RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://lite.aol.com/news/story/0001/20250722/635834c9e09e4361f319257ab9fa3724

Ken Beckley never went to Harvard, but he has been wearing a crimson Harvard cap in a show of solidarity. As he sees it, the Trump administration’s attacks on the school echo a case of government overreach at his own alma mater, Indiana University.

Beckley, a former head of the school’s alumni association, rallied fellow graduates this spring in an unsuccessful effort to stop Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, from removing three alumni-elected members from Indiana University’s Board of Trustees and handpicking their replacements.

No government effort to influence a university — private or public — has gotten more attention than the clash at Harvard, where the Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding as it seeks a series of policy changes. But far beyond the Ivy League, Republican officials are targeting public universities in several states with efforts seeking similar ends.

“What’s happened nationally is now affecting Indiana,” said Beckley, who bought Harvard caps in bulk and passes them out to friends.

Officials in conservative states took aim at higher education before President Donald Trump began his second term, driven in part by the belief that colleges are out of touch — too liberal and loading up students with too much debt. The first efforts focused on critical race theory, an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation’s institutions, and then on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Since Trump took office, officials in states including Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Iowa and Idaho increasingly have focused on university governance — rules for who picks university presidents and boards and how much control they exert over curriculums and faculty tenure.

As at Harvard, which Trump has decried as overly influenced by liberal thinking, those state officials have sought to reduce the power of faculty members and students.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbia-university-disciplines-70-students-seeks-deal-trump/story?id=123964822

Columbia University announced on Tuesday that it is disciplining more than 70 students over anti-Israel protests that took over Butler Library on the New York City campus earlier this year and during Alumni Weekend last spring.

The disciplinary action came as the university seeks to work with the Trump administration, which in March accused the school of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

Most of the disciplined students received two-year suspensions or expulsions in the first punishments meted out by the university’s Provost’s Office. The Trump administration is withholding $400 million in federal grants from the university.

Columbia and the administration have been trying to work out a deal to restore the funding.

“Our institution must focus on delivering on its academic mission for our community. And to create a thriving academic community, there must be respect for each other and the institution’s fundamental work, policies, and rules,” the university’s statement said. “Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and Rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences.”

The University Judicial Board (UJB), which was placed under the Provost Office in March, determined the findings and disciplined the students. The UJB panel is comprised of professors and administrators who, the university said, “worked diligently over the summer to offer an outcome for each individual based on the findings of their case and prior disciplinary outcomes.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-administration-downsizes-the-extravagant-education-department/

The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to proceed with its downsizing of the U.S. Education Department while litigation on the matter continues in the lower courts. The Supreme Court’s emergency order set aside, at least temporarily, a Biden-appointed federal district court judge’s ruling that had reinstated terminated employees at the department.

The Trump administration has announced the termination of more than 1,300 Education Department workers out of a total of about 4,400, as part of a reduction in force to promote maximum efficiency. After also taking into account some probationary workers who have been let go and employees who have accepted the administration’s offer to resign, about one half the size of the Education Department’s workforce prior to President Trump’s second term still remain.

Judge Myong J. Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, who had issued the reinstatement order, based his decision on the premise that only Congress can legally shut down or eliminate a congressionally-created department, not the executive branch unilaterally. But that is not what happened here.

Downsizing, which still leaves about half of the total number of pre-Trump 2.0 employees in place, is hardly tantamount to shutting down the Education Department altogether. Whether the Trump administration intends in the future, and is authorized, to totally abolish the Education Department and leave its discretionary functions to the states, while still performing its statutorily mandated functions elsewhere in the executive branch, is not relevant to this downsizing case.

The Education Department’s net outlays in fiscal year 2024 totaled $267.9 billion, nearly four percent of total outlays by the federal government. Since 1980, when the Department of Education was established, this department’s spending has increased 371.6% in comparison to an increase of 193.7% in overall federal spending during the same period.