the dominant emotion on US campuses, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 1/20

Again Defying Trump, Congress Proposes Increasing NIH Budget, Maintaining ED, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 1/20

Trump Administration Orders USDA Employees to Investigate Foreign Researchers They Work With, Lisa Song and Sharon Lerner, ProPublica, 1/16

Expanding the Web of Control: America’s Censored Campuses 2025 [REPORT], Amy Reid, Jonathan Friedman, Laura Benitez, Jeffrey Adam Sachs, PEN America, 1/15

Researchers May Be Forced to Rely on a Court You’ve Never Heard Of, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 1/13

Trump’s college agenda may have a lasting impact on research, culture, Susan Svrluga and Laura Meckler, Washington Post, 1/11

Sanders Releases New Report Delineating Trump’s War on Free Speech on College Campuses [REPORT], Office of US Senator Bernie Sanders, 1/7

State and University Policies

Florida’s Syllabus Regulations Will Lead to Stunted College Classrooms, Teddy Duncan Jr., Inside Higher Ed, 1/22

Texas A&M Cancels Graduate Ethics Class in Ongoing Course Review, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 1/15

Draft audit finds Idaho universities largely comply with anti-DEI laws, James Dawson, Boise State Public Radio News, 1/14

Texas Launches Portal for Public to File Complaints Against Colleges, Susan H. Greenberg, Inside Higher Ed, 1/12

Higher Education Responses

Talking back, David Malakoff, Science, 1/21

Penn Slams Trump Administration’s Demand for Personal Information of Jewish Employees, Kate Hidalgo Bellows and Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/20

Law students protest politicized ouster of would-be dean, Austin Gelder, Arkansas News, 1/20

Students hold ‘eat-in’ after IU Indianapolis cancels annual MLK Jr. dinner, Zak Cassel, WFYI, 1/18

From the Community | We must let students speak at commencement, The Stanford Daily, 1/14

Free Expression on Campus

How a Student’s Sarcastic Charlie Kirk Email Sparked a Free-Speech Dust-Up, Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/20

Is this Morgan State policy a threat to free press?, Ellie Wolfe, Baltimore Banner, 1/19

Court ruling jeopardizes freedom for pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak, AP News, 1/15

There’s an intensifying kind of threat to academic freedom – watchful students serving as informants, Austin Sarat, The Conversation, 1/14

International Students & Scholars

The Perception of Danger Everywhere’: Navigating Campus Life Amid ICE Enforcement, Scott Carlson, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/21

How Trump Made Life Difficult for International Students and Wisconsin, Amy Qin, The New York Times, 1/19

Florida governor bans universities from hiring foreign workers, WECB Radio, 1/19

Trump Admin. Touts 8,000 Student Visas Revoked, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 1/13

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On December 22, 2025, University of Oklahoma (OU) officials announced that they had removed Mel Curth, a graduate student and teaching assistant, from teaching duties in relation to her decision to assign a student’s reflection paper a grade of zero.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 1/9/26

This week’s bulletin looks back on 2025 and ahead to 2026. The articles below discuss just some of the impacts of a year of intense pressure on US higher education, including the negative health impacts of cuts to medical school training addressing transgender issues, lost opportunities for early-career researchers, politically motivated withdrawal of federal funding for disparity research, and the ripple effects such actions have on the local university and college communities and businesses. Looking ahead, some academics are pessimistic, but there are also signs that freezes on research funding are thawing, and recent legal victories may signal opportunities to bolster academic freedom.

Of particular concern is recent news on increasing surveillance on university and college campuses. First and foremost, covert recording in classrooms and other academic settings undermines the conditions of trust and mutual respect that best support collective inquiry and learning. Covert recording threatens students and professors with the possibility that what they say will be clipped, taken out of context, and posted to social media or elsewhere, with harmful results including unwarranted media attention, doxing, harassment, and threats against the individuals and, in some cases, their families. Often recording has been encouraged by actors outside of the university, including by state administrators and elected officials. For example, a policy approved by the Texas A&M University system’s board of regents, creates a “24/7 reporting reporting mechanism” inviting students to report classroom content that they allege violates state policies. In many recent cases, covert recordings have been used by elected officials or others to demand the improper dismissal of students or faculty, in violation of academic freedom and free expression, often with success. This creates an “unpedagogical climate” marked by suspicion, distrust, and the stifling fear that ideas can only be shared when perfectly formed and that there is no room for curiosity, experimentation, or the opportunity to make and learn from one’s mistakes.

Key to fighting this corrosive environment is rebuilding trust within the higher education community—starting with what happens in the classroom. As one Boston University professor notes, it is incumbent upon students and faculty to “convene and converse, not record and report” when misunderstandings, miscommunication, and actual disagreements (inevitably and naturally) arise. It is up to universities and administrators to create the space to open up conversations, and up to state and elected officials (and the public) to support higher education actors in creating such space, not shut them down via punitive reporting systems. A good resolution for all for the new year might be to turn down the dial on outrage and name-calling, and turn up the dial on listening, respectful dialogue, and collective inquiry.

Rob Quinn

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

The Legal Status of the Assault on Higher Education, David M. Rabban, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/5

NIH Approves 100s of Grant Applications It Shelved or Denied, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 1/2

US academics fear further attacks in 2026 after ‘horrendous year’, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 1/2

Pittsburgh professors say research was weaponized in Trump’s higher education fight, Maddy Franklin/Pittsburgh’s Public Source, Associated Press, 12/26

‘This year nearly broke me as a scientist’ – US researchers reflect on how 2025’s science cuts have changed their lives, Carrie McDonough, Brian G. Henning, Cara Poland, Nathaniel M. Tran, Rachael Sirianni, Stephanie J. Nawyn, The Conversation, 12/18

The Assault on Law School Clinics is an Attack on Democracy Itself [Commentary], Lisa Davis, Just Security, 12/16

The Shakedown: Trump’s DOJ Pressured Lawyers to “Find” Evidence That UCLA Had Illegally Tolerated Antisemitism, Peter Elkind and Katherine Mangan, ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/12

The Billion-Dollar Ripple Effect, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/4

State and University Policies

Texas A&M Bans Plato Excerpt From a Philosophy Course, Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/7

UVA Presidential Hire Raises Process Concerns, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 1/7

In Northwestern’s Trump Agreement, International Students Singled Out For ‘Open Debate’ Training, Sonel Cutler, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/2

New post tenure review policy causes stir in South Dakota academia, C.J. Keene, SDPB, 12/30

At Harvard and Elsewhere, the New Campus Orthodoxy Is Even More Stifling [Commentary], Alex Bronzini-Vender, The New York Times, 12/29

How cutting transgender instruction at Texas medical schools undermines health groups’ recommendations, Stephen Simpson, Terri Langford and Lindsey Byman, Texas Tribune, 12/18

Is DEI Dead—or Just Changing?, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 12/15

The disappearing diversity programs at Johns Hopkins University, Ellie Wolfe, Baltimore Banner, 12/12

Higher Education Responses

Universities Need a New Defense, Lee Bollinger, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/6

Texas Is Sued Over Investigations Into Teachers’ Speech After Charlie Kirk’s Death, J. David Goodman, New York Times, 1/6

Demagogy or Pedagogy? A Better Way to Approach Antisemitism on Campus [Commentary], Margaret Litvin, Inside Higher Ed, 12/18

This student group agrees US universities are too elitist – but aims to transform, not destroy them, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 12/18

Alabama faculty and students file appeal to block anti-DEI law, Laura Spitalniak, HigherEd Dive, 12/17

Free Expression on Campus

Stanford students face trial over felony charges stemming from pro-Palestinian protest, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 1/5

Amid a crackdown on protests, students began organizing Palestinian cultural events. The University keeps canceling them., Daksha Pillai, Columbia Daily Spectator, 12/12

The Classroom, Caught on Camera: Professors and students are increasingly worried what they say in class could end up on the internet., Gavin Escott, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/10

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On December 1, 2025, Texas Tech University system chancellor Brandon Creighton sent a memo to the presidents of all Texas Tech universities announcing a new policy that requires faculty members to seek administrative approval for any course material related to gender and sexual identity. The policy used vague and overbroad terms that conflate discriminatory activity, which is already prohibited by law, with nondiscriminatory research, teaching, or discussion of contested topics.

On November 22, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials arrested Vahid Abedini, the Farzaneh Family Assistant Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He was held and questioned for unknown reasons for three days before being released on November 25.

On November 13, 2025, Texas A&M University System regents voted to approve new policies restricting teaching related to race and gender and encouraging students to report courses they believe violate the policies.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 11/14/25

This week’s bulletin underscores the ways that the US federal government is continuing to deploy civil rights investigations and the withholding of research funding to exert pressure on individual universities and reshape higher education. These include the decision by Cornell University’s administration to sign a settlement with the US government that ends federal civil rights investigations at the university and to pay what many observers have called a “bribe” of $30 million in exchange for the release of the university’s research funds. Also significant is a recent House of Representatives report that appears to retaliate against George Mason University president Gregory Washington for his refusal to acquiesce to federal government pressure by accusing him of making false statements to Congress about his involvement in hiring at the university.

At the same time, students and faculty are laudably continuing to speak out against these incursions, invoking the principle that universities must remain spaces for independent thought and civil debate. For example, faculty senates, such as at the University of Iowa, are continuing to act preemptively by passing resolutions demanding that their administrators reject the government’s coercive pressures. And on November 7, faculty and students at over 100 campuses across the United States engaged in a coordinated day of action denouncing the government’s pressure on the higher education sector – the first in what organizers say will be a series of actions.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

‘Stunned and Angry’: James Ryan Gives First Detailed Account of His Ouster at UVa, Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/14

Justice Department to Investigate Protests at Turning Point Event at Berkeley, Tim Arango, New York Times, 11/11

Cornell Reaches Deal with Trump Administration to Restore Research Funds, Stephanie Saul and Alan Blinder, New York Times, 11/7

House Republicans say a Virginia college president lied to Congress over DEI, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post, 11/6

Trump Pressure Risks Free Speech at University of California, Judge Warns, Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 11/6

Surge in antisemitism investigations at US universities after October 7 attacks, data shows, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 11/5

State and University Policies

Texas A&M System Sharply Restricts How Faculty Can Teach About Race and Gender, Gavin Escott, Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/13

Youngkin rebukes Spanberger’s ask for U-Va. to pause presidential search, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post, 11/13

Undocumented Students, Advocates Intensify Defense of In-State Tuition Laws, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 11/13

An Instructor Showed a Graphic on White Supremacy. Did She Break the Law?, Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/12

Democrat’s Win May Upend a Conservative Push in Virginia Universities, Stephanie Saul, New York Times, 11/10

Florida Board Says Syllabi, Reading Lists Must Be Posted Publicly for 5 Years, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 11/10

As UT, Texas faces political pressure experts warn: We’ve seen this before, Lily Kepner, Austin American-Statesman, 11/2

New Emails Show What Happened Before a Texas A&M Professor’s Firing, Gavin Escott, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/31

Higher Education Responses

Faculty at U of I urge administrators to reject Trump higher education compact, Arjun Thakkar, IPM News, 11/11

Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks, Alice Sepri, The Guardian, 11/7

Trump Pressure Risks Free Speech at University of California, Judge Warns, Alan Blinder, New York Times, 11/6

As Trump’s Compact Looms, UT-Austin Affirms ‘Non-Negotiable’ Commitment to Academic Freedom, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/4

Tenured professor sues University of Kentucky for banning him from law school over comments on Israel, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 11/13

When BLEXIT Comes to Black Colleges, Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/11

‘People just aren’t willing to talk’: The ‘chilling effect’ impacts student journalism, Madeline Ward, The PittNews, 11/7

International Students & Scholars

Donald Trump defends policies amid pushback over Chinese students, H-1B visas, Laura Zhou, South China Morning Post, 11/12

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On September 18, 2025, Emory University dismissed Anna Kenney, an associate professor, at the university’s school of medicine, in response to social media posts that she made about the murdered political activist Charlie Kirk.

On September 17, 2025, Rider University dismissed Kate Ecke, an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology, in response to social media posts that she made about the murdered political activist Charlie Kirk.

On September 12, 2025, Cumberland University announced that Professor of English and Creative Writing Michael Rex had been dismissed in response to social media posts that he made about the murdered political activist Charlie Kirk. A member of the university’s athletic staff also lost their position because of social media posts about Kirk.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Employees and Students at These Colleges Have Been Punished for Comments on Charlie Kirk’s Death, Ellie Davis, Gavin Escott, and Claire Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Help us tell the story of how the Trump administration is changing higher education: The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. The media outlet wants to know how the Trump administration is affecting higher education and life on your campus. What, if any, changes are you seeing at your college or university because of federal policy shifts? In what ways do you see higher education changing?

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 10/31/25

Many of the articles included in this week’s US Bulletin continue to focus on the US government’s “compact” for higher education. While seven of the nine institutions originally asked to sign onto the compact have rejected the request, Vanderbilt University appears to be in discussions with the government and the University of Texas has indicated that it might be willing to sign on. New College of Florida, which is not one of the original nine, has voluntarily stated that it would agree to the compact. Meanwhile, the administration continues to pressure individual universities – among them, the University of Virginia (UVA) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – to settle Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations into alleged and unsubstantiated claims on antisemitism on campus.

The compact and the DOJ’s investigations are each efforts to erode university autonomy. As UVA alumni Ann Brown and Chris Ford write with respect to their alma mater’s settlement with the DOJ, such actions seek to institutionalize “a permanent compliance regime with ongoing federal oversight, and without judicial review, public accountability, or the protections of due process.” Texas illustrates one shape that such a compliance regime might take. On October 16, Governor Greg Abbott enacted a provision of the state’s “Act relating to the governance of public institutions of higher education,” passed in June of this year, by appointing Brandon L. Simmons as the state’s first ombudsman for higher education. In this watchdog role, Simmons will be able to recommend that state lawmakers withhold state funds for universities who fail to comply with the state’s increasingly restrictive higher education laws, such as those on expressive activity (currently under a temporary restraining order) or diversity, equity and inclusion.

Against the looming threat of a compliance regime, faculty members in Texas have already lost their positions. These include, as reported in the September 22 Bulletin, Thomas Alter (who had tenure) and Melissa McCoul. More generally, university administrators are attempting to navigate a state of confusion, including by attempting to institute by word of mouth unwritten policies barring the discussion of controversial topics. While these policies are likely legally toothless, there is increasing evidence that they have already had a chilling effect on faculty and on students.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

More College Leaders Speak Out Against Compact but Don’t Reject It, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 10.30

New College ‘First in Line’ to Sign Trump’s Higher Ed Compact, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 10/28

What Does Trump Want From UCLA? The Proposed Settlement Was Just Made Public., Gavin Escott, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/27

70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum, Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive, 10/24

The MAGA case for academic freedom lies in a period Trump loves [Commentary], Ethan Ris, Washington Post, 10/23

All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding, Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 10/20

State and University Policies

University of Houston Cancels ‘Confronting Oppression & Injustice’ Course, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 10/23

U. of Virginia Will Adopt Trump’s Interpretation of DEI in Federal Deal, Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/22

‘Because I Said So’: Universities Double Down on Unwritten Policies, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 10/22

Texas Governor Appoints Ombudsman Who Will Oversee Higher Ed, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 10/22

Gov. Abbott: Texas is targeting professors over ‘leftist ideologies’, Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 10/21

Under political pressure, colleges try to recruit more rural students, Kirk Carapezza, GBH, 10/20

Higher Education Responses

Top universities ramp up lobbying amid Trump higher education crackdown, Surina Venkat, The Hill, 10/28

Higher Education’s Compact with America: Shared Principles for the Common Good, American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 10/17

Harvard Unions Stage Poster Campaign in Protest of Black Lives Matter Sign Removal, Hugo C. Chiasson and Amann S. Mahajan, The Harvard Crimson, 10/17

In Declining Compact, Colleges Try to Leverage ‘Merit’ to Turn the Tables on Trump, Kate Hidalgo Bellows and Claire Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/17

California State University faculty sue over disclosure of personal information, Molly Gibbs, Mercury News, 10/17

Our Politics Differ, But We Agree: Trump’s ‘Compact’ Violates Academic Freedom, Robert P. George, Tom Ginsburg, Robert C. Post, David M. Rabban, Jeannie Suk Gersen, and Keith E. Whittington, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/16

Free Expression on Campus

Inside the ‘harsh terrain’ of Columbia University’s First Amendment predicament, BrieAnna J. Frank, USA Today, 10/27

College faculty are under pressure to say and do the right thing – the stress also trickles down to students, Lee Ann Rawlins Williams, The Conversation, 10/22

UF defends expulsion of law student over antisemitic post, Stephany Matat, USA Today, 10/17

Update: IU fires adviser of student media, stops printing Daily Student, Ethan Sandweiss, WFIU,10/15

International Students & Scholars

The Missing Students: A ‘global university’ measures shrinking international enrollments in more than dollars. Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/17

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On September 13, 2025, the University of South Dakota issued an intent to terminate notice to Michael Hook, a tenured professor of art history, in response to social media posts that he made about the murdered political activist Charlie Kirk.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Employees and Students at These Colleges Have Been Punished for Comments on Charlie Kirk’s Death, Ellie Davis, Gavin Escott, and Claire Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 10/17/25

This week’s bulletin includes the news of universities expanding restrictions on scholarship on underrepresented groups, ongoing public pressure campaigns to oust faculty members exercising their rights to the freedom of expression, and debates over how to respond to the government’s so-called “compact” for higher education, which ostensibly offers priority access to federal funding in exchange for acquiescence to unspecified government demands.

The compact—which the US administration originally presented to nine institutions before extending it to all US universities and colleges to endorse—appears to be an attempt to move beyond pressuring individual institutions by nationalizing the administration’s demands for alleged reforms in exchange for access to federal funding. Beyond effectively eliminating academic freedom and university autonomy, the compact attempts to encourage acquiescence by pitting universities against each other, creating a two-tiered higher education system that privileges those willing to participate in the government’s ideological litmus test against those who reject the compact. This is a variation of the strategy authoritarian leaders in places like Hungary or Venezuela use, where governments have created new ideologically-aligned higher education institutions and defunded independent ones.

The compact also threatens to divide universities internally as well, pitting those who view the compact as a form of extortion against those who view it either as a flawed opportunity or as a checkbox that will allow universities to get through the current times. It creates additional fuel for members of the higher education community – together with elected officials and the broader public – to launch firing, intimidation, and harassment campaigns against faculty members who they view as transgressing the compact, including by requiring universities to poll students and employees on the institution’s compliance with the compact. In sum, rather than sustaining “American excellence,” as the government claims the compact is intended to do, the compact will further weaken the higher education system and undermine the already fragile trust that exists on US campuses. As MIT, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California have asserted in their public statements rejecting the compact, if achieving “American excellence” is the goal, academic funding must be based on academic merit, not political ideology.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

A Brief Legal Analysis of the Department of Education’s Proposed Compact for Higher Education, Amanda Shanor & Serena Mayeri, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, 10/15

Deciphering Trump’s Compact Invitation to All of Higher Ed, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 10/15

Inside the Trump Administration’s Assault on Higher Education, Emma Green, The New Yorker, 10/13

Higher Ed Will Likely Be a Key Topic for SCOTUS. Which Cases Will Make the Cut?, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 10/10

With Compact, Universities Weigh Whether to Give Up Freedoms for Unknown Payout, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 10/8

State and University Policies

Under Anti-DEI Pressure, Ohio State Limits Conference Funds, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 10/15

Texas State University professor fired again after court revoked initial firing over “inciting violence”, Ayden Runnels and Lindsey Byman, The Texas Tribune, 10/13

I teach LGBTQ+ history. UT may soon ban my course, Lauren Gutterman, The Austin American Statesman, 10/10

Weber State Censors, Then Cancels, Censorship Conference, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 10/8

Texas Tech system’s vague guidelines on gender identity spur more questions than answers, Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 10/7

Higher Education Responses

USC rejects Trump education compact aimed at shifting the university to the right, Daniel Miller and Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, 10/16

Penn rejects White House proposal for special funding, Alex Dash and Isha Chitirala, The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/16

Brown University president declines invitation for Brown to join federal Compact, Christina H. Paxson, Brown University, 10/15

UA professors, Tucson leaders urge school to reject Trump’s ‘academic compact’, Paul Ingram, Tucson Sentinel, 10/14

VICTORY: Federal court halts Texas’ ‘no First Amendment after dark’ campus speech ban, FIRE, 10/14

More than half of Dartmouth faculty members sign petition against Trump compact, Ryan Joseph and Sahil Gandhi, The Dartmouth, 10/12

From the Community | We must refuse the ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, The Stanford Daily, 10/12

Regarding the Compact, Sally Kornbluth, MIT, 10/10

Virginia lawmakers threaten state funding consequences if UVA signs Trump compact, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 10/10

This free speech group at Columbia is taking on Trump when the university won’t – and winning, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 10/10

US universities must reject Trump’s ‘compact’. It is full of traps [Commentary], Jan-Werner Müller, The Guardian, 10/7

Pennsylvania lawmakers seek to bar state-funded colleges from signing Trump compact, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 10/7

Higher ed groups sue over Trump administration’s $100K H-1B visa fee, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 10/6

Students Rally Against College Diversity Changes in Cambridge Common, Samuel A. Church and Cam N. Srivastava, Harvard Crimson, 10/6

Newsom says California universities will lose billions in state funding if they ‘sell out’ to Trump, Molly Gibbs, Mercury News, 10/4

Institutions, Faculty Oppose Plan to Limit Foreign Students’ Time in U.S., Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 10/3

Free Expression on Campus

Federal judge temporarily blocks key parts of Texas law that limits campus protests, Nicholas Gutteridge and Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune, 10/15

What the First Amendment doesn’t protect when it comes to professors speaking out on politics, Neal H. Hutchens and Jeffrey C. Sun, The Conversation, 10/14

US professors facing threats, firings and harassment over Charlie Kirk posts, Michael Sainato, The Guardian, 10/10

This isn’t Rate My Professor: Explosion in watchlists brings new threats to academics, Juliet Schulman-Hall, Mass Live, 10/7

Who Will Clemson Censor Next? We no longer know what speech will be tolerated or punished. The result: self-censoring and silence. [COMMENTARY] Mike Gregory and Charlie Kurth, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/3

International Students & Scholars

International interest in US masters degrees falls by 61%, Nathan Greenfield, University World News, 10/6

Small US college towns reel amid Trump immigration crackdown: ‘They need international students’, Stephen Starr, The Guardian, 10/4

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On October 9, 2025, Mark Bray, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers, and his family fled the United States for Spain after a public campaign against him, including death threats, for his academic work on antifa, a left-wing anti-fascist, anti-racist political movement that opposes far-right ideologies.

In late September 2025, Weber State University (WSU) informed faculty members and students scheduled to present at the university’s annual Unity Conference that they were required to ensure that their presentations complied with Utah House Bill 261, a law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. In response, some faculty members pulled out of the conference, prompting event organizers to cancel it.

On September 18, 2025, Texas A&M University (TAMU) President Mark Welsh resigned under pressure from elected officials.

On September 13, 2025, Florida Atlantic University (FAU), a public university, placed Karen Leader, a tenured professor of art history on leave in response to social media posts that she made about the murdered political activist Charlie Kirk.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Employees and Students at These Colleges Have Been Punished for Comments on Charlie Kirk’s Death, Ellie Davis, Gavin Escott, and Claire Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Deals, Chronicle of Higher Education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Faculty on the Front Lines: AAUP Members Share Stories of Repression and Resistance, AAUP

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 10/3/25

This week’s bulletin includes articles that call attention to the US government’s new “compact” sent to select universities asking for their commitment to the administration’s political agenda in exchange for access to federal research funds; questions raised by a short-lived policy at a Texas university restricting discussions of “transgender topics”; and the fallout as students, faculty members, and university staff continued to be fired, expelled, or suspended for statements made about the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk; among other recent events.

Each of these pressures are part of patterns highlighted in Scholars at Risk’s Free to Think 2025. Released this week, the report underscores the US government’s actions to intentionally dismantle its research and innovation infrastructure, including by canceling research grants, slashing education budgets, firing researchers, arbitrarily restricting visas for international students and researchers, and foreclosing lines of research on ideological grounds. The report calls on the higher education community to come together to ensure that universities remain spaces where scholars around the world can think, question, and share ideas. It is incumbent upon universities and individuals to communicate clearly to the public the critical importance of academic freedom, to reject isolationism by building solidarity with their peers, and work to secure formal legal protections for academic freedom and autonomy based on the Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Colleges weigh whether to sign onto Trump plan or forgo federal benefits, Susan Svrluga, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel and Emily Davies, Washington Post, 10/3

Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion [COMMENTARY], Erwin Chemerinsky, New York Times, 10/2

What It’s Like to Be an Autism Scientist Funded by the Trump Administration, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/2

Global academic freedom group warns Trump is dismantling US higher education, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 10/1

White House fires much of the National Council on the Humanities, Janay Kingsberry, Kelsey Ables and Travis M. Andrews, Washington Post, 10/1

Minority-serving institutions face Trump-created ‘hunger games’, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 9/28

The Other Office for Civil Rights, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 9/24

Education Dept. Subjects Harvard to More Financial Oversight, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 9/19

State and University Policies

Gavin Newsom Issues Ultimatum To Colleges Over Trump Deal, Martha McHardy, Newsweek, 10/3

Texas Tech Clarified Its Anti-Trans Policies in an FAQ—Then Removed It, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 10/3

Duke Was Paring Back Diversity Programs. Trump Targeted It Anyway., Vimal Patel, New York Times, 10/3

The Campus With a Front-Row Seat to Trump’s Attack on Higher Ed, Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/24

GOP’s “free speech” law leaves students afraid to talk, Tatyana Tandanpolie, Salon, 9/22

‘It’s a capitulation’: Berkeley grieves as its university bends to Trump, Eric He and Will McCarthy, Politico, 9/21

Professors unsure how to proceed after federal judge strikes Mississippi’s total ‘DEI ban’, Aly Bradshaw, The Daily Mississippian, 9/19

International Students & Scholars

Institutions, Faculty Oppose Plan to Limit Foreign Students’ Time in U.S., Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 10/3

Indian students say new social media scrutiny cost them U.S. visas, Supriya Kumar, Washington Post, 10/3

Latitudes: A federal judge has ruled that foreign students and scholars have free-speech rights, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/1

What Trump’s $100,000 Fee for Skilled-Worker Visas Could Mean for Higher Ed, Ellie Davis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/22

Higher Education Responses

A Judge Ruled Trump Silenced Scholars. Will It Matter?, Nell Gluckman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/1

Students mobilize against federal proposal to limit international study, Asher Boiskin, Yale News, 9/30

Academic freedom is under attack. How have Pittsburgh higher ed leaders responded?, Maddy Franklin, Pittsburgh’s Public Source, 9/30

Why Columbia Needs Free Speech 101 [COMMENTARY], Timothy Tracey, Columbia Daily Spectator, 9/25

Law professor sues West Point over rules he says curb free speech, Geoff Bennett and Dan Sagalyn, PBS, 9/24

Letter to UC Berkeley regarding the university’s submission to the Department of Education of 160 names of persons associated with allegations of antisemitism, Committee on Academic Freedom, Middle East Studies Association, 9/19

Free Expression on Campus

In Defense of Distasteful Faculty Speech [COMMENTARY], Nicholas Creel, Inside Higher Ed, 9/29

She Was Fired for a Comment on Her Private Facebook Account, Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 9/29

Students, Alumni Rally to Keep Slashed Affinity Programs Alive, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 9/29

Free speech and academic freedom in Connecticut: ‘Everyone is scared’, Christopher Keating, The Hartford Courant, 9/28

While praising Charlie Kirk’s commitment to free speech, Texas leaders move to punish students celebrating his death, Eleanor Klibanoff, Texas Tribune, 9/22

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Employees and Students at These Colleges Have Been Punished for Comments on Charlie Kirk’s Death, Ellie Davis, Gavin Escott, and Claire Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 9/19/25

This week’s bulletin highlights escalating attacks on academic freedom and free expression on many US higher education campuses, and beyond.

These include most visibly the killing of political commentator and activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University (UVU). While not an attack on academic freedom per se (because Kirk was not acting in an academic capacity), reports indicate that the killing was motivated by opposition to Kirk’s views. For this, and the fact that it took place on a university campus, at an event that was part of a multi-campus speaking tour, the killing unquestionably damages the environment for free inquiry and discourse. This was evidenced after Kirk’s death by a wave of actions by higher education institutions, often pressured by elected officials and segments of the public, to fire or otherwise censure academics, staff, and students for private, personal expression discussing Kirk and his views.

These actions should be seen in context with many attacks on academic freedom and free expression that preceded and are unrelated to Kirk’s death. Some attacks, going back years, have been linked to sites such as Canary Mission, Campus Reform, and Turning Point’s Professor Watchlist, which ostensibly seek to oppose ideological bias, but encourage tactics including audio and video recording and the online publication of personally identifying information. Such tactics impair respectful dialogue, increase risks of harassment, and invite intrusions on institutional autonomy by political actors. For example, a professor at Texas A&M University was recently fired for the content of in-class instruction after a recording made by a complaining student drew the attention of elected officials. In that case, two other academics were also removed from their administrative roles, seemingly to placate outside pressure. The university president, who ordered the sanctions, was ultimately forced to resign himself, apparently for appearing on the recording to have initially defended the professor’s academic freedom to teach according to her professional expertise.

These actions are also not limited to the higher education space, but rather mirror growing calls by some in the public, elected officials, and federal executive officers to investigate and sanction a wide range of individuals, civil society groups (including philanthropies), and private commercial enterprises (including media companies) for expressing views and sharing information which is contrary to the views of the current federal administration and its allies.

Such attacks on academic freedom and free expression are not new. They are seen around the world, as SAR has documented in our annual Free to Think reports over the last decade. (Free to Think 2025 will be released on October 1 of this year.) As we have seen in other countries, it is essential that higher education communities and leaders vigorously defend these core freedoms, not just for the higher education sector, but for everyone.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

After Kirk’s Death, Some Conservatives Blame Higher Ed for Political Violence, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 9/16

The “Secret Weapon” in Right-Wing Attacks on Higher Education: The accreditation system faces unprecedented threats., Antoinette Flores, Academe, Fall 2025

The Secretary of Education Outlined a Vision for Higher Ed in a Speech. Here’s Some Context., Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/9

Education Department wants to streamline process for pulling federal funds from colleges, Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive, 9/5

State and University Policies

Texas A&M president resigns after instructor’s firing over gender teachings, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Washington Post, 9/18

Here are the details of Trump’s $1.2-billion call to remake UCLA in a conservative image, Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, 9/15

Texas A&M’s firing of professor is a ‘dangerous turning point’ for academic freedom, advocates say, Megan Menchaca, Houston Chronicle, 9/13

UC Berkeley shares 160 names with Trump administration in ‘McCarthy era’ move, Sam Levin, The Guardian, 9/12

Life After the Deal: Columbia University endured two years of unprecedented upheaval before reaching a wide-ranging settlement with the government. What’s next?, Francie Diep, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/12

The Gaza Protests Are Still Haunting College Leaders. A Candid Interview With One President Shows How, David Jesse, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/5

Settlement Talks Stall Between Harvard and the Trump Administration, Michael C. Bender, Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 9/6

‘We’re terrified’: University faculty in the South describe culture of fear on campus in new survey, Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator, 9/5

Harvard Won Its Money Back, but Will It Actually Get It?, Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 9/4

International Students & Scholars

Rubio: Visa revocations ‘underway’ over Charlie Kirk assassination celebrations, Max Rego, The Hill, 9/16

Latitudes: The international-enrollment picture comes into focus, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/10

Higher Education Responses

AAUP rallies for academic freedom, Abdullah Hashimi, The Bowdoin Orient, 9/26

University of California students, professors sue Trump administration, Max Rego, The Hill, 9/17

On the first weekend of the fall term, Harvard students protest Trump, Sean Cotter and Jessica Ma, Boston Globe, 9/6

The Trump Lawsuit You Haven’t Heard of Is the Real Game Changer [COMMENTARY], Andrew M. Crespo and Kirsten A. Weld, The Harvard Crimson, 9/5

Free Expression on Campus

The Texas A&M purge takes a page from authoritarian playbooks [COMMENTARY], Mary Ellen Klas, Anchorage Daily News, 9/28

With Charlie Kirk’s Killing, a New Chapter of the Campus Speech Wars Has Begun, Emma Pettit, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/17

Charlie Kirk’s Watchlist Made Some Professors’ Lives a ‘Living Hell’, Katherine Mangan and Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/15

After Charlie Kirk’s death, teachers and professors nationwide fired or disciplined over social media posts, Kimmy Yam and Tyler Kingkade, NBC News, 9/12

Colleges are unprepared for threats like Charlie Kirk’s killing, experts say, Joanna Slater, Susan Svrluga and Brianna Tucker, Washington Post, 9/11

Charlie Kirk Killing Feeds Fears for Higher Ed’s Future, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 9/11

A ‘Volatile Climate’ for Campus Speech Has Worsened Under Trump, New FIRE Report Says, Sonel Cutler, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/9

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On September 12, 2025, Austin Peay State University (APSU) fired Darren Michael, an associate professor of Acting/Directing, for a social media post about political commentator Charlie Kirk’s killing.

On September 10, 2025, a 22-year old former Utah Valley University (UVU) student shot and killed political commentator and activist Charlie Kirk at an event on UVU’s campus.

On September 10, 2025, Texas State University (TSU) fired Thomas Alter, a tenured associate professor of history, for remarks that he made during a virtual conference on “revolutionary socialism.”

On September 8-9, 2025, Texas A&M University president Mark A. Welsh III fired Melissa McCoul, a senior lecturer in the English department at the university’s College of Arts and Sciences. He also removed professors Mark Zoran and Emily Johansen from their respective administrative positions as the dean of the College and head of the English department. These actions followed a public incident challenging McCoul’s teaching about gender and sexuality.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Employees and Students at These Colleges Have Been Punished for Comments on Charlie Kirk’s Death, Ellie Davis, Gavin Escott, and Claire Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Strategies to Protect Yourself Online in the Current Climate, AAUP

What to do if you’ve been doxed or placed on a watchlist, PEN America

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Registration is open! Scholars at Risk (SAR) invites participation in a mid-Atlantic regional conference on protecting scholars and promoting academic freedom. The registration information and schedule of sessions is available on the conference webpage. Questions about the conference may be sent to SARConferences@nyu.edu. (The regional conference replaces the previously announced SAR US General Assembly which is being rescheduled to 2026. Pre-registrants for the previously announced USGA and SAR members or prospective members in any region are welcome to attend the regional conference.) Learn more and register »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 9/5/25

This issue of the bulletin highlights an important and dangerous innovation in the government’s pressures on higher education: lawsuits by or against state actors of the same political party aimed at achieving court-endorsed settlements among like-minded allies; settlements that curtail or remove policies or programs authorized through normal, bi-partisan legislative processes. Experts caution that at best, this strategy abuses the jurisdictional power of the federal courts, which is limited to controversies between adversarial parties. More troubling, it raises concerns about apparent collusive understandings between federal and state, executive and judicial authorities, the full ramifications of which would extend well beyond higher education and threaten all areas of American life.

This issue also includes mixed evidence on the immediate impacts of travel bans, visa denials, and delays in visa processing on international students coming to the US, while noting that the US State Department has not updated its statistics on the number of visas issued since May.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

State and Federal GOP Team Up to Change Policies Through Lawsuits, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 9/3

Student get-out-the-vote clampdown ‘profoundly anti-democratic’, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 8/30

5 Charts Breaking Down Trump’s Funding Freezes Against Universities, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 8/28

Grant Delays Threaten Cultural and Language Studies Programs, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 8/25

What Counts as ‘Unlawful Proxy Discrimination’?, Catherine Hill, Inside Higher Ed, 8/25

State and University Policies

Northwestern President to Step Down, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 9/4

George Mason University’s board looks to negotiate with Trump administration, Ben Unglesbee, HigherEd Dive, 9/3

He Neutered Faculty Senates. Now He’s Set to Be a Chancellor., Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 9/3

The Battle for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 9/2

Fallout for universities that struck deals with Trump raises questions, concerns, Lexi Lonas Cochran, The Hill, 8/29

‘Don’t negotiate, Linda’: Trump calls for $500 million Harvard settlement, Betsy Klein, CNN, 8/26

Reining in the Faculty, Sarah Huddleston, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/25

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups, Lisa Friedman, The New York Times, 8/25

Censorship at Northwestern Gets Worse, 10 Years After Alice Dreger’s Resignation [COMMENTARY], John K. Wilson, Inside Higher Ed, 8/25

Harvard Is Making Changes Trump Officials Want, Even Without a Deal, Stephanie Saul, The New York Times, 8/23

A commuter college thought it could avoid Trump’s education crackdown. Here’s what happened, Byron Tau, Associated Press, 8/23

Federal Agency Claims that George Mason University Violated Civil Rights Law Through DEI Policies, Walter Hudson, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 8/22

Texas University Boards Abolish Faculty Senates, Create Toothless Councils, Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, 8/22

Josh Shapiro’s Quiet Campaign of Influence at Penn, Ben Binday, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/21

What’s happened since Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented students, Alexandra Villarreal, The Hechinger Report, 8/21

International Students & Scholars

The Students Left Behind by the Travel Ban, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 9/2

US erecting new barriers for international students – Experts, Nathan M. Greenfield, University World News, 8/29

Visa Delays Persist, Causing Some Students to Defer to Spring, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 8/27

Latitudes: Fulbright and other global-education programs are spared from Trump’s cuts, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/27

Higher Education Responses

A Grass-Roots Faculty Effort To Advance Higher Education Takes Shape, Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes, 9/4

Judge Hands Victory to Harvard in Funding Lawsuit, Ruling Trump Administration’s Freeze Unconstitutional, Dhruv T. Patel, Avani B. Rai, and Saketh Sundar, The Harvard Crimson, 9/3

Students are coming back, and that could make Harvard’s negotiations with the White House even more complicated, Aidan Ryan, Anjali Huynh and Tal Kopan, Boston Globe, 8/30

GMU President Refuses to Apologize for Diversity Efforts, Lawyer Calls Ed. Dept. Claims ‘Absurd’, Katherine Mangan and Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/25

Harvard Grad Union Requests Academic Freedom Protections in New Contract Proposal, Amann S. Mahajan, The Harvard Crimson, 8/24

‘Everyone is coming into fire’: students return to US campuses bruised and changed by Trump’s assault, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 8/23

Student Expression

UT Austin, Dallas students sue system over new free speech law, Lily Kepner, Austin American-Statesman, 9/3

Michigan universities spending millions on cameras on campus, John Wisely, Lansing State Journal, 8/29

At Columbia, political engagement has become unavoidable [COMMENTARY], Staff Editorial, Columbia Daily Spectator, 8/22

Who Gets to Protest? Free Speech and Campus Policy in 2025, Misty Evans, Insight Into Academia, 8/21

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 8/22/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes reports on continuing restrictions by federal and state government actors on courses, curriculums, and/or initiatives that appear to promote topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as reports on the impact of efforts to limit international, immigrant, and non-citizen students.

As the fall semester begins, students are returning to campus to find a transformed landscape. On the one hand, not only have diversity, equity, and inclusion centers, programs, and initiatives been eliminated – threatening to have detrimental effects on students’ academic outcomes and extracurricular experiences – but the federal government’s revocation of over 6,000 student visas means that the demographics of some colleges’ and universities’ student bodies may be dramatically altered.

On the other hand, many students are also returning to find their campus communities mobilized. According to recent media reports, professors and faculty have organized and rallied around American Association of University Professors chapters, unions, faculty senates, alumni groups, and new-found advocacy coalitions that champion academic freedom and urge their university leaders to not to forgo institutional autonomy. Those most directly impacted by the federal government’s ongoing campaign against universities remain committed to standing up and mobilizing for themselves and their community.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Education Department’s anti-DEI guidance struck down in federal court, Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive, 8/15

Gender Data Would Be Off-Limits Under Proposed NIH Policy, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/13

Trump Administration Must Restore Some Suspended UCLA Grants, Siladitya Ray, Forbes, 8/13

State and University Policies

Closing of Sacred Heart’s diversity center shocks, disappoints students and alumni: ‘It was a light’, Shaniece Holmes-Brown, CT Insider, 8/16

Colleges Rushed to Comply With Trump’s Anti-DEI Guidance. A Judge Just Struck It Down. Now What?, Camila Gomez, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/15

Georgia professors fear harassment as agency moves to make syllabuses public, Jason Armesto, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8/15

‘Just Disappeared’: Trump’s immigration crackdown is imperiling college access for undocumented students., Camila Gomez, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/14

Anti-DEI efforts shutter cultural centers that college students call lifelines, Anumita Kaur, The Washington Post, 8/14

‘Utterly chilling’: IU professor sanctioned over Indiana’s intellectual diversity law, Cate Charron, Indianapolis Star, 8/14

Community College Research Collateral Damage in Columbia Fight [Interview], Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 8/13

Federal judge denies injunction against Alabama’s anti-DEI law, Alander Rocha, Alabama Reflector, 8/13

DOJ finds George Washington University acted ‘deliberately indifferent’ to campus antisemitism, threatens punitive action, Ryan Saenz, The GW Hatchet, 8/12

Texas Lawmakers Create Overseer to Ensure Colleges Follow Laws, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 8/11

Florida’s universities face research overhaul courtesy of Trump and DeSantis, Andrew Atterbury, Politico, 8/10

Harvard’s Summer in Court, Jonathan Shaw and Joanna M Weiss, Harvard Magazine, 8/8

Trump Administration Must Restore Some Suspended UCLA Grants, Federal Judge Orders, Siladitya Ray, Forbes, 8/13

International Students & Scholars

Trump’s Tactics Mean Many International Students Won’t Make It to Campus, Anemona Hartocollis, The New York Times, 8/20

More than 6,000 college students have had their visas revoked under Trump, administration says, Io Dodds, The Independent, 8/18

‘It felt like my dreams had collapsed’: international students react to Trump policy shift, Anna Betts, The Guardian, 8/18

Higher Education Responses

NC universities ramp up spending on lobbying as Trump targets higher education, Korie Dean, The Herald Sun, 8/20

Turn Off the Thermostat: The latest public opinion polls suggest challenges and opportunities for higher ed, Jeremy C. Young, Liberal Education (AAC&U), 8/19

UCLA’s Jewish community unites against Trump’s $1-billion demand: ‘Misguided and punitive’, Daniel Miller and Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, 8/19

The Ivy League’s Faculty Rebellion: As financial and political pressures mount, professors are getting organized. But do they have influence?, Francie Diep and Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/15

More Than 14,000 Urge Harvard To Refuse Oversight and ‘Extortion’ From Trump, Samuel A. Church and Cam N. Srivastava, The Harvard Crimson, 8/15

Uniting Higher Ed To Protect Science, Education — and Democracy [COMMENTARY], Elaine Maimon, The Philadelphia Citizen, 8/15

Harvard faculty won’t cave to Trump demands [COMMENTARY], Kirsten Weld and Andrew Manuel Crespo, Boston Globe, 8/14

These college leaders are keeping the heat on in battle with Trump administration – despite settlements by prominent schools, Andy Rose, CNN, 8/11

Student Expression

Tech Made by Palantir and Babel Street Pose Surveillance Threats to Pro-Palestine Student Protestors & Migrants, Amnesty International, 8/20

Testing applicants’ open-mindedness ‘could reshape universities’, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 8/19

I’m a Columbia Student Journalist. I Watched Censorship Unfold on My Own Campus. [COMMENTARY], Ellessandra Taormino, ACLU, 8/14

Latitudes: Some campus journalists are scared to report while on a student visa, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/13

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Registration is open! The US General Assembly, initially scheduled for October 8-10 at New York University, is rescheduled to 2026 due to travel, budget, and logistical reasons. Instead, on October 9-10 at NYU, we invite SAR US members and prospective members to participate in a mid-Atlantic regional conference on protecting scholars, promoting academic freedom, and discussing the challenges we currently face. We know many across the SAR network are eager to engage in conversations about current academic freedom conditions in the United States. We hope this change will help accommodate resource concerns across members while facilitating solidarity, connection, and dialogue for all attendees. Future regional events will be scheduled across the country. SAR US members and prospective members are welcome to attend any regional events, regardless of location. Learn more and register »

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 8/8/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes reports on the US government’s continuing attempts to suspend research funding, including at the University of California, Los Angeles and Duke University, and on an escalation in government restrictions on courses, curriculums, and/or initiatives that appear to promote discussion of topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Attempts to control university curriculums are not new, but recent research illustrates the scale of attempts in states like Indiana, Utah, Ohio, and beyond to restrict what is taught in classrooms; nearly 40% of Americans live in a state with a policy to censor higher education. Moreover, while the government has used restrictions on DEI initiatives to target high-profile universities, the impacts of such restrictions are more widespread, including on community colleges across the nation. Government censorship of university curriculums and programming impacts all students and has the potential to reshape the day-to-day experience of working and studying in an academic setting. The cumulative impact of such restrictions reverberate well beyond those actively conducting research or teaching on particular disfavored topics, and spread to anyone who steps foot into a university campus, laboratory, or classroom.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

How Trump’s War on Higher Education Is Hitting Community Colleges, Ben Austen, The New York Times, 8/4

Conservatives and free speech advocates wanted colleges to change for decades. Some now say Trump went too far., Anjali Huynh, Boston Globe, 8/4

Abrupt Pause, Unpause of Grants Doesn’t End NIH Funding Concerns, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 7/31

Pay Attention to ‘The Manhattan Statement’ [COMMENTARY], Amanda Fuchs Miller, Inside Higher Ed, 7/31

New Trump Administration Memo Tells Colleges Which DEI Efforts It Might Consider Illegal, Camila Gomez, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/31

Justice Department Declares DEI Unlawful, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 7/30

What DOJ Letters to UVA Say About Trump’s Attack on Higher Ed, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 7/29

Bullying universities [COMMENTARY], Kim Lane Scheppele, The Contrarian, 7/28

International Students & Scholars

Latitudes: Why the economic case for foreign enrollments lost traction, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/6

State and University Policies

Censored by My Own University: Tulane says it values free inquiry. Then my work became politically inconvenient. [COMMENTARY], Kimberly Terrell, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/6

When the Legislature Kills Your Department: Republican lawmakers have a new obsession: academic-program review., Lee Gardner, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/4

Heritage Foundation Targets UNC Chapel Hill Over Courses, Liz Schob, QNotes Carolinas, 8/1

Butler University eliminates social justice class requirement, Claire Rafford, MirrorIndy, 7/31

Universities Are Making Deals With Trump. Here’s How They Stack Up., Andy Thomason, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/31

Federal government suspends research funding to UCLA, Alexandra Crosnoe, Daily Bruin, 7/31

Duke Faces Multiple Federal Investigations, $108M Funding Freeze, Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 7/30

Brown reaches deal with federal government to restore federal research funding, Cate Latimer and Avani Ghosh, Brown Daily Herald, 7/30

Supporters and critics question Harvard’s mission as it makes quiet reforms, Aidan Ryan and Anjali Huynh, Boston Globe, 7/29

Conservative Group Requests Materials for Over 70 UNC Courses, Ryan Quinn, Insider Higher Ed, 7/29

22 new state laws censor higher ed, PEN America finds, Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive, 7/28

Higher Education Responses

UI grad union ‘condemns’ school’s DEI investigation, cites unauthorized recording policy, Jessica Rish, Iowa City Press-Citizen, 8/7

Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump, William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus, Harvard Crimson, 8/2

I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump [COMMENTARY], Rashid Khalidi, The Guardian, 8/1

Despite federal investigations, GMU president will remain in role, receive pay boost, Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury, 8/1

Higher Ed Lobbying Spending Rises, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 8/1

As Trump Upends Funding for Research, These Scholars Turn to GoFundMe, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/25

Student Expression

The Stanford Daily Student Newspaper Sues Trump Administration for Punishing ‘Thoughtcrime,’ Miranda Jeyaretnam, TIME, 8/7

The Trump Administration Tried to Silence Mahmoud Khalil, So I Asked Him to Talk [PODCAST], The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, 8/5

As Columbia capitulates to Trump over Palestine protest, student activists are regrouping, Tamara Turki, Mondoweiss, 8/5

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?, The Hechinger Report

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Registration is open! SAR and the SAR US Section Steering Committee (representing all US SAR member institutions) invite you to register for the next SAR US Section General Assembly (GA), to be held October 8-10, 2025 at New York University. The GA is the annual meeting for US members and prospective member institutions to share experience and explore collective responses. This year’s GA will be especially important. You may register, review the preliminary program, and sign up to receive updates on the GA as they become available.

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 7/25/25

This issue of the US Bulletin includes updates on US federal actions against universities, including court cases on the deportations of international students and federal government actions against Harvard University, as well as on Columbia University’s settlement with the government.

It also casts light on state level actors inviting federal actions – as in the example of a Texas state representative requesting that the federal government investigate Texas A&M’s recruiting practices – or leveraging federal actions to transform state higher education systems. Recent actions taken by Virginia’s state government, for example, mirror those initiated by Florida’s government in 2022, including Virginia’s governor filling university governing boards with political loyalists. But the Virginia governor has also been able to leverage the attention from parallel federal investigations – like those leading to the ouster of University of Virginia President James Ryan and now targeting George Mason University President Gregory Washington – to justify the changes that directly undermine institutional autonomy. Other states, including Texas and Indiana, have also recently passed legislation giving political leaders increased authority over public university boards, increasing the risk of ideological interference and decreasing the likelihood that university boards will act as healthy buffers against future federal or state overreach into in research, teaching, hiring, admissions, or operations.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

What Columbia’s Settlement Stipulates, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 7/24

The Art of the Deal Comes to Columbia [Commentary], David Pozen, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/24

Federal Grant Cuts Don’t Spare Red States, New Report Shows, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 7/23

Far beyond Harvard, conservative efforts to reshape higher education are gaining steam, Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press, 7/23

In Virginia, the Attack on University Presidents Widens, Stephanie Saul, New York Times, 7/22

Report Shows Trump Administration Has Carried Out More Than 400 Attacks on Science in Six Months, Lana Cohen, Union of Concerned Scientists, 7/21

Congress Shows Resistance to Trump’s Plan to Slash Science Budgets, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 7/21

Judge Challenges Trump Administration in Hearing on Harvard Funding, Alan Binder, New York Times, 7/21

Feds issue ‘information requests’ on University of Chicago international students, admissions practices, Violet Miller, WBEZ Chicago, 7/20

Inside the powerful task force spearheading Trump’s assault on colleges, DEI, Laura Meckler, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Susan Svrluga, Perry Stein and Emily Davies, Washington Post, 7/18

3 College Presidents Went to Congress. Here’s What They Talked About., Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/15

What Trump’s Bombast Reveals About His Vision for Higher Ed [INTERVIEW], Sara Custer, Inside Higher Ed, 7/15

The Wrecking of American Research, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/7

International Students & Scholars

5 Key Takeaways from ‘Ideological Deportation’ Trial, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 7/21

International Student Visa Issuances Dropped in May, Ashley Mowreader, Inside HIgher Ed, 7/17

State and University Policies

Columbia Walked a Tightrope on Its Way to a $200 Million Settlement With Trump, Sharon Otterman, New York Times, 7/25

When ‘Female’ is a Forbidden Word, Women’s Colleges Face a Unique Challenge, Sara Weissman, Insider Higher Education, 7/22

Judge pauses Mississippi’s DEI ban at public colleges and schools, Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive, 7/22

Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication, Alice Speri, The Guardian, 7/22

Silence in the classroom, fear in the faculty: How academic freedom dies at FSU [COMMENTARY], Frank Faiola, Tallahassee Democrat, 7/19

How Dartmouth Became the Ivy League’s Switzerland, Rob Wolfe, The New Yorker, 7/18

University of Tennessee cuts Chinese program under pressure from US House, Keenan Thomas, Knox News, 7/17

Texas just gutted free speech on college campuses. Is your state next? [COMMENTARY], Laura Benitez and Jonathan Friedman, Washington Post, 7/16

Four CUNY Professors Say They Were Fired for Supporting Palestine, Sanya Mansoor, The Intercept, 7/15

Legislatures Require Colleges to Cut Degrees in Low Demand, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 7/15

Texas Rep Refers Texas A&M to Feds Over Discriminatory Recruiting, Kellen McGovern Jones, Dallas Express, 7/13

Harvard Explores New Center for Conservative Scholarship Amid Trump Attacks, Douglas Belkin, Juliet Chung, Emily Glazer, Natalie Andrews, The Wall Street Journal, 7/10

Higher Education Responses

Higher-Ed Associations Pitch an Alternative to Trump’s Cap on Research Funding, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/11

The Nation’s Wealthiest Small Colleges Just Won a Big Tax Exemption, Sarah Huddleston, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/11

Trump ‘just wants to make Harvard bleed,’ and these alumni are standing up to him [COMMENTARY], Renée Loth, Boston Globe, 7/11

Student Expression

UJB issues expulsions, suspensions, and degree revocations to over 70 students for Butler demonstration, Emily Pickering and Spencer Davis, The Columbia Daily Spectator, 7/22

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On June 26, 2025, the interim dean of Georgetown University’s College of Arts and Sciences formally informed Jonathan Brown, a professor of Islamic Studies and the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization, that his position as chair would not be renewed because of a social media post that Brown had made.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

SAR and the SAR US Section Steering Committee (representing all US SAR member institutions) invite you to save the date for the next SAR US Section General Assembly (GA), to be held October 9-10, 2025 at New York University. The GA is the annual meeting for US members and prospective member institutions to share experience and explore collective responses. This year’s GA will be especially important. You may also sign up here to receive updates on the GA as they become available.

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 7/11/25

This issue of the US Bulletin includes articles highlighting the long-lasting effects of the US government’s cuts to research funding and continued targeting of individual universities, including Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia, the latter resulting in the resignation of University of Virginia (UVA) President James Ryan; the University of Pennsylvania agreeing to limit the participation of transgender women in women’s sports; and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education warning Columbia University that it could lose its accreditation status.

Notably, these institutions continued to face pressure even as they attempted to accede to the government’s demands. For example, UVA was already taking steps to dismantle its DEI work when the government demanded Ryan’s resignation as part of any settlement. This suggests that negotiation with the government over unreasonable or extra-legal demands may not afford greater protection for institutions, even after a settlement, and may make more adversarial strategies including direct or collective litigation, more attractive.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

PS: How can SAR help your institution? Scholars at Risk is conducting a survey of US member institutions to understand how we can better support your shifting needs at this time. The deadline is July 15, 2025. If you work at a US member institution, please take a few minutes to share your thoughts, and please forward the survey to colleagues who might like to contribute their ideas. (We welcome multiple responses from within the same institution.)

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

The next front in the battle over America’s universities? Accreditation., Diti Kohli, Boston Globe, 7/10

An Inside Job? The White House says it’s investigating antisemitism. Faculty at George Mason U. suspect a coordinated ouster attempt., Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/10

Trump Administration Threatens Harvard’s Accreditation, Subpoenas Student Records, Nina Pasquini, Harvard Magazine, 7/9

The Scientists Who Got Ghosted by the NIH, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/8

How Trump Uses the DOJ as Tool of ‘Fear-Mongering’, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 7/7

A Lost Generation of Researchers, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/3

Punished for Following the Rules, Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education 7/2

Academic Freedom Mugged [COMMENTARY], Peter Byrne, Verfassungs, 7/2

Middle States Commission warns Columbia’s accreditation ‘may be in jeopardy’ after government finds Title VI violation, Joseph Zuloaga, Columbia Spectator, 6/20

International Students & Scholars

An Anonymous Group’s List of Purported Critics of Israel Helped Steer a U.S. Crackdown on Student Activists, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/10

Trump administration’s push to deport student activists goes on trial, Joanna Slater and Justine McDaniel, Washington Post, 7/7

State and University Policies

‘Inevitable’ that more institutions will concede to Trump, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 7/9

A College Vows to Stop Engaging With Some Student Activists to Settle a Lawsuit Brought by Jewish Students, Sarah Huddleston, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/8

How Harvard’s Ties to China Helped Make It a White House Target, Stephanie Saul and Steven Rich, New York Times, 7/7

Under Trump pressure, UC says student governments are banned from boycotting Israel, Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, 7/2

Penn Agrees to Limit Participation of Transgender Athletes, Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 7/1

Secretly Recorded by Anti-DEI Group, ‘No Longer Employed’, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 6/30

Why UVA President’s Resignation Could Be a ‘Watershed Moment’, Jessica Blake and Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, 6/30

As Trump administration punishes Ivy League, universities in the heartland stand to benefit, Hilary Burns, Diti Kohli and Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, 6/27

Higher Education Responses

Exclusive: U.S. college is first to decline federal science grants because of new DEI language, Jeffrey Mervis, Science, 7/6

At Columbia University, chemical scientists are dismayed by funding cuts, Aayushi Pratap, Chemical & Engineering News, 7/4

UC Berkeley law professors take on a case for colleagues: Fighting Trump research cuts, Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, 6/25

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On June 24, 2025, an unidentified hacker conducted a cyberattack on Columbia University with the goal of gathering data to show that the university had continued to engage in affirmative action practices even after 2023, when the Supreme Court overturned race-conscious admissions policies in 2023.

On May 8, 2025, police violently dispersed students as they left a Palestinian solidarity protest at Brooklyn College; multiple students were arrested and one student was tased and arrested.

On March 28, 2025, Indiana University (IU) dismissed Xiaofeng Wang, a tenured professor at the university’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering and the director of the university’s Center for Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. The dismissal was effective immediately and appeared to be politically motivated.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding, Stephan Lewandowsky et al., Zenodo

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

How can Scholars at Risk better support your shifting needs? At a time when higher education in the United States is confronting new pressures and disruptions, your voice matters more than ever. We have extended the deadline for SAR 2024-2025 Membership Survey to July 15, 2025. Please take a few minutes to share your insights and guide how Scholars at Risk supports members, develops programming, and responds to the shifting needs of our network. Please forward this survey to any colleagues who are involved in SAR activities and would like to contribute their ideas. We welcome multiple perspectives from your academic community members.

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 6/27/25

This issue of the US Bulletin includes some of the growing number of articles documenting the negative impacts of the US government’s pressures on higher education, including decreasing affordability, rising censorship/self-censorship, lost public benefits from medical and other research, and the risk of long-term brain drain (and resulting loss in competitiveness) as scholars and students consider opportunities abroad.

The situation remains extremely fluid and challenging. But the sector continues to mobilize and push back, including with new and ongoing legal actions. Some early cases are beginning to show progress, including orders blocking the 15% cap on NSF indirect cost rates, restoring EPA and NIH grants, and challenging slow downs in issuing payments. Cases challenging student detentions are also progressing. Following earlier courts mandating the release of detained students, this week a federal court ordered the release on bail of detained Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. His early, high-profile arrest raised concerns that the administration was using deportation actions to punish disfavored political expression. These cases illustrate a successful strategy: demonstrating the harms to the public coupled with an insistence on due process and normal rules and procedures.

It is important to note that the pressures on US higher education are not limited to the federal level. SAR’s monitoring project has documented restrictive state executive and legislative actions over many years. But recent federal actions seem to have emboldened state-level officials intent on restricting or rolling back protections for higher education, faculty, and students. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, out of 27 pieces of state legislation restricting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in higher education institutions since the beginning of 2023, nearly half (12) were signed into law after January 2025. And just last week Texas, which in 2019 passed a law guaranteeing First Amendment protections for students’ political expression on campus, reversed that, imposing severe time, place, and manner restrictions on campus expression, trampling institutional autonomy and threatening academic freedom in the process. These state-level actions often receive less national media coverage and, therefore, may fly under the radar, but they have a significant impact on the members of the higher education sector and the communities in which they live and contribute. They are a reminder that visibility and legal resistance actions are needed at the state level also.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Academic Freedom Was Already Limited at U.S. Service Academies. Then Came Trump., Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 6/23

Here Is All the Science at Risk in Trump’s Clash With Harvard, Emily Badger, Aatish Bhatia and Ethan Singer, The New York Times, 6/22

Political interference in US education undermines academic freedom and equitable access to education: UN expert, Farida Shaheed, UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 6/19

Columbia Got Some NIH Funding Back. Then It Didn’t., Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/18

Research Grants Increasingly Require Compliance With Trump’s Orders. Here’s How Colleges Are Responding., Theo Scheer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/17

Trump Administration Attempts to Rush Changes to Civil Rights Regs, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 6/16

‘No way to invest in a career here’: US academics flee overseas to avoid Trump crackdown, Marina Dunbar, The Guardian, 6/15

International Students & Scholars

‘They wanted to separate me from my family’: Mahmoud Khalil speaks after ICE release, Leila Fadel, NPR, 6/23

State Department unveils social media screening rules for all student visa applicants, Nahal Toosi and Eric Bazail-Eimil, Politico, 6/18

State and University Policies

In North Carolina, It’s Do or DEI, The Assembly and Partners, 6/26

Florida’s GOP Presidential Hiring Spree, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 6/23

‘A Banner Year for Censorship’: More States Are Restricting Classroom Discussions on Race and Gender, Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/20

Behind the turmoil of federal attacks on colleges, some states are going after tenure, Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report, 6/18

Tulane scientist resigns, citing ‘gag order’ on environmental justice research, Terry L. Jones, Louisiana Illuminator, 6/13

Higher Education Responses

The GOP megabill takes aim at universities. But Hillsdale College gets a carveout., Caitlin Oprysko, Politico, 6/25

A Military Ethics Professor Resigns in Protest, Tom Nicholas, The Atlantic, 6/25

Major recent wins for science funding lawsuits, David Miller, Thread on Bluesky.

Behind Closed Doors, Harvard Officials Debate a Risky Truce With Trump, Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 6/24

Letter sent to the President and Fellows of Harvard University, the Harvard Alumni Association, and the Deans of all 12 Harvard Schools, Crimson Courage, 6/23

Federal Judge Dismisses Columbia Faculty Lawsuit Against Trump Funding Cuts, Chris John, University Herald, 6/17

Private equity firm will finance Harvard research lab, in possible template for future, Allison DeAngelis, STAT, 6/16

Brown, other universities sue Department of Defense over research funding cuts, Elise Haulund and Claire Song, The Brown Daily Herald, 6/16

Student Expression

Texas Passed a Law Protecting Campus Speech. It’s on the Verge of Rolling It Back., Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times, 6/18

How Trump is changing higher education: The view from 4 campuses, Steven Yoder, Felicia Mello, Alexandra Villarreal and Miles MacClure, The Hechinger Report, 6/15

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new law limiting expressive activity at the state’s public colleges and universities.

On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a bill that strengthens the authority of university governing boards over curriculum and hiring decisions and weakens faculty governance at the state’s public universities.

On May 6, 2025, Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed a new budget bill that includes provisions that weaken faculty tenure protections at the state’s public universities and reduce the influence of faculty decision-making bodies in favor of political appointees.

In March 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a cable to Fulbright program country directors based abroad and Fulbright advisors on US campuses notifying them that the ongoing Fulbright selection process would diverge from its standard process by including an unusual, final review by the State Department. State department officials subsequently rejected up to 25% of finalists on apparently ideological grounds.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

SCIMaP: View Impact of Federal Research Cuts, Science Impact

Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) Tracker, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Grant Watch (tracks the termination of grants to scientific research agencies), a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 6/13/25

This issue of the US Bulletin includes reports on the growing and far-reaching consequences for the economy, employment, health, and safety resulting from the administration’s actions against higher education.

These actions now include the latest iteration of a travel ban. In Presidential Proclamation 10949, the administration calls for restricting immigration from 19 countries, with significant implications for higher education. These include loss of tuition revenues (threatening the operating budgets of many institutions, as noted in the last issue of this bulletin), interference with international research collaborations, and disruption of international educational exchanges, not to mention increased risk for scholars from the designated countries who are fleeing attacks on their work or well-being.

Such sweeping government actions present a major obstacle to academic exchange with scholars and students, not just from the affected countries, but when coupled with parallel threats to withhold visas from scholars and students generally, from any country. They hinder US understanding of other countries, which affects US national security. They inevitably cause scholars and students who might have otherwise contributed greatly to the US to choose more welcoming places to make their careers. This will make US higher education and education-dependent industries less competitive, and ultimately means the loss of both US jobs and US prestige, surrendering the US’s hard earned reputation as a leader in higher education, research, and the free exchange of ideas.

The challenges posed by the ban are not new, as the recent proclamation expands on restrictions imposed during the first Trump administration. What is new is that the ban is being implemented in a climate of intimidation, where many faculty, staff, and students fear greater scrutiny and restrictions on their freedom of speech, expression, and assembly, likely muting public opposition. But as we did in 2017, Scholars at Risk will continue to work with scholars fleeing threats in their home countries impacted by the ban, including by trying to arrange where possible opportunities at network member institutions outside the US. And we will continue to support and to work with network members and partners in civil society in the US and abroad to resist threats to higher education and academic freedom wherever they arise.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Restrictions on US academic freedom affect science everywhere [COMMENTARY], Frank Fernandez & Neal Hutchens, Nature, 6/9

Worried Northwestern lab directors describe ‘bleak’ atmosphere in wake of Trump research funding freeze, Zareen Syed, Chicago Tribune, 6/7

Harvard could beat Trump in court but lose the war with his administration, Susan Svrluga, Laura Meckler, Justine McDaniel and Joanna Slater, Washington Post, 6/5

No, Trump Is Not Pulling Columbia’s Accreditation. Here’s What You Need to Know., Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/4

NIH indirect cost cuts will affect the economy and employment, Alyssa H. Sinclair, Mallory J. Harris, Clio Andris, Danielle Cosme, Ellen Peters, Angela Fagerlin, Emily B. Falk & Joshua S. Weitz, Nature, 6/2

International Students & Scholars

‘They’re Here to Detain Me’, Rozina Ali, New York Review of Books, 6/26 issue

With border restrictions, Iranian students’ future is “blurry”, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/11

Fulbright Board Resigns After Accusing Trump Aides of Political Interference, Edward Wong, New York Times, 6/11

US State Department orders embassies to resume processing Harvard student visas, Kylie Atwood, CNN, 6/9

What the New Travel Ban Means for Higher Ed, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/5

Federal judge blocks ICE from detaining Columbia University student, Joanna Slater, Susan Svrluga and Shayna Jacobs, Washington Post, 6/5

State and University Policies

Tulane Environmentalist Resigns Amid Research ‘Gag Order’, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 6/13

Red-State Universities Will Get Hit by Trump’s Cuts, Too [COMMENTARY], Richard Florida, The New York Times, 6/12

At Indiana U., Professors Spar With Administrators Over Nighttime Protests, Theo Scheer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/9

Iowa Board of Regents can’t have it both ways on free expression [COMMENTARY], Joseph W. Yockey, Des Moines Register, 6/9

In Texas, University Presidents May Soon Control Faculty Senates, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 6/9

In Public, Harvard Is Fighting Trump. Quietly, It’s Dismantling a Program the White House Doesn’t Like., Francie Diep, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/9

A Professor Was Fired for Her Politics. Is That the Future of Academia?, Sarah Viren, New York Times Magazine, 6/6

Republicans Trying to Control Indiana University Meet Little Resistance, Isabelle Taft, New York Times, 6/5

Study: Post-Tenure Review Pushed Researchers to Leave Florida, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 6/3

Indiana U. Requires Buyout Takers to Pledge No Disparagement — a Move More Often Seen in Corporations, Adrienne Lu, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/2

Higher Education Responses

Small Colleges Are Banding Together Against a Higher Endowment Tax. This Is Why., Sarah Huddleston, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/11

‘We were ready for this’: meet the scientists suing the Trump administration to reinstate terminated grants, Virginia Gewin, Nature, 6/5

This Will Not Be a Normal Summer [COMMENTARY], Jennifer Lundquist and Kathy Roberts Forde, Inside Higher Ed, 6/3

5 Steps to Defend Higher Ed [COMMENTARY], Kevin R. McClure, Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/3

Student Expression

University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, 6/6

How the FBI Sought a Warrant to Search Instagram of Columbia Student Protesters, Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept, 6/4

M.I.T. Class President Barred From Graduation Ceremony After Pro-Palestinian Speech, John Branch, New York Times, 5/31

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On May 9, 2025, Yeshiva University’s (YU) administration announced that it would ban the Hareni student group, which was newly created in March 2025 as a resource for LGBTQ students, for allegedly promoting values antithetical to the school.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

International Student Visas Revoked, Inside Higher Ed

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

New Insights into the Growing Number of Actions Against International Students and Scholars, NAFSA

Grant Watch, a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Presidential Proclamation Orders Travel Bans on 19 Countries, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 5/30/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes reports that, taken together, demonstrate one arm of the administration’s assault on higher education: the disruption of revenue streams.

One set of reports documents arbitrary and procedurally suspect suspensions, withholdings, or cancellations of government research grants and contracts totalling billions of dollars. Another set of reports follows the administration’s attempts to cancel student and researcher visas; to withhold participation in the Student Exchange and Visitor Program; and to suspend scheduling of visa interviews during the busiest time of the year as students prepare to travel for the fall semester. International students comprise up to fifty percent of the student body at some institutions, and a decline in their numbers could lead to the closure of many US colleges and universities, with less well resourced regional and local institutions and their communities likely feeling the brunt first.

Notwithstanding the administration’s pretextual and unsubstantiated claims to be combatting unlawful discriminatory conduct on campuses, these acts appear to be motivated by a “dominate or destroy” mentality. That is, to threaten the academic and financial well being of institutions to such an extent that they either capitulate to the administration’s demands over all aspects of decision-making, ending autonomy and academic freedom, or irreparably exhaust institutions and their resources, making them an example for others. Much public attention has focused on the government’s targeting of Harvard University and other high-profile colleges and universities. Yet, the impact of the efforts to undermine US higher education goes far beyond these institutions.

Thus far, the courts have managed to halt – at least temporarily – the implementation of many of the administration’s orders, and while public pressure has, in some cases, caused the government to reverse course, these efforts have only partially mitigated the damage. For instance, even though the US administration has reinstated the legal status of international students whose visas were revoked, for many it was too late: they had already left the country, fearful of ending up in a Louisiana detention center. Likewise, while many research projects funded by the NIH have seen their funding restored, others have learned that their studies are “not compatible with NIH priorities.” Moreover, the articles included below illustrate how the federal government’s behavior is emboldening state-level lawmakers who seek to undermine tenure or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

We can expect more administrative actions, lawsuits, and injunctions. Meanwhile some groups are finding ways to adapt to this situation of uncertainty: for instance, by setting an adaptable budget or developing new private research funding mechanisms. These solutions are not systemic, but they are a beginning and point to the need to be innovative and adaptive on a small scale, even as we organize and mobilize on a broader scale.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

For Fulbright Applicants, a DEI Disqualifier, Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, 5/29

The Harvard case is not an outlier. It is a signal flare [COMMENTARY], James Yoonil Auh, University World News, 5/28

Trump Intends to Cancel All Federal Funds Directed at Harvard, Stephanie Saul, New York Times, 5/27

With Harvard, Trump administration is attacking all of higher education [COMMENTARY], Erwin Chemerinsky, Sacramento Bee, 5/23

As the Nation’s Research-Funding Model Ruptures, Private Money Becomes a Band-Aid, Maddie Khaw, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/23

An NIH Grant Is Restored, With a Catch: Cut a Study on Trans Youth, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/21

How Trump Defeated Columbia: The inside story of an unconditional surrender., Nick Summers, New York Magazine, 5/19

The Trump Administration Widens Its Scrutiny of Colleges, With Help From the Internet, Francie Diep, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/15

International Students

Trump’s visa clampdown plunges 275,000 Chinese students into uncertainty, Kim Bellware and Angie Orellana Hernandez, Washington Post, 5/29

As student-visa season heats up, the State Dept. freezes new interviews, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of higher Education, 5/28

Trump’s crackdown on international students is misguided and dangerous [COMMENTARY], Fernando M. Reimers, Times Higher Education, 5/28

Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil’s detention ruled likely unconstitutional, Susan Svrluga, Washington Post, 5/28

Trump v Harvard: why this battle will damage the US’s reputation globally [COMMENTARY], Thomas Gift, The Conversation, 5/27

What SEVP Revocation Would Mean for International Students at Harvard, Samuel A. Church, Cam N. Srivastava, and Grace E. Yoon, Harvard Crimson, 5/23

Latest scrutiny of foreign students focuses on OPT, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/21

The US is reinstating records for international students. For some, it’s too late, Makiya Seminera, Annie Ma, and Janie Har, Associated Press, 5/19

State and University Policies

Utah Lawmakers Flex Their Power Over Public Universities, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Education, 5/28

At Chapel Hill, Only Health-Sciences Professors Have Been Getting Tenure, Christa Dutton, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/27

Pasco-Hernando State College picks DeSantis ally as interim president, Ian Hodgson, Tampa Bay Times, 5/21

Facing Federal Uncertainty, Swarthmore Makes a Novel Plan: the 3-Month Budget, Christa Dutton, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/20

Waivers Let Some North Carolina Majors Keep ‘DEI’ Requirements, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 5/16

We Don’t Need More Administrators Inspecting Our Ideas [COMMENTARY], Nicolas Langlitz, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/15

Higher Education Responses

Statement on Academic Freedom and Harvard by Right-of-Center Scholars, Lawyers, and Former Government Officials, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/23

Supporting Our International Students and Scholars, President Alan M. Garber, Harvard University, 5/23

Student Expression

Hunger strike at Stanford enters its 11th day, Olivia Hebert, San Francisco Gate, 5/23

Student Graduation Speakers at NYU, George Washington Punished Over Pro-Palestine Speeches, Lex McMenamin, Teen Vogue, 5/23

The Campus-Protest Conundrum, Maya Stahl, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/19

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On May 22, 2025, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it was immediately revoking Harvard University’s Student Exchange and Visitor Program (SEVP) certification in retaliation for the university’s refusal to share student records. The announcement came after a disagreement between Harvard and the DHS over the legality of sharing the records.

On May 14, 2025, New York University (NYU) spokesperson John Beckman announced that the university would withhold the diploma of Logan Rozos, a student at the university’s Gallatin School, in connection with comments about the situation in Gaza that Rozos made during a graduation ceremony speech.

On April 8, 2025, the US administration froze more than $790 million in federal grants and contracts for Northwestern University (NU) on grounds that the university had allegedly failed to respond adequately to the administration’s unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism on campus.

On April 8, 2025, the US administration froze more than $1 billion in federal grants and contracts for Cornell University on the grounds that the university had allegedly failed to respond adequately to the administration’s unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism on campus.

On April 3, 2025, it was reported that the US administration intended to freeze $510 million in federal grants and contracts for Brown University on the grounds that the university had allegedly failed to respond adequately to the administration’s unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism on campus and the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

International Student Visas Revoked, Inside Higher Ed

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

New Insights into the Growing Number of Actions Against International Students and Scholars, NAFSA

Grant Watch, a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 5/16/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes reports that suggest a continuation of the second stage of government actions against US higher education.

As highlighted in the previous bulletin, the first stage (January to ~April) followed from the administration’s self-described “flood the zone” strategy: a torrent of unilateral, often extra-legal executive orders and agency actions affecting higher education issued with little apparent concern for resulting harms to ongoing research or the American public. This first stage triggered the kind of isolation and fear SAR has witnessed in higher education communities around the world facing threats from illiberal or authoritarian actors.

In the second stage (April to ?), the sector has begun to respond, including the “Call for Constructive Engagement” noted in the last bulletin (endorsed by leaders of more than 600 institutions); similar statements by current and former higher education leaders; evolving legal challenges to government excesses; and emerging counter-narratives demonstrating the harms to public health, economic opportunities, and American competitiveness and prosperity likely to result from recent and ongoing government actions. How long will stage 2 last? And what will stage 3 look like? We do not yet know.

It will depend in part on the administration, and whether it continues to favor unilateral actions and defy the courts, or instead switches to normal legislative and administrative avenues for advancing its policy objectives. The latter might still have devastating consequences, but these would at least not threaten rule of law and fundamental democratic freedoms.

It will depend on the courts, and whether they continue to defer to an administration offering scant legal justifications for its claims, or whether, as we have begun to see, judges increasingly insist on due process, evidence, and respect for constitutional limits.

It will depend on legislators, and whether they exercise oversight and restraining influence to protect institutions that are vital to the communities they represent.

Most importantly, it will depend on the higher education sector: whether emerging unity and mobilization continue and whether we can offer compelling counter-narratives to convince policy-makers and the American public of the importance of the higher education and research sector to America’s future strength, well-being, and standing in the world. Early signs show progress in this direction, but we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Federal Policies and Actions

Trump administration nixes another $450M of Harvard University’s grants, Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 5/13

Can Scientific Research Survive Without Federal Funding?, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 5/12

Here’s What Republicans’ Proposed College-Endowment Tax Could Look Like, Sarah Brown, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/10

The NIH Is Requiring Grantees to Follow Trump’s Anti-Trans Executive Order, Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/9

Education Dept. Cancels Fulbright-Hays Applications, at Least for Now, Jessice Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 5/9

The Pentagon’s Culture Wars Strike West Point, Greg Jaffe, New York Times, 5/8

How a Decades-Old Diversity Program Became Collateral Damage in Trump’s Anti-DEI Crusade, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/7

Documenting Trump’s ‘Arbitrary’ Cuts to Science, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 5/6

State and University Policies

IU Bloomington Asked Faculty Taking Buyouts to Sign NDAs, Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, 5/14

How One Ivy League University Has Avoided Trump’s Retribution So Far, Vimal Patel, The New York Times, 5/11

Did One of My Students Hate Me Enough to Lie to Get Me in Trouble?, Anna Peterson, New York Times, 5/7

Texas lawmakers moving to greatly increase control of state universities, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Washington Post, 5/6

Higher Education Responses

Launching MESA’s Academic Freedom Initiative, Task Force on Civil and Human Rights, Middle East Studies Association, 5/13

US researchers must stand up to protect freedoms, not just funding [COMMENTARY], Andrew M. Leifer, Andrea J. Liu, and Sidney R. Nagel, Nature, 5/13

US universities eye branch campuses as way to ‘survive Trump’, Patrick Jack, Times Higher Education, 5/13

Universities Sue NSF Over Indirect Research Cost Policy, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 5/7

Faculty Governance and the Fight for Public Higher Education [Commentary], Karma R. Chávez, Academe, Spring 2025: Trump 2.0

Academic Freedom, Democracy, and the Role of Faculty Unions [Commentary], Randi Weingarten, Academe, Spring 2025: Trump 2.0

Universities Deserve Special Standing [Commentary], Lee Bollinger, The Atlantic, 5/3

3 Big Questions at the Heart of Harvard’s Legal Battle With Trump, Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/2

Community Letter Reaffirming the Independence of Higher Education Governance: A Call to Action, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), 5/1

Immigration-Related Cases

2 ICE Student Detention Cases Resolved, in Different Ways, Susan H. Greenberg, Inside Higher Ed, 5/12

How a Georgetown scholar went from ‘quiet’ researcher to detainee, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post, 5/8

Student Expression

Undue Process: Students Studying at Columbia Library Were Suspended for Protest They Took No Part In, Meghnad Bose and Anna Oakes, The Intercept, 5/10

Hobbs signs bill making encampments illegal on university grounds, Howard Fischer, Arizona Daily Sun, 5/9

Facing New Protests and Political Pressure, Colleges Are Taking a Harder Line, Christa Dutton, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/8

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On April 5, 2025, the administrations of Notre Dame University’s Keough School of Global Affairs and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies canceled the keynote address of the Kroc Institute’s annual Student Peace Conference, which was scheduled to take place on April 11-12, 2025. The decision to cancel the address was related to the keynote speaker’s plans to discuss pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses.

On April 1, 2025, the US administration suspended $210 million in federal funding for Princeton University in apparent retaliation for the university’s alleged failure to respond adequately to the government’s unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism on campus.

On March 19, 2025, the US administration announced that it would freeze $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) due to the university’s decision to allow transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports.

On March 19, 2025, Tulane University’s Office of Student Conduct opened disciplinary investigations against seven students in connection with their attendance at an off-campus protest with an independent student group, the Together United Students for a Democratic Society (TUSDS).

On September 26, 2024, Maura Finkelstein, a tenured associate professor of anthropology, publicly announced that Muhlenberg College had fired her in May. According to Muhlenberg, the decision to terminate Finkelstein’s contract was made in response to a social media post that she shared that was critical of Zionism.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

International Student Visas Revoked, Inside Higher Ed

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

New Insights into the Growing Number of Actions Against International Students and Scholars, NAFSA

Grant Watch, a project of Noam Ross, Scott Delaney, Anthony Barente, and Emma Mairson

Resources

Communications Toolkit: Speak Up for Higher Education, National Education Association.

Digital Security Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

Legal Resources, Academic Freedom Field Guide, AAUP

MESA Advocacy Resource Center, Middle East Studies Association

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 5/2/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes reports which together may signal a new stage. Widespread, damaging government pressures on higher education communities continue, including worrying examples of state-level officials directing efforts to facilitate federal intrusions into the higher education sector (for example state university security offices facilitating ICE enforcement actions on campuses). There is no indication that these pressures will recede; rather the administration has signaled that new forms and waves of pressure may yet materialize.

At the same time, an increasing number of collective actions by higher education institutions, leaders, and faculties show that the sector is mobilizing against the danger of unrestrained state interference in core administrative and educational functions. Among these is a “Call for Constructive Engagement,” organized by American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, which as of this writing has been endorsed by the leaders of more than 550 institutions. It notes that the current pressures not only threaten the higher education sector but the health, prosperity, and future opportunities of the American public. This is supported by an increasing number of reports of the harmful consequences of arbitrary cuts to federally funded programs and research, including lives lost, diminished health outcomes, lower economic output, and lost jobs. Rather than the administration’s current intrusive and coercive methods, the statement urges a “productive partnership” between higher education and the government “in promoting the common good.”

Meanwhile legal challenges to many of the administration’s assaults on higher education communities are slowly moving forward, with an emphasis on due process and mitigating harms. Notable is the court-ordered release this week of Mohsen Mahdawi, an undergraduate student and lawful US permanent resident who was detained in retaliation for nonviolent free expression. He is the first of the several scholars or students detained for their views to be released pending further proceedings. The government has also restored the student visa registrations for thousands of foreign students studying in the US, registrations it had previously cancelled, but indicated that deportation actions will continue.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Trump’s 100-Day War on Higher Ed, Liam Knox and Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 4/30

Tenured professors at Harvard pledge 10 percent of pay to fight for ‘academic freedom’, Tonya Analez, Boston Globe, 4/30

In Indiana, Last-Minute Additions to the Budget Take Aim at Higher Ed, Christa Dutton, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/29

More Florida Colleges Sign ICE Agreements, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 4/29

‘It’s Punishment for the Sake of Punishment’: Under Trump, higher education confronts a new legal landscape., Katherine Mangan and Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/28

More and More Faculty Groups Want Their Colleges to Stand Together Against Trump, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/28

A Life-Changing Scientific Study Ended by the Trump Administration, Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker, 4/28

How a Trump administration crackdown on foreign students unraveled, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Politico, 4/25

From Book Bans to Canceled Lectures, the Naval Academy Is Bending to Trump, John Ismay, New York Times, 4/24

To The Researchers, Educators, And Academics Of The United States Of America: Your Work Is Needed Now More Than Ever [STATEMENT], United Science Alliance

Big Ten university faculties push for defense compact against Trump, Ben Brasch and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Washington Post, 4/23

Trump’s Latest Executive Orders Target Accreditation, Foreign Gifts, Jessica Blake and Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Education, 4/23

Advancing Our Values in Today’s Policy Environment, President Jonathan Alger, American University, 4/23

BU professor enters 9th day of hunger strike over free speech, detained students, Beth Treffeisen, Boston.com, 4/23

Harvard Plans to Use Trump’s Haste Against Him as It Fights Funding Cut, Alan Blinder and Michael C. Bender, New York Times, 4/22

The Precedent Higher Ed Can’t Afford to Set [COMMENTARY], Ross Mugler, Inside Higher Ed, 4/22

National Science Foundation Terminates Hundreds of Active Research Awards, Katrina Miller and Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 4/22

A Call for Constructive Engagement [STATEMENT], American Association of Colleges and Universities, 4/22

What Is SEVIS, and How Is the Government Using It to Go After International Students?, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, 4/22

What We’ve Learned So Far From Tracking Student Visa Data, Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, 4/21

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On April 15, 2025, the United States Naval Academy (USNA) canceled a lecture by Ryan Holiday, an author who has become known for his writings on stoicism. The cancellation occurred an hour before the lecture was scheduled to take place, and the decision to cancel the lecture was apparently related to concerns that some of the lecture’s material would trigger pressures on the university from the United States government.

On April 14, 2025, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Mohsen Mahdawi, a undergraduate philosophy major at Columbia University and lawful permanent resident of the United States (aka a green card holder), in apparent retaliation for his pro-Palestinian student expression.

From March 31 to April 1, 2025, Naval officials purged 381 books deemed to be associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the Nimitz Library collection at the US Naval Academy (USNA). The removal was ordered by the office of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

On March 19, 2025, the United States Naval Academy (USNA) announced that it was canceling its annual Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference (NAFAC) that was scheduled to take place on April 7-11, 2025. The cancellation was apparently related to concerns that some of the material featured at the conference might trigger pressures on the university from the United States government.

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

International Student Visas Revoked, Inside Higher Ed

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

New Insights into the Growing Number of Actions Against International Students and Scholars, NAFSA

Events

Threats to Free Speech and Academic Freedom on Campus | Webinar, American Bar Association | May 5, 2025, 12PM EST

Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters by Eve Darian-Smith | Book Launch | May 13, 6PM EST

Opportunities

The Emergency Defense of US Universities (EDU) Coalition is a voluntary, nongovernmental, nonpartisan, nonprofit group of US-based individuals and organizations committed to upholding the core values of quality, evidence-based, inclusive higher education. Members of the US higher education community are invited to use this general interest form to (1) indicate interest in receiving messages concerning the EDU coalition, including links to information-sharing calls; (2) suggest other persons or groups that should be invited to participate; and (3) to share comments, suggestions, or resources.

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 4/18/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes reports of continuing and widespread government pressures on higher education communities. These include continuing attempts to detain and deport university students and scholars, in most cases apparently due to their nonviolent expression of views disfavored by the state, and in some cases in possible violation of law or court orders. These also include continued targeting of individual higher education institutions with threats of government investigations, withholding or cancellation of grants and contracts, and unilateral demands for external control over hiring, admissions, research and teaching content, and administration.

These actions severely undermine academic freedom and university autonomy and threaten the near- and long-term health of America’s higher education sector, with damaging results for the American public. Insofar as these actions are being taken outside of normal legislative or regulatory pathways that are otherwise available to the government to implement any legitimate policy objectives, they seem intended to force acquiescence of university leadership to unreasonable and extra-legal government demands. As such they threaten not only higher education, but all private entities and individuals who might find themselves similarly at risk from unrestrained state action.

Also in this issue, however, are reports of higher education institutions, leaders, and faculties standing up for the independence, integrity, and core values of the higher education space. These include, notably, reports of Harvard University – a private university, the oldest in the country, and among the most prominent in the world – stating that it will not “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” noting that neither Harvard “nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” These perfectly ordinary statements in any other time are made profound by the extraordinary threats posed by the government’s overreach. Similar ordinary but profoundly important statements have begun to be shared by an increasing number of higher education institutions, leaders, and faculties across the country, not in opposition to any politician, party, or policy, but standing up for core values that make American higher education great. SAR hopes and expects these voices to continue to build, with the primary purpose of engaging with the American people on how the current threats to today’s scholars and students threaten the public, too.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Academic Freedom in Peril, David Cole, New York Review of Books, 4/24 edition

Trump Administration Downplays Impact of Deleting International Students From Key Database, Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Education, 4/16

Harvard’s defiance of Trump’s ‘authoritarian incursion’ supported by 60 past and present college and university presidents, Former and current college and university presidents, Fortune, 4/15

As Trump Freezes Billions in Funding, Harvard Steels Itself for a Fight, Megan Zahneis, Sarah Brown, and Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/14

Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Universities, Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder, and Jonathan Swan, New York Times, 4/14

The Promise of American Higher Education, President Alan M. Garber, Harvard University, 4/14

Further responses to federal actions, President Sally Kornbluth, MIT, 4/14

Harvard AAUP Sues Trump Administration To Stop $9 Billion Review of Harvard’s Federal Funding, William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus, The Harvard Crimson, 4/12

The Feds Want to Cement Change at Columbia With a Consent Decree. How Would That Work?, Dan Bauman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/11

All of Columbia’s NIH Funding Is Apparently Frozen. Here’s What That Looks Like for One Researcher., Maddie Khaw, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/11

College Presidents Like Me Must Stand Up Against Campus Deportations [Commentary], Michael Roth, US News, 4/11

Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library?, John Ismay, New York Times, 4/11

Guidance for international students on US’s hostile regime, Nathan Greenfield, University World News, 4/11

The Ripple Effects of Draining the Ph.D. Pool, Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, 4/11

Fearing paper on evolution might get them deported, scientists withdrew it, Mark Johnson, Washington Post, 4/10

Community Colleges Make Difficult Calls and Cuts Under Trump, Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Education, 4/10

U.S. for Success Coalition: Targeting International Students Undermines U.S. Economic Strength and Global Competitiveness, Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, 4/10

Eighty-Six Institutions and Associations Lead the Presidents’ Alliance’s Filing of Amicus Brief Challenging Visa Revocations and Detentions, Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, 4/9

Universities in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union thought giving in to government demands would save their independence [Commentary], Iveta Silova, The Conversation, 4/9

The University President Willing to Fight Trump [Interview], New York Times: The Daily, 4/9

How conservatives are using Columbia as a ‘test case’ to enforce Trump’s agenda, Susan Svrluga and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Washington Post, 4/8

Texas universities navigate federal crackdown on DEI policies, Laura Onyeneho, The Defender, 4/8

A University President Makes a Case Against Cowardice [Interview], Molly Fischer, The New Yorker, 4/3

University Declaration for Rümeysa Öztürk, Tufts University Statement, Sunil Kumar, 4/2

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

SAR’s submission on the United States to the UN Universal Periodic Review includes monitoring incidents in the United States through April 15, 2025

On April 14, 2025, the US administration announced that it would freeze $2 billion in federal grants and contracts for Harvard University in retaliation for the university’s failure to accede to unsubstantiated allegations regarding its efforts to combat antisemitism and to a range of demands for government control over teaching, hiring, admissions, campus policies, and operations.

On April 4, 2025, Idaho’s governor signed into law a bill banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming at the state’s public higher education institutions. The law uses vague and undefined terms that conflate discriminatory activity, which is already prohibited by law, with nondiscriminatory research, teaching, or discussion of contested topics.

On March 28, 2025, the Ohio governor signed into law a bill that weakens faculty protections, including tenure and faculty bargaining rights, and bans diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming at the state’s public higher education institutions.

On March 27, 2025, Kentucky’s state legislature voted into law two bills: one that bans diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming at the states’ public higher education institutions, and another weakening tenure protections for faculty members.

On March 18, 2025, New York University (NYU) canceled a lecture by Joanne Liu, a pediatric emergency physician at Sainte-Justine Hospital and professor at McGill University’s School of Population and Global Health. Liu was scheduled to give the lecture the following day at NYU Langone Health, the university’s medical center. The decision to cancel the lecture was apparently related to concerns that some of the lecture’s material would trigger pressures on the university from the United States government.

On March 12, 2025, New College of Florida fired Kevin Wang, an adjunct professor of Chinese language and culture, citing a state law barring public universities from hiring staff and faculty from several “countries of concern.”

Tracking
Efforts to compile or track the number, types, or scope of threats to US higher education

International Student Visas Revoked, Inside Higher Ed

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda, Chronicle of Higher Education

Events

Universities Under Attack | Webinar, The New School | May 1, 2025, 5PM EST

Threats to Free Speech and Academic Freedom on Campus | Webinar, American Bar Association | May 5, 2025, 12PM EST

Opportunities

The Emergency Defense of US Universities (EDU) Coalition is a voluntary, nongovernmental, nonpartisan, nonprofit group of US-based individuals and organizations committed to upholding the core values of quality, evidence-based, inclusive higher education. Members of the US higher education community are invited to use this general interest form to (1) indicate interest in receiving messages concerning the EDU coalition, including links to information-sharing calls; (2) suggest other persons or groups that should be invited to participate; and (3) to share comments, suggestions, or resources.

SAR and the SAR US Section Steering Committee (representing all US SAR member institutions) invite you to save the date for the next SAR US Section General Assembly (GA), to be held October 9-10, 2025 at New York University. The GA is the annual meeting for US members and prospective member institutions to share experience and explore collective responses. This year’s GA will be especially important. You may also sign up here to receive updates on the GA as they become available.

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 4/4/25

This issue of the US bulletin includes concerning reports of arrest, detention, and attempted deportation without due legal process of US-based, non-citizen scholars and students.

In all these cases, the individuals detained were in the US on valid visas or long-term residence permits. None of the detained individuals was charged with violating the terms of their visas or any other crime. Government officials have indicated that they cancelled or revoked the visas and permits on the sole authority of executive officials, without advance notice and without any hearings or opportunity to contest the alleged factual basis, in some cases relying on a rarely used law from 1798 intended for wartime enemies. The government’s failure to provide evidence of wrongdoing coupled with statements from public officials condemning the detainees for their publicly expressed opinions – including in one case an op ed in a campus newspaper – strongly suggests that these individuals were targeted not because they pose a threat to public safety, but merely because the government does not like their views.

Equally concerning is the manner in which the government has carried out the arrests. These are individuals with strong and visible ties to their academic communities. But rather than following normal procedures of notifying their campuses and ordering them to appear and surrender themselves peacefully, law enforcement officials have alternatively and at times without uniforms or other indicia of formal authority, attempted to arrest them on public streets, from university housing, and on university campuses. They then shuttled those detained between multiple sites, often at night, in some cases over a thousand miles away, in an apparent attempt to frustrate efforts by family and legal counsel to use normal judicial procedures to challenge their arrests.

These incidents and the manner in which they have been carried out are chilling, all the more so because the administration says it has already revoked over 300 student visas. These actions severely undermine academic freedom and university autonomy, and seem intended to instill fear into anyone on a university campus whose views the government may not like. Even more, they undermine basic rights of all persons in the US – citizens and non-citizens alike – to freedom of opinion, to freedom of speech, and to freedom from the fear that the government will try to disappear them.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

Smashing the Student Visa System, Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, 4/3

Latitudes: Trump administration eyes colleges’ ability to enroll foreign students, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/2

Congress Wrote a Deportation Law to Be Used ‘Sparingly.’ Trump Has Other Ideas., Charlie Savage, New York Times, 4/1

Trump administration suspends dozens of grants to Princeton, Susan Svrluga, Washington Post, 4/1

A Mysterious Group Says Its Mission Is to Expose Antisemitic Students, Stephanie Saul, New York Times, 4/1

Students Yelled at Me. I’m Fine. [Commentary], Xochitl Gonzalez, The Atlantic, 4/1

Letter from Members of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine [Public Statement], 3/31

Trump education moves: Where the legal challenges stand, Lexi Lonas Cochran and Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, 3/31

Trump Opens Review of Harvard’s Grants and Contracts, Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, 3/31

I’m Cornell’s President. We’re Not Afraid of Debate and Dissent. [Commentary], Michael I. Kotlikoff, New York Times, 3/31

ICE Revoking Students’ Immigration Statuses Without Their or the University’s Knowledge, Prem Thakker, Zeteo, 3/29

This Time, Higher Ed’s Resistance to Trump is Being Led by Its Associations, Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/26

New trend under Gov. DeSantis: Politicians appointed as Florida university presidents, Tarah Jean, The Gainesville Sun, 3/26

It is too soon to create positions for émigré US academics [Commentary], Luc Sels, Times Higher Education, 3/25

Professors Sue Trump Administration Over Arrests of Campus Protesters, Sharon Otterman, The New York Times, 3/25

‘It Is Remarkable How Quickly the Chill Has Descended’ [Commentary], Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/25

Is It That Easy for Trump to Revoke Visas?, Alissa Gary, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/25

New Trump demand to colleges: Name protesters — and their nationalities, Laura Meckler, Washington Post, 3/24

Congress Eyes More Control Over Colleges, Jessica Black, Inside Higher Ed, 3/21

Shared Governance Is Crumbling [Commentary], Jeffrey Sachs and Jonathan Friedman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/20

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On March 26, 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security detained Rümeysa Öztürk, a third-year doctoral student in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in apparent retaliation for an opinion piece that she published in the Tufts student newspaper in March 2024.

On March 8, 2025, an US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official signed an administrative arrest warrant for Yunseo Chung, an undergraduate student at Columbia University (CU) and lawful permanent resident of the United States (i.e. a green card holder), in apparent retaliation for her pro-Palestinian student activism. On March 10, federal law enforcement agents informed Chung’s lawyer that her green card was being revoked.

On March 17, 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security detained Badar Khan Suri, a professor and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (SFS), in apparent retaliation for unspecified free expression activities.

On March 9, 2025, US border agents denied a French researcher working for France’s National Center for Scientific Research entry to the United States and deported him back to France.

On March 4, 2025, Wyoming’s governor signed into law a bill that restricts classroom instruction at the state’s higher education institutions by barring governmental entities from engaging in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Opportunities

Message from SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn, 3/21/25

Scholars at Risk (SAR) was established to respond to threats to higher education around the world. Over 25 years, SAR network members have helped thousands of scholars and documented many hundreds of attacks on higher education in over 100 countries.

Today, US higher education is experiencing unprecedented pressures on university admissions, hiring, research and teaching content, departmental structures, policies on speech, disciplinary policies and sanctions, and finances. We know from history and our work that such pressures are intended to trigger fear and isolation in order to secure acquiescence. We also know that the most effective way to defend higher education is to resist these impulses by working together, sharing information, and standing up for core higher education values. This is what we will continue to do.

Toward that end, SAR will be issuing this bi-monthly US bulletin augmenting our long-standing Academic Freedom Media Review (AFMR), compiling relevant US-focused media, public writings, events, and updates. You can subscribe to receive the US bulletin here. (You can subscribe to receive the global AFMR here.)

In the coming weeks and months, SAR will be offering webinars and materials for network members and partners, in the US and abroad. Some will be focused on information-sharing and updates. Others will include reports from key experts, stakeholders, and emerging working groups. You can sign up here [link] to receive invitations to these sessions. We invite you to share with us any information or concerns that might be included in these efforts. We also invite you to share this message and links with others at your institution or elsewhere who might be interested in this information.

Thank you for your continuing support, especially at this time, for our shared work protecting scholars and everyone’s freedom to think, question, and share ideas.

Rob Quinn
Executive Director

Media

A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia, Eugene Volokh, Michael C. Dorf, David Cole, and 15 other scholars, New York Review of Books, 3/20

White House Plans to Pause $175 Million for Penn Over Transgender Policy, Alan Blinder and Michael C. Bender, New York Times, 3/19

Moody’s Downgrades Sector Outlook to Negative, Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, 3/19

The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia [COMMENTARY], Christopher L. Eisgruber, The Atlantic, 3/19

Michael Roth: No Time for Appeasement [COMMENTARY], To the Contrary with Charlie Sykes, 3/18

International Enrollment’s Precarious Moment, Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, 3/17

Rising to the Occasion: Important Statements and Open Letters, Jennifer Ruth, Academe Blog, 3/17: Letters from the AAUP and other campus unions urging their university administrations to defend their institutions against the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education

Annotation of USG Letter to Columbia, Rob Quinn, LinkedIn, 3/17

How a Columbia Student Fled to Canada After ICE Came Looking for Her, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Hamed Aleaziz, New York Times, 3/15

Education Department Investigates Dozens of Colleges for Discrimination, Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, 3/15

‘I Want to Stand Up for Higher Ed’: Protesters Rally Against Education Dept. Cuts, Christa Dutton, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/14

GU Law Community Responds to US Attorney’s Anti-DEI Letter, Ruth Abramovitz, The Hoya, 3/14

Trump administration accused of ‘blatant foreign interference’ in Australian universities over questionnaire on DEI and gender, Caitlin Cassidy, The Guardian, 3/14

Kentucky lawmakers vote to ban DEI spending at public colleges, Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 3/13

Johns Hopkins University to slash 2,000 jobs after $800M in federal cuts, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post, 3/13

Trump Demands Major Changes in Columbia Discipline and Admissions Rules, Katherine Rosman, New York Times, 3/13

Monitoring Incidents
Read the full Academic Freedom Monitoring Report here.

On March 8, 2025, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and lawful permanent resident of the United States (i.e. a green card holder), in apparent retaliation for his pro-Palestinian student activism. The ICE agents reportedly informed Khalil that his green card was being revoked.

On March 7, 2025, the US departments of Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (DHHS), and Education (DOE), together with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) notified Columbia University of the impending cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts in response to the university’s allegedly inadequate efforts to combat antisemitism.

On February 25, 2025, New York state governor Kathy Hochul directed Hunter College, which is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, to remove a job posting for a professor of Palestinian Studies. Hunter College complied a few hours later.

Reports

Academic Freedom Index Update 2025: “The longer-term build-up of restrictive higher education policies at state level, together with the more recent, unprecedented attack on free science at federal level, gives rise to serious concern regarding the future of academic freedom in the United States.

Media Federal Policies and Actions

Tracking

Resources

Opportunities

Media Federal Policies and Actions

AFMP Incidents

Tracking

Resources

Opportunities

Media

AFMP Incidents

Tracking

Resources

Opportunities

Media
Federal Policies and Actions

Media
Federal Policies and Actions