Straws in the Wind - Part 234

From Inside Higher Ed: The House and Senate appropriations committees have jointly proposed legislation that would generally maintain the Education Department’s funding levels, plus increase the National Institutes of Health’s budget by more than $400 million this fiscal year. It’s the latest in a trend of bipartisan congressional rebukes of President Trump’s call to slash agencies that support higher ed. For the current fiscal year, Trump had asked Congress to cut the NIH by 40 percent and subtract $12 billion from ED’s budget. The president proposed eliminating multiple ED programs, including TRIO, GEAR UP and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, all of which help low-income students attend college. He also proposed reducing the ED Office for Civil Rights budget by over a third.

But the proposed funding package senators and representatives released [last] week maintains funding for all of those programs. “We were surprised to see the level of funding for the higher education programs actually be increased, in some regards—and be maintained,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. “We knew that level funding would be considered a win in this political environment.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2026/01/20/congress-proposes-increasing-nih-budget.

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From South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Florida Atlantic University has decided not to renew the contract of a faculty member who was under investigation for social media posts about Charlie Kirk, despite an outside investigation finding that her conduct does not warrant discipline under the university’s guidelines. Kate Polak, a full-time English instructor in the College of Arts and Letters, was placed on administrative leave with pay in September after the university received three email complaints with screenshots of comments posted on her personal social media accounts about Kirk and his murder. FAU also placed two other faculty members under investigation for their Charlie Kirk comments, though both were reinstated in November. Both of those faculty members were on the tenure track, while Polak is employed on a yearly contract basis.

In a letter to Polak dated Tuesday, Oliver Buckton, chair of FAU’s English Department, said the outside investigation conducted by Alan Lawson, a former conservative Florida Supreme Court justice, had concluded. The investigation found that her posts “would be understood by most readers as condoning on-campus violence” and discipline “would be constitutionally permissible based upon their potential for harming the University’s mission,” but that discipline still “does not appear warranted” under university regulations or its collective bargaining agreement with faculty...

Full story at https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/01/21/fau-professor-wont-get-job-back-after-charlie-kirk-posts/.