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education
'National Disgrace': Sanders and Senate Dems Call Out Trump Attack on Education Dept
"Our nation's public schools, colleges, and universities are preparing the next generation of America's leaders—we must take steps to strengthen education in this country, not take a wrecking ball to the agency that exists to do so."
Mar 17, 2025
In a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders led more than three dozen of his Democratic colleagues in dismissing the Trump administration's "false claims of financial savings" from slashing more than 1,000 jobs at the Education Department, emphasizing that the wealthy people leading federal policy "will not be harmed by these egregious attacks" on public schools.
"Wealthy families sending their children to elite, private schools will still be able to get a quality education even if every public school disappears in this country," reads the letter spearheaded by Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. "But for working-class families, high-quality public education is an opportunity they rely on for their children to have a path to do well in life."
The decision by President Donald Trump and his unelected billionaire ally, Elon Musk of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), to slash the Department of Education (DOE) workforce by 50%—or 1,300 people—and take steps to illegally close the agency has already had an impact on students, noted the senators, pointing to a glitch in the Free Application for Federal Financial Aid (FAFSA) that preventing families from accessing the applications "not even 24 hours after the staff reductions were announced."
"The staff normally responsible for fixing those errors had reportedly been cut," reads the letter, which was also signed by lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
"Without the Department of Education, there is no guarantee that states would uphold students' civil and educational rights."
The letter was sent as The Associated Pressreported that cuts within the DOE's Office of Civil Rights have placed new barriers in front of families with children who have disabilities. Families who can't afford to take legal action against schools or districts that are not providing accommodations or services for students with disabilities have long been able to rely on on the office to open an investigation into their cases, but the AP reported that "more than 20,000 pending cases—including those related to kids with disabilities, historically the largest share of the office's work—largely sat idle for weeks after Trump took office."
"A freeze on processing the cases was lifted early this month, but advocates question whether the department can make progress on them with a smaller staff," reported the outlet.
The reduction in force has been compounded by the fact that the remaining staff has been directed to prioritize antisemitism cases, as the Trump administration places significant attention on allegations that pro-Palestinian organizers, particularly on college campuses, have endangered Jewish students by speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights and against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza and the West Bank.
An analysis of more than 550 campus protests found that 97% of the demonstrations last year remained non-violent, contrary to repeated claims by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers that they placed Jewish students in danger. Meanwhile, the Trump administration, pro-Israel advocates, and Republicans have dismissed outcry over Musk's display of a Nazi salute at an inaugural event in January.
"Special needs kids [are] now suffering because of a manufactured hysteria aimed [at] silencing dissent against genocide," said writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer. "Utter depravity."
In their letter, Sanders and his Democratic colleagues noted that "several regional offices responsible for investigating potential violations of students' civil rights in local schools" have also been shuttered, expressing alarm that many cases will likely "go uninvestigated and that students will be left in unsafe learning environments as a result."
They noted that at a time of "massive income and wealth inequality, when 60% of people live paycheck to paycheck," the federal government's defunding of public education "would result in either higher property taxes or decreased funding for public schools, including in rural areas."
"It is a national disgrace that the Trump administration is attempting to illegally abolish the Department of Education and thus, undermine a high-quality education for our students," wrote the lawmakers. "These reductions will have devastating impacts on our nation's students and we are deeply concerned that without staff, the department will be unable to fulfill critical functions, such as ensuring students can access federal financial aid, upholding students' civil rights, and guaranteeing that federal funding reaches communities promptly and is well-spent."
Trump, they noted, has expressed a desire "to return education back to the states" despite the fact that state governments and local school boards already make education policy, with just 11% of public education funding coming from the DOE.
However, "the Department of Education has a necessary and irreplaceable responsibility to implement federal laws that ensure equal opportunity for all children in this country," they wrote. "These laws guarantee fundamental protections, such as ensuring that children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, that students from low-income backgrounds and students of color will not be disproportionately taught by less experienced and qualified teachers, and that parents will receive information about their child's academic achievement."
"Without the Department of Education, there is no guarantee that states would uphold students' civil and educational rights," said the lawmakers. "We will not stand by as you attempt to turn back the clock on education in this country through gutting the Department of Education. Our nation's public schools, colleges, and universities are preparing the next generation of America's leaders—we must take steps to strengthen education in this country, not take a wrecking ball to the agency that exists to do so."
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After Columbia Revokes Pro-Palestine Protesters' Degrees, Alumna Says Time to Burn Our Diplomas
Academia, exemplified by Columbia University, has surrendered its proclaimed mission of intellectual independence and endeavor, and the academic pursuit of knowledge and social advancement.
Mar 16, 2025
In May of 1986, I received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. That degree has been a proud part of my resume in the many years since.
As Columbia rushes to appease the Trump administration by expelling, suspending, and revoking the degrees of a growing number of students accused of peaceful protest and exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, I unequivocally renounce my degree and any affiliation with the university. I charge Columbia with complicity in the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and with terrorizing its anti-genocide, pro-Palestine students, faculty, and staff. I charge Columbia with appeasement of and partnership with fascist governments (Biden and Trump) in Washington.
The shameless capitulation of Columbia to government pressure is reflective of the corporate, neoliberal selling-out of academia. Academia, exemplified by Columbia University, has surrendered its proclaimed mission of intellectual independence and endeavor, and the academic pursuit of knowledge and social advancement.
Today, I renounce my 1986 master’s degree from SIPA. I renounce it in the name of Mahmoud Khalil, of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, of Hind Rajab, of Shaban al-Dalou, of all those who are names and not numbers.
In Gaza today, during this holy month of Ramadan, more than 2 million people suffered through the 14th day of a criminal siege imposed by Israel. No food, no water, no electricity for light, heat, desalination, or medical equipment, and no humanitarian aid or supplies have been permitted into the decimated Gaza Strip for two weeks. The people, who continue to experience a genocide conducted by the United States and Israel, are dying of hunger, of thirst, of disease. They are dying from their untreated wounds, from hypothermia, from shelling, sniping, and drone attacks. They are dying from causes too numerous to count.
In the West Bank today, Palestinians continue to be driven from the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps—camps established because the Nakba of 1948 made them refugees in their own land. Today, the Israel Defense Forces (let’s call it what it is—the IOF—Israel Occupation Forces) continued to tear up roads, wells, and infrastructure across the West Bank, deny Palestinians their supposedly inalienable right to return, take selfies amid the rubble of homes and schools, shoot children, and defecate on the floors and furniture of the emptied buildings.
In other words, this was an ordinary day in the lives of Israeli soldiers and decision-makers in Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C. And yet, in this world that fascism and genocide turn upside down, it is not the perpetrators of these historic crimes who are in the dock. Instead, peacefully protesting students are targeted by their own schools and government.
On March 13, the Zionist administration of Columbia University (recall that Zionism is a racist, supremacist, settler colonial political ideology), rushed to cooperate with the Trump administration after it received an extraordinary letter listing nine demands Columbia must meet to avoid having $400 million in federal funding denied. Eager to comply with this extortion, university officials announced that an additional 22 students were expelled, suspended, or had their degrees revoked.
The next day, the U.S. Department of “Homeland Security” (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) followed up on their abduction and rendition to Louisiana of Columbia graduate and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil with the arrest of a second student, who is also Palestinian. Evoking the “Commie sympathizers” trope of the Red Scare, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem referred to the students as “terrorist sympathizers.” Meanwhile, Columbia allowed federal agents to search dorm rooms at Columbia University. At the request of Columbia University “Public Safety” officers, the New York Police Department (NYPD) entered Butler Library to investigate graffiti in a men’s restroom.
On March 14, I drove from my home in western Massachusetts to W. 116th Street and Broadway in Manhattan to stand with pro-Palestine students of Columbia and Barnard, and leaders of Within Our Lifetime. As an alumna, I felt compelled to be in the presence of their humanity, their courage, and their uncompromising, untiring dedication to Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea.
To Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and former officer and intelligence analyst of the IOF: We see who you are. We see the role you have played in calling in the NYPD on the peaceful students of last spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment. We see your hosting of former Israeli prime minister and war criminal Naftali Bennett (“I’ve killed many Arabs in my life and there’s nothing wrong with that”), who joked about distributing exploding pagers to anti-genocide students at Harvard a few days ago.
Today, I renounce my 1986 master’s degree from SIPA. I renounce it in the name of Mahmoud Khalil, of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, of Hind Rajab, of Shaban al-Dalou, of all those who are names and not numbers. I denounce the terrorism of Columbia University, and of all the U.S. administrations, Democratic and Republican, that have supported and partnered in the decades-long dehumanization and genocide of the Palestinian people. I denounce Columbia’s and the U.S. government’s monstrous conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism that puts Jews in the way of true danger and is, in itself, anti-Semitic.
Each day of the deepening fascism of the U.S. is another day of starvation, displacement, and terror for Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. But in renouncing my degree and burning my diploma, I say: I will never stop talking about Palestine.
Following the example of the protesters who burned their draft cards during the Vietnam war, I call on all CU alumni to join me in publicly burning our Columbia diplomas.
Many alumni can give firsthand accounts of the 1968 anti-Vietnam war protests at Columbia that led to nonviolent occupation of campus buildings. When campus negotiations failed, Columbia called in 1,000 police, resulting in the arrest of over 700 students and the shutdown of the university. True to corporate, neo-liberal and neo-fascist form. But the protests on Columbia’s campus and campuses across the U.S. contributed to ending the largest U.S. colonial war of the 20th century.
No symbolic gesture such as burning diplomas can atone for the suffering that Zionist institutions like Columbia and Barnard cause and are complicit in. Each day of the deepening fascism of the U.S. is another day of starvation, displacement, and terror for Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. But in renouncing my degree and burning my diploma, I say: I will never stop talking about Palestine. The repression of Columbia University and the U.S. government, as with all historic repression, lights the flame of deepening and widening resistance and change.
The people will teach the Zionist authorities a long overdue lesson. As the students of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) explained, in responding to CU administration anger over “Free them all” graffiti spray painted on the President’s House on March 14, “The people will not stand for Columbia University’s shameless complicity in genocide. The University’s repression has only bred more resistance and Columbia has lit a flame it can’t control.”
“Free them all” refers not just to Mahmoud Khalil. Not just to all pro-Palestine students persecuted by Columbia and by DHS, ICE, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It refers to all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli torture prisons. It refers to the Palestinian people, past, present, and future. And ultimately, it refers to us all, since ultimately, we are all Palestinian. I hope that the flames of burning Columbia diplomas will help light the way toward this freedom.
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'A Hallmark of Autocracy': Flurry of Trump Attacks on Universities Sparks Alarm
"If the government can do this to universities, we don't live in a free society. Five alarm fire," wrote one professor.
Mar 14, 2025
Amid a week of scrutiny from the Trump administration on higher education, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday that it has opened investigations into dozens of universities for "allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs." The department is also probing whether six universities awarded "impermissible race-based scholarships."
The investigations are part of the administration's wider crackdown on so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and initiatives, and comes as the Trump administration is also taking aim at universities with the purported goal of rooting out antisemitism on college campuses.
The newly announced investigations from Department of Education follows a memo issued last month by the department warning that colleges and universities that receive federal funding must cease using "race-based preferences" in admissions, scholarships, compensation, and other areas.
“The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination," said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement released Friday. "Today's announcement expands our efforts to ensure universities are not discriminating against their students based on race and race stereotypes."
Forty-five schools, including Ivy League institutions such as Yale University, are facing inquiries because of their alleged partnership with the PhD Project, an organization that supports people from historically underrepresented groups in obtaining business PhDs, according to a recent annual report from the group.
The Department of Education is also investigating six schools for "allegedly awarding impermissible race-based scholarships and one university for allegedly administering a program that segregates students on the basis of race."
Meanwhile, the Department of Education on Thursday sent letters to 60 universities "warning them of potential enforcement actions" if they do not take adequate steps to protect Jewish students. Schools that received letters from the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights include multiple University of California schools, multiple State University of New York schools, Harvard University, and others.
"I don't take a back seat to anyone on the subject of antisemitism. Jews are being used here as a fig leaf to advance a broader attack on universities and higher learning," wrote Josh Marshall, the founder of the outlet Talking Points Memo, in response to the Thursday statement from the Department of Education. "Trump wants to bring Universities to heel and obedience. Jews are just a convenient cudgel here and just as disposable."
U.S. President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order on January 29 pledging to combat antisemitism on college campuses, has vowed to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters at universities.
Columbia University, in particular, has borne the brunt of Trump's scrutiny—despite the fact that university administration has already demonstrated it is willing to resort to punitive measures to quell student protest.
In a March 7 press release, members of Trump's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, and a day later immigration agents arrested a recent Columbia University graduate who played a major role in pro-Palestine demonstrations last year. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident, has been widely decried.
The Trump administration sent a letter to Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong on Thursday outlining a series of demands that Columbia must comply with in order to maintain a "continued financial relationship" between the school and the government.
The policy shifts outlined in the letter include implementing a mask ban and the granting of "full law enforcement authority, including arrest and removal of agitators," for university security. The letter requires that Columbia complete disciplinary proceedings for students involved in last year's Gaza Solidarity Encampments and occupation of Hamilton Hall. "Meaningful discipline means expulsion or multi-year suspension," according to the letter.
On Thursday, Columbia issued expulsions, multi-year suspensions, and temporary degree revocations for students involved in the Hamilton occupation.
"If the government can do this to universities, we don't live in a free society. Five alarm fire," wrote Brendan Nyhan, a professor and political scientist at Dartmouth College, of the Trump administration's demands.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, released a statement decrying the demands the Trump administration is placing on Columbia.
"The subjugation of universities to official power is a hallmark of autocracy. No one should be under any illusions about what’s going on here," said Jaffer.
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