Admissions

From the California Post: A father in Palo Alto, California, is declaring a victory in court after a federal judge allowed a civil rights lawsuit alleging anti-Asian bias in college admissions to move forward. Nan Zhong and his son, Stanley Zhong, filed federal lawsuits against several elite institutions, including the University of California system, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan and Cornell University. The complaints allege the universities engaged in “racially discriminatory admissions practices that disadvantage highly qualified Asian-American applicants.”

One of their cases will now proceed in part against the University of Washington after a federal judge granted the university defendants’ motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part...

A 2023 graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, Stanley scored a 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT (99th percentile), held a 4.42 weighted GPA, ranked in the top 9% of his graduating class and had launched a free e-signing startup featured by Amazon Web Services. Shortly after the college rejections, Google hired Stanley as a full-time software engineer in a position that his family’s court filing says typically requires a Ph.D. or equivalent practical experience...

Spokespersons for the University of California system have previously denied the allegations, maintaining that its admissions policies strictly comply with state and federal laws prohibiting race-conscious decisions...

Full story at https://nypost.com/2026/08/30/us-news/california-student-stanley-zhong-gets-legal-win-in-racial-discrimination-against-colleges/.

Note: It is unclear what the status of the UC element in the lawsuit is. But the point of the suit seems to be to open the door to "discovery" of internal documents pertaining to admissions. Such discovery will now go forward with regard to the U of Washington. For UC, it touches on the SAT issue and other admissions matters currently under review.

Straws in the Wind - Part 434

From Inside Higher Ed: When Agenia Clark took the helm of Fisk University in late 2023, she made it her mission to secure financial stability for the 160-year-old historically Black institution, which has seen its share of financial struggles and accreditation challenges. That led her to spearhead the development of Quantum Leap, a $900 million master plan whose details were first unveiled in May. It aims to grow enrollment at the Nashville campus to 1,500 students—up from a little more than 1,000 now—as well as spend $500 million on renovations and another $400 million on a 100,000-square-foot technology and innovation center, which will house a massive, high-powered data center.

The university says the innovation center “is intended to bring critical technology access to North Nashville, enhancing our curriculum and research capabilities and ensuring our students are prepared to enter the increasingly tech-driven workforce.” But it’s also become one of the latest flashpoints of the mounting nationwide backlash against the rapid expansion of data centers. Some critics say the proliferation of these centers is following historic urban development patterns that have disproportionately hurt marginalized communities...

While data centers have been around for decades, they’ve rapidly expanded in volume and capability during the AI boom of the past few years. According to Pew Research Center, as of April, more than 3,000 data centers were operating across the United States—with high concentrations in the South—and at least 1,500 are more in development. A growing number of colleges and universities—including the University of Michigan, the University of Alabama and Oakland University—have announced plans to open their own data centers to support campus infrastructure, AI research and industry collaboration...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2026/08/07/will-data-center-bring-risk-or-reward-fisk.

Straws in the Wind - Part 428 (Failsafe)

From Inside Higher Ed: Starting in fall 2027, the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will grade all first-year students as pass/no credit for their first semester. Students will still receive grades and instructor feedback on their coursework, but the grades will not count toward their GPAs or appear on their external transcripts, which will state that all LSA first-semester grades are automatically designated P/NC. The pilot program is designed to help create “an environment where college students can acclimate to the demands of a University of Michigan education and pursue new academic challenges,” according to the LSA webpage announcing the change. “We believe that covering grades will help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals.”

Officials also said they hope eliminating grades will foster connection rather than competition among students, and encourage them to “explore a subject that may not come easily to them or take a course in a new field without the fear that a low grade may have long-term consequences.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/08/05/umich-college-shifts-pnc-grading-first-year-students.

These things don't always work out as planned:

The film follows a crisis caused by a critical error that sends a group of U.S. bombers to destroy Moscow, and the ensuing attempts to stop the bomber group before it can deploy a nuclear first strike...

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_Safe_(1964_film). 

Straws in the Wind - Part 393

From the Detroit News: The University of Michigan plans again to offer the choice to apply for "early decision" admissions, a binding commitment to the school for applicants, despite a request by the university's Faculty Senate to reevaluate the option. Nearly three-quarters of the Faculty Senate — more than 1,300 members — approved a resolution in April that said the admissions practice gave an unfair advantage to students from "affluent" families, and the university adopted the practice without conversations with faculty and staff. The resolution was moved by Chemistry Professor Neil Marsh. The Faculty Senate asked the university to "immediately halt" early decision admissions pending "broad and substantive consultation" to determine whether it aligns with the educational values of UM. The request came as the university encountered issues with the rollout of the early decision program.

Early decision is a college application option commonly used at elite, mostly private institutions. It "binds" prospective students to enroll if they receive acceptance offers. The practice is meant to benefit those students who are entirely committed to the university, because once the offer is made, the student is expected to immediately enroll and rescind all applications at other universities...

Generally speaking, students from wealthier families are most likely to benefit from the early decision program... Applying early decision is off-putting for those who depend on financial aid...

Full story at https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/06/24/university-michigan-early-decision-admissions-faculty-pushback/90559687007/.

Getting In - Part 6

 
In our last post in the Getting In series, we noted the issue of college admissions essays being written by AI and the difficulty in practice of detecting them.*  Here is another use of AI in admissions (to UC, among other universities):

From KGO-7-ABC: A Palo Alto father who has filed multiple lawsuits against major university systems over his son's college rejections says artificial intelligence has become the key to pursuing the cases after no law firm agreed to represent them. The legal fight stems from a 2023 ABC7 News story about Stanley Zhong, then an 18-year-old Gunn High School student with a 4.4 GPA and a near-perfect 1590 SAT score who was rejected by 16 out of the 18 colleges he applied to. Despite the rejections, he was later hired as a software engineer at Google. Two and a half years later, his father, Nan Zhong, says the family remains convinced racial discrimination played a role in those decisions... 

Zhong said Stanley, now 21, is happy and doing well in his job at Google. "In 2025, he received an outstanding impact performance rating, which is higher than majority of the Google engineers," he said. Zhong said the family spent a year in discussions with University of California officials after Stanley's rejections, but nothing changed. He said the turning point came when a UC admissions director emailed him, writing that his allegation of racial discrimination was unfounded because California law bans the practice.

"When I got that line, I kept scratching my head," Zhong said. "They're saying there cannot be any noncompliance if there's a law banning it, but we're exactly accusing them of breaking the law secretly. So that is the point where I realized there's nothing we can achieve by having a conversation with them." Zhong said conversations with state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom also went nowhere, prompting the family to sue the University of California, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan and Cornell University.

He said they struggled to find legal representation. "We've been talking to local law firms, national law firms. By my account, we probably talked to dozens of legal organizations and law firms. None of them took it," Zhong said. With statutes of limitation approaching, he said the family decided to represent themselves. "Of course, being somebody with no legal experience at all, we naturally turned to AI," he said. "It turned out to be a boon that we never anticipated to be so effective."

Zhong said they use multiple AI models simultaneously to analyze legal questions, compare answers and prevent errors. "It's like having a team of deep lawyers, top lawyers, all working for you," he said. He pointed to a recent ruling in the University of Washington case, where a judge rejected the university's motion to stay the case. Zhong said the decision underscored a challenge in bringing admissions lawsuits: students often lose legal standing once they reach their junior year of college. "Here, Stanley has a unique advantage. He's not going to college yet. He may go at any time," Zhong said. "So, in some ways, he has evergreen legal standing that allows us to bring the lawsuit." ...

Full story at https://abc7news.com/post/google-engineer-rejected-colleges-uses-ai-sue-ucs-other-universities-racial-discrimination/18849388/.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/04/getting-in-part-5.html.

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If only he had known about this:

Or this:

Straws in the Wind - Part 312

From Bloomberg: President Donald Trump’s administration has opened a new front in its campaign to reshape US colleges, homing in on racial diversity at some of the top medical schools in the country. The Department of Justice has launched investigations into medical programs at Stanford, the University of California San Diego and Ohio State University, accusing them of giving a leg up to minority applicants. The administration has made similar claims about a swath of universities. But for medical schools, those accusations — and the accompanying risk to their federal funding — are an especially potent weapon.

Medical programs already took a hit last year when the president slashed billions in research grants, which disproportionately affects biomedical fields. The National Institutes of Health alone terminated nearly $2 billion in payments to medical schools as of last June. But even bigger sums could be at stake if the DOJ investigations widen beyond the initial slate of schools.

The NIH awarded over $19 billion to medical programs last year, and students rely on federal aid and loans to afford famously expensive medical degrees. If schools are found to be in violation of anti-discrimination law, they risk getting cut off from all this funding...

Full story at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-08/trump-targets-top-medical-schools-as-next-higher-ed-battleground.

Straws in the Wind - Part 297

From Inside Higher Ed: The Trump administration cut off funding for area studies and foreign language education in September, putting an end to the flow of financial support for centers and programs that assisted national security strategy for decades. Justifying the cuts, the administration has said these kinds of programs are “inconsistent with Administration priorities and do not advance American interests or values.” For years, area studies centers were funded through National Resource Center grants as part of Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Congress partially restored this funding in its most recent budget, but the damage to area studies may be irreversible. 

The University of Washington, home to one of the nation’s oldest area studies centers, lost $2.5 million in National Resource Center and foreign language grants—half of which went directly to student scholarships—for the 2025–26 academic year. The University of Michigan lost about $3.4 million and the University of Kansas lost $2 million. Western Washington University’s Center for Canadian-American Studies reportedly took a 70 percent hit to its budget after the Title VI funds were pulled.

...Facing a hostile presidential administration, institutions are unlikely to stick their necks out too far for area studies, said Zachary Lockman, a historian and professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University. “They’re skeptical. They’re all in austerity mode. They’re under attack,” Lockman said. “Many of them just want to fly under the radar and remain invisible, so giving money to people whom the Department of Education sees as enemies of the Trump administration doesn’t seem like a wise tactic to them.” ...

[The] symbiotic government–university partnership worked for a while. But in the 1970s, while the U.S. was at war in Vietnam, that relationship began to fracture, experts explained. Government officials started to think that they weren’t getting their anticipated return on investment, [Osamah] Khalil [of Syracuse University] said. It was never a requirement that recipients of federal fellowships work for the government afterward—and in large part, they did not, he said. “One of the things that came out of Vietnam was this idea that ‘We’re not getting the experts that we wanted out of this. We’re getting campus radicals who are protesting U.S. foreign policy’”... 

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/academic-programs/2026/03/26/area-studies-once-vital-wither-without-funding.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 128

From the NY Times: After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last month that the Pentagon would cut ties with Harvard University over ideological differences, Harvard is trying to create a workaround for students in the military. The Harvard Kennedy School, one of the schools at Harvard attended by service members, is offering to let them defer admission or help them pursue spots at four other institutions if they are accepted to the Kennedy School for the 2026-27 academic year.

Secretary Hegseth announced the Pentagon’s break with Harvard in a video released Feb. 6, in which he called Harvard “one of the red-hot centers of hate-America activism” and accused “too many” military members who graduate from Harvard of developing radical ideologies. Mr. Hegseth, who graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 with a master’s degree in public policy, said that he would “discontinue all graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs” between Harvard and his department, beginning with the next academic year...

If they are not allowed to attend, military members accepted this spring to the Kennedy School will be able to defer their admission for up to four years, according to a copy of a letter to applicants...

Officials at four other graduate schools have agreed to give quick consideration to applications from active-duty military members who are accepted to the Kennedy School but who don’t want to put off their education... Those programs are the Harris School at the University of Chicago, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Gerald R. Ford School at the University of Michigan...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/us/hegseth-pentagon-harvard-military.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 224

From the Washington Post: As Republican leaders moved to root out what they have criticized as liberal ideology at the University of Virginia, some conservative appointees to its board texted privately about ending “chemical and surgical mutilation” for transgender youth at its hospitals and undoing “regimes of racial classification” in its classrooms, according to nearly 1,000 pages of text messages reviewed by The Washington Post. The board members coordinated frequently with Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) or his top aides in nearly every major debate at the flagship university in Charlottesville in the past year — which some observers have described as an unusual level of involvement by the state leader. The conservative appointees also spoke in candid, sometimes inflammatory terms about the university’s then-president, James E. Ryan, his supporters and diversity policies.

“This is war!” Stephen Long wrote on April 17 to a fellow board member about a professor who sought to preserve diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Board members have often been reluctant to speak publicly on university matters outside of meetings. But the texts, exchanged between June 2023 and mid-December by board members and top university officials, offer an unfiltered account of the body’s inner workings as it rolled back some gender affirming care, dissolved the university’s DEI office and responded to several investigations by the Trump administration, among other changes at U-Va. Ryan resigned in June amid the intensifying scrutiny. At times, the texts show tension between conservative, moderate and more liberal board members, including one who referred to his fellow board members as “crazies.”

Youngkin spokesperson Rob Damschen said the involvement of the governor and his aides were “essential to responsible oversight.” ...

Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/01/09/university-virginia-board-texts-messages-youngkin-dei/.

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From the Chronicle of Higher Education: The University of Michigan’s incoming president, Kent Syverud, could make up to $3 million a year, per his contract. At $2 million, his base pay would have set a new record last year, according to Chronicle data... In addition to the $2 million, Syverud, who has been president of Syracuse University since 2014, can earn an annual performance award that is worth up to 30 percent of his base pay, or $600,000. The university will also contribute up to $360,000 a year to his retirement plan after one year of service. At the end of his time as Michigan’s president, unless he is fired for cause or leaves for another institution, Syverud will be able to take a one-year leave while earning his base pay. He can then join the faculty as a tenured professor and continue to earn his base pay for three years...

Colleges’ presidential contracts are starting to feel more like those afforded to their football coaches, who get enormous pay packages but can be fired at a moment’s notice. The people filling both positions are under pressure from board members, donors, alumni, and sometimes state lawmakers to meet certain metrics or step aside... But $3 million a year is still a lot for the leader of a public institution...

Other college presidents’ compensation will likely match or exceed Syverud’s in the near future, if they haven’t already. Their contracts are a bit of an arms race, James H. Finkelstein, an emeritus professor of public policy at George Mason University, told The Chronicle in November. Presidents, he said, tend to want what they see their peers getting.

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/new-u-of-michigan-presidents-pay-may-set-a-record.

Straws in the Wind - Part 186

From The Atlantic: Administering an exam used to be straightforward: All a college professor needed was an open room and a stack of blue books. At many American universities, this is no longer true. Professors now struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation, which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise-prohibited technology. The University of Michigan has two centers where students with disabilities can take exams, but they frequently fill to capacity, leaving professors scrambling to find more desks and proctors. Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago, told me that so many students now take their exams in the school’s low-distraction testing outposts that they have become more distracting than the main classrooms.

...Over the past decade and a half, however, the share of students at selective universities who qualify for accommodations—often, extra time on tests—has grown at a breathtaking pace. At the University of Chicago, the number has more than tripled over the past eight years; at UC Berkeley, it has nearly quintupled over the past 15 years.

The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression, and by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier. The change has occurred disproportionately at the most prestigious and expensive institutions. At Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are registered as disabled. At Amherst, that figure is 34 percent. Not all of those students receive accommodations, but researchers told me that most do. The schools that enroll the most academically successful students, in other words, also have the largest share of students with a disability that could prevent them from succeeding academically...

Full story at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/elite-university-student-accommodation/684946.

Straws in the Wind - Part 178

From the Columbia Daily Spectator: Columbia is absent from the list of 38 universities facing proposed suspensions from a Department of State federal research partnership program, according to an internal memo... The memo and an attached spreadsheet indicate that the department is looking to suspend institutions from partnering with its Diplomacy Lab program effective Jan. 1, 2026, because they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices.” Diplomacy Lab is an initiative between the federal government and over 60 universities that aims to harness “the expertise and fresh perspectives of students and faculty members to conduct research on key foreign policy topics,” according to an information sheet about the program.

A State Department spokesperson told Spectator that all agency programs are under review to ensure they are aligned with the priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration. The spreadsheet evaluated the hiring practices of 75 universities on a 4-point, color-coded scale... Universities showing “clear DEI hiring policy” were marked red for suspension from the program, whereas institutions showing “merit-based hiring with no evidence of DEI” were marked in green.

...In its July 23 $221 million settlement with the federal government, Columbia pledged not to consider “race, color, sex or national origin” as a factor in its hiring decisions. Columbia has also committed to submitting admissions data to the federal government, beginning with an initial October report...

Full story at https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/11/23/columbia-set-to-retain-embattled-state-department-research-partnership-as-other-universities-face-potential-suspensions-over-dei-hiring-practices/.

From The Guardian: More than three dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke have their participation in a federal research partnership on the chopping block after the state department proposed to suspend them over their diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices. Last week, the Guardian obtained an internal memo and spreadsheet showing that the state department is moving to exclude 38 institutions from the Diplomacy Lab program, which pairs university researchers with state department policy offices on foreign policy projects. The suspensions would take effect on 1 January, and because the list is not finalized, the schools have not yet been informed.

The targeted schools include elite universities such as Stanford University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Southern California, as well as American University, George Washington University, Syracuse University and several University of California campuses. 

Universities recommended to remain include Columbia University, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin. Several of these moved to comply with the administration’s anti-DEI demands earlier this year – Columbia agreed in July to pay more than $200m to the federal government and pledged not to use “race, color, sex or national origin” in hiring decisions, while the University of Virginia’s president resigned in June after the justice department demanded he step down over the school’s diversity practices...

Full story at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/25/us-universities-cuts-dei-state-department.

Athletic Investments - Part 3

We are following up on the proposed investment of pension and maybe endowment funds in some kind of deal with the Big Ten athletic conference which UCLA joined - setting off a months-long brouhaha at the Regents after an intervention by the governor.*

There are questions, to say the least, about the use of pension funds to support the athletic program. Presumably, it was "sold" to the Regents during a closed-door meeting as a good deal by investment criteria. 

Yours truly does not know what "a 100-year investment" means. See below. Does it mean we have to wait that long to determine if it was a good deal? If so, a not-so-nice interpretation would mean that no one currently alive can be held responsible for the long-term results. Does it make sense to talk about 100 years in the context of college sports which are undergoing rapid change due to such factors the legal climate surround pay for players and the changes in technology for delivery of sports events to households?

From the Daily Bruin: UC Investments offered $2.4 billion for a 10% stake in a new entity that would manage the Big Ten’s league-wide media rights and sponsorship deals. The UC said it would use a pension fund to invest in Big Ten Enterprises, which would then direct funds to individual Big Ten schools’ athletic departments, according to ESPN. The UC’s investment arm manages investment funds for the University and provides fiduciary oversight, managing about $190 billion in its portfolio, according to the office’s website...

UC Investments considers Big Ten Enterprises “a 100-year investment,” a UC Investments spokesperson said in an emailed statement. They added in the statement that UC Investments has offered other Big Ten universities the chance to buy its stake if they are seeking a larger amount of ownership for themselves. “Our prospective partnership reflects our shared belief in stability, excellence, and purpose,” said Jagdeep Singh Bachher, the UC’s chief investment officer, in the statement. “UC Investments would be proud to support the Big Ten’s enduring legacy and its continued commitment to the success of student-athletes and scholars alike.” ...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2025/10/30/uc-investments-offers-2-4-billion-for-stake-in-new-big-ten-entity.

Note that ESPN reported that the University of Michigan and USC concluded that the deal was NOT a great investment. See:

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/46620086/proposed-big-ten-private-capital-deal-holding-pattern.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/athletic-investments-part-2.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/10/athletic-investments.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 102

From House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party: Over the past two years, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the Committee on Education and the Workforce’s (Committees) investigations revealed how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exploits U.S. universities to fuel its military and technological rise...  

This report provides new findings on joint institutes and other problematic partnerships between U.S. universities and the PRC, new information on stepped-up enforcement of foreign gift disclosure rules and university responses. This investigation:

 1.   Further highlights the risks these partnerships pose,

 2.   Exposes universities that continue to ignore the risks, 

 3.   Identifies dozens of not-yet-reported academic collaborations that create risks to U.S. national security, 

4.    Examines changes in university disclosures of foreign funding, and 

5.    Reveals the impact of the Trump Administration’s stepped-up enforcement of foreign gift reporting requirements. 

...Since the time of the release of our report and our continued investigations, eight universities chose to do the right thing for academic freedom and U.S. national security by shuttering their joint institutes with Chinese partners. These include the University of California, Berkeley; Georgia Institute of Technology; University of Michigan; University of Pittsburgh; Oakland University; University of Detroit Mercy; Eastern Michigan University; and University of Illinois. 

But many others have not. Last fall, the Committees identified high-risk joint institutes at the following universities, all of which have failed to act: Duke University; University of Arizona; University of Delaware; Drake University; University of Houston; Kean University; University of Miami; New York University; University of North Alabama; Northeastern State University (Tahlequah); Portland State University; State University of New York - Stony Brook; and Trine University...

These partnerships must end...

Full report at https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/joint-institutes-report-final.pdf.

Straws in the Wind - Part 43

From the Wall St. Journal: ...The University of Michigan’s alumni association... told students it was canceling the Lead Scholars program, a week before the school announced it was closing its DEI offices. The alumni group said it ended the scholarship to comply with the law and with guidance from the federal government. 

More than 800 students have received awards since Lead Scholars began in 2008. It was meant to support minority students after the state of Michigan banned using racial preferences in public-college admissions, and offered at least $5,000 a year as well as community events... 

Other scholarships have dwindled or are on pause. The Justice Department... said that the state of Illinois and six schools—including Northwestern University, Loyola University of Chicago and the University of Chicago—suspended a scholarship for minority graduate students called Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois after the department threatened a lawsuit over racial discrimination...

The Illinois Board of Higher Education said the program wasn’t suspended, but the state had agreed to evaluate the fellowship—which is enshrined in state law—along with the Illinois General Assembly.

Northwestern withdrew from the program in March, a school spokesman said. Loyola and the University of Chicago didn’t respond to requests for comment. The University of Illinois-Chicago on its website said its participation in the program was paused because of “funding restrictions from sponsor.” ...

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/anti-dei-minority-scholarships-a721ba1b.

Straws in the Wind - Part 31

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Northwestern University is planning to reduce staff and make other cuts as it grapples with rising costs and federal funding uncertainties. The plans have angered some staff and faculty who say the university should be consulting with them before making any significant announcements. ...Northwestern University sent an email to staff and faculty announcing it would implement cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze and “decreases in the total number of staff positions.” It also said staff would not get bonuses next year, that the university was switching health insurance companies and there would be changes to the tuition benefits program, which provides employees with financial assistance toward the cost of courses.

“Like a number of our peer universities, we have now reached a moment when the university must take a series of cost-cutting measures designed to ensure our institution’s fiscal stability now and into an uncertain future,” the email said. “These are not decisions we come to lightly.”

The university is facing financial pressure due to the federal funding freeze of $790 million implemented by the Trump administration in April... 

Full story at https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2025/06/25/northwestern-university-budget-cuts.

From Detroit News: Three University of Michigan regents confirmed to The Detroit News they have 24-hour security as protests continue on campus and off over the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East, including Israel's war with Palestinians in Gaza after the militant group Hamas launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that killed mostly civilians. UM regents Jordan Acker, Mark Bernstein and Sarah Hubbard said during separate interviews that the university, on the advice of legal counsel, security experts and local law enforcement, assigned them around-the-clock protection in response to serious, ongoing threats to their personal safety...

In a general statement about the need to protect regents and executives, however, UM public affairs officials cited protests that began Nov. 17, 2023, when hundreds of protesters demanding UM divest from companies that fund military operations in Israel swarmed the university's administration building. The protests have continued on an "unacceptable level," they said. University spokeswoman Colleen Mastony said the Michigan Constitution classifies regents as constitutional officers, which means they must be able to carry out their duties free from intimidation and threats. The same commitment extends to the university’s executive officers, Mastony said...

UM's eight regents, who serve without compensation, are among a rare group of university board members who are elected in partisan, statewide races to eight-year terms. Across the rest of the United States, university board members are appointed...

Full story at https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/07/01/um-university-of-michigan-regents-execs-get-24-hour-security-as-threats-harassment-persist/83996314007/.

Flip Flop? - Part 2

We earlier posted about U of Michigan President Ono's seeming flip-flop on DEI when offered the presidency of the U of Florida.* The drama continues. From Inside Higher Ed:

Despite mounting conservative criticism over Santa Ono’s stance on diversity, equity and inclusion, the University of Florida Board of Trustees on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to hire the former University of Michigan president as its next leader... But his candidacy faced heavy criticism from conservative critics... who called for an investigation into the search that yielded Ono due to his past remarks on DEI. Some critics have claimed that Ono is a radical liberal academic who made an about-face on DEI due to careerist ambitions.

“I did not come to bring DEI back; I came to make sure it never returns,” Ono told UF trustees. Ono argued that while he initially agreed with the aims of DEI programs, while president of the University of Michigan he came to see that such initiatives were divisive and diverted resources from student success, leading to his decision to shutter the DEI office there earlier this year. He argued that “large DEI bureaucracies” stifle open dialogue and erode trust on campus and that “it became clear to me through experience, not theory, that something had gone wrong.”

“I understand and support what Florida’s vision for higher education represents: a decisive move away from ideological bias and activist-driven culture that has come to define too many colleges and universities in this country and abroad,” Ono said. “The goal is not to replace one orthodoxy with another. It is to restore balance, to protect the pursuit of truth and create a university environment where all students can thrive, regardless of their viewpoint. Florida is showing the nation that it’s possible to elevate academic excellence without ideological indoctrination.”

...Ono was asked multiple times about concerns of rising antisemitism on campus. He responded that antisemitism is “a persistent threat, especially on college campuses” that “too often hides behind the language of political critique” and has been “normalized in the name of activism.” Ono also emphasized a commitment to keeping Jewish students safe at UF. Asked about his decision to allow a pro-Palestinian encampment to remain at Michigan for 30 days, Ono said that the university did not want to escalate the situation and create an atmosphere of unrest close to commencement. He added that he spoke with Jewish students who were worried about how removing the encampment might disrupt commencement. Ono also said that Michigan subsequently updated its time, place and manner policies to prevent future encampment protests.

...Although the UF Board of Trustees approved the Ono hire, it’s not a done deal, as the Florida Board of Governors has the final say. That board will meet in either mid-June or at a special meeting to consider Ono. That could provide another opportunity for Ono’s conservative critics to derail the hire if the Board of Governors comes out against the selection...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2025/05/27/uf-board-votes-unanimously-hire-ono.

===

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/05/flip-flop.html.

Flip Flop?

From The Free Press: Just a few years ago, Dr. Santa Ono, the sole finalist for president of the University of Florida, sounded a lot more like New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than Florida’s Ron DeSantis. “Systemic racism is embedded in every corner of any institution, and so the only way to solve it is to have everyone doing their part . . . looking at themselves inside and asking, ‘What parts of me are racist, and what steps do I have to take to move beyond that?’ ” That’s Ono in a 2021 interview while he was president of the University of British Columbia (UBC), a position he held from 2016 to 2022.

So it’s surprising that members of the Board of Governors of the University of Florida—which, several years before Donald Trump, became involved in eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education, under Florida governor Ron DeSantis—together with other search committee members, recommended Ono, now president of the University of Michigan, to be the University of Florida’s next president...

A month after starting the top job at the University of Michigan, Ono told students and faculty that the university “cannot be excellent without being diverse in the broadest sense of that word.” In that same address, he announced a $300 million investment in “companies that follow environment, social, and governance (ESG) procedures,” to help “strengthen DEI progress” in communities...

In a recent essay explaining why he’s pursuing the presidency of University of Florida, Ono wrote that he “supported what I believed to be the original intent of DEI,” but, "over time, I saw how DEI became something else—more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success.” That, he said, is why “as president of the University of Michigan, I made the decision to eliminate centralized DEI offices and redirect resources toward academic support and merit-based achievement.” In that same essay, Ono wrote that “universities must serve as platforms for learning, not partisanship or ideological activism.”

In other words: Ono’s ideological journey since 2021, if it is to be believed, involves a core change in his views on the purpose of the university itself. In 2021, he indicated that he was pleased that universities serve as effective incubators for student activism. Four years later and a new job lined up, Ono says “learning” is the mission, not activism...

Full story at https://www.thefp.com/p/is-florida-really-where-woke-goes.

Maybe it's just assimilation:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6vtb48YKHU.

Follow the (federal) Money

Top 20 Universities Receiving NIH Grants (2023)

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Johns Hopkins University $842,956,584

University of California, San Francisco $789,196,651

University of Pennsylvania $703,217,343

Duke University $701,940,461

University of Michigan $698,264,076

University of Pittsburgh $658,312,303

Washington University, St. Louis $633,343,121

Columbia University Health Sciences $633,309,114

Stanford University $628,835,527

Yale University $622,499,969

University of California, Los Angeles $580,267,623

University of California, San Diego $572,451,525

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill $559,512,811

University of Washington, Seattle $558,170,733

Vanderbilt University $546,405,280

Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine $501,120,829

Emory University $485,429,870

University of Wisconsin, Madison $446,888,313

New York University $424,963,095

Northwestern University $413,561,989

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Source: Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2024/02/10/top-20-universities-for-nih-funding-johns-hopkins-ranks-first-again/.

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Note: The table above shows only grants from NIH. In UCLA's case, the total contracts and grants revenue was $1.3 billion, much of which comes from the federal government of which NIH is a part. UCLA's total budget was $11.7 billion. Note also that money flows into UCLA from other federal programs such as Medicare, Medi-Cal (Medicaid), student loans, etc.

Source: UCLA Annual Report 2023 at https://ucla.app.box.com/v/acct-pdf-AFR-22-23.

---

From the NY Times: ...The opening weeks of President Trump’s second term have cast America’s campuses into turmoil, with upheaval that threatens to erode the financial foundation of higher education in the United States. As the administration orders the end of diversity programs and imposes cuts to foreign aid, university presidents and their lawyers fear that millions of dollars in federal funding could ultimately vanish. Some research projects, including many connected to the U.S. Agency for International Development, have been suspended, and program directors have made plans for layoffs.

But universities have largely been quiet. Professors and administrators alike seem wary of provoking a president who has glorified retribution and has already started to tighten the funding spigot. Staying out of the spotlight, some reason, is prudent. Those who have spoken have often relied on carefully calibrated letters and statements, noting that they are watching but hardly offering any overt opposition. In some instances, researchers and campus leaders have been pressured into silence by a government that has demanded they not speak to reporters as money remains bottled up...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/trump-executive-orders-universities.html.

U of Michigan abandons DEI statements

From the Detroit News: Diversity statements will no longer be used in University of Michigan faculty hiring, promotion and tenure, a controversial move some argue would remove "litmus tests" that restrict diversity of thought while diversity advocates criticized it as dishonest. Provost Laurie McCauley announced the decision Thursday based on a recommendation from a UM faculty working group to end diversity statements. The move by one of the nation's leading research universities followed actions to end the practice at other prestigious universities across the nation and came amid a backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion programs led by President-elect Donald Trump and conservative critics.

UM regents are also considering changes to the university's DEI initiatives, but they emphasized during their Thursday meeting they would not cut programs benefiting students, such as free tuition and college preparation programs. They made the statements after students from the Black Student Union and other groups protested on Thursday and earlier this week about feared cuts in the university's DEI programs.

Diversity statements are required of faculty job candidates to explain what experiences they would bring to the university along with how their scholarship and teaching would advance diversity. The statements help search committees identify applicants "who have professional skills, experience and/or willingness to engage in activities that would enhance campus diversity and equity efforts," according to a University of California at San Diego statement referenced by UM's Center for Research on Learning & Teaching.

UM's elimination of diversity statements is a first step that many are watching as DEI programs have become entrenched in many institutions, said Frederick Lynch, an emeritus associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California... "It will mean if Michigan can do it, just about anybody can do it," Lynch said about the elimination. "But it could also be a long battle in courts." ...

Full story at https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/12/05/um-to-no-longer-use-diversity-statements/76773567007/.

As we noted some time ago concerning this issue at UC, it has connections to the UC loyalty oath controversy of the 1950s, required statements saying that the employee was not a communist. Various court decisions in response to challenges to the original oath watered it down to a vague and vacuous agreement to uphold the state and federal constitutions, whatever that means. See:

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/08/more-on-loyalty-oaths.html; and https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/08/uc-history-loyalty-oath.html.

It seems likely (to yours truly) that such watering down - rather than a Regental intervention as at the U of Michigan - will be the path followed at UC. That's a prediction, of course. So far at least, direct court challenges in California have not produced verdicts favoring the plaintiffs. At UCLA most recently, the EDI office (UCLA's version of DEI) has been restructured and renamed "Inclusive Excellence":

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/10/ucla-edi-office-dei-elsewhere-being.html.

Finally, apart from the libertarian/free speech/academic freedom approach, there is this:

University leaders read the same tea leaves as CEOs.

Coming Soon to UCLA (presumably)

The US Dept. of Education received complaints about many universities and colleges regarding events after last October 7th. UCLA was among them. Now the department has started to work through its caseload and is issuing decisions:

From Inside Higher Ed: The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has settled with Brown University over the institution’s handling of about 75 antisemitic or Islamophobic incidents reported between October 2023 and March 2024, the office announced Monday. OCR criticized Brown for failing to complete investigations and, in some cases, abandoning complaints when the complainant did not respond to the university’s emails...

It’s the latest settlement OCR has reached with a university over shared ancestry violations of Title VI since the Israel-Hamas war’s onset. In agreements with City University of New York, the University of Michigan and Lafayette College, the office reported similar shortcomings, critiquing the institutions for subpar or inconsistent responses to complaints...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/07/09/brown-reaches-settlement-title-vi-complaints.