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    Columbia University ‘refusing to help’ identify people for arrest – White House

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    The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Columbia University was “refusing to help” the Department of Homeland Security identify people for arrest on campus, after immigration authorities detained a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate over the weekend.The Trump White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday the administration had given the university names of multiple individuals it accused of “pro-Hamas activity”, reiterating the administration’s intention to deport activists associated with pro-Palestinian protests.“Columbia University has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity, and they are refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus,” Leavitt said in a press briefing. “And as the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that.”Khalil, a permanent US resident who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at the university last year, was detained on Saturday night in an unprecedented move that prompted widespread outrage and alarm from free speech advocates.Trump described the arrest this week as the “first arrest of many to come”.The federal immigration authorities who arrested Khalil reportedly said they were acting on a state department order to revoke the green card granting him permanent residency.As of Tuesday, Khalil had not been charged with any crime. However, two people with knowledge of the matter told the New York Times that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was relying on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives him broad power to expel foreigners if they give him “reasonable ground to believe” their presence in the US has “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences”. Zeteo also reported that Rubio himself “personally signed off on the arrest”.As of Monday morning, Khalil was being held at an immigration detention facility near Jena, Louisiana.On Monday evening, a federal judge in Manhattan barred his deportation pending a hearing in his case set for Wednesday.The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have joined Khalil’s legal team, led by his attorney, Amy Greer. Greer stated on Monday that she had spoken with Khalil and that he was “healthy and his spirits are undaunted by his predicament”.On Tuesday, 13 members of Congress – led by the Palestinian-American US representative Rashida Tlaib – issued a letter demanding his immediate release.The arrest came just days after Donald Trump’s second presidential administration canceled $400m in funding to Columbia University over what it described as the college’s failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment on campus.On Monday, the US education department’s civil rights office followed the cuts to Columbia with new warnings to 60 other colleges and universities indicating that they may face “enforcement actions” for allegations of antisemitic harassment as well as discrimination on their campuses.In Monday’s letters to the 60 higher education institutions, the federal education department’s office of civil rights (OCR) said that the schools are all being investigated in response to complaints of alleged “violations relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination”.A department statement said it sent the admonitions under the agency’s authority to enforce Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits any institution that receives federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race, color, and national origin”.“National origin includes shared (Jewish) ancestry,” the statement said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe letters stem from an executive order signed by Trump shortly after retaking office in January that purported to “combat antisemitism”. A fact sheet corresponding to Trump’s order suggested deporting international students involved in pro-Palestinian protests.In a statement on Monday, the education secretary, Linda McMahon, said her department was “deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year”.“University leaders must do better,” the former executive for the WWE professional wrestling promotion said. “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers.“That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws.”Trump had recently threatened to halt all federal funding for any college or school that allows “illegal protests” and vowed to imprison “agitators”. The president accused Columbia University of repeatedly failing to protect students from antisemitic harassment.The institution has been a focal point for campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Demonstrations erupted last spring both across the US and internationally, with students calling for an end to the US’s support to the Israeli military as well as demanding that their universities divest from companies with ties to Israel.At Columbia, such protests led to mass arrests, suspensions and the resignation of the university’s president at the time. More

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      Trump exempts many Canadian goods from tariffs after giving same delay to Mexico – US politics live

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      Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will temporarily exempt Canadian goods covered by a continental free trade agreement from his tariff plan.Goods imported to the United States under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement will be exempted from Trump’s 25% tariffs for one month, according to the order Turmp just signed in the Oval Office, which will also do the same for goods from Mexico.However the president said he was still ready to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on both Canada and Mexico next month, which could further disrupt trade relations across the continent.“During this interim period between now and April 2, this makes it much more favorable for our American car manufacturers,” Trump said.As he signed executive orders in the Oval Office this afternoon, including his on-again, off-again tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Trump was asked by Peter Doocy of Fox News about the sharp decline in the stock market since he started his trade war.Trump said that he blamed “globalists”, a term that is often used as code for Jews by antisemites.“What’s your thought about why the markets are so spooked? Do you think they don’t like the tariffs, or do they not like the uncertainty with some of the changes and the carve-outs?” Doocy asked.“Well a lot of them are globalist countries and companies that won’t be doing as well because we’re taking back things that have been taken from us many years ago”, Trump replied. “We’ve been treated very unfairly as a country. We protect everybody; we do everything for all these countries”, he added, “we just weren’t treated right; we were ripped off.”The term “Globalist” is an entry in the Anti-Defamation League’s glossary of extremism and hate. According to the ADL:
      White supremacists and other antisemites frequently use the term as an antisemitic dog whistle, wielding it as a codeword for Jews or as a pejorative term for people whose interests in international commerce or finance ostensibly make them disloyal to the country in which they live, or who are willing to undermine the financial security of their neighbors in order to benefit transnational interests. …
      Antigovernment extremists also use the term globalist, usually without the antisemitic connotations, in references to conspiracy theories about the “New World Order.”
      Trump’s claim that the United States is foolish for providing military protection to allies is one of his oldest and most consistent beliefs. In 1987, as he reportedly weighed a run for the presidency, Trump paid to publish an open letter to the American people as a full page ad in the New York Times in which he claim that US military allies and trade rivals were scamming the US and, as a result, “The world is laughing at America’s politicians”.At the end of the press availability, Trump reiterated the comment when he was asked again about the plunging value of stocks that make up a large share of many Americans retirement plans.“I think it’s globalists that see how rich our country is going to be, and they don’t like it”, he said. “They’ve been ripping off this country for years and now– and they’re going to do great, everyone’s going to do great, but we can’t let this continue to happen to America”.US district judge Beryl Howell ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s firing of a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board was illegal and ordered that she be reinstated to her post.The decision restores a quorum of three members at the labor board, which had been paralyzed and unable to decide cases involving private-sector employers after Trump removed Gwynne Wilcox in January.As our colleague Michael Sainato reports, Wilcox was the first member of the NLRN to be removed by a US president since the board’s inception in 1935.The framers of the US constitution, the judge wrote in the ruling, “made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king – the President included – and not just in name only”.Read the full story here:In an escalation of his pressure campaign, Donald Trump said the US will not fight for Nato allies who don’t spend enough on their own defense.“I think it’s common sense,” the president said. “They don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them.”He went on to accuse Nato allies of not being willing to defend the United States, if the roles were reversed:
      If the United States was in trouble, and we called them, we said we got a problem, France, we got a problem, couple of others, I won’t mention –you think they’re going to come and protect us? They’re supposed to, I’m not so sure.
      It’s worth noting that after the September 11 attacks, Nato allies rallied to the US’s defense and participated in the invasion of Afghanistan, remaining in the country for two decades.All that said, Trump reiterated that he did not intend to leave Nato:
      I view Nato as potentially good, but again … it’s very unfair what’s been happening.
      Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he will “probably” extend TikTok’s deadline to find a US buyer or face a ban.On the day he took office, the president gave the popular social media app a 75-day exemption from a law Congress passed that was intended to force its China-based owned to divest. Speaking to reporters, Trump said that if necessary, he was willing to allow TikTok to continue operating while the search for a buyer continues.“We have a lot of interest in TikTok. China is going to play a role, so hopefully China will approve of the deal,” Trump said.He declined to say how long of an extension he would be willing to give.Donald Trump also confirmed that cabinet secretaries and agency heads will take the lead in determining where to make cuts in the federal workforce, with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” in a supporting role.“I don’t want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut. I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren’t doing a good job, that are unreliable, don’t show up to work, etc, those people can be cut,” Trump said.“We’re going to be watching them, and Elon and the group are going to be watching them and if they can cut, it’s better,” Trump said. “And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”It was confirmation that Trump was cutting back on the mandate he had given Musk to dramatically downsize the federal government.Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will temporarily exempt Canadian goods covered by a continental free trade agreement from his tariff plan.Goods imported to the United States under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement will be exempted from Trump’s 25% tariffs for one month, according to the order Turmp just signed in the Oval Office, which will also do the same for goods from Mexico.However the president said he was still ready to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on both Canada and Mexico next month, which could further disrupt trade relations across the continent.“During this interim period between now and April 2, this makes it much more favorable for our American car manufacturers,” Trump said.Most Democrats opposed censuring congressman Al Green, who heckled Donald Trump during his speech to a joint session of Congress and was thrown out of the House chamber for it.But 10 Democrats went along with the Republican-backed resolution, with several explaining that they felt they had no option if they want to hold their opponents to account in the future. Here’s Connecticut’s Jim Himes, encapsulating the sentiment:
      Years ago, I voted to hold Joe Wilson accountable for yelling ‘you lie’ at Barack Obama. Today, I voted to censure Al Green for a larger disruption. Unlike Republicans, I believe that rules, accountability and civility should not be torched. And certainly not just because the other side does so. If we cannot act with the principle and seriousness our nation deserves, our government will continue to devolve into a MAGA cesspool.
      Perennially endangered Washington congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said it was a matter of respect:
      Today, I voted to censure a fellow member of Congress. When you knowingly break House rules, as Rep. Green did, it shouldn’t be surprising to face consequences. Congress should respect the co-equal office of the Presidency, regardless of who holds the job, do our constitutional duty, and stop with the theatrics at these events.
      Pennsylvania’s Chrissy Houlahan says she thinks many more people in the chamber should be censured, and told House speaker Mike Johnson as much:
      I did indeed have a heated conversation with Speaker Johnson on the House floor after I voted yes to censure my colleague. I called Speaker Johnson out on his and his party’s hypocrisy and reminded him of the many instances in which Republicans have blatantly broken the rules of conduct without consequence. He told me if he punished each instance, he’d have to censure half the House. I suggested he do just that. Rules are rules.
      There appears to be more to Donald Trump’s meeting with cabinet secretaries than he let on. Politico reports that the president told them that they are in charge of hiring and firings at their agencies, not Elon Musk.The president’s message came after signs of tensions between his secretaries and Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) flared. Doge was linked to an email sent to federal workers demanding details of their work that many agencies told their employees not to respond to, while some Republican lawmakers have said it should be up to agency heads to decide who to hire and fire.Here’s more on the meeting, from Politico:
      President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.
      According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.
      The meeting followed a series of mass firings and threats to government workers from the billionaire Tesla founder, who helms the Department of Government Efficiency, that created broad uncertainty across the federal government and its workforce.
      …
      The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel, policy and the pacing of implementation.
      Musk joined the conversation and indicated he was on board with Trump’s directive. According to one person familiar with the meeting, Musk acknowledged that DOGE had made some missteps — a message he shared earlier this week with members of Congress.
      Trump stressed that he wants to keep good people in government and not eject capable federal workers en masse, according to one of the officials. It is unclear whether the new guidance will result in laid off workers getting rehired.
      The timing of the meeting was influenced by recent comments from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who said on CNN Tuesday that Cabinet secretaries should retain the full power to hire and fire, according to one official. The official said Trump has been flooded with similar concerns from other lawmakers and Cabinet secretaries.
      Donald Trump restated his support for Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”, and vowed to continue helping him cut down federal agencies.The president’s comments came as judges nationwide consider challenges to Trump and Musk’s moves, including their attempts to shutter USAid. Yesterday, the supreme court ruled that the Trump administration must abide by a judge’s order for the aid agency to pay $2b to its partners, a sign that the conservative-dominated court may not be entirely onboard with the unorthodox downsizing campaign.“DOGE has been an incredible success, and now that we have my Cabinet in place, I have instructed the Secretaries and Leadership to work with DOGE on Cost Cutting measures and Staffing,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.He continued:
      We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one. It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people. We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done. The relationships between everybody in that room are extraordinary. They all want to get to the exact same place, which is, simply, to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
      Doge continues to face substantial, though not necessarily durable, pushback as it spreads its campaign across the federal government:The Republican-majority US House Judiciary Committee has reportedly issued a subpoena to tech company Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google.Reuters is reporting that the committee is seeking the company’s internal communications as well as those with third parties and government officials during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.A day after the supreme court denied a request from the Trump administration to continue freezing nearly $2bn in foreign aid, US foreign aid contractors and grant recipients are set to go before a federal judge today to try to restore the halted funding.The hearing is scheduled to take place in Washington today at 2 pm ET.When Donald Trump took office on 20 January, he ordered a 90-day freeze on all US foreign assistance, while his administration reviewed whether aid was consistent with his “America first” foreign policy, temporarily ending thousands of programs worldwide.Several aid organisations that had received grants or contracts with the US government sued the administration, and a US District judge ordered that the funding be temporarily restored.But, the Trump administration then filed an emergency request with the supreme court and Chief Justice Roberts initially paused the deadline to allow the court more time to review the request and hear from both sides.Until this week, when the supreme court rejected the administration’s bid to continue freezing nearly $2bn in foreign aid, leaving in place the ruling from the district judge, which ordered the administration to unfreeze the nearly $2bn in aid, for work already completed by the organizations and that had been approved by Congress.Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said in an announcement today that he wants fired federal workers to consider jobs in his state.“In Minnesota, we value the experience and expertise of federal workers, even if Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE do not,” Walz said in a statement. “Government workers provide services each of us relies on — from park rangers to firefighters to medical personnel who care for our veterans. If the Trump administration turned you away, Minnesota wants you.”Walz said that fired federal workers in his state can visit Minnesota’s careers website for resources to help with their job searches and to apply for unemployment benefits. He also said it will include resources for fired veterans.There are around 18,000 federal employees in Minnesota.Fox News’ senior White House correspondent is reporting that a meeting between Ukraine and the US is scheduled to take place on Tuesday next week.“Rubio, Witkoff, Waltz headed to Riyadh on Tuesday to meet with Ukrainians, including Yermak” Jacqui Heinrich posted on X today.Follow along in our Ukraine live blog here:Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that “virtually all” of Mexico’s trade with the US is under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA, which will be exempt from tariffs until 2 April. “Practically all the trade we have with the United States is within the Mexico, United States, Canada Agreement” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Thursday, as reported by CNN. “There is a part that has to do with rules of origin, but everything is practically within the trade agreement.” More

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      ‘We’re going backwards’: the Black student unions being defunded on US campuses

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      For Nevaeh Parker, the president of the Black student union (BSU) at the University of Utah, Black History Month is usually a buzzing time on campus.The school’s BSU hosts several events – kickback parties and movie screenings – throughout the month. The Black cultural center, where students would usually congregate and attend activities, would be full. And the month’s crown jewel would typically be a conference at the college for Black high schoolers in the area.But in July 2024, the center was shut down and turned into offices. The BSU budget, previously a guaranteed $11,000 a year to fund various gatherings to support the school’s marginal Black population, has been slashed. And the group has been forced to officially disassociate from the university in order to keep Black students at the center of their programming, all thanks to a new anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) law passed in Utah last year.“It really hurts my soul to feel like we’re going backwards,” Parker, 19, told the Guardian. “We aren’t able to be as strong of a resource as we could be to Black students here.”View image in fullscreenBlack student unions at US colleges are fighting to stay in operation as state laws targeting DEI initiatives threaten their existence. Founded largely in the 1960s and 1970s, the campus groups support Black students at predominantly white universities by securing additional educational and financial resources, demanding more Black faculty, and building spaces for Black students to socialize. Activism by Black student unions helped spur the creation of African American studies programs across the US.BSUs are often the first line of response to racial discrimination on campus, organizing protests and holding universities accountable. Dozens of the groups held demonstrations after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.But anti-DEI bills are restricting what BSUs can do on campus, and how universities are legally allowed to support them. Since 2023, at least 11 states have passed laws targeting DEI initiatives in higher education. And conservative lawmakers in more than 30 states have also introduced such bills. At the federal level, Donald Trump ordered US universities and schools to eliminate DEI measures, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that do not comply.DEI programming at the collegiate level was initially conceived to support marginalized students, who are disproportionately affected by discrimination, financial hardship and feelings of alienation. But Republican legislators have argued that such initiatives are unfair and discriminate against white students. The flurry of anti-DEI bills, which have sharply increased since 2022, comes after the US supreme court struck down affirmative action, or the practice of race-conscious student admissions, in June 2023.Anti-DEI legislation and culture as a whole has had a chilling effect on colleges. Several universities have cancelled scholarships specifically aimed at students of color. Multicultural and LGBTQ+ student centers have been shuttered. And staff overseeing DEI initiatives have been terminated or reassigned.In January 2024, the Utah legislature passed House bill 261, known as the Equal Opportunity Initiatives. The law prohibits state schools and public offices from engaging in “differential treatment”, essentially banning DEI efforts centered around a particular identity.In response to the new legislation, the University of Utah closed its Black cultural center, a major loss for Black students on campus looking for a physical location to socialize, especially as only 3% of Utah students are Black. “It was a home away from home for a lot of students, especially those who lived out of state,” said Parker. “[The state of] Utah is less than 2% Black, [so] obviously, you are going to need spaces that are safe.”View image in fullscreenUtah’s BSU lost its adviser, as administrators either were reassigned to different parts of the university or resigned altogether. Notably, the words “diversity, equity and inclusion” cannot be used on any events sponsored by the university. “It basically took away our voice and took away what things that we wanted to talk about,” said Parker of the new limitations.In a comment to the Guardian, university officials said that identity-centered student groups are still able to gather as “affiliated” or “registered” organizations. “The University of Utah preserves and defends the rights of all registered student organizations – including the Black Student Union – to organize, gather and sponsor events on campus. Universities are marketplaces of diverse viewpoints and ideas, and that includes within our student clubs. Changing their status from ‘sponsored’ to ‘registered’ preserves their independence to continue working with a community of students, faculty and staff without limitation on their communication and activities.”The school said it has since opened the Center for Community and Cultural Engagement (CCE) and the Center for Student Access and Resources, which are “open to all students, whose dedicated staff still provide the same level of support – in advising, scholarship preparation, resource referrals and mentorship”. It has “redistributed the funds that were originally dedicated to BSU to efforts that work toward supporting all students”.Parker noted that the missions of these centers are broad and “not centered on student organization and affinity groups. It’s felt like their ability to support us in the ways that we need have not been met.”In October, the BSU publicly announced that it would forgo official sponsorship in order to fight censorship attempts. Some events at Utah have had to be cancelled, Parker said, as students try and preserve funds they crowdsource across school years. The group has had to meet less as well, especially without a designated space. Club meetings are now held in various campus classrooms.Black students at the University of Alabama have also found themselves in a similar position. Their BSU had its funding revoked and was forced to relocate after a state bill restricting DEI went into effect in October 2024. “It’s been hard for freshmen especially to find their community and find like-minded people that look like them,” said Jordan Stokes, the BSU president.If the BSU wants university support, particularly funding for student events, the groups would be forced to “partner with another organization”, Stokes, 20, said, so the event is not solely focused on Black students and is in compliance with state law. The BSU has since successfully reached out to outside sponsors and alumni to finance Black History Month events, including its annual BSU week which features a number of celebratory gatherings. But that fundraising is finite compared to the university’s resources.The BSU office, which is now sitting empty, also held a significant amount of civil rights artifacts from past events at the university, said Stokes, and students are working to preserve its archives amid the closing. Posters highlighting important Black figures used to hang around the office. Yearbooks past were available for perusal.Now, much of that history is sitting in storage, Stokes said. “We had writing on our wall and on the window where you could read about our history and everything,” she said. “It’s pretty sad for folks who [aren’t Black] to not see this history and learn and explore different cultures.” The University of Alabama did not reply to the Guardian’s request for comment.Both Parker and Stokes said that they are extremely frustrated with lawmakers who are going after their communities and other students of color. Watching the university comply with state demands has been hard, Parker added, especially amid concerns that directly protesting from the anti-DEI policies could have their organizations punished or removed from campus altogether.But both BSUs have continued hosting events to make sure that Black students feel supported. Attendance at BSU events has remained steady, said Stokes, with students becoming more interested in voting and learning more about these policies.Parker said that she and other BSU leaders are focusing on individuals, students who need the organization in whatever way it can exist. That means continuing to celebrate and gather, even under the threat of erasure. “It’s really sad,” she said, “that we as students, who are not politicians, have to take the responsibility to continuously fight every single day for our existence on campus.” More

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      US Department of Education workers decry ‘final mission’ email as power grab

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      In a message to employees on Monday, the newly confirmed secretary of education, Linda McMahon, a billionaire ex-wrestling executive, laid out the “final mission” for the department as Donald Trump threatens to dismantle the agency.“My vision is aligned with the president’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” wrote McMahon, a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the professional wrestling organisation. “This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”The message comes as Trump is reportedly finalizing plans to issue an executive order to eliminate the 45-year-old US Department of Education and eliminate or reorganize the department’s functions and programs.Workers at the Department of Education called the email a “power grab” focused on privatization at the expense of children with disabilities and from low-income families.“It’s heartbreaking to read such a disingenuous, manipulative letter from the head of the agency,” said one employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.“I don’t read the letter to be an end to the department. It reads as a transformation into something sinister, a tool for the president to use to ensure his ideology is implemented by states and local governments at the risk of losing funding. It’s the exact overreach it’s purporting to stop.”Another Department of Education employee explained that “morale is beyond low”. It comes after an email from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) told staff to justify their jobs by emailing five bullet points explaining what they did last week.“After reading the former WWE CEO’s email, coming off the back of Musk’s email, made me realize that I have three bosses that are billionaires that know nothing about improving performance for America’s students,” they said.“This is a power grab. The message is clear that they want to privatize public dollars on the backs of our nation’s most vulnerable children. We know poor children and children with disabilities will suffer with the plans McMahon has laid out. Private schools will leave our students with disabilities out. Poor kids will receive less money to compete on a level playing field.”A third employee characterized the email as “incredibly hostile” and ominous of the plan to dismantle the department.McMahon’s message claimed Congress and other federal agencies would be involved in moves that will “profoundly impact” budgets, staffing and operations at the department. She cited three “convictions” for the efforts: that parents are the primary decision makers in children’s education; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender ideology in schools must be rooted out; and postsecondary education should be aligned with workforce needs.At the Department of Education, probationary employees were fired last month, though a federal court ruled last week that the mass firings were probably illegal and granted a temporary injunction to halt them.Sixty employees at the department were placed on administrative leave in response to Trump’s anti-DEI executive order and $900m in research funding that tracks American students’ academic progress was canceled by Doge.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast Friday, the US Department of Education sent a resignation buyout offer to employees of up to $25,000 or severance owed to the employee, whichever is less, citing a looming reduction in force at the agency.Workers called the offer “misleading” as employees would have more rights and probably receive more benefits in severance and unemployment benefits through a reduction in force compared with voluntarily resigning.“The email used final three times in the last three sentences. We have a secretary overtly leading us on a kamikaze mission,” they said. “She cannot possibly do right by children and college students by eliminating the federal education agency. Education is primarily funded by local taxpayer dollars in this country and is, thus, without some federal support, inherently unequal.“The federal education agency exists to bolster those schools and districts that would not have what they need to give students a quality education based on local community funding alone.”Harrison Fields, special assistant to the president and principal deputy press secretary, said: “America’s failing report card reflects the federal government’s inability to adequately provide our children with excellent education and the 2024 NAEP scores show reading and math proficiency rates are down nationwide.“Under President Trump’s direction, Secretary McMahon will restore our education department by sending education back to the states and empowering all parents to choose an excellent education for their children.” More

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      Trump administration quietly shutters online form for student debt repayment

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      The Donald Trump administration has taken down the online application form for several popular student debt repayment plans, causing confusion among borrowers and likely creating complications for millions of Americans with outstanding loans.Those seeking payment plans are unable to access the applications for income-driven repayment plans (IDR), which cap what borrowers must pay each month at a percent of their earnings, as well as the online application to consolidate their loans on the US Department of Education website.The quiet removal came after a federal appeals court decision earlier this week that continued a pause on Joe Biden’s Save program, an income-driven plan for loan forgiveness that would have forgiven debts after as few as 10 years of payments.Biden’s Save program has been on hold since last summer after a group of Republican state attorneys general brought forward a lawsuit against the forgiveness features. As a result, about 8 million borrowers who enrolled in Save before it was halted currently have their loans in limbo as the litigation is ongoing.It is currently unclear how borrowers who were already enrolled in income-driven plans are supposed to submit their annual paperwork to certify their incomes. It is also uncertain when or if the payment plan applications will be back up on the website.The continued setbacks in the path towards student loan forgiveness has caused concern among those with debt, and loan forgiveness activists. Critics also point out that removing payment plan options was not a part of the previous litigation.There is also criticism towards the DoE’s decision to quietly remove the applications rather than announcing it, with the department opting instead to post a banner on StudentAid.gov.The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), a non-profit dedicated to eliminating student debt in the US, released a statement in response to the sudden removal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Shutting down access to all income-based repayment plans is not what the 8th Circuit ordered—this was a choice by the Trump Administration and a cruel one that will inflict massive pain on millions of working families,” the statement says.It goes on to say: “President Trump campaigned on lower costs, but once again has chosen a path that will ensure the greatest possible harm to the monthly budgets of everyday working families.” More

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      Trump administration launches portal for reporting DEI in public schools

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      The Trump administration has launched a controversial online portal allowing citizens to report diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in public schools, escalating an aggressive campaign to purge those initiatives from American education.Unveiled on Thursday, the Department of Education’s “End DEI” portal arrived just before the expiration of the administration’s contentious two-week ultimatum for schools and universities to dismantle DEI programs or face funding cuts.The portal explicitly asks for complaints about “discrimination based on race or sex” in K-12 public schools, requiring users to provide personal details, school information and allegations limited to 450 words, with options to upload evidence.Tiffany Justice, the Moms for Liberty co-founder, in a statement posted on the website, urged parents to “share the receipts of the betrayal” in public schools, claiming institutions have “brushed off, mocked, or shut down” parental concerns about “critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies”.The administration intends to use these submissions to target schools for investigation, according to the website.Critics note the irony that while the administration frames DEI programs as primarily benefiting racial minorities, both private and government research show that white women have historically gained the most from such initiatives in education and employment.Legal resistance to the administration’s policy on schools is increasing. The American Federation of Teachers sued the education department on Tuesday, calling its 14 February memo unconstitutional. Filed jointly with the American Sociological Association, the lawsuit argues the directive violates first amendment and fifth amendment protections and is dangerously vague.“This letter radically upends and re-writes otherwise well-established jurisprudence,” the lawsuit states. “No federal law prevents teaching about race and race-related topics, and the Supreme Court has not banned efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in education.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe portal launch follows a significant setback for the administration when a federal judge blocked portions of Trump’s executive orders seeking to terminate DEI-related contracts throughout the executive branch.The education department’s deadline for schools to eliminate these programs expires Friday. More

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      A soccer ball, a T-shirt: teachers scramble to say goodbye to students fleeing under Trump

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      A soccer ball covered in signatures from classmates. A handwritten letter telling a child of their worth. A T-shirt bearing a school emblem meant to remind a newcomer how much they were loved in a place they once called home.These are among the items teachers have given their multilingual learners – students who learn in more than one language – whose families fled their school districts rather than risk being detained by immigration agents.“One of my students told me last week that their family had decided to go back to Brazil because they were afraid of deportation,” said Philadelphia teacher Joanna Schwartz. “It was his last day here. I scrounged up a T-shirt with our school’s logo on it and a permanent marker and my student had all of his friends and teachers sign it.”She said she taught the fifth-grader for three years.“It’s nothing big, but it was a treasure to him to have the physical signatures of his dearest friends and teachers to take with him,” she said.Some immigrant students wrestling with the fear of deportation leave school with no warning. Other times, they give their teachers just a few hours’ notice to process the loss of a relationship that might have lasted for years.Such scenes are unfolding throughout the country as the Trump administration ratchets up immigration arrests and removals and opens schools to enforcement actions, striking terror in the hearts of undocumented people and their advocates.Faced with the fallout, teachers who have spent their entire careers advocating for immigrant students – fighting battles even within their own districts to ensure students have a robust education – are left fumbling for the right words to say or gift to give a child under extreme stress.Schwartz, who teaches multilingual learners in Philadelphia, uses her prior training as a therapist to help kids through these toughest of moments.She said she often gives children who are leaving “transitional objects”, something tangible to help them feel connected to their friends in the United States.View image in fullscreenSchwartz wrote her departing student a letter in which she “reminded him of his many strengths and told him how much he will be missed”, she said. She added drawings, stickers and her email address.Areli Rodriguez was devastated when, last winter, during her first year of teaching in Texas, one of her most promising and devoted young students left for another state. The boy’s family had been growing wary of the anti-immigrant policies of the governor, Greg Abbott, and headed to Oklahoma, where they hoped they’d be safer.“He was my first student who left for this reason,” Rodriguez said of the fifth-grader who had arrived in the United States from Mexico less than a year earlier. “It just broke my heart.”The family didn’t know Oklahoma would propose some of the harshest immigration restrictions in the nation, including a plan, just this week rejected by the governor, to require parents to report their own immigration status when enrolling their kids in school.Rodriguez is not sure where the child is today. As a parting gift, she gave him a soccer ball signed by all of his classmates.Moments before he left, the boy, who had been chosen as student of the week when he departed, led the class in a call-and-response chant by Rita F Pierson that the class had previously learned:I am somebody.I was somebody when I came.I’ll be a better somebody when I leave.I am powerful, and I am strong.… I have things to do, people to impress and places to go.The boy left his teacher one of his favorite toys, a Rubik’s Cube.In a diary entry, he wrote to Rodriguez and another beloved teacher: “To say goodbye to all of you, Ms Rodriguez and Ms [S], I want to tell you that you are my favorite teachers, and I’m sorry for any trouble I may have caused. Maybe I wasn’t the best student, but I am proud of myself for learning so much.”“I think about him all the time,” Rodriguez said, adding that he embodies what she loves most about multilingual learners. “For him, school was a gift, an opportunity, a privilege. He just worked so hard … His parents were so supportive – they looked at education as something they wanted to seize.”The Department of Homeland Security is urging undocumented people to leave the country immediately. This isn’t entirely new: Joe Biden deported some 4 million people in a single term, double that of Trump’s first four years in office. But many of those he turned away had been newly arrived at the border. Unlike Trump, Biden shied away from raids.Trump has also signed an executive order aimed at ending federal benefits for undocumented people. It’s unclear how this might affect education: schools receive federal money, particularly to help support children from low-income households, but they also cannot turn away students based on their immigration status, according to the 1982 supreme court decision Plyler v Doe.That landmark ruling, however, is under attack by conservative forces, most recently in Tennessee, where lawmakers this month introduced a bill saying schools can deny enrollment to undocumented students. The sponsors say it’s their intention to challenge Plyler.‘We hugged long and hard’Educators are also preparing more practical gifts meant to help children resume their educations elsewhere.Genoveva Winkler, the regional migrant education program coordinator in Idaho’s Nampa school district, said she’s given more than 100 immigrant families, who may have to suddenly return to their home countries, copies of their students’ transcripts in English and Spanish, along with textbooks supplied by the Mexican consulate to improve their Spanish.Indianapolis teacher Amy Halsall said four children from the same family, ranging in ages from 7 to 12, left her school system right after inauguration day, headed back to Mexico.View image in fullscreen“They didn’t specifically say that it was immigration related, but I would guess it was,” Halsall said. “This is a family that we have had in our school since their sixth-grader was in first grade. The kids were really upset that they had to leave.”The youngest and the eldest had told Halsall they wanted to be ESL (English as a second language) teachers when they grew up, she said. The two middle children hoped to become mechanics and one day open their own shop. Halsall gave them a notebook full of letters written by fellow students and pictures of their classmates.“We hugged long and hard. I told them if they ever came back to Indianapolis that they should call us or visit,” she said. “I told them if I was ever in Mexico, I would call them. I tried hard to keep things positive, but it was hard for all of us. Everyone had tears in their eyes.”The anxiety continues, Halsall said. Just last week, another child, age 8, told her he worried that “la migra” – ICE agents – would take his mother away while he was out.“I told him that he was safe at school and if he got home and no one was there to call me,” she said.Another teacher, in Virginia, said she has had two students leave school so far this academic year. One hailed from Guatemala and the other from Mexico. Both were in their mid-teens and had impeccable attendance, she said.Their teacher did not have a chance to say goodbye in either case. Their departure, she said, left her feeling “completely empty”.“I’ve loved watching them integrate in our school and seeing how they realized they can have this pathway [to further their education] if they choose,” she said. “Watching that choice ripped away by fear is devastating.”

      This story was produced by the 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in the US More

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      Julianne Moore’s freckles? How Republican bans on ‘woke’ books have reached new level

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      When the actor Julianne Moore learned her children’s book, Freckleface Strawberry, a tale of a girl who learns to stop hating her freckles, had been targeted for a potential ban at all schools serving US military families, she took to Instagram, posting that it was a “great shock” to discover the story had been “banned by the Trump Administration”.Moore had seen a memo that circulated last week revealing that tens of thousands of American children studying in about 160 Pentagon schools both in the US and around the world had had all access to library books suspended for a week, while officials conducted a “compliance review” to hunt out any books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”.Although whether Moore’s book would be selected for “further review” or banned entirely remains unclear, the episode brought into stark relief that the movement to ban books in the US – which has been bubbling up for several years, mostly in individual states – had reached a whole new level: the federal one.Donald Trump’s re-election, and his subsequent crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, has many campaigners fearing that the Pentagon move to scrub its libraries of anything it opposes ideologically could be the first of a series of broad attempts to eliminate any discussions of race, LGBTQ+ issues, diversity and historical education from public schools.The Trump administration has scoffed at the idea that it is banning books, and last month it instructed the Department of Education to end its investigations into the matter, referring to bans as a “hoax”. Indeed, many deny that banning books is censorship at all – a disconnect that stems not just from the historical context of book banning, but from a semantic dispute over what it means to “ban” something.In the early 20th century, books such as Ulysses by James Joyce and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck were banned due to “moral concerns”.Likewise, the red scare of the 1950s saw increased censorship of materials perceived as sympathetic to communism, while the 1980s saw attacks against books dealing with race and sexuality, such as The Color Purple by Alice Walker, which was nearly banned two years after its release in 1984 after a parent petitioned against its use in an Oakland, California, classroom.The difference today, however, is that instead of coming primarily from conservative community organizers, the book banning movement is now coming from government – school boards, local governments and now, with the Pentagon move, even the federal government, increasingly working in lockstep.The modern wave of book bans could be said to have started with a backlash against The 1619 Project, a journalistic anthology by Nikole Hannah-Jones published by the New York Times. The project aimed to reframe US history by centering the contributions of Black Americans, but conservative politicians – including Trump – claimed it taught students to “hate their own country”.View image in fullscreenIn response, Republican lawmakers moved to ban the work in schools, marking the beginning of an intensified campaign against so-called “anti-American” literature.According to PEN America, a non-profit dedicated to defending free expression in literature, more than 10,000 book bans occurred in public schools during the 2023-2024 school year. Books that address racism, gender and history were disproportionately targeted.“The whole principle of public education is that it is not supposed to be dictated by particular ideologies that aim to censor what other people can learn and access in schools,” Jonathan Friedman, the managing director for US free expression programs at PEN America, said.Rightwing politicians, however, have increasingly used book banning as a rallying cry, portraying certain books as tools of “indoctrination” – failing to note the irony that indoctrination is the process of carefully limiting ideas, like banning books.One key figure has been the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. He has echoed Trump’s dismissal of book bans as a “hoax”, and spearheaded multiple attempts to reshape education to reflect only conservative values, including the Stop Woke Act, which restricts discussions on systemic racism, and the Parental Rights in Education Act, widely known as the “don’t say gay” law, which limits discussions of gender identity and sexuality in classrooms.Banned titles in Florida schools now include Beloved and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Normal People by Sally Rooney, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.What DeSantis and other rightwingers often say is that these efforts don’t truly constitute “bans” because they only remove books from schools, rather than totally outlawing them from being bought in the US, and therefore don’t encroach on free speech. John Chrastka, the executive director and founder of EveryLibrary, argued that this is faulty reasoning.“The private marketplace is protected by the first amendment in ways that the government is not beholden to,” he said. “The idea that because a book is still available for sale means that it’s not being banned outright is only the difference between a framework that was in place prior to the 1950s” and today.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe noted that Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was first published in 1928 in Europe, was banned in the US for several years before finally getting its American publication in 1959 in what was a watershed affirmation of the right to free speech. Realizing that the first amendment prevented them from blocking the book from US bookstores, critics turned their attention to libraries instead, a grayer area in terms of constitutional protections.DeSantis and other rightwing politicians have taken the lesson: if the constitution prevents you from banning a book from being bought or sold in Florida, the next best thing is to ban it from the places most people would have the easiest access to it – schools and libraries.“It doesn’t add up,” Chrastka added, “the idea that a teenager in a state where it’s impossible for them to get to an independent bookstore because they don’t exist any more somehow has enough liberty to buy the book when the school library is blocked from having it available for them.”Another key distinction is between banning books from classroom curriculum versus removing them from school libraries – which, unlike classrooms, are historically protected spaces for free access to ideas.“What you read for a class supports the curriculum,” says Chrastka, whereas “the school library is supposed to support independent reading. One of them is required reading and the other one isn’t, but [the reading material] is meant to be available.”The landmark supreme court case Island Trees School District v Pico in 1982, when a school board in New York removed books from its libraries it deemed “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy”, established that school boards cannot restrict the availability of books in their libraries simply because they don’t like or agree with the content.Critics contend the new wave of book bans, although not yet about preventing sales at bookshops, fails to meet the intended purpose of libraries: to preserve and provide a variety of ideas and information that may not be readily or equally accessible to everyone.Now, many fear that once certain books are established as unacceptable in schools, the censorship could spread to colleges, bookstores and eventually nationwide bans. Even if that does not happen, experts say one of the most reliable ways to ensure ideas are suppressed is to dismantle the education system, making Trump’s repeatedly stated goal of eliminating the Department of Education a particular concern.“The vast majority of the budget for the Department of Education and the laws and regulations that make sure that the department is functional go to help students succeed and protect students who are otherwise vulnerable,” said Chrastka.With the education system having been chipped away at for decades with budgets cuts, low literacy rates and high dropout rates, book bans only make it weaker.“What we need in this country is for students to feel supported and to find their own identities, and reading is a core component of that,” Chrastka said. “Let’s let the kids discover themselves and discover their own path forward in the process.” More

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      Department of Education workers brace for Trump to shut agency down: ‘Everybody is distraught’

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      Workers inside the US Department of Education have described a “horrible, intimidating and unnerving” atmosphere among the rank-and-file as Donald Trump vows to shut it down.Widespread panic and confusion over the department’s future led to an “incomplete and chaotic” staff meeting on Wednesday, according to sources, as managers tried to explain new policies.The US president’s efforts to gut and dismantle the US Department of Education has left federal employees in fear of losing their jobs, with much of their work already halted.“We’re called parasites in the press. There’s a lot of fearmongering about what we do. What we do is ensure states are protecting children with disabilities,” one employee at the department, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told the Guardian. “This used to be a bipartisan issue. I don’t understand why it still isn’t a bipartisan issue.“I’m struggling. I don’t know what to do because there are imminent threats we face everyday. We can’t talk anymore during meetings freely, and I was told [Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”] Doge is listening in on our Teams meetings. How do you have a free flow of ideas? It’s a really unsustainable way to work.”Around 3,100 employees at the department work in the Washington DC area, with more than 1,100 additional employees working out of 10 regional offices around the US. The department supports and funds 7.5 million students across the US with disabilities with special education services; supports Title I schools, representing 26 million children living in poverty; and oversees federal student loans and grants for higher education.“We have been kept in the dark completely about our co-workers who have been on administrative leave for attending a diversity training, about rumored reduction in forces, the future of our work and their return to work plan assuming we aren’t reduced in force,” said the employee.Staff were invited to a meeting on Wednesday on plans to summon all staff back to the office. A lack of space at regional offices in New York, Boston and San Francisco means staff there will be exempted, it was explained, and remote work for “reasonable accommodations” will still be honored – but arrangements must be re-certified, and approved by the assistant secretary of education.Many attendees were not reassured. “This was an extremely poorly planned meeting that seems to have caused even more confusion,” the employee said. “The process has been so inefficient and time-consuming. The entire department is working on rushing into the office in the middle of several regional offices downsizing real estate.”Another said many employees were not able to hear the audio from the meeting, the Q&A had been disabled for it and no one addressed the audio issues. “Folks are fairly anxious and panicked,” they said. “The meeting technology has been malfunctioning and they didn’t schedule enough time for questions.”Remote participants expressed their frustration in that chat, according to screenshots seen by the Guardian. The meeting was “more confusing than helpful”, one commenter said. “You confused us more,” added another.The department and the White House did not immediately respond to invitations for comment.During Trump’s first term in office, his proposed cuts to the Department of Education were rejected by Congress, with sources in the current Trump administration claiming the president plans to issue an executive order abolishing the Department of Education.Trump has cited a desire to return education to the states, but funding and decision-making for public education already resides at state and local levels. Elon Musk, whose businesses have received over $20bn in federal contracts, has posted on social media claiming the department “no longer exists”.Another longtime employee at the US Department of Education explained that this presidential transition has carried with it an open hostility to civil servants in the form of bullying, harassment and intimidation.“We get regular emails, to the point where it’s excessive, about the ‘fork in the road’ resignation offer. We get petty emails about signature blocks,” they said. “I was here for the last Trump administration. I carried [on with] work through that, but I’m not super optimistic about this work continuing under this administration.”The targeting of diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions and work is concerning, the source said, given the department of education’s mission and its tie to equity. The department was created by Congress in 1979 “to strengthen the Federal commitment to ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual”.Under Trump’s first term, his appointed secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, encouraged diversity training. Under Trump’s second term, employees who participated in those trainings have been placed on administrative leave.“All of our programs are centered on equity and underserved populations, helping to bridge the gap. Federal education funding is a small fraction of education funding overall, but it’s designed to level the field, so it’s primarily targeted toward urban, rural, Title I schools, and special education,” the employee explained. “There’s a lot of fear.“Everybody is abusing melatonin right now to get some sleep. Everybody is distraught, worried about the state of our country. Whenever there is a crisis of some type, our country really relies on civil service for so many functions.”The administration is trying to “create the conditions for people to want to depart”, they claimed. “I believe they intentionally leaked info on the push to abolish the Department of Education to push people toward taking the fork in the road deal. It would be catastrophic for our country, especially the impacts to title one schools and special education.”Another departmental employee said employees working remotely are expected to be back in offices by 24 February.“It’s very obviously being done in order to make people miserable,” they said. “People should know that they have no idea how much what the federal government does actually touches their lives every day, but they’ll notice it when it’s gone.”Send us a tipIf you have information you’d like to share securely with the Guardian about the impact of cuts to federal programs or the federal workforce, please use a non-work device to contact us via the Signal messaging app at (646) 886-8761. More