Latest news with #CivilRightsAct
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard
On May 22, the Department of Homeland Security stripped Harvard University of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, instantly jeopardizing the visas of nearly 6,800 international students—27 percent of the student body. But the Trump administration's attack didn't end there. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's letter announcing this move also doubled as a request for documents, instructing Harvard to deliver five years of video or audio of 'any protest activity involving a non-immigrant student,' plus disciplinary files, before the ban will be reconsidered. The next morning, Harvard sued and won a temporary restraining order. The letter represents the Trump administration's latest assault in its war on Harvard, in which the government is effectively trying to nationalize a private university. It began with an April demand letter in which a multiagency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism froze $2.2 billion in research grants to the school and threatened to freeze more unless Harvard abolished its DEI offices, banned masks used to conceal students' identities during protests, audited each department for 'viewpoint diversity,' and routed every foreign-student misconduct allegation directly to the DHS. A lawsuit from Harvard led the government to retaliate further, and President Donald Trump threatened in early May to take away Harvard's tax-exempt status. [Rose Horowitch: Trump's campaign to scare off foreign students] If you're wondering what governmental or executive process led to the freezing of these funds and the subsequent demands made by the Trump administration, none appears in evidence. The government first sent an official notice of an intent to withdraw Harvard's student-visa certification on Wednesday, beginning the process a week after informing Harvard of the outcome. The administration justified its actions by invoking Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the federal law that prohibits colleges and universities from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. However, the proper enforcement of Title VI requires an investigation, an attempt to negotiate a resolution, a formal hearing, and 30 days' notice to Congress before a single dollar is yanked. The Trump administration took none of those steps before announcing the intended outcome. This is one among many reasons these moves are so egregious and unconstitutional. The government's demand that Harvard turn over five years of footage of protests—a time frame that, tellingly, is not limited to the Gaza protests since October 7 that got out of control or involved illegal behavior—is one of the more chilling things I've seen in my almost-25-year career defending free expression on college campuses. These actions threaten not just Harvard, but every institution of higher education on American soil. That's true regardless of your criticisms of Harvard, and I have plenty of those. Harvard occupies an almost comically outsize place in our collective imagination, playing a starring role in films such as Good Will Hunting and Legally Blonde. Harvard has produced presidents, Supreme Court justices, senators, generals on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Fortune 500 CEOs, and other figures who have shaped the daily lives of Americans. The reality, though, is that Harvard has a lot of problems, especially when it comes to free expression and academic freedom on its campus. The university scored dead last two years in a row on the College Free Speech Rankings (produced by my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE), which rates schools according to undergraduate attitudes about and experiences with free expression on their campus. One serious issue with Harvard is that it has cultivated an intellectual monoculture. The student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, noted in a 2023 survey that only 2.5 percent of faculty identified as conservative; more than three-quarters identified as liberal. FIRE's campus surveys found that 67 percent of Harvard students said it would be difficult to have an open and honest conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to our 2024 Faculty Survey, 84 percent of faculty have a hard time talking openly and honestly about that topic. Harvard is less a marketplace of ideas than a company town. The university has had a real problem with groupthink for a long time, leaning into a warped version of intersectionality, an ideology popular with the political left that measures moral worthiness by the aggregate power held by people who share certain demographic characteristics—the less power you have, the worthier you are. Such intellectual oversimplification is in many ways anti-intellectual. But worse still, an ideology obsessed with power has been the perfect growth medium for the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews run the world. The capture of Harvard by this belief has fostered and fed the very anti-Semitism that the Trump administration is using to justify its censorious actions. To be fair, Harvard has made some promising recent moves, including adopting institutional neutrality. FIRE has applauded these developments and encouraged Harvard to continue efforts in that direction. However, it would be dishonest to pretend that the federal government just woke up one day and decided to target this university out of nowhere. That needs to be acknowledged, even if the Trump administration's actions are still egregiously unconstitutional and present a real threat to academic freedom on all campuses. The administration's attack on academic freedom will not end with Harvard. Noem has already said that this should 'serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions.' The administration's censorious pincer movement has already had clear and far-reaching implications for higher education. Even before Harvard found itself in the crosshairs, for example, the Trump administration threatened Columbia University with the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts if it didn't comply with the demands of the multiagency task force, which includes the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Education. Rather than fight, Columbia caved. That same joint task force has also threatened dozens of smaller colleges with grant freezes unless they toe the line. And the more of them that fall, the more academic freedom across the country will suffer. Although the Trump administration often looks impulsive, its actions appear to have a discernible objective. The idea is to destroy the left's institutional power centers—media, pro bono law practices, and higher education—to assert dominance and control. Each new executive order put out by the Trump administration swings that partisan wrecking ball a little wider, while Congress does nothing to stop it. What makes this all the more egregious is that the Trump administration could deploy lawful and constitutional methods to get what it ostensibly wants. If Harvard were flouting Title VI and creating a climate on campus that was hostile to Jewish students, nothing would have stopped the government from opening a proper investigation first, issuing findings, and, if it couldn't reach a negotiated agreement with Harvard, defunding the programs responsible for creating the hostile environment. That's how the process is meant to work, and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in National Rifle Association v. Vullo makes this point quite clear. In that case, a New York State official told banks and insurance companies that they shouldn't work with the NRA. The gun-rights group sued, and a unanimous Supreme Court found that 'a government official cannot do indirectly what she is barred from doing directly.' In other words, a state may not sidestep the First Amendment and unlawfully browbeat private actors into doing their bidding. Likewise, the government may not reject thousands of blameless foreign students, demand mass surveillance of political speech, or micromanage hiring and admissions on threat of bankruptcy. The irony here is rich. Conservatism once warned against the dangers of unilateral executive power. But today's Republican White House happily wields that very power to crush its cultural rivals. [Rose Horowitch: What Harvard learned from Columbia's mistake] A Constitution shredded to own the libs is still a shredded Constitution, however, and all Americans pay the price for that. Fans of the Trump administration's actions shrug at the stakes here. But they should remember that rights are indivisible: If the government can coerce the richest school in America without due process, it can crush a community college—or a civil-liberties nonprofit—without batting an eyelid. This is the primary reason, if Harvard loses, the precedent that loss will set won't stay in Cambridge. Republicans who cheer today should take a moment's pause from their schadenfreude and recognize that they might lament tomorrow, when a different president decides that, say, Hillsdale College or a Southern Baptist seminary are 'too extremist' to keep their tax-exempt status. More than two decades of protecting free speech on college campuses has taught me many things, and one of them is that the sword is always double-edged. That's why we need to fight its improper use, no matter which way it's slicing. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Fox News
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Education Department finds New York agencies ‘violated' Civil Rights Act with ban on Native American mascots
An investigation by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into two New York state agencies has found that both violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act over a ban on Native American-inspired mascots and logos – an issue thrust into the national spotlight because of one Long Island school district. The Department of Education released a press release of its findings on Friday, just a month after first launching the probe into the New York Department of Education and the New York State Board of Regents. "The Trump Administration will not stand idly by as state leaders attempt to eliminate the history and culture of Native American tribes," U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who visited Massapequa High School on Friday, said. "Rather than focus on learning outcomes, the New York Department of Education and Board of Regents has set its sights on erasing Massapequa's history – while turning a blind eye to other districts' mascots that are derived from or connected to other racial or ethnic groups. We will stand with the people of Massapequa until commonsense is restored and justice is served, and until New York comes into compliance with federal law." The investigation was brought about when the Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) filed a complaint in April after claiming that the state agencies forced Massapequa School District, home of the Chiefs, to retire its mascot. "The Native American Guardians Association stands firm in asserting that the preservation of Native themes and imagery in New York public schools is not only a matter of cultural dignity but a fundamental civil right for all students. We call on federal and state leaders to help us defend these dwindling expressions or our presence and contributions," Vice President of NAGA Frank Blackcloud said in a statement at the time. "Maintaining a respectable presence in NY State schools is vital to educational equity, historical truth, and the civil rights of all American Indians." The Department of Education also found that while Native American-inspired mascots, names and logos were not permitted under the policy, others that "appear to have been derived from other racial or ethnic groups" were, making the policy "discriminatory." The district sued the state in September, claiming its First Amendment rights were violated, but a federal judge ruled against it. Rebranding, including changing the name and logo, would cost roughly $1 million, district officials claimed. President Donald Trump became aware of the issue last month and encouraged the Department of Education to look into the ban, which he called "an affront to our great Indian population." The 2022 mandate requires all public schools to retire Native American mascots and logos or risk the loss of federal funding. Four schools on Long Island have since filed lawsuits. The Department of Education announced Friday as part of its investigation that proposed resolution to the violations includes rescinding the ban on "Indigenous names, mascots, and logos," issuing a memorandum to public schools informing them of the changes, and issuing apology letters to Indigenous tribes acknowledging that the actions of the two agencies "silenced the voices of Native Americans and attempted to erase Native American history." The Department of Education said failure to comply with the resolution plan risks further action by the Department of Justice and the potential loss of federal funding. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Time of India
14 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
JD Vance speaks up amid H-1B row: 'This idea that American citizens don't have talent to do great things...'
JD Vance said what he thinks about foreign students in US. Vice President JD Vance broke his silence amid the ongoing H-1B row and the controversy over the Donald Trump administration's crackdown on universities. In an interview with the Newsmax, Vance dismissed criticisms that the crackdown will lead to an academic brain drain in the US. "First of all, I've heard a lot of the criticisms, the fear that we're going to have a brain drain," Vance said. "If you go back to the '50s and '60s, the American space program, the program that was the first to put a human being on the surface of the moon, was built by American citizens — some German and Jewish scientists who had come over during World War II, but mostly, by American citizens who built an incredible space program with American talent," Vance said. "This idea that American citizens don't have the talent to do great things ... do you have to import a foreign class of [students] and professors to do these things? I just reject it. I just think we should invest in our own people. We can do a lot of good." Vance's comments came amid a fresh row over H-1B as the USCIS revealed that they have selected 120.141 H-1B visa applications for 2026. Several companies, including Walmart, announced job cuts, enraging US workers as they allege that the administration is not doing enough to put Americans first -- as companies are still relying on cheap labor from outside. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch CFD với công nghệ và tốc độ tốt hơn IC Markets Đăng ký Undo Moving on to his second point, Vance defended the crackdown on universities and said, "These institutions do an important job; but if you back up and look at American higher education over the past 20 or 30 years, there are a few incontrovertible facts." "No. 1, the hard sciences, particularly biology, we have a terrible what is called a reproducibility crisis, meaning most of the papers that are published in biology don't replicate; they're not good science. So even our elite universities are not often doing good science. "Second important point, these institutions — sometimes by their own admission — are engaging in explicit racial discrimination, often against whites and Asians in explicit violation of the Civil Rights Act. If the people's government can't come in, given those problems, and say, 'Look, we've got to have some accountability here; you can't violate the Civil Rights Act,'" he continued. "We've got to make sure that if we're funding science with federal money, you're actually doing good science. That's called accountability." Vance said this is not 'fascism' and if the American taxpayer is frustrated with these universities, they have got to reform. "What they're doing instead, what too many of them are doing and saying, 'Aw, the Trump administration, this is dictatorial, this is fascism.' No, this is democratic accountability, and I think universities ought to see it as an opportunity. If they do that, they're going to get better, and the American people will be better off because of it," he said.
Miami Herald
14 hours ago
- General
- Miami Herald
Booker T. grad was one of 3 Black students who integrated Duke, which honors him
There is just something about some people where you know they are in the world for a special purpose. Even growing up in the 1940s and 1950s during the Jim Crow/segregation era didn't diminish that notion. You just knew they were marked for greatness. My friend, David Robinson II, is such a person. At its May 11 commencement, Duke University awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to David, who was born and raised in Miami's Overtown. David was one of three Black students — his fellow law school classmate, the late Walter Johnson of Greensboro, N.C., and a graduate divinity school student, the late R.L. Speaks — to integrate the North Carolina university in 1961. Months before the three arrived at the school in the fall of 1961, the university's board of trustees had voted to desegregate Duke's graduate and professional schools. It would be two more years before the undergraduate classes would be integrated. 'To have such an honor bestowed on you by an institution like Duke is the icing on the cake,' said David, 85. 'I am glad I am alive for the flowers, and to be able to smell them while I still can.' David was the seventh of nine siblings. Today, he and his 'baby sister' Yvonne Eickett are the sole survivors of their immediate family. I first met David when we both attended Booker T. Washington Jr./Sr. High School in Miami. He graduated in 1957; I graduated in 1956. I still can remember how quiet, friendly and neatly dressed he was. He also was the sweetheart of one of my dear friends, Delores Collie Sands Lockett. While David took part in the usual teenage things — 'going dancing' in the gym after a basketball game, 'taking company' (courting), and attending events in the school's auditorium — there was always a seriousness about him. 'We didn't call people who acted like him nerds back then,' said Georgena Davis Ford, David's classmate and neighbor. 'But that's who he was. He was a good dude. Smart but quiet and friendly — and a very sharp dresser. We used to call each other 'Boolu.' I don't know where we got that nickname, but it stuck.' Graduated top of his class at Howard After graduating from Booker T, David attended Howard University in Washington, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1961. It was while at Howard that his life would change. David was a senior at Howard when Elvin R. 'Jack' Latty, then dean of Duke Law, asked the dean of students at Howard to recommend a student who had the academic credentials and emotional stability to integrate Duke's law school. 'Remember … this was in 1961, years before the Civil Rights Act [of 1964] would be put in place,' David said. 'People were dying just for the opportunity to vote. 'Nobody in my family wanted me to go to Duke. They felt it would be too dangerous, but I saw the scholarship as the opportunity of a lifetime and accepted it. The folks at Duke called me a 'barrier breaker.' But to me, attending Duke University as an African American was simply a no-brainer. I had to go.' David stayed on Duke's campus and said Latty, a professor and dean at Duke Law for 35 years, became a 'father figure' to him. 'I never had a problem the entire three years I was at Duke,' he said. When David graduated from Duke Law in 1964, more opportunities were available for Black students and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington hired him as its first African American attorney. David stayed there for three years before becoming Xerox Corp.'s first Black lawyer — its third lawyer overall. In 1978, he was named senior counsel for Xerox operations on the West Coast When he retired from Xerox in 1988, David was assistant general counsel. By that time, Xerox had gone from its original three lawyers to more than 100, many of whom David hired. But David didn't stop there. 'The third and final leg of my legal career was here in Miami-Dade County, where I was appointed general counsel to the 11th Judicial Circuit. I retired from that position in 1999,' he said. He was the Judicial Circuit's first general counsel. Since his retirement, David has immersed himself in his work at the Second Baptist Church of Richmond Heights, where he heads the seniors ministry and provides pro bono work for seniors. He is a member of the Booker T. Washington High School Alumni Association, where he helps to raise money for college scholarships, faculty support and academic programs. He and his wife of 42 years, Wylene, live in the Falls area in South Miami-Dade. They have a blended family of five children and five grandchildren. 'Duke is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and the folks there still tell me I was a 'barrier breaker,' ' he said with a chuckle. And I say that's an understatement. Grove Arts Festival scholarship winners Kudos to the 15 talented high school graduates who were each awarded a $3,000 scholarship from the Coconut Grove Arts Festival. 'These young artists are truly extraordinary,' said Dave Hill, chairman of the festival's board, said in a press release. 'Recognizing their contributions to our creative community and helping them pursue their dreams through education is one of the most meaningful things we do each year.' The $45,000 is part of the festival's $75,000 annual scholarship fund, which also supports students in Florida International University's art programs. The 2025 high school scholarship winners are: Alexandra Guerra, Design and Architecture Senior High, Anacarolina Paz, Barbara Goleman Senior High; Anisia Mike, New World School of the Arts; Brianna Vargas, Miami Lakes Educational Center; Emma Chala, New World School of the Arts; Gabriela Cabrera-Flores, Arthur and Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts; and Janae Crespo, New World School of the Arts. Also, Layla Hanfland, New World School of the Arts; Leonna Anderson, Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High; Lucia Adrianzen, Design and Architecture Senior High; Megan Diaz, Miami Senior High; Konstantina Papadaki, Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior; Nyle Jones, Design and Architecture Senior High; Rome Negas, Design and Architecture Senior High, and Sofia Lataczewski, New World School of the Arts.
Atlantic
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
Trump's Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard
On May 22, the Department of Homeland Security stripped Harvard University of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, instantly jeopardizing the visas of nearly 6,800 international students—27 percent of the student body. But the Trump administration's attack didn't end there. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's letter announcing this move also doubled as a request for documents, instructing Harvard to deliver five years of video or audio of 'any protest activity involving a non-immigrant student,' plus disciplinary files, before the ban will be reconsidered. The next morning, Harvard sued and won a temporary restraining order. The letter represents the Trump administration's latest assault in its war on Harvard, in which the government is effectively trying to nationalize a private university. It began with an April demand letter in which a multiagency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism froze $2.2 billion in research grants to the school and threatened to freeze more unless Harvard abolished its DEI offices, banned masks used to conceal students' identities during protests, audited each department for 'viewpoint diversity,' and routed every foreign-student misconduct allegation directly to the DHS. A lawsuit from Harvard led the government to retaliate further, and President Donald Trump threatened in early May to take away Harvard's tax-exempt status. Rose Horowitch: Trump's campaign to scare off foreign students If you're wondering what governmental or executive process led to the freezing of these funds and the subsequent demands made by the Trump administration, none appears in evidence. The government first sent an official notice of an intent to withdraw Harvard's student-visa certification on Wednesday, beginning the process a week after informing Harvard of the outcome. The administration justified its actions by invoking Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the federal law that prohibits colleges and universities from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. However, the proper enforcement of Title VI requires an investigation, an attempt to negotiate a resolution, a formal hearing, and 30 days' notice to Congress before a single dollar is yanked. The Trump administration took none of those steps before announcing the intended outcome. This is one among many reasons these moves are so egregious and unconstitutional. The government's demand that Harvard turn over five years of footage of protests—a time frame that, tellingly, is not limited to the Gaza protests since October 7 that got out of control or involved illegal behavior—is one of the more chilling things I've seen in my almost-25-year career defending free expression on college campuses. These actions threaten not just Harvard, but every institution of higher education on American soil. That's true regardless of your criticisms of Harvard, and I have plenty of those. Harvard occupies an almost comically outsize place in our collective imagination, playing a starring role in films such as Good Will Hunting and Legally Blonde. Harvard has produced presidents, Supreme Court justices, senators, generals on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Fortune 500 CEOs, and other figures who have shaped the daily lives of Americans. The reality, though, is that Harvard has a lot of problems, especially when it comes to free expression and academic freedom on its campus. The university scored dead last two years in a row on the College Free Speech Rankings (produced by my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE), which rates schools according to undergraduate attitudes about and experiences with free expression on their campus. One serious issue with Harvard is that it has cultivated an intellectual monoculture. The student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, noted in a 2023 survey that only 2.5 percent of faculty identified as conservative; more than three-quarters identified as liberal. FIRE's campus surveys found that 67 percent of Harvard students said it would be difficult to have an open and honest conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to our 2024 Faculty Survey, 84 percent of faculty have a hard time talking openly and honestly about that topic. Harvard is less a marketplace of ideas than a company town. The university has had a real problem with groupthink for a long time, leaning into a warped version of intersectionality, an ideology popular with the political left that measures moral worthiness by the aggregate power held by people who share certain demographic characteristics—the less power you have, the worthier you are. Such intellectual oversimplification is in many ways anti-intellectual. But worse still, an ideology obsessed with power has been the perfect growth medium for the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews run the world. The capture of Harvard by this belief has fostered and fed the very anti-Semitism that the Trump administration is using to justify its censorious actions. To be fair, Harvard has made some promising recent moves, including adopting institutional neutrality. FIRE has applauded these developments and encouraged Harvard to continue efforts in that direction. However, it would be dishonest to pretend that the federal government just woke up one day and decided to target this university out of nowhere. That needs to be acknowledged, even if the Trump administration's actions are still egregiously unconstitutional and present a real threat to academic freedom on all campuses. The administration's attack on academic freedom will not end with Harvard. Noem has already said that this should 'serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions.' The administration's censorious pincer movement has already had clear and far-reaching implications for higher education. Even before Harvard found itself in the crosshairs, for example, the Trump administration threatened Columbia University with the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts if it didn't comply with the demands of the multiagency task force, which includes the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Education. Rather than fight, Columbia caved. That same joint task force has also threatened dozens of smaller colleges with grant freezes unless they toe the line. And the more of them that fall, the more academic freedom across the country will suffer. Although the Trump administration often looks impulsive, its actions appear to have a discernible objective. The idea is to destroy the left's institutional power centers— media, pro bono law practices, and higher education —to assert dominance and control. Each new executive order put out by the Trump administration swings that partisan wrecking ball a little wider, while Congress does nothing to stop it. What makes this all the more egregious is that the Trump administration could deploy lawful and constitutional methods to get what it ostensibly wants. If Harvard were flouting Title VI and creating a climate on campus that was hostile to Jewish students, nothing would have stopped the government from opening a proper investigation first, issuing findings, and, if it couldn't reach a negotiated agreement with Harvard, defunding the programs responsible for creating the hostile environment. That's how the process is meant to work, and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in National Rifle Association v. Vullo makes this point quite clear. In that case, a New York State official told banks and insurance companies that they shouldn't work with the NRA. The gun-rights group sued, and a unanimous Supreme Court found that 'a government official cannot do indirectly what she is barred from doing directly.' In other words, a state may not sidestep the First Amendment and unlawfully browbeat private actors into doing their bidding. Likewise, the government may not reject thousands of blameless foreign students, demand mass surveillance of political speech, or micromanage hiring and admissions on threat of bankruptcy. The irony here is rich. Conservatism once warned against the dangers of unilateral executive power. But today's Republican White House happily wields that very power to crush its cultural rivals. Rose Horowitch: What Harvard learned from Columbia's mistake A Constitution shredded to own the libs is still a shredded Constitution, however, and all Americans pay the price for that. Fans of the Trump administration's actions shrug at the stakes here. But they should remember that rights are indivisible: If the government can coerce the richest school in America without due process, it can crush a community college—or a civil-liberties nonprofit—without batting an eyelid. This is the primary reason, if Harvard loses, the precedent that loss will set won't stay in Cambridge. Republicans who cheer today should take a moment's pause from their schadenfreude and recognize that they might lament tomorrow, when a different president decides that, say, Hillsdale College or a Southern Baptist seminary are 'too extremist' to keep their tax-exempt status. More than two decades of protecting free speech on college campuses has taught me many things, and one of them is that the sword is always
