Education

In this article, to protect the identities of the interviewees, the authors have decided to use numbered pseudonyms instead of their full names. 

On Thursday, Kristi Noem, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, announced that the Trump Administration has removed Harvard University’s privileges to the SEVP (Student and Exchange Visitor Program)—barring current and future international students from enrolling at the University—effective immediately. Now, international students at Harvard are speaking out against the decision.

The Trump administration’s revocation of Harvard University’s authorization to enroll international students is an unprecedented federal act that instantly affects almost 7,000 current international students, another move in the administration’s months-long campaign against one of America’s oldest institutions.

An order by Kristi Noem from the DHS on Thursday revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, keeping all new foreign students from enrolling in the University for the 2025-2026 academic year. Currently, international students, making up over a quarter of Harvard’s undergraduate class, must now choose—find a new school, change their immigration status, or leave the country.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem fails to define “habeas corpus” in a recent Senate hearing.

Monumental Impact

Both Harvard and the broader Massachusetts economy will be impacted. Harvard University has 6,793 international students, who comprise around 27 percent of its student population and often pay a higher tuition price. This decision will not only decrease the endowment of the university, but also nearby businesses, state healthcare, and the research industry long term.

In addition to making up a large portion of Harvard’s student body, international students sit at the forefront of research advancement at the institution. In 2023, 46.9 percent of Harvard’s publications had international co-authors, according to public data released by the University.

Harvard’s research is renowned for its credibility among academics and its consistency in quality output. This spring, Times Higher Education ranked the University first in the world for “academic reputation and prestige globally” for the fourteenth consecutive year. In the last five years, Harvard has also led the United States with the highest research production: 64,061 publications. With the visas of over a quarter of their student body revoked, Harvard will certainly struggle to maintain this level of output.

“I, myself, am a very Trump-critical person, but even I didn't think that this would be the kind of escalation that would occur,” Student #4, a freshman at Harvard College, reports. “Definitely by the spring term, when we saw the Trump administration giving out the letter to Alan Garber and the Harvard administration, there started to be more fears. I would chat with my roommates, and we would start to discuss the possibility of all of us losing our visas. But when the election occurred, that was not something that I thought would happen.”

One of the primary points of attack the Trump Administration has used on Harvard is the notion that the University uses “higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowment,” as claimed by Secretary Noem. While Harvard’s international students pay $79,450 on average in annual tuition compared to domestic students’ $54,269, these tuition dollars are a significant source of funding for Harvard’s research projects—initiatives that in recent months have been slashed of federal funding by this same administration.

Economic Landscape 

Student #1, also a freshman at Harvard College, remarked on the importance of a Harvard education beyond the namesake. “At the end of the day, I think a lot of people treat going to Harvard as a status symbol, but it's also about having the educational resources to make change at the end of the day—that's what is so important about attending Harvard.”

The economic effects of the order fall far outside Harvard’s campus. According to NAFSA, international students annually contribute around $40 billion to the U.S. economy and contribute to 378,175 jobs. 

Foreign talent is valuable to the Massachusetts economy, representing about 17 percent of the workforce. International students are more likely to have founded unicorns, equating to $591 billion, where 25 of these founders are Massachusettsian college graduates. Around 18 percent of United States graduate students are international, where four out of five students pursue the STEM fields. 

Alex Bronzini-Vender, a correspondent with The Guardian who recently transferred from Columbia to Harvard, believes that anti-Chinese rhetoric is a sign of the growing deglobalization under the Trump Administration.

“Chinese students are wildly overrepresented in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia. Many Chinese students in the United States are not (broadly speaking) here to be historians. They are here to be STEM researchers,” said Bronzini-Vender. “This is also at a time when science is an institution with figures like RFK Jr. is diminishing in its clout and in its ability to serve as a bulwark against attacks like this, whereas a previous generation of even American hawks might have said, ‘we still want to be able to discover the next vaccine, right?’”

The 72-hour ultimatum Harvard faces brings due process into question. Usually, changes made to SEVP certification take a thorough review, an appeals process, and phased, gradual implementation to protect current international students. Harvard’s extremely rushed timeline and aggressive demands, including footage of protests, are a sharp turn from what is standard and thus expected.

This starkly different approach also raises constitutional questions. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause calls for adequate notice and, more importantly, ample response time before government sanctions. The First Amendment protects universities’ academic freedom and students’ right to protest, two additional issues that have come up as a result of the order.

“I'm quite familiar with his rhetoric and his anti-immigration stance. I just never thought that international students were going to be a target. I've only been in the States legally. I've always gone through the due process to get my visa; I've always done what's legal, what's right,” Student #3, another Harvard freshman, emphasized. 

“I never thought that international students were going to be his target, especially at universities such as Harvard, where getting into [them] requires a lot of hard work, and I think that is what I thought he wanted from people coming into the country.”

Leaning on the Harvard Community

Student #4 has some tactical advice for current Harvard international students afraid of what’s next.

“I think the general consensus is that international students should try to stay on campus. I'm very lucky, because I did plan to stay on campus this summer to do research work with one of the labs here—but some international students are overseas at the moment visiting families. It's really troublesome on their end because they're not sure if they can come back to the US without being stopped at the border.”

She recommends that international students apply for summer housing on Harvard’s campus and remain at the university as much as possible.

“The opportunities that you get out of Harvard are just amazing. The opportunities that you have at your fingertips, I think you can engage in a bunch of amazing extracurricular clubs that you probably won't find anywhere else, especially clubs,” Student #3 said. “There's not a single university in my home country who has those opportunities that Harvard was able to offer me, and that is something that I will definitely miss a lot and I think will definitely impact my career in the future—but also my development as a person, as a human being, and as a scholar.”

He also mentioned the tight-knit residential community that is also rare in his home country, in addition to access to professors who have a wide breadth of knowledge in their respective fields.

“I think it's important that they also recognize how irrational and absurd targeting one specific institution because it doesn't meet all your political demands is, and I would hope that they recognize that allowing this to happen would be a very slippery slope,” Student #1 said. “This would not only threaten Harvard and its ability to function as an educational institution, but would affect academia as a whole and the cultivation of knowledge and human capital as a whole in the United States.”

Noem, in a recent statement published on X, blames Harvard for “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.” Student opinion on the reasoning behind Thursday’s decision vastly differs, however. 

Calls for a Stand

“It's no longer about antisemitism, which Trump was initially targeting the university for, as many international students are actually Jewish themselves. So it would make absolutely no sense for this to be the reason why he's targeting the university and especially the international students. I think this is a blatant attack on higher education, and I think policymakers should see through this and stand for not only international students, but also for higher education and the education of the country in general,” said Student #2, another current freshman at the College.

“I think universities need to very forcefully reject the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Certain readings of it could effectively ban all kinds of Palestinian activism on campus, including the very vague wording around the double standards,” said Bronzini-Vender.

However, Bronzini-Vender predicts that the school in question would submit as they had in the past. He also recommends that Harvard tap into their endowment to help fight future legal battles on behalf of their students.

“I would hope that legislators on Capitol Hill underscore the value of rule of law and keep that in mind, regardless of what their political allegiances might be. And I think it's important that they also recognize how irrational and absurd targeting one specific institution is because it doesn't meet all [their] political demands.”

To Student #1, educational liberty is paramount for democracy, and the current administration’s interventions jeopardize this Constitutional freedom. 

“I would hope that they recognize that allowing this to happen would be a very slippery slope and would not only threaten Harvard and its ability to function as an educational institution, but would affect academia as a whole and the cultivation of knowledge and human capital as a whole in the United States.”

On May 22, 2025, the federal government ruled that Columbia University had violated federal civil rights law.  More specifically, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the Department of Health and Human Services determined that Columbia breached Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This finding comes in the wake of a strenuous investigation that analyzed 19 months' worth of events.  In a May 22nd press release, the OCR announced that “Columbia University acted with a deliberate indifference” to the hostile situations created by some students, which include the University’s failure to punish hateful vandalism, handle Jewish students’ complaints with the correct procedures, and enforce certain restrictions on the protests held on campus, as per the report.  

Though a critical turning point, the OCR’s investigation of Columbia is not an isolated event.  Numerous other prestigious universities, most notably Harvard, have been subject to increased federal investigations concerning Title VI.  This trend in federal oversight extends beyond anti-semitism related to the conflict in the Middle East, though. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives like The PhD Project have also been an object of intense investigation at top institutions, garnering investigations in more than 45 colleges nationwide.

These extensive investigations are not solely about compliance with federal statutes—however, due to many universities’ reliance on federal grants for crucial research, violating Title VI could spur potent funding freezes or revocations, which most certainly could be injurious to the university-led innovation economy.

What is Title VI, and Why is it Important?

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was created to prohibit discrimination based on attributes like race, ethnicity, or national origin.  To be exact, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states,

“No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

— Title VI, Section 601, Civil Rights Act of 1964

Due to Jewish people’s status as an ethnicity, it is clear why the OCR would address the issue of on-campus anti-semitism as well as the presence of DEI initiatives under Title VI, as they both pertain to unequal treatment on the grounds of race or national origin.  

The main obstacles that universities have faced and could face in even greater severity as a consequence of Title VI violation include a loss of federal funding, increased federal oversight, and damage to innovation pipelines.

Federal Funding in Higher Education

For elite universities, federal funding is not simply supplemental—it is essential to their groundbreaking research.  

Contrary to popular belief, many elite, private institutions receive the majority of their research funding through federal grants.  For example, in 2022, Johns Hopkins University, a major research hub, had a research and development expenditure of $3.4 billion—87% of which came from federal organizations.  

Additionally, Columbia reported that federal organizations contribute about $1.1 billion annually to education and research. The $400 million cuts that the Trump Administration made in March thus comprise a large percentage of Columbia’s federal funding, which for research activities alone, was approximately $800 million every year.  

Posing an immediate risk to ongoing research, these cuts signal an uncertain future for Columbia’s research departments, as 180 researchers were laid off as a result.

University Research in the Context of Innovation

University labs are the birthplace of most groundbreaking discoveries that drive economic growth.  Broadly speaking, universities tend to dominate in basic research, which is in turn used for applied research to develop game-changing technologies. 

For example, in the 1970s, Columbia researchers Richard Axel, Saul Silverstein, and Michael Wigler developed a procedure that introduced foreign DNA to mammalian cells, a groundbreaking development in the biotechnology industry.  This discovery allowed the biotechnology industry to mass-produce human growth hormones as well as insulin.  

Aside from allowing for major scientific discoveries, university research is the foundation for technological advancement.  

For example, Stanford boasts over 3000 patents based on federally funded research, over 400 startups based on federally funded research, and over 350,000 jobs created by these Stanford-based companies built from federally funded research.  Additionally, Stanford’s alumni have gone on to create trillions of dollars of value and millions of jobs through their innovations, cementing the impact of strong monetary ties between D.C. and private universities.

The Issue with Federal Grants as a Prerogative

Federally funded university-based research is an integral part of the economic and social development of the United States—and frankly, the world. University research has not only amassed trillions of dollars in innovation value but has saved countless lives.

While it is a point of contention whether prestigious universities violated federal law, the one true question is this: Is it worth disrupting innovation, particularly that which allows the United States to have a competitive edge in the global economy, just to teach schools like Columbia a hard lesson?

The answer will only be revealed as the war between higher education and the White House rages on.

To protect the identities of our interviewees, the authors of this article have replaced a few of their names with numbered pseudonyms. All personal information disclosed otherwise is done with the interviewees’ full consent.

It was a quiet Friday morning in Cambridge; seniors picked up their caps and gowns, staff erected white tents on the quad, and along the Charles River, rowers cut smooth lines across the water. 

Then, as the news broke, a ripple of cautious relief swept through Harvard’s international community. A federal judge in Boston had issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s sudden move to bar the university from enrolling foreign students. For thousands of young scholars from Beijing to Brussels, the threat of forced departure—of dreams cut short and visas invalidated—was, at least for now, on pause.

The ruling came in response to an emergency lawsuit filed by Harvard, part of an intensifying legal and ideological clash between the U.S. government and one of its most prestigious academic institutions. At the heart of the dispute is a deeper question about the future of elite education in an era of populist backlash. 

The Trump administration, citing concerns about antisemitism, foreign influence, and campus radicalism, moved to strip Harvard of its access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, a crucial mechanism for enrolling and retaining international students. The university, in turn, accused the administration of political retaliation, constitutional overreach, and an unprecedented assault on academic freedom.

In their 72-page federal complaint, Harvard accused the Trump administration of a "campaign of retribution," describing the order as “arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful, and unconstitutional.” The university contended that the Department of Homeland Security's abrupt action, which jeopardized the legal status of over 6,800 F-1 and J-1 visa holders, was procedurally flawed and constitutionally suspect. "Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard," the lawsuit asserted, emphasizing the integral role these students play in the university's academic and research endeavors.

Harvard argued that the government's decision was made without proper notice or opportunity for the university to respond, violating the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaint noted that the revocation came "just days before graduation," causing immediate and irreparable harm to students and academic programs. The university maintained that it had complied with all applicable reporting requirements and had renewed its certification without incident for over 70 years.

The lawsuit also focused on the broader implications of the administration's actions, suggesting that the targeting of international students was part of a wider effort to exert political pressure on academic institutions. Harvard cited the administration's demands for records related to student protests and affiliations, arguing that such requests infringed upon First Amendment rights and academic freedom.

In retaliation, the Trump administration, still intent on its anti-Harvard campaign, has reported plans to terminate the government’s remaining contracts with the university. This move adds another $100 million to the nearly $3 billion in federal funding that has been slashed from Harvard since the beginning of Trump’s attacks. The standoff underscores a growing clash between higher education and federal power in the U.S., this time with international students caught in the political crossfire.

The First Amendment Prevails

Students and professors protest the Trump administration's orders right outside of Harvard Yard and Annenberg Hall on Tuesday.

Trump’s war on higher education has not played out in silence. On Tuesday, around 300 students gathered right outside Harvard Yard, the Harvard Science Center, and Annenberg Hall to protest the Trump administration's exterminating international students’ visas and federal grants at the university.

James McAffrey, one of the co-founders of the student organization Harvard Students 4 Freedom, is a rising senior from Oklahoma who decided to dive headfirst into advocating for students’ rights at the very beginning of the Trump presidential term. 

“In response to the Trump administration halting Harvard's ability to host international students, [Harvard Students 4 Freedom] put out an statement condemning that move, because it's just a really cruel use and abuse of power—because he is using these international students as poker chips in his political game against the Harvard administration,” James noted. “It just demonstrates how far he's willing to go to get across his political agenda and to force it onto universities.”

The rally on Tuesday had a “great turnout,” with various speakers including the following: Jacob Miller, the President of Harvard Hillel, who compared the story about his Jewish family members fleeing Austria in 1938 to what is going on right now in the U.S. (“there are important differences between now and then; but there are also important similarities”); Ryan Enos, a Harvard Professor of Government, who advocated for the international students and emphasized that their appreciation of the Harvard education oftentimes extends beyond that of American students; Clyve Lawrence, a rising Harvard junior who spoke about the importance of this moment in the long history of American resistance movements; Rae Trainor and Avinashi Bhandari, rising Harvard seniors who spoke to the urgency of funding STEM research; and Victor Flores, a rising senior who rounded out the speaker’s list with the integral part international students play in the Harvard mission.

“For many years in the past, there's been a lot of controversy—so no matter what side of the spectrum you're on, we want people to be able to come together behind one common goal. I think that was represented by our speakers,” James said.

In reaction to Trump’s retaliation against the Harvard lawsuit, James asserted, “[Harvard] should be able to explore ideas, whether the government agrees with them or not.”

James was happily surprised by the fact that 800 Harvard faculty members signed a statement urging Harvard to push back against the Trump administration’s demands. He states, “In my time here, the Harvard faculty has never been this united around one cause, and I think that's pretty incredible… Harvard is uniting and working together and using all of our resources to push back against what Trump is doing, and I think, so far, it's working.”

Rachele Chung, a protest attendee, described it as a necessary public stand against what she called the administration’s strategy of “fear as a tactic.” She said it served as a powerful message that the university “won’t back down and will come together as one university” in the face of political pressure.

A student holds up a "Northeastern stands with Harvard" sign at the rally.

“Trump knows it’s unconstitutional,” she said, “but he’s trying to use fear as a tactic—like he did with Columbia.” She recalled chants like “All students are welcome here” and signs that read “Northeastern stands with Harvard,” but said what stuck with her most was the warning heard throughout the protest: “MAGA is coming for you next.” For many in attendance, the protest was about what comes after. “If we let this happen,” Rachele said, “who do you think he’s coming for next?”

Speaking of Northeastern University, Jack Masliah is an international student from Mexico City and a spokesperson for the Educational Freedom Project at Northeastern who is working alongside Harvard Students 4 Freedom to ensure the protection of U.S. higher education. 

Jack moved to America at 11 years old because his mother was a student in the U.S., and going to a U.S. college was a no-brainer since America is a country that “prides itself on innovation and creativity as well as self-exploration.”

He described the journey of building up a student rapport across universities in the Boston area. “A few of us over at Northeastern got together over the past month or about a month ago,” Jack explained. “We decided that now was the moment to harness all the frustration and anger and kind of despair that we see among the student body, not just in Northeastern but across universities in Boston and really the nation, and start organizing students.”

He is excited by the progress the Educational Freedom Project has made in conjunction with Harvard Students 4 Freedom, starting from initial outreach to social media traffic, and the organization plans to meet with the local city council and mayor’s office.

Despite the evident gloom around Trump’s orders, Jack is energized by the new wave of student protests: “A lot of people have lost faith in the efficacy and the success of protesting and rallying. For example, they think it won't do anything because we [all] think differently.”

“It's been pretty heartening talking to a lot of these students who are really excited to do something, are angry, and have all these emotions flowing,” Jack said. “We can harness their passions and all these emotions into a more organized movement where we push for more real change—together.”

Jack emphasizes that it is probable Harvard won’t be alone in being on the receiving side of Trump’s wrath. He believes that if Harvard were to “fall,” then “it’s basically over” for all other institutions.

“There's a common enemy here,” Jack quipped when discussing the relationship between his organization and higher-ups at his university. “We're not trying to fight the [Northeastern] administration. We're trying to work with them in order to safeguard Northeastern future in the future of higher education in the country.”

James’s sentiment on who might be targeted next after Harvard mirrors Jack’s: “[Northeastern and Tufts students showing up] is especially important because they recognize that this doesn't stop with Harvard. It's going to lead to them losing their international students, and losing their independence, and losing their funding—you've already seen that starting to happen across the country.”

Beyond the students, university faculty agree that the Trump administration is overstepping its boundaries in higher education. In fact, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet believes the entire feud between the White House and Harvard to be a game of political chess. 

“The Trump Administration seems to have decided to do everything it can to bring Harvard to its knees,” Bartholet said. “They appear not to care about the many positives that international students bring Harvard and the U.S. generally.”

Despite the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to bring discord to Harvard’s grounds, Bartholet reports the university community to be more united than ever in favor of Harvard’s defiance: “Those I have spoken to in the HLS and larger Harvard alum community are tremendously supportive of Harvard’s position standing up to the Trump Administration’s demands.” Still, international students at Harvard remain in limbo as they anxiously await for clarity amid their currently unstable situation.

Alfred’s Story

Alfred Williamson just returned to Wales, United Kingdom, when he opened his phone to a flurry of text messages and missed calls before going online to check the news. He thoroughly enjoyed his first year at Harvard College and was utterly shocked to hear that the Trump administration was revoking all Harvard international students’ visas. Like several of his peers, Alfred never could have imagined that Trump would follow through with his “scare tactic” of revoking visas.

He spent the next hours speaking to distressed friends and family about the whole ordeal, burdened by the fear of never stepping foot on campus again. 

“It wasn't just the news itself that was scary. It was the uncertainty surrounding it. No one knew what to expect, or whether they'd be returning to Harvard next semester, whether they'd be going to a different campus, or whether they wouldn't be going to university at all.”

Although the statement issued by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, was mortifying, Alfred is relieved Harvard took a stand last Friday and decided to sue the Trump Administration for “a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act.” Alfred explained that “Harvard is not Harvard” without its international student population, which comprises 27% of Harvard students across all schools, and for a select demographic of Harvardians who attend the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, over 50%.

“The response has been good, but we can't rest until the safety and protection of all international students is guaranteed on a permanent basis,” Alfred said firmly.

Alfred was blindsided by Trump’s sudden decision to forego international students because he never expected it would be in the realm of possibility. When Trump was elected back into office this past November, Alfred was aware of the “questionable decisions” the president made during his term from 2016 to 2020. But this time around, Alfred feels a major difference now that he is studying at one of the most prestigious campuses on U.S. soil.

“Now, I feel like my whole life is being controlled by the Trump administration. It's completely dehumanizing. They're deciding where I can and cannot study. They're making these decisions about tariffs, which are determining how expensive your groceries are, and people are feeling this on the ground.”

The “what’s next” line of thinking only adds to the anxiety enveloping the international community at Harvard at this moment. No one sits around during their undergraduate years with a “Plan B,” Alfred quipped. 

However, despite the wave of uncertainty that had hit the international community, Alfred mentioned reaching out to friends at Oxford and Cambridge about the possibility of transferring. But this scenario is not ideal—Alfred bleeds Crimson through and through, and would like to keep it that way.

“I would choose [Harvard] as my place of study one hundred times over. I worked very hard to get in, and this last year, which was my first year at Harvard, has been the best year of my life, and I've absolutely loved it. So, whether I transfer to a different university or I end up not being at a university at all, I will be devastated if I cannot study at Harvard.”

Testimonies from Those Affected 

While some Harvard internationals chose to march headfirst into protest, others are more hesitant to publicize their identities in light of the current chaos.

The Perrin Institution conducted interviews with several international Harvard students who wish to remain anonymous amid Trump’s attempts to cripple their privacy. Their names are blocked (instead called Students #1, 2, etc.), and their testimonies are below:

When news broke that the Trump administration was revoking all visas for international students attending Harvard, the shock was immediate for Student #1, an incoming freshman who had not even received their visa yet. 

“It was circulating that they might do something like that…I think it just went from shock to scary,” he said.

Prior to Trump’s orders, he was working on fall preparations, excited to begin studying physics at one of the most renowned institutions in the world. The timing couldn’t be worse. With commitment deadlines passed, many international students feel locked in. 

“I am optimistic, but rather more because I don't have a choice other than being optimistic, right?” he said. “I do feel that…Harvard has the resources and also the willingness to fight this thing.” This differs from the current administration’s push towards their own ideologies and agendas.

Although Student #1 had always been aware of President Trump’s immigration policies, Trump’s reelection last fall spotlighted the lengths that would be taken to abuse power. Funding cuts on research and hiring have also impacted international students. Student #1 noted that Harvard needs to maintain its integrity for academic freedom.

“I think it strengthened my idea…this is the place that I want to go to now, even talking to my upperclassmen, my other classmates from the US…everyone is just so supportive and the community is so strong,” he said. 

The ability of Harvard to hold up its intellectual diversity and academic freedom sets the standard for all other institutions in academia. Student #1 views this as a symbol to fight this lawsuit.

Still, he’s not panicking—yet. “Harvard has the resources, and they’ve shown the will to fight this. We’re united as a student body, especially as international students. We believe we can get through this.” 

Harvard’s legal response—suing the Trump administration—was unsurprising, but its speed was. “The university’s response was swift and powerful. They’re doing what needs to be done to protect their students and the principles they stand for.” 

The larger stakes aren’t lost on him either. As a future physicist, he’s worried about how broader cuts to research funding could jeopardize hiring, innovation, and the scientific community as a whole. 

“This isn’t just about visas. This is about what kind of country values global talent, academic freedom, and intellectual diversity.” He insists that Harvard must remain a beacon. 

“If Harvard doesn’t fight for its integrity, for academic freedom and diversity, who will? This isn’t just about one school—it’s about what American academia represents to the world.” For now, the waiting continues—but so does the resolve. “We’re anxious, but we’re not giving up. Harvard is strong. Its community is strong. And we’re going to fight to be there.”

—

Student #2 spoke about issues with transferring to a university in her home continent of Europe due to the generous financial aid Harvard has offered her that outweighs the costs of attending any other institution. She also comes from a war-torn country and as someone who attending boarding school in the U.S. and is pursuing a degree in science but is still is interested in a broader liberal arts education, Harvard was the best choice for her.

Trump’s research cuts are debilitating, she says, especially given her interest in studying physics and her involvement in Harvard Medical School research. The Harvard Medical School conducts important research oncology which includes illnesses like diabetes and Alzheimer’s, and without the necessary funding, not only does U.S. R&D get stunted but also pivotal and life-changing cures that can reshape the future of the world. 

Student #2 doesn’t understand why the current administration doesn’t value university research, while other national governments are doing everything in their power to unlock the resources America has to push the boundaries of scientific development: “In Europe, countries are spending so much money for institutions to conduct this research—for example, like trying to create a cure to cancer. It just doesn’t make sense in my head that Harvard, an institution where there's actually a lot of progress in this field, is being cut from the sponsorship.”

“From the perspective of America, it would be great if a future Nobel Prize would go to an American institution, because eventually they can be like, ‘hey, this Doctor of Medicine won a Nobel Prize, and he went to Harvard for his undergrad [study],” she described. “He can be from Germany, [for example], but eventually he will say that he went to Harvard for his education.”

The current administration has a tendency to do “whatever they want,” and Student #3 fears that even if Harvard wins the lawsuit, the legal battle will snowball into a never-ending spar between the university and Trump (who she says will eventually find another reason to expel international students anyway).

“If you may remember, during his campaign, [Trump] was saying that he would give out green cards to all the graduate students, right? …So I was like, why would he target international students at universities?” she explained. “And it doesn't really make sense. But eventually things turned out to be much worse than everyone [expected].”

She refers to the Federal District Judge who put a temporary restraining order on the Trump Administration’s attempts to dismantle the SEVP as only a “temporary protection for the next two weeks.” She says the uncertainty of it all is worrisome and frustrating. 

After this experience of having her U.S. visa in jeopardy, Student #2 has lost all desire to become an American. “When I came to the US during the Biden administration for my high school education, I was like, ‘okay, this is a cool country, you know,’ but I don't see myself here living my life. And right now, I feel like I will never want to become a citizen of this country.”

—

Student #3, a rising sophomore at the College, believed the decision to remove international students from Harvard’s campus right at the beginning of summer break was intentional.

“I think I saw [the situation] coming [from a distance],” he said. “I was surprised it came right after our finals finished—I think that was [a very intentional move] by the Trump administration. [The order came when] the international students all went back home, and that's probably why he chose that specific timing. That's my personal [opinion].”

This student shares the same sentiment as Alfred did about his ability to predict the suspension of the Student Exchange and Visitor Program.

“But from the [viewpoint of an] international student who doesn't even have voting rights in the States, I knew that Trump was very sensitive about [this issue]. But I did not expect it to be like this extent.” 

He expresses concern about the role of international students as collateral damage in the crossfire between Harvard and Trump (who he calls a “special dude”). “Making the international students the scapegoats and taking hold of the whole [population of] international students was definitely unexpected, in terms of that magnitude.”

Student #3 has formulated a vague plan for how he will proceed if Trump reigns victorious in court over Harvard. He expresses that the magic of Harvard isn’t attributed to its classes, but the diverse network of people who come from all walks of life. “​​If I'm in the US and not studying at Harvard, I'm not sure if that means a lot to me, to be fair. I know this sounds very trite to say, but it just doesn't make sense for me to transfer and then to graduate at a different school with all the effort I put in until now”. 

After discussing it with his parents, he is considering pursuing a leave of absence for a few years to wait out the current presidential term. The plan seems to be to return when a new administration is elected into office.

—

A rising sophomore at Harvard, Student #4 learned about the visa policy a little late, but the shock quickly turned into relief once it became clear the decision wouldn’t immediately stand. 

“It was a messy situation, but we were there for each other…” 

The international student WhatsApp group became a hub with links to legal advice, immigration lawyer breakdowns, and constant updates. “If anybody had questions, just shoot…somebody would definitely have answers…try to answer to the best of their ability.”

The student welcomes Harvard’s lawsuit. They are optimistic as they hope to return to campus next semester, but they hold their joy until a win in the lawsuit is confirmed.

Reactions among family members are mixed. While their sister told them it is out of their control, their mom was shaken up and anxious. This student has not thought of direct next steps if the Trump administration wins the lawsuit, but suggested a gap year could be a potential option.

The justification using antisemitism wasn’t surprising to them, yet the reasoning for the presence of the Chinese Communist Party on Harvard’s campus was. “I don't remember reading about the Chinese Communist Party anywhere else.” 

They believe the crackdown could impact transferring and the education system in the United States as a whole. There is an overpowering power shift to the Trump administration over colleges and universities.

“It’ll be nice…to return back to college to finish my education…I've been able to meet throughout my first year in college…” This student has developed a community and life at Harvard that they hope will not be disrupted.

—

Student #5 is a rising senior from Greece who was in utter shock upon hearing the news. This student noted the warnings from HIO, professors, and the political analysis of Trump’s “erratic and quite aggressive” tactics.

“I kind of felt like the ground below me collapsed and I was just floating in the air. I physically felt the future that I had envisioned for myself disintegrating.”

As this student is nearing graduation, her five-year plan has been impacted by this lawsuit. The meaning of a Harvard degree is her means to escape a generational curse and build a better life. 

“International peers obviously fall into two categories”—those who are in their home country and those who are still on campus. Deportation for those on campus was a rising concern as this news was released. Fear turned to anger. “We're just being used as pawns and we're not appreciating that.” Among the solidarity of the international community comes an understanding of the blackmail that the university is facing.

The student pondered what Harvard’s reaction would be as there was radio silence after the news broke. She was proud when the lawsuit was released. “...like Harvard that has the resources…to put those to good use, utilize the immense wealth of knowledge and experts that they have in order to protect me, and by extension, the entirety of the international student community…” This student knows that they are living in a historical moment of “...a slow decline to authoritarian tendencies on behalf of the US government… [and an] attack on higher education as a whole.”

During the Biden administration, it was not uncommon for international students “...to make light-hearted jokes in order to cope with very terrifying prospects.” With the Trump administration, this phenomenon significantly decreased. Student #5 noticed how the immigration system in the United States is more ruthless and strict than the European Union. It “...makes me feel unsafe as a non-resident alien, even though I know that I have taken every single legal step that I am required to in order to be here.” The topic of frustration was namely summer plans for all international students. They do not want to face the consistent reevaluation of their future, so they hope “...it cannot possibly stand in the court of law.”

Student #5 has an extensive family that is from the United States, including her grandparents and great-grandparents. This student is not an American citizen, but they have been exposed to American exceptionalism. “After experiencing all of this insecurity and instability and seeing the concerning signs that the government is showing towards, honestly, a holistic decline in the form of civil rights, of democracy, of any form of progress…” leaves them feeling unwelcome. While Harvard seemed like a golden ticket, this administration has made this student consider turning to Europe. “What happens if tomorrow the President decides to sign another executive order that says… the international people…you no longer have the right to be here.” The verge of deportation removes the safety of a post-graduate life in the United States.

—

Although the current situation may seem bleak, Harvard—its students and its faculty—is fighting back. They don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

*If you are an international student currently under threat from what has been described in this article, please feel free to use the following resources:

American Immigration Lawyers Association: executive@aila.org or 202-507-7600

To find an immigration lawyer, go to https://ailalawyer.com

American Civil Liberties Union: (212) 549-2500

For ACLU legal assistance, go to https://www.aclu.org/affiliates

For Harvard international students:

Harvard International Office: (857) 502-3772

For Harvard students in need of legal representation:

Harvard Representation Initiative: (617) 495-6648 or hri@law.harvard.edu

For individuals who want to speak with student organizers or help volunteer:

Harvard Students 4 Freedom: studentsforfreedom1@gmail.com or @harvardstudents4freedom on Instagram

On September 26th, 2020, now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett was controversially nominated to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump as he was stepping out of office. During the nomination, Barrett directed her gratitude to Trump: “Thank you very much, Mr. President. I am deeply honored by the confidence that you have placed in me.” Just one month later, Barrett’s place was confirmed by the Senate—only one week away from Election Day. Five years later, controversy has followed Barrett to the Court, but not in the way most expected. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has emerged as the most Trump-skeptical judge in the Court’s conservative bloc, and she shows no signs of stopping.

Barrett’s Break

Despite her Trump-era appointment under deeply partisan circumstances, Justice Barrett has charted a more independent course on the bench, especially in cases involving Trump or his allies. As a result, her character and integrity have been maimed by outspoken pro-Trump voices.

Labeled as a “fraud”—or “an ungrateful, backstabbing POS,” as MAGA influencer Catturd phrased it on X—Barrett is under extreme criticism from the far right. However, it’s not just random Internet accounts coming for her name; important conservative figures, including Elon Musk and Senator Mike Lee, have dragged Barrett through the metaphorical online dirt. After the recent SCOTUS ruling over Trump’s executive order invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to support mass deportations, where Barrett sided with the Court’s liberal justices in the dissenting opinion, Sen. Lee reposted an image of the four female justices with the comment “This is disappointing.” Musk replied, “Suicidal empathy is a civilizational risk,” supposedly referencing Barrett’s conscience-driven case opinion.

It seems that Trump’s single issue nomination (Justice Barrett played a key role in overturning Roe v. Wade) has turned on him. Rather than blindly follow Trump’s lead, as many MAGA supporters do today, Barrett has held firm in her “empathetic” interpretation of the law. Beyond the issue of abortion, she appears to have much in common with the Court’s three liberal justices on matters of constitutional interpretation.

Recent Rulings

Amy Coney Barrett testifies before the Senate during her confirmation hearing. (Pool/AFP/Getty Images)

Apart from her move against Trump’s invocation of the 1798 law to promote deportation, Barrett has expressed her legal opinions independent of the Court’s conservative bloc on several other occasions.

In the case involving Trump’s ballot eligibility in Colorado, Barrett joined the liberal justices in critiquing the majority’s reasoning, arguing that the Court overreached by addressing unnecessary legal questions. Her concurrence was an example of judicial restraint, a subtle rebuke of the conservative majority’s broader agenda.

She also sided with the liberal wing in dissent over the January 6 obstruction statute, rejecting the majority’s attempt to narrow the charges used against Capitol rioters. Barrett’s language was sharp: she accused the Court of engaging in “textual backflips” and undermining the plain reading of the law.

In an EPA air pollution case, Barrett again joined the liberal dissent, calling out the majority’s “feeble” argumentation and “cherry-picked” data in a decision that weakened the government’s authority to regulate cross-state emissions. Her opinion showed a growing concern with executive overreach and environmental degradation, both traditionally liberal priorities.

Even in the heated issue of Arizona’s voter registration laws, Barrett bucked expectations, breaking with conservatives to limit the scope of voter disenfranchisement. And though she acknowledged some form of presidential immunity in a recent ruling, she parted ways with the majority by insisting that a president’s “official acts” should still be admissible as evidence in criminal proceedings—a pointed stance with direct implications for Trump’s ongoing legal battles.

A Word of Caution

While these rulings suggest Barrett is more than a partisan pawn, her independence should not be romanticized by liberal onlookers. Barrett remains a deeply conservative justice, and her votes continue to shape a Court that has largely weakened past liberal decisions. Her divergence from Trump-aligned expectations does not automatically align her with progressive ideals, but it does reflect a more complex judicial philosophy that does not bow down to her nominator’s whims.

Barrett’s pragmatism, however, has cost her dearly among the MAGA faithful, many of whom now view her with the same contempt they reserve for her liberal colleagues. Ironically, Trump’s most controversial Supreme Court pick is shaping up to be one of the few willing to challenge the man who put her on the bench. Whether this becomes a legacy of conscience or caution remains to be seen.

The US government has frozen student visa processing for international students and promises to begin revoking Chinese student visas, marking an escalation in the White House’s war against elite institutions.  

On May 27, 2025, the State Department announced that it intends to halt the processing of new student visas—although students who already have scheduled their visa interviews will be unaffected by this measure.  The State Department qualified this, stating that this interruption in processing will be temporary. The Department concluded with this final note: they plan to strengthen vetting procedures—which could include strenuous research into applicants’ digital footprint presence—for prospective international students.

But the tables turned rather quickly. Marco Rubio, the current Secretary of State, posted an X statement on May 28 that the U.S. will “begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”  The White House’s recent move against international students is not an isolated event, however—the Trump administration has been making moves against numerous elite universities for on-campus anti-semitism and DEI initiatives, citing violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The culmination of these recent measures marks the striking changes in US educational policy and leaves thousands of students with an uncertain future.

Continued National Security and Academic Tensions

The State Department’s recent measures come in the wake of continued tensions between the White House and universities—tensions that have snowballed since the new administration has taken office.  

Since the beginning of their tenure, the Trump Administration has launched numerous investigations into unaddressed on-campus anti-semitism, as well as DEI initiatives like the PhD Project. They revoked billions of federal research funding from top universities like Columbia and Harvard, making the recent decision to halt visa processing. This choice didn’t come without meditation—the Trump administration isn’t well-regarded for strong vetting procedures.  

Rubio stirred the pot further when he vowed to cancel previously approved student visas of Chinese nationals. This came as a surprise to many because Rubio’s decision completely clashed with the State Department’s previous announcement. The Department stipulated that students with approved visas would not be affected and thus should not be concerned about the future of their American education.  

Interestingly enough, during Trump’s previous term from 2016 to 2020, his administration issued Proclamation 10043 in 2020—seeking to block the entry of Chinese national graduate students with ties to military-related institutions, resulting in the cancellation of approximately 1,000 visas.  

Rubio’s announcement appears to revive and expand upon this previous approach, conveying a sense of increased national security concerns,  including anyone deemed to have ties with the Chinese Communist Party.  This should not come as a surprise, as it reframes the prior directive—which centered on military—to one that platforms maintaining “critical” developmental fields in STEM (i.e., quantum computing and artificial intelligence) under lock and key.  

Nevertheless, the timing of these announcements reaffirms the administration’s intentions—to use student visas as a national security tool.  With both halts in processing and revocations on the table, it is clear that the Trump administration is reshaping the role of international students in world politics. They serve not only as scholars but as political actors.

Potential Fallout for Students and Universities

The visa freeze and potential visa revocations have the potential to impact thousands of American universities at large.  For context, there are currently over one million international students, with Chinese students comprising just under a quarter of this population.  

Furthermore, international students often make significant contributions to U.S. research and productivity—in just the recent 2023-2024 school year alone, international students contributed $44 billion to the American economy. 

The State Department’s decisions have left many foreign nationals scrambling and uncertain about their future, as there does not appear to be a clear timeline for when these rulings will phase out.

Many contend that Rubio’s decisions could have chilling effects on the US educational landscape, diminishing U.S. global prominence in academia.  On the flip side, others see this as an opportunity to recognize talent domestically. They argue that it is in America’s best interest to allocate positions in elite universities to exceptional students who are solely American.  

Whether viewed as a national security safeguard or an attack on foreign nationals, the State Department’s decision marks a crucial turning point that will define the U.S.’s academic priorities—and who gets an opportunity to study in the US at all.

The country is divided on whether this foreign policy decision is a step in the right direction and will provide American citizens with more exclusive opportunities to innovate, or a step backwards with clear xenophobic undertones. Nonetheless, the world of higher education is undergoing a stark transformation under Trump’s leadership.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun has blocked former President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, marking a major judicial check on one of the most aggressive attacks on federal education oversight.

The ruling, handed down just weeks after the late March 2025 announcement, temporarily blocks what many view as an ideologically driven attempt to undermine public education and federal support for equity initiatives. Additionally, Joun enacted a preliminary injunction,  a temporary court order that prevents harmful actions until the case is resolved, allowing schools to proceed with their educational activities without fear of federal repercussions.

Trump justified the Department’s elimination as an effort to return power to local governments and eliminate what he called "woke indoctrination" in schools. The plan aligned with growing conservative criticism, opponents have increasingly cast DEI initiatives as political or un-American. However, opponents of the order—including civil rights groups, education advocates, and Democratic lawmakers—argued that dissolving the Department would harm students, especially marginalized groups, by stripping federal protections that ensure equal access to education.

Legal and Constitutional Implications

The judge’s ruling was based on both procedural and constitutional grounds. First, the court found that Trump’s order likely exceeded executive authority. The Department of Education was established by Congress in 1979, and its dissolution would require legislative action—not a unilateral executive order. The ruling reinforces the separation of powers and limits the scope of presidential power in matters involving permanent federal agencies.

Second, the judge acknowledged the order’s potential to cause irreparable harm to the nation’s education system. Without the Department, federal student aid programs, civil rights enforcement, and nationwide data collection and research could be severely disrupted. These functions are especially vital for monitoring educational equity and addressing systemic disparities that local or state governments may overlook.

Dismantling DEI: Broader Political and Cultural Context

The attempt to shut down the department did not occur in a vacuum—it reflects a broader political movement to roll back DEI frameworks in public life. From schools to corporations and public agencies, DEI programs have faced mounting pressure, often under the accusation that they promote identity politics or prioritize “social justice” over merit and neutrality.

Trump and other conservative leaders have made DEI a central target in their campaigns, painting such initiatives as government overreach or left-wing indoctrination. In education, this has translated into book bans, restrictions on curricula discussing race, and heightened scrutiny of educational grants and programming perceived as progressive.

By trying to eliminate the Department of Education, Trump effectively sought to defund and decentralize a major source of support for DEI initiatives in schools. The Department plays a key role in enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, or national origin) and Title IX (banning sex-based discrimination in education). Without it, enforcement of these protections would be fragmented at best, and at worst, entirely ignored in certain states.

Political and Social Implications

Joun’s decision signals that while political rhetoric may attempt to push boundaries, the legal system remains a barricade against extreme federal actions that lack constitutional backing. It also raises questions about the long-term strategy of those seeking to dismantle DEI infrastructure at the federal level. If the courts hold firm, future efforts may have to focus on legislative change or state-level policies rather than sweeping federal mandates.

In blocking Trump’s executive order, Judge Joun reinforced not only the constitutional limits of presidential power but also the enduring importance of federal support for equity in education—at a time when such support is increasingly under attack.

Public opinion remains deeply divided on the issue. While some Americans support scaling back federal involvement in education and question the emphasis on race and identity, others argue that dismantling DEI initiatives threatens hard-won civil rights progress. For educators, students, and families, the Department of Education’s existence is not just bureaucratic—it represents federal commitment to educational equity and access.

The Texas House of Representatives and Senate passed Senate Bill 10 on May 25 and May 28, respectively, a bill that would require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, serving as the newest development in a trend towards the unification of religion and public education. This isn’t the first time the separation of government and religion has been challenged.

Whiteboards, desks, and writing utensils are integral to many K-12 classrooms across the United States. Thanks to a bill being considered by the Texas state Senate, the Bible’s Ten Commandments may join that list for Texas students starting the 2025-2026 school year.

If passed, Senate Bill 10 would require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments on a poster funded by private donations. The Senate first voted on the bill in March, and the Texas House of Representatives passed an amended version on Sunday, May 25, with a 82-46 vote. With a 28-3 vote on May 28, the Texas Senate overwhelmingly passed the amended bill as well, sending it to the governor’s desk. Though the bill is pending his approval, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has already pledged his intention to “make it law.”

“By placing the Ten Commandments in our public school classrooms, we ensure our students receive the same foundational moral compass as our state and country’s forefathers,” Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick issued in a statement following the bill’s initial passage by the Senate in March. 

Despite the bill’s strong Republican support and sparse Democrat support, it has drawn public criticism for blurring the line regarding the role of religion in public education, drawing upon the conservative push for integration of church and state. 

“I think this bill is not only unconstitutional [and] un-American, I also think it’s deeply un-Christian because, you know, we as believers should be bringing policies that seek to feed the hungry, heal the sick, welcome the stranger, serve the poor—but instead of working on those policies, we’re trying to force teachers to put up a poster,” said Texas State Representative James Talarcio, who formerly served as a public school teacher, in an interview with Houston Public Media.

Christianity in the Classroom

This isn’t the first time that a state government has attempted to mandate the presence of religious texts in the classroom. Fifteen other states have pursued similar legislation regarding the Ten Commandments, and Louisiana and Arkansas have done so successfully. Supporters claim that Christianity is crucial to America’s historical roots and therefore should play a greater part in the education system. 

However, similar legislation has faced both public scrutiny and legal challenges. A federal judge struck down a Louisiana law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The American Civil Liberties Union has already announced its intention to sue the state of Texas over Senate Bill 10, labeling it “blatantly unconstitutional” and “religiously coercive.” 

The federal government has also displayed tensions when it comes to religion’s role in the classroom, with the Supreme Court blocking a bid by Oklahoma to direct state funds to a religious charter school in a tie vote.

The First Amendment: Balancing Religious Liberty With Public Secularism

The core debate on religion’s place in public learning stems from the Constitution itself. While the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause codifies the right to practice religion freely, the Establishment Clause also lays out boundaries regarding the relationship between church and state, specifically restricting the government’s ability to endorse or favor any one religion through legislation or executive action.

A series of Supreme Court cases in the 1960s put this principle to the test in the classroom. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer violated the Establishment Clause. Later cases, such as School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp (1963) and Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), further narrowed the extent to which schools could teach religious material.

However, it was Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) that first established strict guidelines regarding the relationship between religion and public education. In their ruling, the Court devised the “Lemon test,” which stipulated that an educational policy involving religion is constitutional under the following conditions: its primary purpose is secular, it does not further nor hinder religion and religion and government do not become “excessively entangled.” 

Later cases, most notably Stone v. Graham (1980), applied the Lemon test to policies in schools. As Texas State Senator Phil King, the lead writer of Senate Bill 10, reflected, it was this ruling that set the stage for several decades’ worth of legal precedent regarding the role of religious texts in public classrooms—and this ruling that is now being challenged.

“Members, if you grew up in a public school in Texas prior to 1980, you quite likely saw copies of the Ten Commandments because of their moral code, their place in history and their place in American and western law…Again, I said 1980, when a case called Stone v. Graham in Kentucky—in applying what was called the Lemon test for religious liberties—required that the Ten Commandments be taken down in schools all across the United States,” King said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Turning Tides: Changes in Precedent 

Though Stone v. Graham effectively prevented states from requiring public schools to display religious texts in classrooms for over four decades, the 2022 Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District prompted a shift in the relationship between religion and public education. In examining a case involving a public school employee’s free exercise of religion, the Supreme Court chose to abandon the principles of the Lemon test. Without guidelines to determine whether or not religion and government have become “excessively entangled” in schools, many states have taken the opportunity to pursue measures that previously may have violated the test’s strict guidelines surrounding the separation of church and state in the classroom.

This is the situation that Texas finds itself in now. With Texas’ government poised to pass Senate Bill 10 and advocacy groups just as prepared to challenge it in court, the U.S. judicial system is at an pivotal crossroads regarding its stance on the role of religion in the classroom. The court’s verdict could determine whether the U.S.’s leniency towards the intersection of church and education is a temporary deviation from precedent or a long-standing trend.

On Tuesday, May 27, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an order that went out to U.S. embassies and consulates, halting interviews for foreign exchange students hoping to obtain visas. The sudden move has left thousands of international students in limbo and caught universities across the U.S. off guard, just weeks before many institutions finalize enrollment for the fall semester. With no clear timeline for resumption, academic calendars, housing arrangements, and scholarship commitments are now at risk. 

What’s remarkable is that no policy has been formally changed. No new visa category has been created or eliminated. The law remains the same, yet the delay is everything. This pause signals something quieter but more telling: that in the architecture of global access, control over time has become as powerful as control over rules.

The Pause That Acts Like a Ban

While the suspension cannot be paralleled to official denials of entry, its effect is nearly indistinguishable from a ban. In the logic of academic life—bound to calendars, enrollment cutoffs, and immigration windows—a deferred visa can be a dead-end. For thousands of students worldwide, the order delivered on Tuesday not only acts as a temporary denial of entry into the United States, but also forces these students to stall their education, effectively grinding any momentum gained in their respective journeys to a stop, and derailing the carefully planned path for pursuits after higher education. 

This kind of temporal gatekeeping is not new, but it’s gaining currency. In July of 2020, during the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration similarly issued guidance via ICE and the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) stating that international students could not remain in the U.S. if their courses were solely online. Although the administration rescinded the policy just 8 days later after a series of intense legal backlash, it revealed something critical: that international students’ presence in the U.S. could be jeopardized not by individual conduct but by shifts in institutional logistics beyond their control. 

The 2020 policy’s brevity didn’t diminish its impact; it sent a clear message that enrollment status—and by extension, physical presence—was precarious, contingent not only on compliance but on the rhythm and priorities of the federal government. 

The current culture being built by the Trump administration is not the immigration hawkishness that we saw in the early 2000s, nor the overt travel bans of the administration’s first term; instead, this strategic uncertainty is causing many to believe that this second wave built on design rather than  rhetoric is more opaquely moving toward the same destination: exclusion. 

When Slow Processing Becomes Structural Xenophobia

The actions of the federal government are slowly but surely shaping the normalization of systemic hesitation toward the foreign and unfamiliar. A deeper ethos is revealed when the U.S. government pauses these visa interviews: permission is no longer assumed, even for those who have long been part of the American academic fabric. 

Since 2016, international students have faced an increasingly brittle pipeline into traditionally welcoming U.S. institutions. And these trends have transcended different presidencies; in 2023, we saw a rise to 60 days in the median visa processing time for F-1 students in many regions with embassies in high-demand areas like South Asia and West Africa routinely reporting month-long backlogs. 

The numbers reflect this chilling sentiment. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the approximate $45 billion contributed by international students to the American economy in 2018 saw a stark drop to below $34 billion by 2022. Key sending countries, like China and Iran, have registered continued declines, a projection of the effects of hostile geopolitics on students all around the world. 

For decades, American universities have functioned as engines of soft power, offering degrees, career pathways, as well as citizenship to their diverse pool of students. When those pathways become rapidly and increasingly unpredictable, the U.S. loses much more than tuition dollars. It loses global trust and prestige, widely attributed to the diverse range of skill sets and interests offered by international students. 

And when these disruptions disproportionately affect students from the Global South—regions historically underrepresented in elite institutions—they echo a longer history of gatekeeping dressed in procedural neutrality and necessity.

The system doesn’t need to deny entry based on nationality, race, or religion. It simply needs to slow down where and when it matters most for students around the world seeking education in the United States. In this way, strategic delay becomes structural xenophobia: not a policy of exclusion but a process that perpetuates disproportionate exclusion.

For over a century, the complex relationship between trade schools (also known as career technical education institutions) and the U.S. federal government has evolved around political ideologies, economic needs, and social values. At the very core of this evolution lies two diametrically opposing visions of education—one that emphasizes hands-on training, skill-based learning tied to local economies, and the other that emphasizes elite academic research and global competitiveness to provide workforce for a service-based global economy.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States transitioned into an industrial economy. The federal government's support for trade schools coincided directly with America’s ascent as an industrial nation. Factories rapidly expanded with the burst of urbanization. With the spike of immigrants on both coasts, there was a large demand for skilled labor in fields like carpentry, mechanics, agriculture, and domestic sciences. 

On February 23, 1917, President Wilson signed Senate Bill 703—the vocational education bill also known as the “Smith-Hughes Act”—a plan of cooperation between the federal government and the various states for the payment of salaries of teachers of vocational subjects and the training of such teachers. The landmark legislation marked the foundation of federal investment in vocational education, which led to the establishment of funding and curriculum for training students in practical trades. 

The federal government continued its support for the vocational system through legislative acts, including the GI Bill, the National Defense Education Act of 1958, and the Vocational Education Act of 1963. Unlike the earlier federal responses to economic demands, post-World War II legislation was in response to the pressures from the Cold War. These programs positioned vocational training as essential to both national security and economic competitiveness and emphasized training for economically disadvantaged populations. However, inadvertently, they started to lay the groundwork for a dual-track system: academic education for the college-bound, and vocational training for the working-class—and often marginalized and economically impoverished communities.

As the 1970s and 1980s rolled around and widespread economic turbulence spread, the industrial backbone of the United States experienced a watershed moment. Factories shuttered, and thus large-scale automation of labor-intensive jobs spread throughout the Midwest and the other manufacturing hotbeds of America. The federal government responded with delayed legislation, such as the Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984, aimed at modernizing vocational training and restoring its relevance during a time of large-scale job loss. 

Entering the last decade of the 20th century, globalization had arrived and spread rapidly through the economy, cementing the shift in American educational priorities. The four-year college degree became the dream, and vocational education declined massively in demand and prestige. With globalization and the outsourcing of manufacturing to lower-wage countries, supply chains became truly international. The American economy pivoted towards a services-oriented economy, and these service-based industries were localized in coastal regions, relying heavily on college-educated employees. 

This economic transformation led to an uneven impact. Colleges and universities dependent on research grants received federal funding to keep up with the demands of the service-based economy, while vocational schools and career technical academies were underfunded and seen as a last resort. This divide resulted in a dual-track system, and the chasm widened tremendously as the years went by.

In Trump's America, attention has been renewed on reviving the forgotten trades. One of the main campaign promises made was the Great Revival of American Manufacturing and Blue Collar Pride. 

With this in mind, the federal government began using Career Technical Education not just as a policy tool but as a political statement. Officials in the current administration champion trade schools, apprenticeships, and CTE programs—which are conveniently needed to counter the excess of elite academic institutions that receive federal funding. 

The budget cuts and policy measures proposed are a coordinated effort to pressure private universities to rely on their endowment funds, draining their power. The administration is giving a new spotlight to the American worker by prioritizing career technical education. CTE lost its stigma tremendously and suddenly became a patriotic call. 

The role of the federal government has come full circle. Beginning with the early 1900s, CTE was heavily criticized, sneered at, and prodded. Now, in the mid-2020s, CTE has taken front and center stage. Trump’s prioritization of technical skills over academic research reveals a remarkable shift in the educational priorities and identity of the nation. 

As we grapple with the consequences of educational policy changes and funding cuts, the one question lingering on America's mind is: Can the U.S. endure an educational system that can value both the young blue collar worker pursuing trade skills like welding and carpentry, in harmony with the student pursuing white collar career paths like science and law? 

The answer to the question, as ambiguous as it may seem in the current state of the U.S., will undoubtedly shape what’s next for American economic growth and global competitiveness in a growingly technological and non-humanized world.

The Bell Isn’t Ringing Anymore

In Nigeria, classrooms are growing quieter—not because students are learning, but because they're missing. More than 18.3 million Nigerian children are out of school today, a staggering statistic that cements the country’s place at the top of a list no nation wants to lead. For a number of these children, desks are empty not by choice, but by the consequences of violence, poverty, politics, and inaction.

This isn’t just a national tragedy. It’s a slow erosion of Nigeria’s future—one child, one class, one school at a time.

Classrooms Under Siege

For years now, armed conflict has redrawn the map of education across much of northern Nigeria. In states like Zamfara, Yobe, Borno, and Kaduna, school has become a battlefield. Boko Haram, bandits, and kidnappers haven’t just attacked buildings—they’ve attacked the very idea of learning. Entire school systems have collapsed under the weight of insecurity.

It’s not just the schools under attack—it’s the very idea of education itself.. When students are abducted and teachers are killed, fear takes hold. And fear, unlike mortar, is contagious. Many families keep their children at home, not because they don’t value education—but because they value life more.

A Country That Can’t Afford Tuition or Safety

But guns aren’t the only threat keeping children away. For many, it’s poverty that shuts the door. Even in regions untouched by violence, schooling remains out of reach for millions. The issue? It’s not just about access. It’s about affordability. For poor families, especially in rural areas, education often comes second to survival. School uniforms, writing supplies, even basic transportation—these are all luxuries to a family trying to put food on the table.

And when education becomes unaffordable, children are pushed into labor markets. Many end up hawking goods on the roadside, working farms, or apprenticing in small workshops. For girls, the consequences are harsher. Cultural norms and economic pressures push many into early marriages, domestic servitude, or silence. Some families believe girls don’t need school. Others believe it puts them in danger. Either way, doors are closing.

From the Classroom to the Crisis

The statistics paint a bleak picture: although nearly two-thirds of Nigerian primary-aged children attend school, the attendance rate drops significantly in marginalized regions. Girls account for nearly 60% of out-of-school youth nationwide. Fewer children make it to secondary school. Even fewer finish. These aren’t just numbers—they’re symptoms of a system in distress.

The absence of education echoes far beyond the schoolyard. Without basic skills in literacy, numeracy, or critical thinking, children are left unequipped for adulthood. The result? A generation that cannot compete in a global economy or even stabilize its own.

And that pressure is already bearing down on Nigeria’s labor market. With few pathways to formal employment, many young Nigerians drift into informal, underpaid work—or worse, into dangerous alternatives. The promise of modern sectors like technology, medicine, or sustainable agriculture becomes unreachable for a youth population kept in the dark.

Security by Education—or the Lack of It

As more children fall through the cracks, the risks compound. National security analysts are increasingly concerned: when a society fails to educate its youth, it inadvertently arms them with desperation. That desperation—especially in northern Nigeria—often finds its outlet in militancy or crime. Not all who join extremist groups do so out of ideology. Some are looking for structure. Some for food. Some just want to be seen.

If Nigeria wants peace, it can’t ignore the link between education and security.

A Government That Doesn’t Show Its Work

Despite the crisis, the federal government continues to underinvest. UNESCO recommends 15–20% of national budgets go toward education. Nigeria rarely breaks 8%. That funding gap leaves classrooms overcrowded, teachers underpaid, and infrastructure crumbling. Efforts at the state level have been uneven. Kaduna has made gains. So has Jigawa. But elsewhere? Progress is scarce.

Even where money is allocated, corruption and inefficiency dilute its impact. Policy rarely reaches the children who need it most. And reform, when it does come, too often stalls in the bureaucracy.

The Remaining Hope

Where the state has faltered, civil society has stepped in—though not at the scale required. Still, not all is lost. Across the country, community groups and nonprofits have stepped in to fill the void. Accelerated learning centers, mobile classrooms, and tuition-free programs like the Lumina Programme have emerged in hard-to-reach areas. Conditional cash transfers and school feeding schemes have helped families reprioritize education.

In some regions, traditional rulers have become allies of sorts, calling for improvements to girls’ education and challenging destructive gender norms. Organizations like the Oando Foundation and Education Cannot Wait are offering small but meaningful morsels of support that have the potential to improve educational outcomes.

The Stakes Are Mounting

Yet for all these efforts, the road ahead is uncertain. Nigeria’s population is projected to double by 2050. If the country cannot educate its children now, it will soon face a demographic avalanche with no foundation to hold it up.

Education is more than just policy. It is the most potent antidote to poverty, extremism, and despair. If anything, it is the foundation for every other solution the country hopes to build.

And if Nigeria continues to leave its classrooms empty, it won’t just be forfeiting the promise of its children. It won’t just forfeit its future—it will erase it.

As a wise investor might say, if it walks like a startup and pivots like a startup, it’s probably coming for the school system next.

For decades, America’s traditional education model has felt like an Excel spreadsheet with tenure—rigid, outdated, and weirdly confident in its own permanence. Bloated administration? Check. Overworked teachers? Check. Students still pretending to care about the Pythagorean Theorem? Triple check. So naturally, in an age where startups are “disrupting” everything from taxis to teeth straightening, someone eventually asked: What if we ran schools like we run SaaS companies?

Enter the startup-inspired education model, where agile frameworks meet algebra, and the curriculum iterates faster than a teenager’s TikTok algorithm.

From Classrooms to Codebases

Let’s start with Prenda, a company that blends homeschooling with micro-schooling and operates more like an ed-tech co-op than a traditional institution. Imagine if your neighborhood mom became your school principal—except now she has a dashboard. Prenda’s model decentralizes learning into pods and plugs them into a centralized tech platform. The result? Customized learning that feels more like assembling a Spotify playlist than sitting through AP U.S. History.

Then there’s Synthesis, a virtual learning platform spun out of Elon Musk’s Ad Astra school, where children don’t just learn—they simulate, fail, and iterate. Think of it as the educational lovechild of Minecraft and a Stanford MBA capstone project. The focus? Problem-solving, gamification, and launching 11-year-olds into startup pitch mode before they can legally own a debit card.

Even old-school players are getting in on the startup playbook. KIPP schools use granular data tracking and performance-based incentives for teachers, echoing how a product team might track monthly active users. Rocketship Education brings in adaptive learning software and real-time dashboards that look suspiciously like the UI of your favorite productivity app.

The common thread: these schools don’t just teach; they optimize.

But Is This Model Actually Sustainable, or Just Shiny?

Here’s the million-dollar question (possibly VC-backed): Are these startup-style schools just sleek packaging around the same old inequities?

Let’s talk numbers. These models often rely on venture capital or philanthropic grants, which means they’re under pressure to scale fast and deliver flashy metrics. But education isn’t a “user journey”—it’s a life. And when learning becomes a growth hack, we risk turning students into data points and educators into glorified product managers.

Meanwhile, the much-hyped "micro-school revolution" often comes with a macro price tag. Without public investment or subsidies, these learning pods start to look like exclusive clubs for the Zoom-call-and-Zelle crowd. It’s not hard to imagine a future where Prenda pods pop up in gentrified neighborhoods while underserved students are left decoding outdated PDFs in underfunded districts.

The result? A tale of two school systems: one powered by AI and flexible learning paths, the other by worksheets, test prep, and an eternal shortage of functioning Chromebooks. As with most things in the tech world, if you don’t intentionally build for equity, you accidentally build for exclusion.

Who’s Teaching the Teachers?

Another wrinkle: In these models, teachers are often recast as “learning facilitators.” Which sounds great—until you realize it sometimes means lower pay, less stability, and a mandate to master EdTech platforms that change faster than Google Classroom updates its font settings. If the startup model values educators, it needs to invest in them, not just "disrupt" them into burnout.

And while gamified simulations are fun, there’s still the pesky issue of what gets assessed. Suppose standardized tests are the enemy, great. But what’s the alternative? Peer-based project reviews? AI-generated feedback? Until we have a shared, meaningful way to measure progress—beyond buzzwords like “grit” or “growth mindset”—these models risk becoming glorified experiments in vibes-based learning.

The Path Forward: From Beta to Blueprint

Here’s the thing: not all of this is bad. In fact, a lot of it is genuinely promising. The traditional education system has earned its critics, and models like Prenda and Synthesis have sparked important questions about learner autonomy, real-world relevance, and agility in instruction.

But if we want these innovations to stick, they need more than VC buzz and TED Talk charisma. They need:

• Public-private partnerships that maintain broad access and keep costs low (think income-sharing agreements, but less dystopian).
• Clear frameworks for measuring learning outcomes that aren’t just test scores or product usage metrics.
• Transparent governance models that give voice to parents, students, and communities, not just platform developers.
• Accountability for equity. Because if your school only works in affluent suburbs, it’s not a model. It’s a privilege.

Final Grade: Incomplete (But Promising)

The startup-fication of schools isn’t inherently bad. Done right, it can chip away at some of the most outdated aspects of traditional education. But if we’re not careful, we risk creating a shiny new hierarchy where the lucky few get customized, project-based, AI-supported learning—while everyone else gets left with scanned worksheets and a dusty copy of Of Mice and Men.

Education deserves innovation. But it also deserves intention, guardrails, and yes—public funding. We don’t need startup schools. We need sustainable ones.

And maybe, just maybe, ones where teachers don’t have to learn three new software platforms every semester just to take attendance.

Somewhere between a GCSE prep session and the year 10 locker room, a boy opens TikTok. He scrolls. One video tells him how to bulk up fast. Another is how to win an argument. And then: “Women don’t want a man who cries. They want a man who conquers.” The speaker is Andrew Tate. The boy double-taps.

He doesn’t agree with everything Tate says. But something in the confidence, the swagger, the answers — lands. And in a world that has never stopped to ask him who he’s becoming, that feels like a lifeline.

We can pretend this is fringe, but the numbers won’t let us. In the UK, boys as young as 11 are quoting Tate in classrooms. Nearly half say they lack strong male role models. One in three say they’ve felt ashamed to show emotion in front of others. And while we fine-tune PSHE curriculum on paper, influencers are fine-tuning their reach in real-time — through algorithms that never sleep.

This isn’t about one man. Andrew Tate is not the disease. He’s the diagnosis — loud, viral, profitable. His rise tells us something we don’t want to hear: we left boys emotionally unparented, so someone else stepped in.

Masculinity is Being Outsourced to the Internet

There’s something achingly ironic about this moment. We live in a society that critiques toxic masculinity, yet offers boys no real blueprint for healthy manhood. We ask them not to dominate, not to objectify, not to repress — good. But we rarely show them what to do instead.

What does strength look like without aggression? What does leadership look like without control? What does “being a man” mean in 2025 if all the old scripts are obsolete and no one’s handed them a new one?

That vacuum is where YouTube fills in.

And it doesn’t just fill it—it curates it. It shapes an entire algorithmic worldview in which masculinity is reduced to cars, cash, and coldness. Platforms turn gender performance into content and feelings into liabilities. Boys are trained to perform, not to process. Every insecure scroll becomes a feedback loop: don’t be weak, don’t ask questions, dominate or disappear. There’s no nuance in a 15-second reel. Just a distorted masculinity on autoplay.

PSHE: The Ghost Period That Could Save a Generation

If there’s a classroom designed to wrestle with these questions, it’s PSHE. And yet, in too many schools, PSHE is the “ghost period”—half-taught, under-trained, squeezed between science and lunch.

This is a missed opportunity of generational scale.

We don’t need a “don’t be like Tate” lesson plan. We need critical thinking modules on how ideas spread online. Conversations about loneliness and status and gender and power. We need to tell 13-year-old boys: you are allowed to ask who you are without already knowing the answer. Because if we don’t, someone else will tell them — and they might not like the answer they get.

We could be teaching them how to decode manipulation, how to recognize insecurity dressed as arrogance, and how to talk about shame without shutting down. Imagine PSHE that trains boys to become literate in themselves—to recognize not just what they feel, but why they feel it. Imagine PSHE that normalizes awkward questions instead of silencing them. That’s not fluff. That’s foundational. It’s the emotional scaffolding on which everything else rests—relationships, careers, even democracy.

Learning from the Nordic Model: What Works Elsewhere

While the UK struggles with these challenges, other countries offer instructive examples. The Nordic countries—particularly Sweden, Denmark, and Finland—have pioneered approaches to gender equality in education that deserve serious attention.

Sweden's education system mandates teaching through democratic methodologies, with specific attention paid to boys' emotional development. Swedish curricula focus on helping boys "construct a more complex masculinity, in turn enriching the set of collective masculinities available and working towards a more egalitarian social model".

In Denmark and Iceland, compensatory teaching strategies give both boys and girls the chance to develop all their facets, with a focus placed on encouraging autonomy and emotional intelligence. These programs recognize that boys and girls inevitably take on gender roles in mixed groups, which justifies targeted interventions to train different capacities that would otherwise be conditioned by group dynamics.

Nordic preschools integrate gender equality work into daily practice, promoting "gender awareness" through systematic organizational changes rather than one-off interventions. The key insight? Gender equality isn't achieved through policy alone—it requires embedding new approaches into the fabric of educational practice.

We Are Paying the Price of Our Silence

The cost isn’t just cultural. It’s economic. The UK’s NEET rates are disproportionately male. Boys are falling behind in reading, university enrollment, even friendship. There is a loneliness epidemic among men, and we’re still pretending it starts at 40. It doesn’t. It starts at 12, in a classroom that teaches photosynthesis but not self-worth.

And if you think boys being influenced by Tate is a niche issue, try working in a service job with a man who thinks women owe him deference. Try dating someone who’s never been taught to say “I’m scared.” Try living in a society where vulnerability is still coded as weakness — and strength as silence.

When we talk about lost boys, we forget that those boys grow into men who vote, who parent, who run institutions. Unspoken hurt calcifies. Emotional illiteracy doesn't stay confined to adolescence—it becomes cultural policy. And then we’re no longer talking about “boys in crisis.” We’re talking about systems in crisis, built by people who were never given the tools to reflect, to connect, to course-correct.

Let’s Give Boys Their Stories Back

The Netflix series Adolescence understands this deeply. It shows teenage boys not as caricatures, but as kids trying to script themselves into a world that doesn’t speak their language. It’s not a show about masculinity. It’s a show within it. And that’s exactly the tone our classrooms need — less doctrine, more dialogue.

Boys don’t need to be rescued. But they do need to be invited. To feel. To speak. To doubt. To be something other than a punchline or a problem to be managed. If we reimagine PSHE not as a duty, but as an offering, we just might get through.

Because at some point, every boy asks the world: what kind of man should I be?

If we don’t answer, TikTok will.

And TikTok doesn’t care who he becomes—only that he keeps watching.

And if that’s the standard for masculinity in 2025, then we’ve outsourced something far more dangerous than attention. We’ve outsourced the moral imagination of the next generation. And we might not like what comes back.

It’s not a virus, an earthquake, or even another wave of COVID-19 — but classrooms across California and beyond are emptying again. And this time, it’s fear that’s spreading: fear of ICE, of detention, of parents not coming home.

Recently, research from Stanford University revealed a dramatic 22% spike in school absences in California’s Central Valley in the days following ICE raids. This surge wasn’t limited to undocumented families. It ebbed through Latino-majority districts, slashing attendance in pre-K by 30%, in elementary schools by over a quarter, and even in high schools by 8%. 

The cause? Sweeping federal immigration enforcement. The effect? Students missing days, sometimes weeks, of instruction — some never returning at all.

Fear Beyond School Hours

School leaders and other advocates say the threat isn’t exactly ICE agents barging into schools — it’s what happens before and after students are in those classrooms. Parents are afraid to drive their children to class, afraid to show their faces at pick-up, even afraid to leave the house, for fear they might be torn away without warning.

According to organizations working with immigrant households, this fear is ricocheting throughout entire communities. School districts are already preparing for drops in summer school and fall enrollment, as many families have ceased to feel safe stepping onto campus or interacting with school staff.

Mental Health is In the Crossfire

For the children left at home, this trauma resulting from these absences could result in more than simply missing assignments. Mental health professionals warn that fear-driven absences can lead to serious long-term consequences, including anxiety, depression, and emotional withdrawal. 

Support services like Soluna and BrightLife Kids are offering counseling and bilingual mindfulness training to help families build a much-needed sense of resilience. Yet, professionals in the field stress that no amount of coping strategies can fully shield children from the psychological weight of knowing their family could be torn apart at any given moment.

The System Is Silent

In spite of the legal protections that require ICE to obtain judicial warrants to enter K-12 schools, many school districts are remaining hesitant to address the issue directly. They have yet to implement any formal policies or emergency plans for immigration-related trauma. In some of these districts, administrators remain unsure of how to respond without appearing political. Others worry that openly addressing ICE activity could provoke backlash from state officials or conservative parent groups. Dissenters of this silence say that this lack of clear communication is only deepening distrust.

Some policy analysts note that schools have a vital role to play in reassuring families that their children are safe on campus and that student information will be protected. But across the country—and especially in politically divided states—many districts are continuing to avoid public acknowledgment of the problem.

This hesitation has consequences. School counselors and teachers, often the most trusted adults in students’ lives outside the home, report feeling unequipped to handle the waves of absences and fear among their students. Without any clear directives from leadership, schools are often left to improvise—if they act at all. This may be contributing to student withdrawals.

Advocates stress that trust doesn’t come from silence. Rather, districts can issue public commitments to student safety, create emergency family contact plans, provide multilingual communication regarding legal rights, and guarantee that no student data will be shared without a court order. These actions are not political, advocates argue, but educational necessities, based  on a sense of care for students.

What Now?

The U.S. has been battling a chronic absenteeism crisis since the pandemic. But immigration-driven absences are layered with added trauma—and racial and legal inequity.

If left unaddressed, schools risk losing entire generations of their learners to fear and instability. For families navigating a daily minefield of deportation threats, the classrooms should not be a risk. It should be a sanctuary.

Whether school districts will step up to protect that sanctuary remains an open question. But for now, the message from ICE enforcement is being heard loud and clear in classrooms across America—not through arrests, but through the deafening silence of absent students and their empty seats.

In a large move signaling a major transformation in India’s secondary education system, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that Class 10 students will be allowed to sit for board examinations twice a year beginning in 2026. This reform, which was introduced in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, is designed to reduce exam-related stress and offer students a chance to improve their scores without being penalized by a single high-stakes test.

The revised system introduces a dual-board model where the first exam, held in February, is mandatory for all students. A second, optional attempt will follow in May, thus offering an opportunity for score improvement in up to three core subjects: Science, Mathematics, Social Science, and Languages. The final result will reflect the higher of the two scores for each subject, giving students greater control over their academic outcomes.

Shifting Towards Flexibility

This reform is one aspect of a broader goal that has been outlined in NEP 2020 to make board exams more flexible, less stressful, and more representative of a student’s learning journey. By providing two chances within a single academic session, the CBSE is accordingly aiming to diminish the pressure that currently revolves around a single final examination.

Under the new guidelines, the internal assessment process for Class 10 students will be conducted only once—prior to the February exam. The overall syllabus, exam pattern, and marking scheme will remain unchanged across both sessions, ensuring consistency in evaluation standards.

Certain provisions have additionally been added to accommodate students with special circumstances. For example, students from winter-bound schools can choose to appear in either of the two exam phases. Similarly, students who are participating in national-level sports events during board exam dates will be allowed to take those particular subjects during the second phase.

This revised structure maintains eligibility criteria for participation in the exams. To appear for the first exam, students must be either currently enrolled, repeaters from the previous academic year, or those seeking improvement. The second exam will only be open to students seeking improvement in up to three subjects, or those appearing for compartment or subject-replacement categories. Students who fail three or more subjects in the February exam will not be eligible for the May session and must repeat the academic year.

Results and Admissions

The CBSE plans to release the results of the February exam by April, enabling students to apply for provisional admission to Class XI. Those who take the May exam can update their admission status once final marks are released in June. However, final mark sheets and merit certificates are only to be issued after the second exam cycle, thus allowing the best possible scores to be reflected in students’ academic records.

Post-result services such as re-evaluation, answer sheet photocopies, and verification will be made available only after the second exam results, which could potentially serve to delay clarity for students seeking a review of their scores.

Educators Are Divided

While the policy is being viewed as a step forward in aligning education with student well-being, it’s raised equal concerns among teachers and school administrators. The extension of the exam cycle from February to June could significantly disrupt the academic calendar, compressing the time that’s available for teaching and learning in other grades.

Educators fear that an elongated exam period could lead to reduced instructional hours for lower classes (particularly grades VI to VIII), as the faculty and staff would be preoccupied with exam administration, grading, and coordination. This redistribution of attention could serve to weaken foundational instruction across the school system.

Teacher burnout is another key issue. The burden of preparing students for two board exams, on top of managing their regular teaching responsibilities and conducting internal assessments, poses a serious challenge to workload management. Without appropriate support or an increase in staff, this change could impact teaching quality and even morale.

And what about the students? For them, critics of this change worry that rather than providing relief, the extended exam window could create a prolonged period of anxiety—particularly for those who perform moderately well in the February exam but feel compelled to improve further in May.

Financial and Emotional Implications

Concerns are rising about the financial toll this model may impose on families, particularly those from middle and lower-income backgrounds. Additional costs related to registration, travel, study materials, tutoring, and exam center logistics could deter some students from taking advantage of the second exam opportunity, which could only serve to undermine the policy’s inclusiveness.

Families could also experience emotional fatigue as exam-related stress stretches over months. In households with limited resources, this uncertainty could add new pressures on both students and parents.

What About Alternatives?

On the flip side, some educational experts have proposed alternatives to the biannual model to address these concerns while still fulfilling the goals of NEP 2020. One such suggestion is shifting to online adaptive testing models that allow students multiple retake opportunities throughout the year, thereby removing the need for rigid exam cycles.

Still, others are advocating for greater reliance on internal assessments. This, they argue, would allow schools to certify learning outcomes for students who do not require standardized board exam certification in all subjects. These internal metrics could be supplemented with project-based evaluations and oral assessments to create a more holistic picture of student achievement.

There is also growing support for pilot programs to test the feasibility of biannual exams in select schools or regions before implementing the policy nationwide. Such a phased rollout could provide valuable insights, as well as help CBSE fine-tune the structure for broader adoption.

Looking Ahead

CBSE’s introduction of a biannual board exam system reflects the beginning of a philosophical shift in Indian education that should not be ignored—one prioritizing student agency, flexibility, and the reduction of undue pressure. However, the success of this policy will depend on how thoughtfully it’s executed. If not, it risks becoming yet another well-meaning reform weighed down by logistical strain and unintended consequences.

On June 24th, 2025, Stratford High School introduced a radical new phone policy for the 2025-2026 school year. The policy prohibits students from bringing their cell phones out during school time, from the first to the final bell. Each phone must be kept within student lockers or turned off and contained within sealed storage compartments that serve as locking mechanisms and only opened after the day. Exceptions are made only for medical treatment, emergencies, and instructional uses approved by an instructor. The goal is to create a learning, concentration, and interpersonal interaction-conducive environment.

Stratford's new policy did not just magically appear. Teachers and administrators over the past few years witnessed sharply elevated usage of phones by students during class hours following repeated attempts to limit it at the classroom level through light touch enforcement. Despite their efforts, students were scrolling screens in class, texting under desks, and tuning out academics and peer relationships.

In the spring of 2025, a parent, student, administrator, and faculty committee came together to more formally examine the issue. They reviewed school statistics on academic performance, surveyed teachers and students, and even shadowed students through classes, viewing use in real-time. The most alarming statistic, perhaps, was that over 60% of the students indicated that they used their phones once or more during each class period, typically for purposes other than classwork.

Based on its examination of national studies and existing models for schools, the committee proposed the blanket ban. The Stratford Board of Education passed it unanimously in May, attributing it to overwhelming evidence linking phone usage with decreased attention spans and lower academic engagement.

There is no federal mandate for phone use in American schools, with the choice left up to individual states and school districts. However, that is changing. In 2023, Florida became the first state to mandate keeping phones out of reach during class time in all public schools. Several other states, including Ohio, Utah, and Indiana, have since signed into law or introduced the same measure.

District policies vary widely at the district level. Some allow phones during lunch and recess; others have strict prohibitions with storage bags like Yondr. District policies in cities like Los Angeles and New York City discourage phones but have minimal enforcement at the school level. Stratford's policy is on the more restrictive side of policy, joining a larger set of schools seeking more drastic changes in the classroom culture.

The link between cell phone use and attention in class isn't anecdotal: it's proven. In 2020, one study at the London School of Economics reported that schools that banned mobile phones saw an enormous jump in test scores, with the largest increases for students who were previously performing at a lower level. Other research shows that simply having a phone, turned off but visible, reduces working memory and mental capacity.

Phones are engineered to capture attention: notifications, social media algorithms, and games discharge dopamine bursts that make it difficult for users (especially teenagers) to let go. In a classroom setting, that means instruction lost, surface-level instruction, and diminished participation. Stratford teachers have long complained that phones are fracturing student attention and diminishing classroom culture.

Stratford is not the sole school to increase regulations. Throughout the nation, many cell phone policies have been implemented as a reaction to the same issue.

Yondr pouches are used in numerous schools, including San Mateo, California and Dayton, Ohio. The systems restrict phone use physically during the school day but allow students to have their devices on their person. The method has proven effective in reducing off-task behavior and increasing student engagement. Some districts have designated phone-free "red zones" in libraries and classrooms but allow phones in hallways or cafeterias. More flexible, but harder to enforce. Alternative high-tech schools encourage positive phone use by integrating phones into instruction. These models rely heavily on teacher discretion and strong digital citizenship programs, which can be variable in their effectiveness.

By contrast with these alternatives, Stratford's approach is more standardized and restrictive, aimed at eliminating confusion and imposing consistency in classroom practices.

How effectively it's enforced and whether or not the school provides substantive screen-free alternatives will ultimately decide the success of Stratford's ban. The school is already investing in park space, lounges for students, and screen-free activities at lunch and recess to provide students with healthy outlets for relaxation. Teachers are also being trained in more active, interactive pedagogies to keep their students engaged.

The administration has emphasized that the policy is not an issue of punishment but of possibility: creating a school culture where students are more present, more engaged, and more connected. There will perhaps be initial resistance, as change never comes easily. But if Stratford can persist and assist students through the transition, the school could become a model for those traveling down the same path.

As Principal Lewis explained at the school's June board meeting: "This isn't about phones. It's 

about taking back the classroom as a place for learning, imagination, and connection." 

Stratford's policy is a significant step in that direction, and its ripple effects will be watched closely by educators well outside its borders.

The federal government has delved into a movement condemning diversity, equity, and inclusion measures, spearheaded by President Donald Trump. The Department of Education firmly opposed DEI programs, claiming they exclude white and Asian American students. This supposedly race-exclusionary basis has launched investigations into over 50 institutions and their dismantling of DEI programs—one of which is the University of Virginia.

Even during these investigations, UVA took action to comply with the federal government’s executive actions to remove DEI programs. Specifically, on March 7th, the Board of Visitors passed a resolution citing President Trump’s executive order signed in January, entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” Within this resolution were demands to dissolve the University’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Community Partnerships to fully abide by federal regulations. Working with the BOV, Ryan stated full compliance within thirty days, but the Department of Justice was steadfast in launching further investigations.

On April 28th, 2025, Harmeet Dhillon and Gregory Brown, two UVA alumni, notified the university that there was a lack of compliance. Their demands followed, including that the institution produce more materials—including demands that exceeded the scope of the prior March 7th resolution. These materials included video recordings of BOV sessions—both open and closed—detailed certifications of any positions with DEI responsibilities and whether those staffers were still connected to UVA, and reports on the work done in compliance with the March 7th resolution. In response to this notice, the BOV met and began organizing yet another resolution and rescinded prior support networks of racial equity initiatives. However, the DOJ continued to pressure the administration and further demanded Ryan’s resignation. Specifically, in private communications between the Trump administration and UVA officials, the administration warned that federal funding could be revoked unless Ryan stepped down.

Although this came as a shock to some, others deemed it necessary for the growth of the university. Amidst the strict demands and the lack of leniency with the Department of Justice’s investigation, Ryan grew worried about departmental funding and the continuation of UVA’s educational trajectory in the next year.

Ryan concluded that resigning would be in everyone’s best interest. He announced his decision in late June, citing that resigning was not him giving up, but it was him attempting to prevent adverse reactions from the DOJ—in which hundreds of employees could lose their jobs, cutting-edge researchers could lose their funding, and hundreds of students could lose financial aid or experience trouble with visa withholding.

Although there have been mixed opinions regarding the situation surrounding Ryan’s resignation, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education—which represents university presidents—recognized the federal government’s heightened involvement in educational institutions as problematic and noted the overstepping done by the Trump administration in using “thuggery instead of rational discourse.”

As universities around the nation—from public state schools to elitist Ivy League institutions—grapple with the administration’s imposition on education, the pressure on UVA serves as a blueprint of the government’s strict policies to dismantle DEI among educational facilities.

Saneel Boodram, a former middle school teacher in Suffolk County of Central Harlem, was recently indicted for claims of sexual assault against three students. Charged for Sexual Abuse in the First and Second Degree, Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the Second Degree, and three counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child, Boordam’s numerous misconducts allegedly spanned over two years with at least three children between the ages of 11-13. 

It is important to note that the charges outlined in the indictment are still merely allegations, not proven offenses. However, this announcement, given by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on July 9, still came as a shock to the tight-knit Harlem community. Ripples of distress have echoed around New York school districts, exemplifying what such a breach of trust can occur when those entrusted with children's safety allegedly greatly violate them. 

Boodram was employed as a paraprofessional, media specialist at a public middle school during the time of his supposed offenses, seemingly taking advantage of his position and proximity to minors to commit these crimes. Various court documents and recorded statements outline his predatory behavior. Included in the accusations he faces are making sexual comments, initiating inappropriate contact, and participating in sexual activities—all wrongdoings alleged to occur numerous times. Additionally, he is accused of sending a 13-year-old student a shirtless photo, inviting said student over to his house to use his private pool. 

This investigation is now being carried out by The Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Child Abuse Bureau—a specialty bureau equipped with the essential training and resources to communicate with vulnerable children and families. The impacts of this indictment will be far-reaching, making it crucial to navigate it with care and compassion. Not only may concerns arise amongst parents, but school administration must find a balance between complying with the criminal investigation in addition to the well-being and education of its students.

Unfortunately, incidents such as this have been far too common occurrences in the United States. Although there is limited data on sexual harassment in schools, Boodram’s alleged act is the typical blueprint of sexual misconduct in educational facilities; over 85% of violations are enacted by male teachers and over 72% of victims are female students. Not only do official statistics show that around 9.6% of the student body have reported forms of sexual harassment by educators, but surveys also show that only a mere 6% of students report these violations. This highlights an underlying issue in the United States—the pervasive problem of educator sexual abuse and the normalized culture of silence and systemic failures that allow it to continue largely unaddressed.

District Attorney Bragg emphasized the need for support and furthered the District Attorney’s Office's commitment to putting children first, encouraging those with information to come forth. “Please reach out to our Office at 212-335-4300 if you believe this individual may have abused your child – our experienced team has trauma-informed training to handle these investigations with the care and sensitivity they deserve,” Bragg said. 

Boodram now faces a steep, uphill legal battle—one that will certainly be devoutly fought by not only the direct victims and their families, but the rest of the Harlem and New York school communities, as well. 

Manhattan prosecutors are still actively seeking parents who believe their children may have been affected by this individual. Anyone who has information can and should reach out immediately to legal authorities in New York and/or the Manhattan District Attorney's Office (212-335-4300).

Setting the Standard Against Antisemitism 

In February 2024, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jewish and Israeli students who claimed that Barnard College of Columbia University failed to address harassment from pro-Palestinian activities. From this settlement, it required Barnard to establish new oversight mechanisms like an independent antisemitism review board, restrict certain forms of student protest activity, and consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism (a non-legally binding working definition that aims to provide clarity and guidance on identifying antisemitism). 

According to a joint statement by Barnard and the lawyers for two Jewish advocacy groups, Students Against Antisemitism and StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, mandatory reforms such as staff training, transparent incident reporting, and enforcement of a strict zero-tolerance antisemitism policy are needed. 

Additionally, Barnard will also appoint a new Title Vl coordinator to investigate discrimination complaints and produce annual reports on antisemitism. As antisemitism is resurfacing among colleges across the nation, colleges must act now or risk legal consequences. 

Title Vl Enforcement and Federal Pressure 

Title Vl of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin. In response to increased antisemitism, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and other federal agencies are taking firmer stances. The violation of Title Vl, for instance, can lead to the loss of federal funding, legal action, and reputational damage. What’s happening at Barnard is just one of many other investigations in which universities are pressured to revise their anti-discrimination systems, train staff on hate incidents, and ensure that it is carried out consistently and efficiently. 

Before this, Title VI enforcement wasn’t as prevalent—even with complaints from students about the ongoing protests. Taking actual legal action seems to be the step to start seeing a difference in anti-discriminatory practices. 

Differentiating Between Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech 

As institutions start to enforce their policies more strictly, questions about the First Amendment will be referred to often, especially in cases of whether or not the activities happening on campus are a form of expression or considered hate speech. According to Len Saxe, the Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and director of Brandeis’ Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, more than 25% of Jewish students across 50 different private and public universities in America expressed feelings of hostility after the 2014 Gaza conflict, and continuing now after the October 7 conflict as well. The most common form of expression from college students was made through vocal protests. 

At first glance, it may be fine, after all, many college students protest, but it soon turns into something deeper. With the Israel-Hamas conflict happening, many of these protests ended up turning into hate speech with antisemitic remarks. The protection of free speech under the First Amendment does not extend to harassment or threats that create hostile learning environments. Barnard’s policy changes attempt to find the balance in allowing political expression while preventing antisemetic sentiments on their campus. The precedent set by this college may redefine how US colleges differentiate between free and hate speech for future events as well. 

Unwarranted Legislation and Political Imbalance 

While Title Vl may be a federal mandate, legislatures at the state level are passing laws addressing this issue, too. States like Florida and Texas are passing laws limiting diversity, equity inclusion (DEI) offices, and in states like New York and California, they are expanding campus anti-hate infrastructure, according to Roy Tangilava, MPA of UC Berkeley. Handling the matter in different capacities isn’t inherently a bad thing, but this can confuse students from different geographical areas who may face different protections. A federal standard may be a more effective means of combating discriminatory practices, thus emphasizing the importance of Barnard College’s settlement. 

Another concern was that strictly enforcing antisemitism policies could also downplay other forms of campus discrimination for other minority groups. By selecting one group and ignoring the others, institutions' zero-tolerance policies may be perceived as selectively enforced. This settlement should be setting the standard to stop antisemetic activities and also as a model for creating a more inclusive environment for other groups on campus. Doing so would change the environment of the campus so that it is filled with less hostility. 

Future Expectations 

The Barnard settlement further demonstrates that colleges can either decide to take action against the plaintiffs or ignore the complaints of their students, allowing hostility to brew on their campus. As public pressure rises, more and more colleges are pushing to adopt clearer protocols, faster and more efficient enforcement, and a greater commitment to student safety, creating a domino effect across U.S. higher education institutions. 

To be successful, however, colleges must be able to discern the balance in filtering out instances of freedom of expression and instances of hate speech. Too much of one or the other will only result in oppression for students who feel misrepresented on both sides.

In a desperate attempt to fill a growing educator shortage, Southern Cross University launched a 10-month graduate diploma in early childhood education—far shorter than the typical four-year degree. Behind this glossy marketing lies a deeply flawed system. Thousands of international students, many with no background in education, are enrolling for one reason: permanent residency.

The results of this decision have not gone unnoticed. Children are being left in the hands of graduates who can’t distinguish safe sleep practices or mandatory reporting laws. In some cases, young lives have been put at risk—or lost.

2023 marked a turning point. Southern Cross University, a regional university with campuses across Australia, aggressively ramped up its international student intake, many of whom were recruited through immigration agents. The result? An estimated 6,000 students in two years, generating roughly $150 million in course fees. Some students come from backgrounds in engineering or IT, with no experience working with children.

A Diploma of Convenience

Internal records obtained by whistleblowers revealed a concerning behavioral pattern: university students falling asleep during shifts, ignoring distressed toddlers, or being terminated for unwanted physical contact. One student repeatedly took children to private spaces alone despite warnings. Another openly admitted they were only in the program to secure a visa.

A surge in student numbers overwhelmed the university. Course units skyrocketed from 200 to over 2,000 students, and academics were pressured to pass students despite plagiarism, collusion, and AI-generated work. Internally, the course was viewed as an easy money-maker.

When the time approached to place students for required fieldwork, SCU found itself in crisis mode. Academic staff were told to cold-call childcare centers and offer incentives to take on students. Some were placed in centers hours from their homes, often at facilities that failed to meet national quality standards. One such center had a record of serious breaches, including lapses in child protection, hygiene, and supervision.

Children Are Paying the Price

These consequences aren’t just theoretical. In July of 2018, 16-month-old Arianna Maragol died after being left unattended at a childcare center. Her father, Jozef Maragol, believes under-trained staff and unsafe practices contributed to the tragedy.

He later learned that staff had been monitoring children’s sleep via a screen—a method flagged years earlier by an inspector as inadequate. The educator responsible had reportedly not been properly trained in emergency procedures or safe sleep practices.

What Are Industry Experts Saying?

Experts are speaking out regarding this issue, in the hopes that changes will occur. A professor of early childhood education at the University of Sydney, Marianne Fenech, criticized the rise of fast-track courses as a commercial move that sacrifices educational quality. She stated that she has chosen not to offer such programs at her university because she believes short diplomas cannot adequately prepare students for the serious responsibilities of childcare.

She additionally emphasized the importance of early learning environments in shaping children’s futures, arguing that proper training is the first step.

A parliamentary inquiry led by a Greens MP is now examining how students can be expected to learn in non-compliant centers, pointing to a systemic failure of regulation and accountability.

The Defense Amid Backlash

Southern Cross University has declined interviews but maintains that its course is a rigorous, high-quality program. In public statements, university officials emphasized its accreditation by national education regulators and its alignment with workforce needs.

However, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) has launched a live compliance investigation into the program after receiving multiple complaints from students and staff.

As Australia’s early childhood sector faces a chronic workforce shortage, the race to fill positions is accelerating. The question is: at what cost? While many students and educators genuinely care about the profession, they are being let down and overshadowed by a system driven by profit, overwhelmed by numbers, and riddled with oversight gaps. 

The Hidden Crisis

A growing concern among immigration experts is the misuse of educational pathways by those seeking permanent residency. They warn that many international students enrolled in SCU’s fast-track diploma have little or no interest in early childhood education. Instead, the diploma serves as a convenient visa route.

This loophole is contributing to an influx of poorly motivated candidates into one of the most sensitive sectors—childcare. Observers caution that relying on education as a backdoor to migration undermines the legitimacy of the profession and compromises the safety and emotional development of children in care.

The implications are long-term: not only could the reputation of Australia’s childcare sector suffer, but thousands of children could also experience lower-quality care during some of the most formative years of their lives.

What Comes Next?

Experts warn that Australia is at a dangerous crossroads. More than 21,000 early childhood educators are needed across the country, yet if the solution is a pipeline of under qualified graduates, children may suffer the most.

Whistleblowers are increasingly calling for a raise in standards and for regulatory bodies to hold institutions accountable — otherwise, the cycle will continue. Additionally, assessors express concern that a generation of educators is being created without proper training, ultimately putting children at undue risk.

This is a situation that requires more than damage control. It requires systemic reform, transparency in regulation, and a firmer commitment to quality over any form of convenience. Because when shortcuts are made in early childhood education, there are no do-overs.

In the latest installment of a now-familiar congressional ritual, House Republicans turned their attention to three major universities—Georgetown University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the City University of New York—asking their leaders to answer for what they found to be a permissive, even complicit, approach to antisemitism on campus.

The hearing, hosted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, played out with an air of predictability: outrage, sharp splits in partisanship, and moments of political theater. Standing before a deeply divided Congress were university leaders, asked to confront the difficult issue of condemning antisemitism whilst simultaneously defending campus free speech.

Inaction, Tolerance, and Risk

Committee Chair Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) depicted the GOP position. “Universities can choose to hire antisemitic faculty, welcome students with a history of antisemitism, accept certain foreign funding, and let the behavior of antisemitic unions go unchecked,” Walberg said. “But they do so at their own risk.”

The implication was clear. To Republicans, colleges have become safe havens for anti-Jewish rhetoric, cloaked in the language of academic freedom. They painted a picture of institutions where protest became hate, where administrators had failed to draw any moral lines, and where antisemitism had both flourished and gone unpunished.

In one of the hearing’s most heated exchanges, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) grilled City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Dr. Félix Matos Rodríguez over a law professor’s past work defending Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. Specifically, Stefanik asked whether a faculty member who defended a controversial protester should remain employed? Though Stefanik expected a yes or no answer, Rodríguez did not oblige. Instead, he reaffirmed CUNY’s stance: antisemitism has no place at the institution, and any violation of university rules would be investigated. But he would not cross into political purging.

Free Speech In a Complex America

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats argued the entire premise of the hearing was skewed. “Republicans continue to use the Education and Workforce hearing room as a kangaroo court,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) said, claiming that Republicans are weaponizing Jewish pain to wage broader culture wars. He pointed to the dismantling of the Department of Education’s civil rights division—ironically, the body tasked with addressing antisemitism—as evidence of bad faith.

For university leaders, the stakes were higher than mere reputational damage. They stood at the complex intersection of free expression and accountability, attempting to preserve one without sacrificing the other. UC Berkeley Chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons made that tension plain. He argued that if somebody is expressing pro-Palestinian beliefs, it is not necessarily antisemitic.

His point—obvious to many academics but deeply controversial in Congress—demonstrated that a broader conflict is occurring. Specifically, the question becomes: Where is the line between protest and prejudice? And who gets to decide?

Georgetown’s Tightrope

Interim Georgetown University President Richard Groves went about discussing the issue from a different angle, emphasizing the school’s Jesuit values and tradition of interfaith dialogue. He emphasized the fact that the school has hosted individuals like Israel Defense Forces

(IDF) soldiers, families of Israelis and Palestinians who’ve lost their lives, and U.S. families of hostages still held in Gaza. 

Georgetown had avoided the kind of explosive encampments seen elsewhere since Hamas’s October 7 attacks. But that didn’t mean it was immune from tension. Neither did it mean it was immune from criticism. Groves acknowledged that rules around student behavior had needed “clarifying” in the months since. He highlighted that although Georgetown is not perfect, it is continually committed to exposing students to multiple perspectives.

Is This Déjà Vu?

This week’s hearing was the ninth in a months-long series probing antisemitism in higher education. The first few hearings had sent waves of shock through academia. Back in 2023, poorly handled testimonies from the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania—both of whom refused to categorically state that calling for the genocide of Jews violated campus policy—ultimately led to their resignations.

Since then, the hearings have taken on a more aggressive sort of tone, with Republican lawmakers now combining allegations of antisemitism with concerns over ideological bias, foreign influence, and faculty hiring. Thus, the language has grown sharper. The implications have grown more dire. And the partisan gap has grown more visible.

Protests Inside and Outside the Hearing

Even the hearing room itself couldn’t escape the pressure of the moment. Protesters interrupted the proceedings multiple times, shouting pro-Palestinian slogans before being escorted out by Capitol police. The disruptions were brief, but also telling. The conflict playing out in committee chambers seemed to be a mirrored reflection of the country at large.

If this hearing revealed anything, it’s that college campuses have become proxies for America’s unresolved moral and political battles. Republicans want universities to draw a hard line. Democrats accuse those Republicans of turning a nuanced issue into a blunt instrument of political war. And the universities themselves? They're caught in the middle, trying to protect speech while avoiding empowering hatred.

These hearings are no longer simply about what happens in universities. Instead, they extend further, to who gets to define antisemitism, protest, justice, and, ultimately, who gets to be heard.

In recent months, the federal government has intensified efforts to redirect staff and funding across multiple departments. One of the most significant impacts has been on the Department of Education, particularly the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA). These sweeping workforce and budget cuts have left financial aid offices nationwide under immense pressure, with students ultimately bearing the brunt of the fallout.

In early March, major cuts were implemented in the Department of Education. Although the federal government hoped to eliminate the department completely, this was impossible without 60 votes in the Senate. Thus, the next move was to reduce staff by almost half. This cut was the largest in the department’s history, and although senior officials stated that every part of the department would be affected, they also emphasized that all statutorily mandated functions would continue. This claim emphasized that although employees would decrease, the department would maintain the speed at which they function, thus greater responsibility and pressure would be placed upon remaining employees. Therefore, although reductions were being made at an alarming rate (from 4,133 employees to 2,183 employees), there was some solace in the fact that the department assured student borrowers there would be no impact on service delivery and grants.

There has been an apparent pattern in these cuts consistently and disproportionately targeting civil rights, financial aid, and education research employees. The Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have both seen substantial decreases in the workforce. Within the OCR, many attorneys work to remedy discrimination against students based on race, nationality, sex, age, and disability. These attorneys were among those laid off, with at least 240 OCR employees losing their jobs. Alongside the layoffs, many offices were shut down, causing further strain on civil rights enforcement.

The FSA has similarly seen a loss of approximately 727 positions. The FSA is responsible for managing direct student aid such as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), Pell Grants, and student loans. With a reduction this widespread, many students and staff were left worrying about how basic functions would be carried out. Although the push for efficiency amid layoffs has been adopted by many, some still wonder if this reduction will cause greater harm than good. With fewer experienced individuals, student resources risk being inaccessible or unavailable, and the department faces the loss of years of institutional knowledge.

As these layoffs in the Department of Education ripple through the educational system, many organizations focused on providing accessible education have reported signs of a more inefficient department. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), a nonprofit aiming to provide accessible postsecondary education regardless of socioeconomic background, conducted a survey among its partner institutions to assess the impact of departmental employee reductions. The survey results were less than ideal, showing that nearly 60% of institutions reported delays and degraded responsiveness from the FSA after the layoffs. This data was drawn from around 900 institutions, and about 50% indicated that the most pressing concern since March had become the impact on student access to federal student aid.

This federal strain has been felt directly by aid offices. In fact, a third of the financial aid offices surveyed experienced faulty FAFSA systems and—more explicitly—50% reported slower timelines for federal processes, while 25% received no application acknowledgment whatsoever. The obvious impact of workforce shrinkage is negatively affecting both institutions and students, making the financial burden of higher education even more pressing and inaccessible.

As students and financial aid offices experience delays with applications, there is also a clear connection between the departmental layoffs and critical support staff roles that remain unfilled. Many of those laid off in the March reduction were integral to swift issue resolution and essential technical support. With fewer institutional experts in these areas, slower responses often come alongside less effective problem-solving.

In addition, regional office closures have created confusion about who the direct points of contact are. Survey results convey that 44% of institutions lost their regional points of contact, and others experienced changes that impacted who they should reach out to. These cuts and changes have left many institutions at a standstill, with no clear direction on whom to contact or where to seek support for federal education funding.

As the impact of the Department of Education cuts continues to sweep through institutions and student finances, many are bracing for further disruptions as the 2026–2027 aid cycle approaches. Workforce layoffs—and even the threat of full department funding cuts—fuel growing uncertainty, pushing colleges to rely more heavily on institutional aid as vulnerable student populations increasingly question the accessibility of higher education.

The Algorithm in Classrooms

Imagine this: a middle-schooler in Florida logs into her math class online. Her virtual lesson is being customized in real-time, but there is no monitoring teacher. Rather, an AI is actively tracking her response speeds and which questions may be tripping her up. It collects data on where she is hesitating and how long she is looking at her screen, all in order to recommend her the perfect next problem set. Of course, her teacher is able to see the recommendations on her dashboard, and her parents get regular updates on her progress, however, none of them know exactly why these decisions were made, and how the algorithm may affect the students.

Across the country, this is the new normal for students; AI tutors have the ability to shape how and what students learn. However, this all has evolved so fast that policymakers do not even know what questions to ask about these new innovations. If we do not create regulations now, we are potentially allowing private companies to control our nation's public education.

These systems are called adaptive learning platforms. Many companies have become increasingly popular in schools, like DreamBox and Khan Academy. In fact, nearly 64% of middle-schoolers use digital learning on a daily basis. They work by tracking the behavior of students, as well as their performance in real time. They then use this data to make predictions about what a student is ready to learn at a perfect “Goldilocks” medium. These companies often emphasize this personalization, as it avoids the instances of too easy material leading to slowed progress and too hard material frustrating the student, which often occurs in the group settings of traditional teaching styles. DreamBox, for example, collects over 48,000 data points per student per hour, in order to achieve algorithmic near perfection. 

A Legal Framework Stuck in the Past

This technology sounds incredibly promising, and in many cases, it truly is. However, the problem lies in the lack of regulation regarding the products. There are currently no clear federal rules about how this kind of AI should be used in classrooms. FERPA, which is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, written in 1974, only protects records controlled by schools and has no jurisdiction directly regarding third-party vendors.  COPPA, which is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, is just as outdated as FERPA. This act only applies to kids under 13 and only covers commercial websites and apps. It was not at all designed with classroom tools, especially those utilizing AI, in mind. As these companies continue to have, essentially, free reign over children's educational data, parents have become increasingly concerned. 69% have active anxieties about student tech privacy, yet no intiatives have been taken by governments to rectify this. To exacerbate this, the edtech companies, who are collecting huge amounts of behavioral data and storing it indefinitely in some cases, are rarely ever being transparent about how they are being used or whom it is being shared with.

Even more concerning is how little parents are told that AI is being used at all. For instance, in a study done by Common Sense Media, six in ten parents have heard essentially nothing about private companies storing their child’s data. However, this is not simply about discomfort. Data collection has become a real threat. The US Government Accountability Office has documented rising numbers of student data breaches across thousands of public schools. Personally identifiable information is often being exposed during these breaches, leaving students vulnerable to emotional and financial harm. 

AI Educational Potential 

AI and AI powered classroom tools do have their place, however. Students in personalized learning environments, where things like adaptive learning platforms are being used, often perform 1.5 times the national average in mathematics and reading testing. Furthermore, these tools keep students more engaged and likely to complete homework tasks, outside of school time. 78% of educators also believed that using these platforms felt more effective than teaching without their assistance. They are also incredibly powerful for students with learning disabilities. In traditional learning environments, children with learning disabilities, on average, reach 62% of the learning outcomes that their standard peers do. With adaptive technologies, they can reach upwards of 85% of the outcomes, a drastic jump which can make a real difference in their lives.

It is clear that it is time for Congress to update legislation, like FERPA and COPPA. They need to reflect the new learning environments entering US classrooms, like driven learning platforms. While these tools have great potential in increasing learning outcomes across all different types of students, that should not allow them to have unregulated access to our children's data. Students, and their parents, should have the right to opt out and have the ability to delete their data. Furthermore, the school districts using and the companies running these tools must have rigorous privacy and fairness review. With these tools, the United States has the possibility for a serious enhancement of their public school education.

Declining elementary reading comprehension scores, disengaged high schoolers, and college students who can barely make it through a Jane Austen novel: the public narrative regarding childhood and youth illiteracy is decisive––kids simply aren’t learning how to read. 

The Growing Literacy Crisis

Generally speaking, the sentiment that kids have fallen behind in reading is supported by existing research indicating that post-pandemic literacy rates have fallen across the United States. Notably, around 65% of fourth graders lack proficient reading skills, an alarming statistic that remains consistent across most age groups. Critically, childhood literacy deficits are especially pronounced for racial minority groups and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. This fact is especially concerning given that problematic reading patterns often persist as children age, as evidenced by observational accounts of diminished reading abilities among college students and pervasive functional illiteracy in the adult population. 

The personal and societal impacts of the literacy crisis––reduced economic mobility, lessened sociability, and hindered cognitive development––are manifold and detrimental: adults with low literacy earn around $24,000 less than those who are proficiently literate, individuals who read fiction more regularly score better on empathy tests, and adults who did not aquire sufficient literacy during education perform more similar to children than fully literate adults on cognitive assessments. Despite these overt and striking outcomes of childhood illiteracy, elucidating the origins of this emerging crisis is a complex task. 

Are social-media-shortened attention spans to blame? Post-pandemic curricula that deemphasize reading? Spiralling wealth inequality? All of these explanations likely hold some merit. Yet remediating these macro-level problems demands systemic solutions that are not only strategically difficult to implement but also infeasible under an administration that actively seeks to ban books and defund public education. In fact, under rightwing censorship laws, over 10,000 books were banned during the 2023-24 school year, a threefold increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, calls from conservatives to end the Department of Education have pressed on––President Trump’s longtime goal that could soon become reality. 

The Death of “Reading for Fun”

Focusing squarely on how external factors prevent kids from learning to read may neglect a more foundational issue: kids are not just struggling to read; they are reading less. Survey data shows that the share of kids who read for fun has declined significantly in the last few decades. The constant allure of short-form content consumption is, unsurprisingly, a driver behind the decline in reading for pleasure. However, the way kids and teens conceptualize the “goal” of reading appears to be another contributing factor.

In an interview for The Atlantic, public school teacher and librarian Jennifer LaGarde notes, “There’s a whole generation of kids who associate reading with assessment now.” 

The notion that children’s relationship with reading affects their actual enjoyment is consistent with the fact that the most significant drops in reading for pleasure occur during the early teenage years, between 13 and 16. As kids age and are met with mounting schoolwork, reading shifts from a treasured pastime often spent with family to an unwelcome chore.  

A Path Forward

Yet there is nothing inherent about children’s decline in reading for pleasure. Parents and teachers have a shared responsibility in developing children’s understanding (and appreciation) of reading, and, without careful attention, students can quickly adopt a negative view of books. 

Professor of Professional Education and former elementary school teacher Dr. Kathrina O’Connell said, “When we focus on reading skills and strategies, and we put that ahead of actual reading and rich reading experiences, that ‘skill and drill’ work becomes very boring [to students].” 

By engaging in read-alouds, allowing kids to collect and feel ownership over their books, and framing reading as a gift rather than a burden, parents and educators can help cultivate a genuine appreciation of books. Parents, in particular, have a unique responsibility to foster this love early on––not only by modeling the behavior themselves, but also by creating routines, discussing stories with their children, and finding books that align with personal interests and hobbies.

On a policy level, reading must be continually emphasized as a vital part of education. Still, reducing books to the material for standardized tests and homework prevents kids from unlocking a genuine love for reading. Of course, prolific systemic barriers remain: library accessibility, underfunded school districts, and racial inequities continue to undermine the aim of higher childhood literacy. However, in lieu of all-encompassing fixes, the ethos of solving childhood illiteracy must recognize that the prevailing way to get kids to read is by getting them to enjoy it. 

In a new hit to the national education system, one of President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders – which went into effect July 14, 2025 – affects the Head Start program, a program that provides various services such as health and education to low-income families. This move may prevent undocumented immigrants from qualifying for federally funded preschool programs, and will have an immediate effect in states like Wisconsin. The U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the executive order changes the interpretation of a law passed by Bill Clinton that authorized undocumented families to participate in certain federally funded education programs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, noted that the Clinton-era legislation “has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration.” 

In Wisconsin, Head Start programming serves between 13,000 and 16,000 families per year. And a Childhood Arrival program protects children that entered the country illegally from deportation, and was initiated under the Obama administration. It is a safeguard for approximately 119,000 students. If Trump continues to change such policies, the education of many young people is at risk nationwide.

The legislation Trump’s executive order targets was first introduced under the Clinton administration, and was later expanded by Barack Obama. According to a Fact Sheet published by the U.S. Department of Education, all children are entitled to equal access to education regardless of their parents' heritage. In addition to this, schools are legally obligated not to force undocumented families to pay tuition due to a landmark case, Plyler v. Doe, where the 14th Amendment was extended to include such families. There have been multiple attempts to counter this case, such as Proposition 184, which passed in 1994, and in the 2006 Illinois school mishap, which both attempted to stop illegal immigrants from entering educational institutions. 

Trump and those who oppose these programs argue that they waste taxpayers' money, as a large portion of state tax income is used to fund public education. Nationally, K-12 education is funded mostly through state income, with around 8 percent coming from federal programs. However, many federal funds are reserved for specific programs, like Special Education and Childhood Arrival programs. However, since his inauguration in Jan. of this year, President Trump has insisted that the Department of Education is a misuse of taxpayer money, and he has worked to disband it, which may pose severe consequences for immigrant families who are dependent on federal funded programs for their education.

With a budget of $238 billion, Title 1 – the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 – funds schools that serve low-income students. Northwestern University experts have argued that low-income students, in particular, would be "devastated" with the changes implemented by Trump’s executive order.

The benefit of providing education for undocumented immigrants centers on economic opportunity. If a huge inflow of immigrants is not educated, there will be more low-skilled workers, squandering economic opportunity both for them and for the nation. In a paper written by the National Academies, low-skilled immigrants would also contribute less to public funds – generated by tax inflow – which would reduce their positive economic impact. In an analysis conducted by the American Community Survey, which covers the years between 2010- 2012, the education level of immigrants has steadily increased over time. Half of immigrants in 1970 did not have a high school degree, whereas in 2012, this number had increased to 38 percent, rising for both men and women. 

Tarek Hassan, an Economist from Boston University, recently conducted a study that shows that immigrants improve economies through innovation and increasing wages, conflicting with Trump’s position that once immigrants enter the United States, they will hurt or take the jobs of Americans. By using this fear of unwanted competition, especially during this turbulent economic conditions leading up to the Nov. 2024 elections, Trump was able to rally widespread support for his anti-immigrant policies. 

A 2022 analysis from the American Immigration Council discovered that immigrants generated $1.6 trillion in economic activity that year – the most recent data available. In terms of government tax revenue, immigrants contributed more than $579 billion in local, state, and federal taxes in 2022. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that this could reduce the U.S. federal budget deficit by around $897 billion over the next decade. 

Overall, growing anti-immigrant sentiment – and the President’s recent attempts to limit immigrants’ access to education – may spell trouble for the economic progress of every American, amidst an already-struggling U.S. economy.

Mamdani’s Proposal to Challenge the Status Quo 

This year, New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani introduced legislation to end the mayoral control of New York City’s public schools, which gives the mayor a greater degree of authority over schools and their boards.

The discussion on mayoral control is just a small piece in the larger discussion over who should run New York City public schools, and it is a potential alternative to the traditional structure of the public education system, as many schools under the system are desperate for reform.

Mamdani wants to end mayoral control and instead envisions a system in which “ parents, students, educators, and administrators work together” his campaign website states. Additionally he calls for a co-governance model that empower existing organizations like parent councils and local school teams.The alternative to removing mayoral control would be to, according to Alex Zimmerman from Chalkbeat Reporting on the New York City Department of Education, restore authority to locally elected school boards.

 However, Carl Campanile of the New York Post raises concerns that undoing the mayoral control could lead to bureaucratic gridlock and a return to the pre-2002 era of disjointed governance. 

With this, Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor David Banks defend the current system because it’s efficient and is key to accountability in a system serving over one million students in New York City. 

Mayoral Control and Its Controversies

In order to understand the debate over New York City's public schools, it is significant to understand the authority the mayor possesses.

Mayoral control gives the city’s mayor the ability to appoint the chancellor, set budgets, and shape curriculum. Such responsibilities give them the ability to implement reforms more efficiently and, noted by Columbia Law Review, avoid the delays that usually come from elected school boards.

Mayoral control has not been a significantly detrimental thing, as it was responsible for facilitating initiatives like a universal Pre-Kindergarten and expanded summer school. For example, the 2014 New York State Budget Bill supported $340 million in state funding to support universal full-day Pre-Kindergarten which couldn’t have been done if the then mayor at the time, Mayor De Blasio, didn’t have mayoral control because he had centralized planning, funding, and outreach. 

However, critics such as the Economic Policy Institute argue that a top-down model leads to decisions that often exclude the opinions of local schools and disproportionately affect marginalized and low-income communities.

Taking critics’ concerns into account, it raises the question: If mayoral control is effective, why do reading and math proficiency gaps persist, especially in the outer boroughs, where schools remain underfunded and overcrowded?

Responding to such a question, organizations like the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), which align with Mamdani’s stance, argue that the system lacks the checks against mayoral authority because of the imbalance of power between the mayor and school boards. To support this, a comprehensive review of the New York Public Education Department with 300 pages of data from these public schools summed up the recommendations for the system which included:empower the students, parents, and teachers; create more avenues to be part of shared decision-making; ensure more accountability; and establish a commission to consider reforms. This is significant because it affects 17% of the entire population of New York City, or almost 1.5 million people. 

Analysis: Advocacy, Accountability, and Democracy 

The bigger picture from this campaign against mayoral control comes from racial and education justice movements.

The Economic Policy Institute suggests that centralized power (like mayoral control) facilitated school closures that should’ve been supported and protected by the government. These closures mainly impacted African American, Hispanic, and immigrant communities because schools systems in their neighborhoods were most often the ones being neglected. 

With this, education organizations like the Alliance for Quality Education and the Coalition for Educational Justice support Mamdani’s proposal, which emphasizes community-based decision-making.

School governance through elected school boards increases democracy because communities can elect leaders themselves rather than giving the mayor central authority.

By doing so, school boards are able to better reflect the needs and give historically underserved communities a voice. Ultimately, it marks the shift to a more equitable and inclusive education system that prioritizes student education, resource equity, and culturally responsive teaching.

Those supporting mayoral control over New York City's public schools may argue that school board elections can be inefficient, or they can start holding the school board accountable. 

New York City to the Nation

Currently, Mamdani’s proposal is debated in Albany, New York. However, the decision could have effects beyond the bounds of New York. 

With more and more calls about structural change in the American public education system for issues like banned books in Florida to critical race theory bans in Texas, the New York City public education system may serve as an insight into how urban school systems will be able to balance equity and inclusion, democracy, and accessibility.

If this goes through, the step down from mayoral control would be enough to mark it as the largest rollback in the US education system in decades and change how decisions are made in the city by rewriting the organization chart that governs these schools. 

As the debate continues and tensions rise, the question remains: Who should have the authority to decide the greater good of children’s education for all communities?

Harvard University is once again at the center of a political issue—and this time, the price tag may reach half a billion dollars. Behind closed doors in Washington, D.C., negotiations between Harvard and the Trump administration have intensified, with federal officials pressing for a financial settlement far exceeding the $220 million that has already been extracted from Columbia University.

However, there’s more than just money at stake. These talks represent a precipice in the Trump administration’s sweeping campaign to redefine the relationship between the federal government and elite academia. Harvard seems to find itself in an unprecedented standoff, with billions in research grants frozen, a federal lawsuit looming, and a September 3rd liquidation deadline impending.

This Is More Than Just a Fine

For months, the Trump administration has pursued a punitive approach toward universities it accuses of fostering antisemitic environments, like Columbia University, Cornell University, Stanford University, Duke University, George Washington University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Harvard, among the highest-profile targets, has challenged both the accusations and the administration’s funding freezes in court. Yet even as litigation is ongoing, university leaders have returned to negotiating.

What makes this moment different is the scale of such an ultimatum. The White House, according to insiders, has demanded a far larger financial penalty from Harvard than it did from Columbia University. Whereas Columbia’s $221 million agreement restored over $400 million in grants, the administration’s talks with Harvard reportedly range closer to a $500 million figure. The message seems to be such: Columbia may have set the precedent, but Harvard is meant to be the model.

President Trump has publicly and privately voiced disdain for Harvard, seeing the institution as emblematic of liberal excess and academic elitism. This sentiment has been clear for months, with the president stating back in May, “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’” The push, therefore, appears to be personal as much as it is political. 

The Columbia Template

The deal with Columbia University, finalized just days ago, offered a preview of the administration’s new strategy. It included a myriad of conditions, from accepting a federal definition of antisemitism to scaling back certain academic programs and diversity initiatives. In exchange, the university regained access to suspended federal funding. Hence, it existed as a blueprint for resolution and for molding university governance through federal leverage.

Harvard is now facing the same demands, though the specifics remain fluid. Behind the scenes, the university has quietly made structural changes, like closing cultural offices, replacing leadership in sensitive departments, and adopting the same antisemitism framework used in the Columbia University deal. Though it hasn’t publicly acknowledged the negotiations yet, its internal shift seems to signify an act of appeasement just enough to keep the door open, without fully conceding to political pressure.

The Legal Fight

But there’s yet another element complicating the talks: Harvard’s ongoing and growing legal battle over the billions in suspended federal contracts. Earlier this summer, the Department of Education declared the university in violation of federal civil rights law over its handling of antisemitism claims, resulting in widespread financial sanctions. 

As of today, more than $2.7 billion in research grants and contracts remain frozen. According to the Harvard Staff Writer Alvin Powell, these frozen funds put the university’s ability to contribute significant research to society in jeopardy. Harvard University consistently ranks among the top research institutions globally; therefore, its research findings are seen with high regard, given its many “breakthroughs in health, science, national security, and other fields”. This means that Harvard’s “medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions” are all threatened by these funding cuts. 

Given these implications, at a recent court hearing, the judge expressed skepticism over the administration’s justification for the funding cuts, but no ruling has been issued. Harvard has requested a decision by early September, when the first wave of canceled grants will begin their formal liquidation. If an agreement isn’t reached before then, the court’s decision may drastically shift leverage for either party.

A Broader Offensive

Harvard is far from alone. The administration has launched civil rights investigations at dozens of campuses across the nation, often tied to claims of antisemitism or critiques of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Institutions like Cornell and Northwestern have had hundreds of millions in research funds frozen. In fact, in total there is a total of $12 billion under review at America’s top universities due to ongoing investigations. In addition, federal agencies have expanded their scrutiny to include foreign donations, visa programs, and accreditation.

In this tense climate, the financial penalties are becoming increasingly hard-hitting. Civil rights cases that once ended in compliance agreements now come with price tags that are significant enough to shake the budgets of the institutions that are given them. For instance, the $14 million fine against Liberty University last year, which once stood as the government’s largest education-related penalty, has since been overshadowed tenfold.

What Harvard Represents

Harvard’s situation is less about a single campus and more about what it represents. To the Trump administration, the university symbolizes a broader cultural battle: one of an elite institution not willing to yield, now forced into a defensive position. To its defenders, Harvard is a bellwether. How it handles this pressure, therefore, could set the tone for every major research institution in the country.

The final details of the deal are still uncertain. However, if Harvard settles, it would become the third elite university after Brown and Columbia to make a formal agreement with the administration. And unlike its counterparts, it would do so under the heaviest scrutiny, with the highest stakes and the largest sum ever extracted in an education-related enforcement case. 

Ultimately, this dispute runs past funding. It’s also a test of what higher education is allowed to be in America. The cost? What elements universities may change—or erase— about themselves when they are under political threat.

Today, groceries are more expensive than they were a decade ago, but college tuition has outpaced even supermarket inflation. The statistics speak for itself: in 2025, student loan debt has exceeded 1.7 trillion dollars in the United States, the outstanding federal student loan balance is at $1.693 trillion dollars, and 42.7 million students face federal loan debt. As state funding decreases, administrative costs increase, and colleges pour more into federal aid, college tuition grows at a faster rate than inflation. Consequently, students and families are left with the burden of paying the growing costs through loans, savings, or reconsidering college entirely. Why are college costs rising faster than everything else, and what does that mean?

What are the Numbers Saying?

College tuition has been rising faster than the rate of inflation for decades, increasing by almost 180 percent over the past 20 years, even after accounting for inflation. Since 1985, college tuition from all institutions have increased by over 20,000 dollars in the 2018-2019 academic year, which is further exacerbated by four-year institutions. According to Forbes, the average cost of attending a four-year institution has risen at twice the inflation rate. This means that the price of college is growing at a much faster rate than the general cost of living, making it more difficult for students and families to keep up.  

Furthermore, the average sticker prices for tuition and fees for full-time undergraduate students vary by the type of institution. For public four-year in-state universities in 2024-25, the average cost is 11,610 dollars; out-of-state increases the cost to 30,780 dollars. For private four-year institutions, the average cost is around 43,350 dollars. In terms of student debt, students and parents borrowed upwards of 99.0 billion dollars in loans in the 2023-24 cycle. These rising costs, in conjunction with growing debt, reveals the current status of our higher education system, suggesting a potential trend developing.

What is Causing Rising College Costs?

Several factors contribute to the rising college costs such as reduced state funding, increases in administrative costs, higher demand, increased federal aid, and the pursuit of prestige. Since the Great Recession, states have significantly cut funding for public colleges and universities, causing the financial burden to be placed on the students and families. To mitigate this change, colleges and universities have increased tuition and fees, which only compensated for part of revenue loss. 

Similarly, an increase in administrative costs have affected the higher costs in tuition, as colleges seek more support to grow as an institution. Colleges have seen a large increase in administrative staff such as in human resources, finance, marketing, and student services. It is also important to consider the rising costs of salaries coupled with inflation rates. Thus, with the addition of administrative staff, colleges have notably raised tuition to cover for higher operational costs. 

Moreover, a rising demand for higher education is another significant factor contributing to increased college costs. As more and more students seek college degrees necessary for better job prospects and the competitive admissions process becomes exacerbated, the number of available institutions are not able to increase at the same rate, leading to heightened competition for limited spots. With this supply and demand imbalance, colleges hold the power to increase tuition rates because they know there are students who are willing to pay.

Lastly, increased federal student aid is also a potential factor that has increased costs of tuition. More specifically, when federal financial aid, such as in forms of loans or grants, becomes more accessible, the number of students who can afford to attend college increases, causing a general rise in demand for higher education. Like the supply and demand imbalance, colleges have the ability to raise their costs. At the same time, an increase in financial aid can reduce price sensitivity, as students covered by aid might be less concerned about price increases. Consequences, Meaning, and Policy Implications

When college costs rise, several consequences and implications follow suit. Most obviously, the higher tuition puts a financial burden on students and families who do not qualify for financial aid. With an unbalanced supply and demand of colleges and students, lower-income backgrounds may be forced into lower-cost options, widening the access gap and offering less opportunities. Furthermore, students’ careers might be determined by financial worries rather than by interest. In order to manage loan repayments, students prioritize careers with higher salaries. In certain cases, another popular path has been to consider alternatives to traditional four-year degrees, such as community college or gap years filled with apprenticeships or work. Beyond the individual consequences of rising college tuition, broader implications like broken public trust with higher education, economic concerns, and policy shifts take place. With the perception that the value of a college degree is declining, the increasing tuition fees and growing concern about the financial burden of student debt is leading many students to question the value and necessity of higher education for jobs. 

Economically, increasing student debt can cause a delay in major life decisions including buying a home or getting married, changes that hold impact on the broader economy. This delay plus any reduced consumer spending due to student loans can slow down the overall economic growth and reduce innovation and entrepreneurship due to the financial risks associated with it.

Responding to these concerns, policymakers have introduced legislative proposals, budget initiatives, and changes to student loan programs. For example, interest rates for federal student loans paid out between July 2025 and June 2026 have decreased slightly from the previous year, offering some relief for borrowers. The FAFSA Simplification Act also brought significant changes to the federal student aid system in the 2024-25 year. This initiative included replacing the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) by the Student Aid Index (SAI) to measure a student’s ability to pay for college. In addition to more added features, these changes aim to simplify the process and expand eligibility for grants and scholarships. 

As college tuition rises, it is important to acknowledge the roots causing the increase in costs to address them for future academic cycles. To combat the crippling student debt crisis, rising college tuition costs, and perceptions of higher education having lower value, it is important to continue with policy reforms for future students, families, and applicants.

Federal Scrutiny Slams Duke University

Since taking office, the Trump administration has been vigilant about funding cuts, especially within the Department of Education. This places numerous educational institutions at risk as budget reductions are implemented and millions—sometimes billions—in funding are withheld. After targeting top Ivy League institutions, the administration has now turned its attention to other major universities, such as Duke University, which is facing a $108 million freeze in research funding.

DEI or Racial Discrimination?

Duke, as the latest institution to face federal funding cuts, illustrates the growing tension between university autonomy and federal involvement. This parallels the ongoing political debate over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in academia and how such policies may influence admissions. The decision to freeze $108 million in federal research funding was made on July 30th, after federal investigations revealed possible racial discrimination in the form of affirmative action. The government accuses Duke of using racial preferences in hiring and admissions, as well as engaging in antisemitic practices and DEI-related policies. These allegations mirror claims made against Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and other institutions. Both the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services jointly filed the allegations, leading to the suspension of NIH grants and other federal funding streams.

The federal government’s legal actions claim racial discrimination in multiple areas. Specifically, the allegations point to race-based preferences in hiring, admissions, scholarships, and even patient care policies. The DOE and HHS cite Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act as the legal foundation for the funding withdrawal. These laws prohibit race discrimination in federally funded programs and require nondiscrimination in health programs receiving federal support. Specifically, the Department of Education cites that “Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. Institutions’ violations of Title VI can result in loss of federal funding.” This elaboration followed a deep dive into how Duke favored affinity group involvement and leadership in diverse groups or groups promoting diversity. This outputs both the DOE and the HHS. The secretary of the HHS, Robert Kennedy, stated that withdrawing funding “‘[makes] it clear that federal funding must support excellence—not race—in medical education, research, and training.’” Backed by this legal footing, the government easily revoked Duke’s funding, leaving many research projects in jeopardy. This is especially alarming because it is an esteemed research university in the country. According to U.S. News, Duke’s medical school is ranked third nationally for its research, and Duke’s departments push out innovative research. For instance, the Biomedical Engineering department was the first to curate a chip to turn 2D ultrasounds into 3D images. Projects like these and many others now face risks of insufficient funding.

To regain funding, Duke has been ordered to end all race-based advantages and create a Merit and Civil Rights Committee to monitor compliance and reporting. According to the administration, this would promote academic merit rather than racial preference, and more clearly enforce the idea that “federal funding must support excellence—not race”. The university has six months to address these violations or face legal action from the Trump administration.

National Unrest Threatens Research and Equity

As DEI crackdowns sweep the country and impact elite universities, the ramifications for students, institutions, and vital research are significant. Some students say that “these cuts to research and education are directly in opposition to what a university at this level stands for,” and others are still in awe at how the ongoing information is being communicated to them. They are disappointed that “the only communication [they’ve] gotten is very vague and not strong.” The federal situation is taking a toll on those it should not be impacting.

Many universities have sought compliance settlements—often involving large lump-sum payments to the government—in order to restore funding and resume projects. Others, however, continue to litigate in hopes of overturning the allegations. The impact is alarming: research projects dependent on federal funds are being disrupted, faculty retention is at risk, and stipends for graduate students are in jeopardy. Duke now faces these challenges and has begun financial restructuring to minimize the effects of the government-led funding freeze. This includes staff layoffs and budget reallocations to preserve core research functions. In its official response, Duke defended academic independence and reaffirmed its commitment to a diverse student body. The institution has pledged to review policies while maintaining “inclusive excellence” as it resists the removal of DEI initiatives.

The End of Academic Independence?

As the federal government continues to intervene in higher education, its growing leverage over internal university governance is raising concerns. Funding cuts are creating tension, with universities under pressure to scale back diversity initiatives, and research in inclusive settings being discouraged. The reliance of institutions on federal funding poses a serious challenge to educational autonomy, marking a step backward for inclusive and equitable learning environments. Duke’s funding freeze is not just an institutional crisis—it also highlights the shifting power dynamics between the federal government and higher education.

As another school year looms, ongoing delays in educational funding have sparked nationwide anxiety, leaving school administrators facing deep uncertainty. Only after mounting bipartisan pressure, including a forceful letter from 10 Senate Republicans and two lawsuits from Democratic leaders across 24 states, has the Trump administration reversed its course, announcing the long-anticipated release of $5.5 billion in frozen educational funds aimed at supporting low-income districts and their most vulnerable students.

Expectation and The Countdown to July 1

The day was June 30, just a day before the deadline (July 1) for the release of educational formula funds under the fiscal year 2025 Full-Year Continuing Resolution Act, which had been signed by President Trump earlier. Schools were set to receive budget funds for educational programs, especially those supporting students whose parents are involved in initiatives aiding their educational journey.

As the majority of the fiscal year’s $6.8 billion allotment, representing 14% of all federal K–12 education funds, would be included in this funding, this money was highly anticipated. 

For one, this money is used to recruit and train teachers, especially in areas where qualified and competent teachers are more scarce. Moreover, funds for arts and music education in these districts, extra help for children learning English, and support for children of migrant farmworkers are affected.

The Unexpected Reality 

However, instead of being met with money, schools received none, putting schools across the nation in jeopardy. Money for teacher training and help for children learning English ceased to exist. Instead, states received an underwhelming message from the Department of Education that they would not receive the money they had looked forward to for months.

The sudden delay of this funding, according to the Trump administration, was due to investigations into “grossly misused" federal spending. Trump argued that the use of funds, like the $5.5 billion he withheld, warranted review since it “subsidize[d] a radical left-wing agenda.”

The Public’s Reaction 

Similar to the public's reaction to Trump’s goals of getting rid of the Department of Education, Trump’s decision to stall education formula funds that states had so heavily anticipated resulted in chaos among school administrators, who were forced to confront weakened funding for incoming students.

Many feared that stalled federal funding would leave classrooms without critical resources, prompting backlash within Trump’s own party (The Republican Party). 

Taking Action Against Freezing Funds 

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was one of the 10 Republican senators who sent a rare letter to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, fighting for the release of funds.

Her advocacy stemmed from the fact that a pause in the release of these funds risked the loss of nearly $28 million for Maine’s public schools. According to Educate Maine, approximately 45% of Maine’s public school students are considered economically disadvantaged; therefore, these funds would be critical in order to provide for these students who rely on this funding.

In talking about the significance of formula funds on Maine’s education, Collins said, “These formula funds are essential to the operation of Maine's public schools, supporting everything from classroom instruction to adult education.” Moreover, she emphasized that the immediate release of funds would help schools have “adequate time to plan their finances for the upcoming school year, allowing students to arrive back at class this fall at properly funded schools."

Lawmakers from both parties joined Collins in urging the release of the funds, as districts across the country faced growing strain. In response to the escalating crisis, more than 200 superintendents from across the nation traveled to Capitol Hill last week to meet with legislators about the urgent funding issue, according to AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

It isn’t often that both parties work on a letter, so such a rare bipartisan moment, among increasing polarization in our country, demonstrates the cruciality of this funding for the American people. After the announcement was made that funds would not be received on the previously stated deadline, Trump’s approval rating hit a second-term low at just 37% six months into his inauguration, according to Gallup polling.

Why These Funds Were Necessary 

For some, the release of these funds offers a glimmer of hope for the future of education, especially after President Trump’s vocal support for cutting the Department of Education. With millions of education-related jobs at risk and essential funding in jeopardy, the release of $5.5 billion is a significant development for schools in the weeks ahead.

For instance, in the letter to Vought, legislators argued that withholding money worked against President Trump's goal of returning K–12 education to the states. Since funding goes directly to states and school districts, where local leaders decide how this funding is spent, withholding this funding denies communities the opportunity to pursue more localized initiatives, like after-school programs, to support students and their families.

Like Boys & Girls Club and the YMCA, local after-school programs allow children to be children, giving them opportunities in athletics and arts that normally aren't accessible to low-income communities due to rising costs.

According to Kate Bartlett, a superintendent in Lake County, Colorado, the release of the after-school money was thus a “huge sigh of relief.” Like many at the time, Bartlett had been worried about funding and started to make plans to scale back on the after-school program running in her rural district. Many parents in her community commute over an hour to work in resort towns like Aspen and Breckenridge, making after-school care difficult. As a result, local programs have become essential, offering parents peace of mind by providing their children with nutritious meals and a safe, supervised environment.

The funding freeze impacted not only K–12 education but also put workforce development programs at risk. These programs give adult learners who have faced tremendous adversity, whether due to caregiving responsibilities or financial need, a second chance in life. Many participants seek to gain employment skills, earn workforce certifications, or transition into postsecondary education. Reducing access to such opportunities places additional barriers on populations striving for economic mobility and educational advancement.

The letter and lawsuits, paired alongside various discussions made by superintendents worried about their districts' students, helped decide to unfreeze spending. If it weren’t for this bipartisan backlash against the Trump administration, thousands of programs across the country would make family situations difficult, whether it be transportation issues for children with working parents or workforce development skills.

In representing the voice of over 200 school districts, AASA Executive Director David R. Schuler said, “Districts should not be in this impossible position... the remaining funds must be released immediately.”

What’s Next? 

As the president’s approval rating nears an all-time low and schools prepare to reopen, the future of education feels uncertain. In fact, White House’s proposed 2026 budget not only cuts educational funding but also reduces the amount allocated to states.

Education has long been a cornerstone of American identity and a privilege many around the world can only dream of. Yet, the ongoing delay in funding raises a critical question: What will the future of education look like for the United States?

For virtually seven decades, George Mason University (GMU) has harbored a reputation for academic excellence and local autonomy, peacefully existing as one of Virginia’s top public institutions. 

Recently, however, the university has become entangled in a broader web of national controversy affecting universities nationwide. With the Trump administration intensifying scrutiny of higher education institutions like Columbia University and Harvard University, national attention has now turned toward GMU. 

A recent faculty resolution created by GMU staff has sparked the interest of the Department of Justice (DOJ), signaling an expansion of the Trump administration’s campaign against what it perceives as left-leaning environments on university campuses.

A Faculty Resolution That Brought Chaos

In response to a DOJ investigation into GMU’s diversity programs, which are allegedly discriminatory in violation of Title VII regulations, numerous faculty members began collaborating to express their outrage. 

Just days after the investigation was launched, professors published a faculty resolution supporting GMU President Gregory Washington for the university’s continued support for diversity on campus. 

Much to the surprise and anger of GMU staff, the DOJ announced on July 29, 2025, that they would investigate faculty too due to their oversight over GMU’s diversity. Specifically, such an announcement gave the administration the ability to seek drafts of the faculty resolution, all written communications among the Faculty Senate members who had drafted the resolution, and all communications between those faculty members and the GMU President Gregory Washington.

Critics quickly responded against the DOJ, arguing that academic freedom and free speech were threatened by this overbearing decision. With a letter of support provoking such a crisis, numerous organizations and individuals believed that the administration had disrespected the faculty’s rights to govern their institutions without fear of being punished or of political interference.

For instance, Todd Wolfson, President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), called such an investigation “a gross misuse of federal power to chill speech, silence faculty members, and undermine shared governance”. 

Furthermore, Wolfson said, “It is an attack on academic freedom, plain and simple.” 

Meanwhile, proponents of the investigation argued that it praised the university’s unjust actions to diversify faculty and staff. 

Specifically, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Civil Rights division, said, “[The resolution] indicates the GMU Faculty Senate is praising President Washington for engaging in race- or sex-motivated hiring decisions to achieve specific demographic outcomes among faculty and staff.”

How Title VII Became a Catalyst for Conflict 

Universities across the country are facing similar situations to GMU, with numerous investigations stemming from Title VII.

Enacted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Recently, this provision has become a major topic of discussion, particularly in universities and workplaces. Under Trump's administration, such a provision has been applied narrowly and conservatively, with many diversity programs being accused of discrimination. Precisely, the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) underscore that a university that considers any such factors in faculty hiring processes is violating Title VII, warranting further investigation. 

With this, “diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) programs have been limited as the administration views them as promoting “reverse discrimination” in education and governmental workplaces. Furthermore, Title VII interpretations have sparked debate over affirmative action, arguing likewise that diversity programs based on race or sex could be a violation of anti-discrimination legislation.

On July 17, 2025, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division launched an investigation into GMU’s employment practices, questioning whether race and sex influenced faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions under Title VII.

In trying to prevent alleged “reverse discrimination", the examination looks into whether faculty resolutions encourage hiring practices or policies that directly or unintentionally violate Title VII regulations. 

Specifically, the DOJ will look thoroughly into the university’s policies and programs, examining whether the university encourages the hiring and promotion of women and people of color in the faculty. Moreover, it will look into Dr. Washington’s promotion of these policies. 

Looking further into possible Title VII violations, government officials have also accused GMU of having antisemitism problems on campus that have not been addressed sufficiently. 

George Mason University is not the only one accused of discriminatory diversity policies, however. Columbia University was another university on the administration’s list of colleges that were to be investigated amid the federal government’s crackdown on antisemitism on college campuses. To do so, the EEOC sent texts to Columbia and Barnard faculty asking them to complete a survey for a Title VII investigation. The survey had asked about workplace harassment based on religion, potentially foreshadowing further conflict. 

Moreover, just a month before GMU faculty was investigated, Harvard University was also targeted for having “multiple hiring and training programs at Harvard that seem to discriminate.” President of Harvard Alan Garber had received a letter, similar to the letter received by GMU staff, in which Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) had requested information about whether the school partakes in any illegal, discriminatory hiring and employment practices in violation of Title VII. 

What Diversity Means to GMU

Amid the impending investigation, its significance extends to both staff and students. Diversity is central to George Mason University’s identity and a key reason many applicants are drawn to the school. GMU prides itself on being “Virginia’s largest and most diverse public university.”

In fact, according to U.S. News, 59% of GMU’s student body identifies as a minority. With a majority of students potentially affected by accusations of the university’s “discriminatory policies,” the investigation could significantly impact the experiences of current and future students alike.

The state of Virginia, as a whole, which is home to a number of the nation’s top universities, has been featured in numerous news stories with similar stories. In June, James E. Ryan stepped down as president of the University of Virginia, facing mounting pressure from the Trump administration and the Jefferson Council, a conservative alumni group. Other leaders at public colleges in Virginia who championed diversity initiatives have also lost their positions this year. 

Therefore, such a crisis extends far beyond GMU. Campuses across Virginia and the nation have voiced fears that their institutions could be next, as part of a nationwide effort by the Trump administration to dismantle diversity programs under the guise of enforcing Title VII.

As diversity programs are stripped away and campuses face mounting political pressure, one question echoes and incites fear: Who’s next?

The first day of school is typically one of celebration—hallways buzzing with reunions, classrooms filled with new supplies, and teachers welcoming students back with open arms. But for many immigrant families in 2025, that excitement has been replaced with dread. Instead of cheerful “welcome back” posters, some schools now display “Know Your Rights” flyers and banners declaring “This is a safe space”—urgent reassurances in the face of heightened immigration enforcement. 

As the Trump administration intensifies its push for mass deportations, schools have become frontlines of fear. Parents are keeping children home, students carry the weight of possible separation, and educators scramble to shield their classrooms from the looming shadow of ICE.

How Fear is Affecting Communities 

Fear of such raids sparks widespread panic, particularly in neighborhoods where immigrants comprise a vital part of the community’s diversity. For instance, California has been heavily targeted for ICE raids. Unlike many states, it has no ethnic majority and is home to the largest immigrant population in the U.S., with over 10 million foreign-born residents—helping explain the recent spike in immigration raids.. In fact, by June 1, the number of ICE detentions in California had already reached over 51,000, the highest number since 2019. 

Given that schools in California are beginning a brand new school year and that California remains the state with the largest population of unauthorized immigrants as well, there are significant ramifications on school attendance and other aspects of life as a result of raids. In California, there are an estimated 1.8 million individuals residing without legal authorization, according to the Pew Research Center. This means that communities like Los Angeles have immigrants hiding out of fear of one day being discovered. 

This fear once only existed in large public spaces, where people could easily be spotted and detained by ICE. However, in early 2025, these fears began evolving as the federal government rescinded the long-standing policy that treated schools, hospitals, and churches as “sensitive locations” off-limits to enforcement. With this decision, such safe havens became further areas of danger, sparking further fear among immigrant families.

As a result, attendance has dropped in numerous school districts as students and parents became increasingly anxious about ICE's presence near schools. Even those students brave enough to stay in school were still fearful. Educators and staff reported noticeable psychological distress among their students due to these raids. 

For instance, Roy, a second-grade public school teacher, who has noticed this shift, said, "Our attendance was pretty bad across the city (Chicago). There was like 50 to 80 percent attendance.". 

Roy’s school, in Illinois, was another area where illegal immigration was high. In fact, as of January 2025, there were approximately 425,000 undocumented immigrants residing in the state of Illinois.

Aside from decreases in overall school attendance, teachers and students have experienced severe mental health issues from such raids. With fear that entire families might get separated and deported, some educators have recounted their students personally expressing their fears.

Roy’s students are no exception. The day after President Trump’s inauguration, one of Roy’s 7-year-old students from Honduras told the class, " Trump won. You know what that means? If you're from Venezuela, you're going back to Venezuela. If you're from Honduras, you're going to go back to Honduras."

While the student’s words may have once seemed exaggerated, they now ring painfully true. In the first 100 days of President Trump’s administration, ICE made 66,463 arrests.

Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of people fear for their safety, keep their children home from school, and endure profound mental health challenges—all because of the constant threat of being discovered.

Real Incidents Amplify the Crisis

Stories in the local and national news only intensify the fear and anxiety many families are experiencing. 

In Los Angeles, for instance, a 15-year-old disabled student was mistakenly detained by Border Patrol near a school, despite law enforcement previously indicating that it would be limited to individuals with criminal records. 

In New Haven, Connecticut, an unaccompanied minor student was detained in the middle of his workday, during an ICE action. 

How the Community is Fighting Back

As immigrants make up a large part of communities, contributing to the unique diversity of the United States, many communities have quickly responded with policies aimed at shielding students from ICE interventions. 

For instance, in New York City, ICE's access to school grounds or records without a judicial warrant was barred. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, “safe zones,” altered bus routes, and distributed family preparedness materials were prepared in case any raids occurred. They also deployed staff to high-risk areas and connected families with support resources. 

Meanwhile, some school districts are taking direct legal action, declaring such action by the Trump Administration unjust. Denver Public Schools initiated a federal lawsuit, arguing it depletes educational resources and harms attendance—especially in districts heavily impacted by immigration enforcement. 

Across the country, school districts are taking training on legal rights, learning to “Know Your Rights”. With this, educators and administrators can help guide under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) to preserve student privacy from ICE immigration use. States like Michigan and California have explicitly issued formal memos reminding educators that all students have a right to education and that FERPA restricts sharing student information. 

From 24/7 mental health hotlines and organized rapid response networks to monitor ICE activity and alert communities to “Know Your Rights” workshops, advocates and school districts are emphasizing community-based support. 

Schools, once symbols of safety, now carry the shadow of deportation. Teachers hand out “Know Your Rights” flyers alongside textbooks, and children learn fear before math. Yet parents, educators, and advocates continue to fight back—reminding us that classrooms belong to students, not federal agents.

The United States gave birth to the world of public education. Federal legislation “granted federal lands to new states and set aside a portion of those lands to be used to fund public schools”.

It was the promised American dream, supporting public schooling for society’s good. In fact, by the time the 20th century rolled around, graduation rates from American high schools had nearly quadrupled in comparison to the 1920s. Economic equality was seen as a fundamental right with the rise of educational television programs, such as PBS and NPR, that generations grew up watching, deeply rooted in egalitarianism.

Public education in the United States is a system where free schooling is accessible to all children within a community—primarily funded by taxpayer money—despite their socio-economic status, disadvantaged backgrounds, or even varied educational needs and attainment.

But that era of educational prosperity may meet its decline sooner than we think.

Nearly sixty years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 into law to support the “instructional, educational, and cultural purposes” of broadcasting for the American people, especially “children and minorities,”; Congress had eliminated nearly five hundred million dollars in funding—forcing PBS to cut its budget by a fifth. For the sole purpose of accusing PBS and NPR of “left-leaning” bias and being a “waste of taxpayer funds”.

People are left to question: What does this overarching agenda stem from? Could it be attributed to the Trump administration’s need to bankroll private family-owned foundations? 

For the Wealthy, By the Wealthy

The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions’ committee chair, Senator Bernie Sanders (who has established close ties with the Democratic Party), pointed out that on average, America’s public school teachers are making nearly a hundred dollars less weekly than they did 28 years ago, considering inflation. 

When commenting on this present-day disparity, Sanders said, “The situation has become so absurd that four—one, two, three, four—hedge fund managers on Wall Street made more money last year than every kindergarten teacher in America,”.  

Sanders’s reports, published via the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, state that Republican-led legislatures are expanding (“under the false promise of “school choice”—which in turn is being rolled nationwide as part of Title I-A for private students) to dismantle public education and pay for private school vouchers that largely benefit wealthy families. 

The catch? It enables corporations to “avoid paying their fair share of taxes”. Companies like the DeVos Family Foundation and the Koch Foundation are involved in lobbying campaigns that earmark public tax dollars for private schools. This provides an incentive for high-income families to claim voucher credit to attend private and/or secular schools. For instance, the “universal-eligibility” private school voucher program was enacted first by Arizona nearly two years ago.

The Monopoly of High-Income Families

How is the program disproportionate for middle and low-income families within the United States? An ITEP (Economic Policy) study found that 60 percent of the families [that claim the Arizona voucher credit] have incomes over $200,000, with households that earn [that amount] making up 87 percent of families getting tax dollars for private school tuition in Virginia. Families that can already afford to pay for private education and one-on-one teaching benefit the most from private school vouchers (i.e., as proposed by the Trump administration). 

The report frames pro-privatisation advocates, who view these policies as “an alternative to families with low incomes”, though the vast majority already send their children to expensive private schools. Take, for example, early data from eight states (i.e., Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin), which show that 65 to 95 percent of students who participate in private school voucher programs never attended a public school in the first place. 

Moreover, students living in the highest income zip codes benefit ten times more than students in the lowest income zip codes, according to Arizona’s Department of Education. 

It’s also important to identify that similar analyses have found that, regardless of the type of “socio-economic” measure used (this includes everything from poverty rates to educational attainment), in the end, the more advantaged communities will always disproportionately benefit from “school-choice” policies.

Voucher advocates for private funding claim that states can save money “educating students via vouchers [for private school tuition]. Yet, these claims ignore numerous realities of the underprivileged communities here in the United States—for instance, the Southern Poverty Law Center observed that they concentrate higher-need students in “already-underfunded public schools” nationwide.

What does this mean for the political momentum behind public education?

The Trump administration sees public education as a pivotal tool in shaping Republican-led and dominated legislatures. 

Basic funding that assists in student-led and economically viable research has been cut—$783 million—amid an anti-DEI push; halting such studies can “harm the country’s potential for scientific breakthroughs”, as argued by sixteen Democratic state attorneys as part of public-health advocacy groups.

Katya Schwenk, a criminal legal system journalist based in Arizona believes the effort towards pushing equity in education nationwide has a single challenging goal: to convince students from average-income families that the one thing they do not want to do is “make sure the rich and powerful pay their fair share of taxes”, and that when big companies dodge taxes? It helps “protect employment and job creation”.

After all, the American dream thrives on the lack of economic disparity—a free future for all. How much longer will that be propelled towards the mainstream? It’s uncertain, but one thing isn’t: the reaping of public education.

Beginning on March 10, 2025, the Trump administration announced plans to cut research funding and grants to many top schools around the nation. Among the biggest targets of this campaign were Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, UCLA, Northwestern and Duke, whose funding cuts all eclipsed the $100 million mark. Reasons for the massive reductions include the major downsizing of federal institutions like the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, as well as something of a punishment for claims of anti-semitism at elite universities. This dates all the way back to Dec. 11, 2019, when the Trump administration passed the “Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism.” In light of conflicts in Israel and Palestine over the last few years, Trump expanded on this executive order on Jan. 29, 2025. Many, including a large percentage of students and faculty at top schools, have sided against the Israeli government in the matter, with many going so far as to deem their actions to root out Hamas as genocidal towards the Palestinian people. According to a poll by The Harvard Crimson last year, 37.8% of the class of 2028 viewed pro-Palestine protests favorably, compared to 23.7% unfavorably. The current administration believes that support of these viewpoints by universities is anti-Semitic. 

On top of that, leveraging research funds has allowed Trump’s attack on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) to extend to higher education. Beyond the landmark court decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which struck down affirmative action in US college admissions, since Trump’s second term has started, he has issued executive orders 14190, 14173, 14168 and 14151, all related to getting rid of DEI and “indoctrination” in schools. According to US News and World Report, Trump has said that college campuses are “woke” and “infested with radicalism.” Naturally, this has been applied to university research as another justification for the cuts. 

The stripped funding, and the subsequent deals made, terms and paid fines in order to restore them have been somewhat shrouded in secrecy. No single executive order or action led to research funding removal at each one of these top institutions. Instead, a slightly unique set of grievances has been put before each of the schools, and not all at the same time. According to Maine Public Radio, White House officials never formally announced the $510 million funding block for Brown University to the public, only informing The Brown Daily Herald and several large media outlets. Brian Clark, head spokesperson for the university, said that even Brown itself was initially left in the dark about the proceedings. 

The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Donald Trump’s own alma mater, was the first to negotiate with the White House. The allegations surrounding UPenn were heavily tied to trans swimmer Lia Thomas’ NCAA titles, which right-wing politicians are eager to see stripped away. Per CNN, the university was not required to pay any sort of fine, but instead wrote apologies to swimmers that competed against Thomas and released a statement saying that it would better follow Title IX regulations in the future. 

More recently, and more controversially, on July 23, 2025, Columbia University paid the Trump administration more than $220 million in order to restore the over $400 million for research that was frozen in the wake of rampant anti-semitism claims that stemmed from large encampments and protests that occurred on Columbia’s grounds, as reported by AP News. In general, those affiliated with Columbia are extremely displeased with the deal. 

“It’s scary. One of the most concerning parts of it is how quickly it’s happening. In the space of less than a year, the damage that’s already been done, there’s been massive infringement on free speech; upon the freedom of educational institutions,” said an anonymous Columbia Law School student. “These institutions, which have traditionally been these sacred sources of knowledge and innovation, are now suddenly under the control of the government, who are essentially trying to squash any speech, demonstration, or organization that is opposed to them, which is the very kind of thing you would expect to see in a fascist regime.”

Not only is the money forfeited concerning, but the notion that these agreements only encourage the Trump administration’s coercive tactics in the future, is perhaps even more so. 

“With these deals, there’s nothing in them that stops the administration from making future demands. To think that they can continue to pour things on, it truly is extortion,” the student continued. “When the deal was reached with Columbia, Trump essentially said that he hoped to use this deal as a blueprint for their ongoing investigations with other schools.” 

Trump’s “blueprint” appears to be working, as the deals made by Brown and UCLA continue to restrict the freedoms of these institutions in a way that threatens their very core. Trump’s goal is to control the educational narrative; while he’s done so much easier with K-12 schooling through gutting programs like PBS, it was seen as unlikely that he could propagandize his way through universities with such intelligent, educated people at the helm. 

Many see what’s gone on with higher education as extortionary. The Trump administration is furthering their social agenda by threatening scientific and economic advancement in the United States. These underappreciated benefits of university research are highlighted very clearly in a study by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

Virginia Beach, despite having the highest rated public school system in all of southeastern Virginia, falls well behind the other cities in Hampton Roads (what the conglomerate of cities in southeastern Virginia is typically referred to as) in teacher pay. 

The current minimum full-time salary for a teacher without any creditable experience is $55,687 in Virginia Beach, which does not fall far behind neighboring Chesapeake ($56,564) and Norfolk ($57,500). However, Virginia Beach was first in Hampton Roads in this category as recently as the 2022-23 school year. In 2023-24, Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) did not increase the starting wages at all from the previous year. 

Since then, Virginia Beach has continued to fall behind in the teacher pay department. At the end of the 2024-25 school year, VBCPS teachers protested to receive salary raises that were competitive with surrounding school districts. For instance, public school teachers in Norfolk received a more than 7.5% increase in starting pay. Though aiming for a higher figure, the teachers in Virginia Beach eventually settled for 4.5%. 

Obviously, this is a major issue facing the district, but with a total student population of just under 65,000 students, the school board has their hands somewhat tied when it comes to these shortcomings. 

Conversely, the outrage over the letter sent out to teachers about the rise in their healthcare premiums on Aug. 7, was avoidable. The letter announced that district employees will have to pay as much as $210.97 more per pay period for health insurance. This figure rises to as high as $445.25 per month for retired VBCPS teachers. 

“The disconnect is that we have to decide on our budget in January, but we don’t get concrete information on healthcare solidified until July,” said school board member Melinda Rogers in a conversation on Aug. 22. In spite of this assertion, the lawsuit filed on Aug. 21 alleges that healthcare information was knowingly withheld from VBCPS employees by the superintendent to avoid a mass employee exodus to surrounding districts and private schools. 

“We’ve called a meeting on healthcare benefits to fix this broken system,” Rogers said.

This is mistreatment and deception of the highest order. Seeing as all teachers signed their contracts for the current school year well before being notified of the premium hikes, the district has likely committed fraud and breach of contract. More significantly, this is a breach of the trust of its educators, a pillar of a community which, up until now, has had one of the most thriving school districts in the entire nation. 

On March 4, 2025, David Keogh, a Senior Benefits Consultant with Mercer (VBCPS’ third party consultant) met with the school board to discuss the health insurance plans for the upcoming year. The following are the two plans that were presented to be offered to employees. 

2025 Health Plan Design by Mercer

The projected cost of these plans for the school district was $108.4 million, with the additional $9.4 million to be covered by school district employees. 

The healthcare offerings given to teachers on Aug. 7 were drastically different from those outlined above. Numbers on school district vs. employee costs have not yet been released, but it’s safe to assume that district cost was likely deflected onto the employees in some way. 

As a result of research funding cuts and cuts to medicare in the realm of $536 billion, health insurance premiums across the country have been rising. Nonetheless, to put teachers in a position where affording care for themselves is at risk, given everything they provide for local communities, and moreover, to lie about it, is despicable. 

Dr. Donald Robertson Jr. who declined to comment for this piece, conveniently negotiated a 13% raise for himself this year. His total salary figure has not been disclosed. 

“I did not vote to approve the superintendent’s raise, because I feel that at a time like this, leaders should stand with their people,” Rogers said. “Leaders lead, not from the front, but by ensuring that everyone gets to where they need to be from the back.”

Teachers across the country are constantly struggling to achieve fair pay. It is disheartening to see a district that performs so highly in other metrics continue to do so poorly in accommodating those who make its schools great. Policies must be put in place to prioritize this issue, as well as to prevent greed and deception from slipping through the cracks. 

Content warning: Mentions of suicide

America’s scientific community was, and continues to be, propelled by the unique diversity of anecdotes presented by a cultural melting pot of ethnicities and backgrounds. 

Science, and education for that matter, has always been a crucial string that aligns countries’ best interests at heart—fuelling innovation, progress, and excellence, where the most nuanced solutions are discovered.

However, researchers at the Brookings Institution have found a clear trend of racial, ethnic, and gender gaps between college students and faculty. In addition, in the nation’s top 40 public universities, minority groups are especially underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math fields, with nearly 76 percent of post-secondary faculty members being white.

As a result, in mainstream media, the interests of marginalised groups [in education policies] have been specially disregarded, and that began with the introduction of a single campaign that left a permanent mark that evolved education backwards for minorities.

Designed to combat “economic espionage and intellectual property theft by Chinese government agents”, the ‘China Initiative’ evolved into a campaign of racial profiling and discrimination that targeted American scientists and technologists in 2018.

The ‘China Initiative’s effect had left irreparable harm on the States’ scientific community, which resulted in a temporary ‘brain drain’.

How did the ‘China Initiative’ (And Continues To) Tarnish the Reputation of Chinese Americans?

In February of 2022, the Biden administration ended the ‘China Initiative’ after a strategic review by Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, who delivered remarks and protested that it “fueled a harmful perception” of bias in the department’s investigations. 

Olsen argued that it stifled scientific research and encouraged efforts to “combat acts of hate”—reflected in the Attorney General's “enactment of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act…”. 

Thousands of FBI investigations that the FBI’s director, Christopher Wray, described did not find even hundreds of Chinese industrial spies. In an MIT review analysis of the 77 cases the Justice Department had identified, only 19 confirmed cases, including charges related to espionage or property theft, were pressed; a third of the 77 cases had resulted in convictions. Former U.S Attorney, Carol Lam, regarded the initiative as “perverse incentives”.

The ‘China Initiative’ investigations had fixated on Asian American researchers and scholars alleged to have “leaked details in immigration paperwork or U.S grant applications”. 

What was regarded as highly concerning for the future of research conducted was that some arrests were made purely on circumstantial evidence, which does not “prove a fact in issue”, according to the Legal Information Institute. 

Investigators found alleged suspects who had some connection to China—often ancestral—and then “searched for a crime”, no matter how unrelated it was to the United States’ national security. 

Yet, the ‘China Initiative’ had not only done irreparable harm to the development of independent and funded research for the Asian American community, but also to mental health. The livelihoods of entire families were impacted, and some faced the loss of life.

Silenced Scientist Caught Up in Dirty Politics

Dr. Jane Wu, a renowned neuroscientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, was recognised for her research on post-transcriptional gene regulation, RNA splicing, and diseases such as ALS and Parkinson’s. Her career spanned nearly forty years, with two decades at Northwestern University, where her work aimed to tackle neurological diseases.

Graduating with a doctorate from Stanford in 1991, Wu had accustomed herself to life in the United States quite well, dedicating her dissertation to “the memory of martyrs of June Fourth, 1989”. In addition, Wu was a loving mother of two. 

In 2019—nearly a year after the Department of Justice launched the ‘China Initiative’—the National Institutes of Health, a federal medical research agency that operates under the Department of Health and Human Services, investigated Wu for any contacts in China. This was a part of a larger effort to “investigate foreign influence at U.S grantee institutions” (this includes fully funded research).

Until 2023, the NIH had continuously investigated Wu based on her Chinese affiliations, according to the complaint filed by her daughter, Elizabeth Rao. It is alleged that this prevented [her] from taking part in research; by the time the probe had ended, Dr. Jane Wu lost everything—from resources to teaching assistants and staff. 

A point that is brought up in Rao’s complaint of NIH’s probe is that, rather than shutting down Wu’s laboratory for redundancy—like many universities do—her grants were reassigned to white male colleagues, the complaint alleges. As a result, Elizabeth believes there were underlying racist and discriminatory motivations to doing so. 

This was the last straw for Wu, who committed suicide on the 10th of July, 2024, at her home in Chicago.  Nearly a year after her passing, Elizabeth filed a civil complaint—citing violations of the Illinois Human Rights Act. 

The investigation concluded with “no findings of misconduct”; however, Northwestern did not restore Wu’s lab or funding. It opted to cut her salary and refused to return a still-active NIH grant—something that “effectively blocked Wu from rebuilding her career”.

This is one of many instances that drew similar criticisms of discrimination and xenophobia.

“This is real theft,” said Dr. Michael Lauer, NIH’s deputy director for extramural research, [of] the agency’s investigations and showed instances of withholding information about funding sources and grants.

At the time, under the Justice Department’s ‘China Initiative’, several scholars and academics of Chinese descent across the country had been accused of espionage, including but not limited to: MIT’s Gang Chen in 2021, University of Tennessee’s Anming Hu in 2020, and Qing Wang, formerly of the Cleveland Clinic, that same year.

The entire ordeal had contributed to signs of depression and “obsessive behaviour” in Wu as she attempted to protect her life’s work. Suffering from a loss of vision as a result of a stroke [under the stress, according to the lawsuit], Northwestern had allegedly used this emotional disability as a “pretext” to evict her, forcibly admitting her to the psychiatric unit.

What does this entail for the role of Asian Americans (and other minorities) in academia?

According to a study conducted by Stanford in 2024, the number of Chinese-born scientists leaving the States since the initiative has increased by 75 percent—with most returning to China—which may reinforce America’s brain drain.

Although the Trump administration wants to bring back one of the country’s most disastrous policies [the initiative]—where Project 2025 recommended reviving the program through “executive action”—House Republicans, joined by 23 Democrats, passed a bill that requires reinstating a rebranded version.

African and Asian American job applicants who “whiten” their applications on resumes by removing references to their race are twice as likely to get called on for interviews, where this practice is as strong in businesses that claim “diversity” as in those that don’t, according to research by Katherine DeCelles, a visiting Associate Professor at Harvard.

As a result, this continues to serve as a reminder—and instill fear—that one can spend their entire life dedicated to the sciences; the knowledge economy of a country, yet be prosecuted and be seen as a thieving businessman.

Dr. Jane Wu’s story reveals something far more sinister about minorities in academia: that they will always be viewed as the “underdogs” of education. 

Sports have always been a quintessential part of the typical American high school experience, with cheerleading, football leagues, or friendships built with peers; sports act as an even playing field for individuals to showcase pure artistry and strength. In fact, according to a Pew Research Centre survey, conducted in February 2022, about 1 in 2 Americans say they took part in an organised competitive sport in high school or college. 

In addition, sports have been regarded as a building block for pupils’ mental and physical health, and confidence: some 79 percent of adults who played sports had “a positive impact [on their self-esteem]”—with 38 percent saying it had a “very positive impact”. This could be attributed to safeguarding the rights of individuals in the realm of athletics. For instance, Title IX “prohibits discrimination based on sex…including athletic programs, that receive Federal financial assistance…”. 

The benefits of school sports, however, continue to be challenged by the introduction of new educational policies.

What is The CHOOSE Act?

Signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey on the 7th of March, 2024, the CHOOSE Act provides an incentive (i.e., in the form of a school voucher program) for families that have children attending private schools or are home-schooled to cover tuition costs. 

Their interpretation of Governor Ivey’s law falls under the category of financial aid, where rules state that students receiving [school vouchers in this case “aid”] are ineligible for athletic participation in their first year following a transfer.

The law required the Alabama Department of Revenue to establish a framework and funding for ESAs beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. These ESAs—also known as the Education Savings Account Program—support eligible K-12 students’ educational expenses. Such expenses include tuition, tutoring, athletics, fees, and textbooks.

Seeing how public education is often sidelined by the introduction of the Trump administration’s school voucher programs, which disproportionately prioritise private education and wealthy families like the DeVos and Koch foundations, the CHOOSE Act provides an opportunity for each eligible child’s needs to be met and acknowledged. 

Although most of its funds are allocated to private institutions, participating public schools can also tap into state dollars to fund educational expenses. This is divided into three years that suggest that “...Clearly, taxpaying Alabama families want school choice.”, said Ivey.

Year 1—from 2025 to the 2026 academic year, prioritises the first 500 students with special needs who are awarded ESAs; followed by children of active-duty service members assigned to a priority school. 

The third priority is given to students from families at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, as defined in the CHOOSE Act’s tax policy. Beginning with the 2026–2027 academic year and beyond, students who received ESAs in the previous year will instead be considered a second priority.

Governor Ivey’s introduction (and assimilation) of the CHOOSE Act has allowed families of varying socio-economic standings to choose their own life, with nearly 22,167 applications submitted for a total of 36,873 students out of all the participating schools. This substantial number of applications raises the possibility that: a) the state of Alabama will exhaust the available $100 million in funding, and b) lawmakers will potentially look into expanding its capital.

A Repeat-Reaping for Corporate Greed and Wealthy Families?

On the 4th of September, 2025, the AHSAA (Alabama High School Athletic Association) released a statement regarding the CHOOSE Act. The association believes that the final draft of the act omits the word ‘rules’, which introduces ambiguity despite “early drafts [of the CHOOSE Act] explicitly protested AHSAA’s eligibility rules”.

The AHSAA argues that this rule helps “promote competitive equity and deters recruitment”—creating an objective and fair space for student athletes to pursue their chosen sport. Without it [the rule that deterred the CHOOSE Act], private institutions could recruit D1 athletes by encouraging them to transfer and use vouchers to cover tuition costs and educational expenses—putting community colleges and smaller-scale institutions at an immense disadvantage. The association aims to reaffirm its “unwavering commitment to fairness, consistency, and member-driven governance” as a result.

The CHOOSE Act, which went into effect nearly six months prior, allows families to tap up to “$7,000 in state funding to help pay for private school” and “up to $2,000 for homeschooling expenses”,—where Governor Ivey and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter filed a complaint in the Montgomery Circuit Court against the AHSAA. 

This complaint was regarding “block the association’s ruling on eligibility and pave the way for the students” to participate in athletics. However, it’s important to consider that Alabama is one of many states that use school vouchers and tax credits to help families pay for educational expenses.

A Win for Educational Reform

Ivey and Ledbetter said the CHOOSE Act was designed to “have no such restriction on athletic participation”,—where the two Republicans had filed the court action shortly after the board “refused to reverse its decision”. 

“We wrote and passed the CHOOSE Act to give every child a true choice in their education…includes participation in athletics”, said Governor Ivey. Ledbetter believes that the AHSAA’s leadership states that “they are not concerned with the best interests of all student-athletes”.

Montgomery Circuit Judge J.R. Gaines, on the 6th of September, 2025, issued a temporary restraining order that barred the association [AHSAA] from enforcing a policy that “says voucher recipients are ineligible to play sports” during their first year at a new school. 

“Today’s order is a victory for common sense,” said Ivey to the Associated Press—she believes that the policy unfairly penalised students for “making education choices supported by state legislation”. The CHOOSE Act has allowed young athletes filled with hopes, aspirations, and passion to pursue what they know all too well: sportsmanship—choosing what they find comfort in. 

Alabama changed the game for educational reform and created an even playing field where students from different economic backgrounds can experience a day of their own. Step by step, it slowly redefines a new era for educational reform, and possibly, a silver lining to education disparity: a chance for the United States to re-enact the now-lost American dream.