However, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states believe that the office responsible for curating a rich, multi-dimensional campus is “fomenting radical and toxic divisions”: the office of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Conservative think tanks Manhattan Institute and Goldwater Institute have helped shape GOP lawmakers’ rationale against DEI. Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at Manhattan Institute, helped shape Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ catalyzing piece of legislation against Critical Race Theory. He has since advised DeSantis through his dismantling of DEI across Florida’s state institutions.

As the ire grows against DEI and Critical Race Theory, which lawmakers usually associate with DEI for its capacity to “indoctrinate” students, opposing leaders have found different strategies to end its programming in higher education.

Most recently, Wisconsin lawmakers and the University of Arkansas are one legislative body and school leader to target DEI programs.

More from UB: Nearly 2,000 colleges aren’t requiring SAT or ACT scores for fall 2023

School strategies to end DEI

DEI office closure

On Wednesday, Chancellor Charles Robinson announced in an email that the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, would dissolve the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Staff members will be reassigned to different departments related to student success, student affairs, human resources and others with no layoffs planned.

Faculty Senate Chair Stephen Caldwell believes the campus is in a “post-DEI environment” that doesn’t require the values of DEI to be structured in a single office. Similarly, Robinson maintains the school has affirmed that equal opportunity, access and belonging are critical to our land-grant mission and university values,” according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The move most likely stems from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ executive order that “prohibits indoctrination and critical race theory in schools.”

Similarly, the private institution New College of Florida abolished its Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence and fired its top officer.

State strategies

Prohibit public institutions from using state, federal dollars on DEI initiatives

This strategy is the most popular DEI lawmakers use against DEI and may be the most effective. This strategy prohibits public colleges and universities from funding its programming whatsoever, suffocating it in the process. At least six states have proposed this legislation, with varying results.

• Arizona
  • Lost in the House after passing in the Senate.
•  Florida
  • Signed into law by Ron DeSantis
• Iowa
  • House bill referred to education committee as of May 4
• Kansas
  • Referred to appropriations committee as of March 23
• Oklahoma
  • Senate bill read on May 18
• Utah
  • Failed to pass

Order the closure of DEI offices

Texas became the second state behind Florida to dismantle DEI at the state level successfully. However, Gov. Greg Abbott’s signed bill forthrightly refuses public institutions from establishing or maintaining a DEI office instead of targeting their financial appropriations.

Nebraska is the only other state to try this method. However, lawmakers soon molded it into a study researching the benefits of DEI programs in higher education.

Slash schools’ DEI budget

Wisconsin’s top Republicans are looking to cut the University of Wisconsin system’s DEI budget by more than $32 million, according to CBS 58. They devised this specific cut after reviewing a public records request listing all DEI staff positions. With UW’s system spending $16 million a year on DEI, the state’s 2023-25 biennium budget will effectively kill all funding and appropriate it elsewhere.

​​”The university has gone from being an institute of higher education to an institute of indoctrination,” Senator Robin Vos said, according to The Center Square. “If they want to increase their funding, they have to show they can prioritize things to grow the economy, not grow the racial divide.”

The proposed state budget cut would affect 13 universities across the UW system.

The post 4 ways states and schools choose to dismantle DEI offices appeared first on University Business.

While South Carolina’s “Cancelling Professor Tenure Act” bill has stalled and Iowa’s House File 49 died in January of this year, Texas’s Senate has approved axing tenure, and a North Carolina bill has recently hit the legislative floor. Similarly, Florida and Ohio’s respective bills are steadily moving through the state House and Senate.

It isn’t just politicians who have a problem with professor tenure. Some institutions don’t want to wait for statewide policies to begin cleaning house.

Here is an update of states and schools that have recently put tenure on the chopping block.

More from UB: Temple University leadership is under fire yet again for these 3 reasons

State legislation

Texas

The Texas Senate passed a bill 18-11 formally discontinuing granting tenure to employees on April 20. One Democrat favored the bill.

“Tenured university professors are the only people in our society that have the guarantee of a job. Over the past year, it has become abundantly clear that some tenured faculty at Texas universities feel immune to oversight from the legislature and their respective board of regents,” said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. “These professors claim ‘academic freedom’ and hide behind their tenure to continue blatantly advancing their agenda of societal division.”

However, Patrick’s fervor may be cooled at the House, according to the Texas Tribune.

North Carolina

Republican-sponsored House Bill 715, dubbed the “Higher Education Modernization & Affordability Act,” seeks to eliminate North Carolina’s current tenure program and replace it with a contract program, according to WRAL News. It was filed on April 18.

The contracts can only last up to four years, though professors could be fired, suspended or demoted for “incompetence, neglect of duty, serious misconduct, unsatisfactory performance, institutional financial exigency,” among other reasons.

Individual Colleges

New College of Florida

Due to “a renewed focus on ensuring the college is moving towards a more traditional liberal arts institution,” interim president Richard Corcoran denied five professors of tenure on April 26. The school’s board members denied tenure for all five on similar 6-4 votes. One board member was so frustrated after the meeting he resigned from the board quickly after the meeting concluded, according to AP News.

Emporia State University – Kansas

What was originally deemed as a financial decision, Emporia State University is now facing fiery pushback from AAUP for firing at least 30 professors and rationalizing it as a temporary “COVID-related workforce management policy.” AAUP’s statement on the Kansas school was publicly released on May 1.

The AAUP is suspicious about President Ken Hush’s motives. The association found that in the same year he authorized the layoffs, Hush also green-lit $1,000 bonuses to all employees. Additionally, the fiscal 2022 budget included $10 million in one-time federal pandemic aid money, which is specifically authorized to support all essential institutional costs.

The post Tenure takedown: What schools—and states—have recently turned against it? appeared first on University Business.

“This destructive ideology is grounded in misrepresentations of our country’s history and its role in the world,” Trump’s 2020 executive order reads. “Although presented as new and revolutionary, they resurrect the discredited notions of the nineteenth century’s apologists for slavery who, like President Lincoln’s rival Stephen A. Douglas, maintained that our government “was made on the white basis” “by white men, for the benefit of white men.'”

Now, researchers are pointing to the impact such restrictive legislation has had on K12 and higher education.

A new report by CRT Forward, an initiative from the University of California Los Angeles School of Law Critical Race Studies Program, reveals some of the most prominent trends that came about over the last two years of what they call “the crusade against CRT.”

Let’s take a detailed look at these five trends:

1. The Executive Order’s long-lasting legacy: Though it was rescinded just a few months after it was released, its language continues to exist in most forms of anti-CRT legislation. Of the 563 anti-CRT measures introduced between Jan. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2022, 41% seek to regulate one form of subject matter for being a “divisive concept.” In addition, one-third ban instruction of divisive concepts that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex,” the report reads.
2. Most states have adopted at least one anti-CRT measure: As of Dec. 31, 2022, 28 states have incorporated at least one anti-CRT law at the state level. 16 of the 28 have adopted specific anti-CRT legislation.
3. These measures heavily focus on K12 schools, colleges and universities: K12 and higher ed have received the brunt of the crusade, according to the report. 91% of all introduced measures (513) and 94% of all those enacted (226 of 241) target K12 education. However, its impact on higher ed is much less as only 20% of introduced measures and 12% of those enacted target such institutions.
4. Measures against K12 schools restrict curriculum and classroom lessons: 73% of the 513 introduced measures regulate classroom teaching and 75% regulate curricular materials, the report reads. In fact, most of them regulate both. Furthermore, 147 of the 513 introduced measures require school districts to allow parents to surveil curriculum. 28% of these proposed measures have been adopted.
5. One-third of introduced state legislation threatens to withhold funding if schools violate these laws: Teachers, schools and districts are walking on eggshells knowing of the consequences associated with violating anti-CRT legislation. In fact, 14% of the proposed state legislative measures allow for individual citizens to sue district officials and teachers for “alleged noncompliance.”

“The findings in this report suggest that the anti-‘CRT’ movement is not stagnating; indeed, government officials at all levels are introducing an equal or greater number of measures in 2023 as they did in 2021 or 2022,” the report reads. “The CRT Forward Tracking Project will continue to compile, track and analyze these efforts to aid researchers, advocates and activists in resisting this current attack.”

More from UB: Bob Jones University is imploding. What happened?

The post ‘The anti-CRT crusade’: 5 trends that point to its impact on education in 2023 appeared first on University Business.

At least 25 governors have banned TikTok on state devices, and many of the state’s colleges and universities were quick to ban it from their school-issued devices as well, including campus Wi-Fi. However, students are still allowed to use the app on personal devices using their own data.

Following Florida’s TikTok ban across its public universities, at least five states have issued similar restrictions, whether for state colleges or universities—or both. Tennessee is about to make it six, pending the signature of the governor.

More from UB: Despite security concerns on the part of schools, students still lean on TikTok

Alabama

• Dec. 21, 2022 – Auburn University
• Jan. 20 – University of North Alabama

Arkansas

• Jan. 18 – Arkansas State University
• Jan. 18 – Arkansas Tech University
• Jan. 24 – University of Arkansas System

Florida

April 7 – The State University System of Florida Board of Governors unanimously approved the app’s ban across its 12 public university campuses.

Georgia

Dec. 20, 2022 – The University System of Georgia banned its use on school-owned phones, laptops and Wi-Fi across its 26 public colleges and universities, following the lead of Gov. Brian Kemp separately banning TikTok on all government devices.

Idaho

• Dec. 19, 2022 – Boise State University
• Dec. 20, 2022 – Idaho State University
• Dec. 21, 2022 – University of Idaho

Iowa

Dec. 15, 2022 – The Iowa Board of Regents directed a statewide public university ban.

• University of Iowa
• Iowa State University
• University of Northern Iowa

Maryland

Dec. 21, 2022 – Morgan State University

Montana

Jan. 15 – The Montana University system banned TikTok across the school’s 16 public colleges and universities.

Mississippi

• Jan. 26 – University of Southern Mississippi
• Feb. 2 – University of Mississippi

Oklahoma

• Dec. 9, 2022 – Northwestern State University
• Dec. 16, 2022 – University of Central Oklahoma
• Dec. 20, 2022 – University of Oklahoma
• Dec. 21, 2022 – Oklahoma State University
• Dec. 23, 2022 – Langston University

South Dakota

Dec. 8, 2022 – The South Dakota Board of Regents banned TikTok across its public university system, affecting these six schools:

• Black Hills State University
• University of South Dakota
• Northern State University
• Dakota State University
• South Dakota State University
• South Dakota Mines

Tennessee

March 23 – A bill passed by the House of Representatives and Senate states that any of Tennessee’s public postsecondary institutions providing internet access cannot allow individuals to access “a social media platform using the institution’s network if the platform is operated or hosted by a company based in the People’s Republic of China,” according to WBIR.

SB 0834 is expected to be signed into law by Tennessee’s governor.

Texas

• Dec. 9, 2022 – University of Houston System
• Dec. 12, 2022 – Texas Tech University System
• Dec. 13, 2022 – West Texas A&M University
• Dec. 21, 2022 – University of Texas – Dallas
• Jan. 6 – Lamar University
• Jan. 17 – University of Houston – Downtown
• Jan. 17 – University of North Texas
• Jan. 17 – University of Texas – Arlington
• Jan. 17 – University of Texas – Austin
• Jan. 17 – University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
• Jan 17. – University of Texas – San Antonio
• Jan. 17 – Texas A&M University
• Jan. 26 – McLennan Community College System
• Jan. 26 – Temple College
• Feb. 11 – Laredo College

The post TikTok tracker: What colleges—or entire states—have banned the popular app? appeared first on University Business.

“The Stop Woke Act requires discriminatory censorship of ideas in Florida’s classrooms and workplaces,” ACLU senior staff attorney Leah Watson said, according to NBC affiliate WPTV-TV. “Today’s order by the 11th Circuit protects students and educators pursuing their right to learn in classrooms.”

Two lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) against House Bill 7 led to Walker’s hearing. The bill aimed to curb how faculty and staff could speak about color, race, gender and identity to prevent inflicting “guilt, shame, anguish or any or any other form of psychological distress.” Race seemed the driving motivator of the bill, its backers were especially concerned about how educators spoke about “white privilege.”. Referencing George Orwell’s “1984” and condemning the bill as “positively dystopian” Walker issued the injunction.

DeSantis’ administration filed an appeal to Walker’s decision and requested the bill be enforced until the court came to a decision. Judges on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the stay, blocking key parts of HB7 that directly affected higher education.

“It is a victory for the months it takes until the 11th Circuit decides the appeal, students and educators in higher ed will be safe from the discriminatory provisions,” Watson said.

Regardless of the court’s final decision on the appeal, the state’s antagonization of higher education through bills like the “Stop WOKE Act” and others has sent chills across Florida’s higher education system. Last Wednesday, administration at one Florida university terminated a professor’s contract shortly after placing him on review “due to concerns he was indoctrinating students” when a parent complained about a racial justice unit in his English class.

“I have been terminated, basically fired. I received my last paycheck yesterday, I am no longer allowed on campus,” Joeckel said, according to WPBF. “Over something that never had been a concern for 12 years. So, I feel very much disrespected.”

Sam Joeckel had been teaching at Palm Beach Atlantic University for 21 years.

DeSantis’ legislation has also sparked a fire across the country’s higher education landscape. Conservative congressmen in other states have recently proposed similar legislation borrowing heavily from the blueprint DeSantis and his team initiated.

The post DeSantis’ flagship bill against faculty not dead despite new block appeared first on University Business.

The administration is poising the Department of Education to support students’ and alumni’s financial obligations, build more equitable access to college, and address the student mental health crisis. The $90 billion runway is a $10.8 billion increase from its current level.

Lifting learners’ financial burden

Biden and co. proposed a $2.7 billion budget for the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) with a specific interest on loans, aiming to update student loan servicing and support those paying back loans this year after a three-year break from the pandemic. This is a $620 million increase from last year’s budget.

The boost in funding is partly relative to Joe Biden’s student loan relief initiative held up in the U.S. Supreme Court. If approved, FSA will be responsible for its implementation. Without proper infrastructure to support such an overhaul, students and borrowers will “bear the brunt.”

“At a time when the Office of Federal Student Aid is already stretched thin and is implementing many critical initiatives, it cannot be understated how important it will be to ensure that the agency has the necessary resources to complete these monumental undertakings,” said NASFAA President and CEO Justin Draeger.

Pell Grant recipients are also reaping some benefits, as they are looking at a $820 increase to $8,215 for the 2024-25 award year.

Assisting low-income and marginalized students

Students who display need will be able to opt-in to up to two years of community college, supported by a $500 million discretionary grant program. Community colleges will also benefit from a $429 million increase in institutional capacity, as well as HBCUs, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).

More from UB: Community college students hit an academic ceiling, report finds

Wrangling the student mental health crisis

With mental health taking a hit post-pandemic, especially among college students, the administration is pumping out $578 in federal aid. Colleges and universities will exclusively see $150 million of that to help hire out more mental health providers expand campus-wide strategies.

Despite the thoughtful strategies put forward by Biden’s administration to assist challenges in higher education, pushback to the proposal looms. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, called the entire proposal “unserious” and a “road map for fiscal ruin.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy equally condemned the budget, remarking that it would create the “biggest government in history.”

The post Biden’s budget prioritizes higher education, despite pushback appeared first on University Business.

West Virginia joins Texas and ten others to promote concealed campus carry, such as Georgia, Utah, Colorado and Oregon, to name a few, signaling other states take the lead.

Gov. Justice wants the law to “send a message to the world: By God, if you want to mess with us, we can mess back,” according to AP News.

More from UB: How 3 universities are reacting to gun violence outside their campuses

West Virginia University and Marshall University presidents E. Gordon Gee and Brad D. Smith signed a joint letter publicly opposing the bill, believing campus carry should be decided by the school’s Board of Governors—not the state.

“Whether it is mental health challenges facing some students, discussion about grades, recruitment of new students and faculty, or the protection of open and honest debate of ideas, we are concerned about inserting firearms into these types of situations,” wrote Gee and Smith in the letter.

They did, however, acknowledge its popularity among the legislature and are asking that the bill be implemented wisely. For example, they asked for guns not to be permitted into public gatherings that hold more than a thousand spectators; residence halls; on-campus daycare facilities and patient care or mental health counseling areas.

The bill seemed to respond to those requests and added some other caveats, such as requiring colleges and universities to provide secure storage of firearms in at least one on-campus residence hall or residence room.

Students in West Virginia expressed mixed emotions at the passage of the bill. One student’s alarming premonition focused on how student “mental health is already downhill,” while another suggested it could promote better self-defense practices that could lead to a safer campus.

Tennessee could be the next state to approve concealed campus carry as two Republican congressmen recently introduced legislation excluding public and private college campuses from a current law that bans most people from carrying guns on school campuses.

The post West Virginia is the latest state to allow concealed guns on campus appeared first on University Business.

The Department noted in its press release that students “cheated by for-profit colleges” motivated their vigilant direction, leveraging Section 498(e) of the Higher Education Act to hold schools “accountable, defend vulnerable students, protect taxpayer dollars, and deter future risky behavior.” 

The Department will deliberate on dumping personal liability of institutional debts to individuals on a case-by-case basis typically upon a for-profit school’s program participation renewal or a change in ownership. They will review a particular school’s history of lawsuits regarding federal student aid fraud or consumer harm, unpaid liabilities stemming from significant audit findings and egregious spending on executive salaries and bonuses.

More from UB: Another for-profit is shutting down as Department of Education closes in on others

A for-profit college’s closure has hitherto mostly burdened state funding and the enrolled students, which is why the Department believes it “will not only be protecting students and borrowers but also fulfilling Congress’ statutory direction” to “protect the financial interests of the United States.”

As the Biden administration fights to relieve Americans of student debt, it also believes it must take a proactive step to manage a student loan resurge. Their solution: impeding for-profit leaders’ likelihood of abusing federal funding and securing the tuition of suckered-in students.

The post For-profit colleges, be warned: DOE is set to hold leaders personally liable for reckless spending appeared first on University Business.

House bill 999 is the latest legislative effort to combat what the governor believes is higher education’s continued agenda “to impose ideological conformity, to try to promote political activism.”

State authority over education

The board of trustees at each school would be responsible for all faculty hiring under House bill 999, which grants DeSantis direct influence over the state’s public higher education system’s operations. The governor is responsible for hand-picking six of the board’s seats, and virtually another five since the Board of Governors is largely molded by the governor as well.

The most recent DeSantis-backed board of trustees ousted its president in an effort to create a more conservative-leaning, Christian-valued institution emulating Hillsdale college in Michigan.

If passed, House bill 999 – which will allow a faculty member’s tenure to be reviewed “at any time” – could potentially weave itself into two other proposed legislative efforts that some current faculty fear chills speech. The notorious “Stop WOKE Act” would reprimand faculty for curriculum that inflicts shame or anguish, such as systemic racism. Regulation 10.003 proposed by the Board of Governors would assess a tenured faculty member based on their compliance to state law (such as the “Stop WOKE Act”) and without input from other tenured faculty.

The “Stop WOKE Act” House bill is under appeal and passage of regulation 10.003 awaits decision still. Although nothing is certain, its implications are huge.

Despite possible punishment, some faculty are determined to continue their curriculum as long as they can.

“I just decided, ‘I’m not going to run from it.’ This is what I teach. This is what I study. There’s tremendous value in students learning about these things,” said UCF professor Jonathan Cox to ProPublica.

Down with DEI

The bill also eliminates any majors and minors focused on critical race theory, gender studies, intersectionality, or any other “derivative” major or minor that espouses discrimination of any kind.

After probing into its state college and university spending on all DEI-related initiatives and promising to effectively ban them, House bill 999 will officially prohibit all spending, save those geared toward Pell Grant recipients, first-generation college students, and military veterans.

Setting the historical record straight

The bill asserts that the state’s general education courses cannot define “American history as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence” and any that imply a different narrative lens like “identity politics,” such as “Critical Race Theory” is not allowed.

A new school metric used to evaluate a college or university’s performance will scrutinize students’ “education for citizenship of the constitutional republic,” though how to quantify that remained undefined.

More from UB: Oklahoma is the latest state to wage war on DEI

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Schools and state lawmakers are concerned about how fraught with data security issues the Chinese-owned parent company is, posing a risk to national security. But the app seems to have enveloped the lives of too many students for them to so easily let it go.

A recent report that surveyed 1,000 undergraduate students found that more than half of them use it to help with academic work, and of that group, 58% prefer it over search engines like Google and Bing.

Even if they can’t use the app in class, respondents said they learn on TikTok somewhat (38%), as much as (15%) or more than in their classes—that’s more than half of all respondents professing they’re more interested in the educational value of TikTok than their established curriculum.

“I think the biggest appeal is simply that TikTok is staying relevant to the learning needs of students,” explains Blanca Villagomez, a college admissions and education advisor at UC Irvine. “Gen Zers have embraced technology from a very early age and have an appetite for information that is simplified in a fun and engaging way.”

The recent shooting at Michigan State University, however, proved that TikTok was more than just an academic resource and entertainment tool. As of Feb. 16, #SpartanStrong had over 24 million views, according to BuzzFeed News. Students used the hashtag to create content processing their grief and developing trauma.

More from UB: More education leaders ban TikTok for students and employees

One user’s post generated over 3 million views and nearly half a million “likes” with comments of support and collective mourning flooding in.

“As a student, this was one of the most traumatic things I have ever experienced,” one user commented. Another wrote, “I wish this didn’t happen and I wish we didn’t have to be afraid to be at school.”

Students also cite the detrimental effects it would have on their social media presence.

“Even if the university restricts access to the app, I am sure there are students on campus that will easily be able to find ways to still access the app,” said one UF student. “I think the university should focus its energy on a more important area.”

TikTok has about 80 million monthly active users in the United States, 60% of whom are 16 and 24, according to digital marketing agency Wallaroo Media.

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