Jewish Faculty and Staff at University of Michigan Urge Action Against Weaponization of Antisemitism

In an open letter to University of Michigan President Santa J. Ono, a group of Jewish faculty and staff expressed deep concern over the growing trend of weaponizing antisemitism in American politics, particularly within higher education. The letter, signed by diverse members of the Jewish community at the university, calls for actions to protect academic freedom and prevent discrimination under the guise of combating antisemitism.

The signatories—representing a wide range of political beliefs, areas of expertise, and perspectives on Israel and Palestine—highlight that while antisemitism is a real and pressing issue, it is increasingly being used as a tool to target individuals on college campuses. These actions, they argue, threaten the fundamental mission of universities as places of free inquiry and open dialogue.

The letter specifically addresses concerns about how the Trump administration has politicized antisemitism, citing the administration’s cuts to the Department of Education and its appointments of individuals who have tolerated or celebrated antisemitic views. "If the administration was serious about fighting antisemitism, it wouldn't have cut half of the Department of Education, including the Office of Civil Rights that is responsible for fighting antisemitism on campus," said Regent Mark Bernstein in the letter.

The signatories urge President Ono to take several actions to ensure the university's commitment to free speech, including:

1. Not cooperating with attempts by immigration authorities to harass or deport students and staff for their political expression, including anti-Zionist views.

2. Rejecting efforts to equate constitutionally protected political speech with discrimination.

3. Extending protections against discrimination to all marginalized groups.

4. Not sharing personal information of community members for ideological targeting.

5. Defending the rights of all community members, even those with whom one may disagree.

The faculty and staff also express a call for solidarity, reminding the university leadership that safeguarding marginalized communities benefits the entire academic community. Their plea is rooted in core Jewish values of engaging in constructive disagreement and standing up for the vulnerable.

As part of their ongoing advocacy, a small group of Jewish faculty and staff has requested a meeting with President Ono to discuss these concerns and explore how the University of Michigan can continue to lead in protecting academic freedom and promoting an inclusive environment for all.

This letter underscores the ongoing debate over the intersection of political expression, academic freedom, and the protection of marginalized communities, issues that are increasingly critical in higher education today.

ICE Arrest of Green Card Holder Signals Crackdown on Israel Critics (Ted Rall)

 

Higher Education Inquirer Ranks #14 in Best Higher Education Blogs

The Higher Education Inquirer has been ranked 14th in Feed Spot's 90 best higher education blogs, just behind a number of larger name brand blogs, including Higher Ed Dive, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and Times Higher Education. Feed Spot ranks blogs by "relevancy, authority, social media followers & freshness." While we appreciate the recognition, we consider HEI a different animal, creating content for higher education students, student loan debtors, and higher education workers that cannot be found anywhere else. 

Trump wants to privatise education in United States (Times Radio)

 

Ovidia Molina, president of the Texas State Teachers Association, says Donald Trump wants to close the Department of Education in order to privatise education in the United States.

 

Trump vs. Public Schools: Executive Order Aims to Dismantle Department of Education (Democracy Now!)

 

 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to start dismantling her agency, although it cannot be formally shut down without congressional approval. Since returning to office in January, Trump has already slashed the Education Department’s workforce in half and cut $600 million in grants. Education journalist Jennifer Berkshire says despite Trump’s claims that he is merely returning power and resources to the states, his moves were previewed in Project 2025. “The goal is not to continue to spend the same amount of money but just in a different way; it’s ultimately to phase out spending … and make it more difficult and more expensive for kids to go to college,” Berkshire says. She is co-author of the book The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual and host of the education podcast Have You Heard.

Individualizing Climate Risk: Credit Score Penalties in the Home Insurance Market (Nick Graetz)

On February 4, Nick Graetz joined the University of Michigan's Stone Center to present "Individualizing Climate Risk: Credit Score Penalties in the Home Insurance Market." Nick Graetz is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation. He is also a Fellow at the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive climate policy think tank developing research on the climate and inequality nexus. His work focuses on the intersection of housing, population health, and political economy in the United States. Learn more at ncgraetz.com.

 

 

NEW LAWSUIT: AFT sues Dept. of Education for denying borrowers’ rights (Student Borrower Protection Center)

Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order ordering the shutdown of the U.S. Department of Education (ED). The order claims to ensure the “uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” yet Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon have gutted the arms of ED that make those functions possible. Read our statement on yesterday’s executive order here. Last week, Trump announced a 50 percent reduction in the workforce at the Department. Now he plans to move student loans to the Small Business Administration?!?! The Trump Administration is intentionally breaking the student loan system and attacking borrowers and working families with student debt. But we’ve been fighting back. On Tuesday night, the 1.8 million-member AFT sued ED for denying borrowers’ access to affordable loan payments and blocking progress towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)—in violation of federal law. Three weeks ago, federal education officials eliminated access to Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans by removing the application from ED’s website and secretly ordering student loan servicers to halt processing all applications. These IDR plans provide millions of borrowers the right to tie their monthly payment to their income and family size, giving them the option to make loan payments they can afford. IDR plans are also the only way for public service workers to benefit from PSLF—a critical lifeline for teachers, nurses, first responders, and millions of other public service workers across the country. SBPC Executive Director Mike Pierce’s statement:

“Student loan borrowers are desperate for help, struggling to keep up with spiking monthly payments in a sinking economy, all while President Trump plays politics with the student loan system. Borrowers have a legal right to payments they can afford and today we are demanding that these rights are enforced by a federal judge.”

AFT President Randi Weingarten’s statement:

“By effectively freezing the nation’s student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college. The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again. “The AFT has fought tirelessly to make college more affordable by limiting student debt for public service workers and countless others—progress that’s now in jeopardy because of this illegal and immoral decision to deny borrowers their rights under the law. Today, we’re suing to restore access to the statutory programs that are an anchor for so many, and that cannot be simply stripped away by executive fiat.”

Have you been affected by the Trump Administration blocking access to IDR plans and progress toward PSLF? Want to take action? Fill out this survey to share your story with us—it should take less than five minutes!

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Here’s a roundup of some of the news coverage about the new lawsuit: ABC: Teachers Sue Trump Admin for Stopping Affordable Student Loan Repayment Plans CNBC: Union Sues Trump Administration for Shutting Down Student Loan Repayment Plans USA Today: Trump Administration Sued for ‘Effectively Breaking the Student Loan System' Forbes: Student Loan Borrowers Sue Trump Administration for Blocking Loan Forgiveness and Income-Driven Plans Politico Pro: Teachers Union Sues Education Department for Blocking Access to Repayment Plans Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Education Department Faces Federal Lawsuit as Student Loan Crisis Deepens for Millions

Join Us on April 17, 2025 to Fight For Higher Education (Coalition for Action in Higher Education)

As campus workers and citizens, educators and researchers, staff, students, and university community members, we exercise a powerful collective voice in advancing the democratic mission of our colleges and universities. It is our labor and our ideas which sustain higher education as a project that preserves and extends social equality and the common good—as a project of social emancipation.

On April 17, 2025, we will hold a one-day action on and around our campuses to renew this vision of higher education as an autonomous public good, and university workers as its most important resource.   

Free Higher Ed Now! will demand FIRST that public higher education in the U.S. be fully funded, politically independent, and FREE to all students and SECOND that higher ed be FREE of political interference that reduces the rights and autonomy of campus workers and students to teach, study, learn, speak, organize, and dissent. Read and endorse our agenda here. 

Endorse the Day of Action

 

John Katzman · Founder & CEO, Noodle (Ed on the Edge)

John Katzman is the founder and CEO of Noodle. Prior to Noodle, he founded and ran 2U, which is also involved in online learning, and The Princeton Review, which helps students find, get into, and pay for higher ed. ‍Katzman is the co-author of five books and has served as a director of several for- and non-profits, including Carnegie Learning, Renaissance Learning, the National Association of Independent Schools, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, and the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.

 

More than 200,000 former Walden University students owe more than $9 Billion

The Higher Education Inquirer has recently received a Freedom of Information (FOIA) response regarding student loan debt held by former Liberty University students.  The FOIA was 25-01941-F.  

More than 290,000 Liberty University student loan debtors owe more than $8 Billion

The Higher Education Inquirer has recently received a Freedom of Information (FOIA) response regarding student loan debt held by former Liberty University students.  The FOIA was 25-01939-F.  

AFT President Selling Out to Edtech?

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is scheduled to speak at the upcoming ASU-GSV summit. For 16 years, the conference has been a space for those in edtech to hype their ideas, both good and bad.  We have noted a few of these bad ideas from bad actors over the years, to include 2U, Guild, and Ambow Education. 

Given Weingarten's track record as President of AFT, we don't expect much from her in terms of speaking truth to power. There are many people in edtech that Weingarten should criticize at the summit. But she is too much of a politician to do such a thing when it is needed.  

Weingarten has been the President of AFT since 2008, a union with about 1.7 million members across the US. While AFT has had some victories, those victories were won by the rank-and-file and the hard work of AFT organizers, not due to the actions of Weingarten. With numbers that large, AFT could pose as a serious presence at demonstrations in DC and across the nation. They have done that, when they had to, but not when other folks' lives were at stake. 

In 2013, while Weingarten was President of AFT, we recommended that the union use its clout to tell teachers' pension programs and state retirement funds from investing in for-profit colleges like Corinthian Colleges, Education Management Corporation, ITT Tech, and the University of Phoenix. They refused. We have not forgotten how AFT was unwilling to defend consumers, student debtors, and retirees. 

Since that time, AFT has done little to defend folks against subprime robocolleges and online program managers like 2U and Academic Partnerships/Risepoint when they certainly needed to call them out. And now their ranks are full of educators and administrators with marginal online degrees.

265,000 DeVry student loan debtors owe $5.2 Billion

The Higher Education Inquirer has recently received a Freedom of Information (FOIA) response regarding student loan debt held by former DeVry University students.  The FOIA was 25-01942-F.  

Liberty University Med Students Visit El Salvador

Students from the Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine will be visiting El Salvador from March 22-29, 2025. Liberty University has had a troubled history history in Latin America. Its founder Jerry Falwell Sr. was involved in questionable actions in Latin America during the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan. More recently, the Trump Administration has discussed shipping US prisoners to El Salvador, a nation that has experienced systemic oppression according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

US Department of Education Heightened Cash Monitoring List

Here's the list of the US Department of Education's schools under Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 as of December 2024. The list includes a number of religious colleges, cosmetology schools, and career colleges as well as four schools outside the US, two HBCUs, and a tribal college.  

Schools may be placed on the HCM 2 list for a variety of reasons, including administrative capability, adverse actions taken by accreditors, severe findings in audits, severe program findings, and financial responsibility problems. 

A school placed on HCM2 no longer receives funds under the Advance Payment Method. After a school on HCM2 makes disbursements to students from its own institutional funds, a Reimbursement Payment Request must be submitted for those funds to the Department.  

The Higher Education Inquirer will be observing whether a list for March 2025 will be issued, or whether reporting like this will be terminated under the Trump administration. 

Northern Technical College	Pine Bluff	AR
River Valley School of Massage	Russellville	AR
NewSchool of Architecture and Design	San Diego	CA
Premiere Career College	Irwindale	CA
San Diego Christian College	Santee	CA
Belle Academy of Cosmetology	Waterbury	CT
East West College of Natural Medicine	Sarasota	FL
Hobe Sound Bible College	Hobe Sound	FL
Reformed University	Lawrenceville	GA
Trenz Beauty Academy	Calumet City	IL
Kansas Christian College	Overland Park	KS
Ideal Beauty Academy	Louisville	KY
Moore Career College	Baton Rouge	LA
Northpoint Bible College	Haverhill	MA
Skin Institute	Saint Louis	MO
Urshan University	Wentzville	MO
Saint Augustine's University	Raleigh	NC
Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College	New Town	ND
Robert Fiance Beauty Schools	Perth Amboy	NJ
Sotheby's Institute of Art - NY	New York	NY
Transitions Career Institute School of Nursing	Flushing	NY
Yeshiva of Nitra Rabbinical College	Chester	NY
Gerber Akron Beauty School	Akron	OH
Lakewood University	Cleveland Heights	OH
Randall University	Moore	OK
Summit Salon Academy - Portland	Tigard	OR
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania	Cheyney	PA
Cambridge Technical Institute	Caguas	PR
CEM College	San Juan	PR
Rosslyn Training Academy of Cosmetology	Aguada	PR
Allied Health Careers Institute	Murfreesboro	TN
Jenny Lea Academy of Cosmetology	Johnson City	TN
Paul Mitchell the School Knoxville	Knoxville	TN
Barber Institute of Texas	Longview	TX
Northwest Educational Center	Houston	TX
Pearlands Innovative School of Beauty	Pearland	TX
Valley Grande Institute for Academic Studies	Weslaco	TX
Eastern Wyoming College	Torrington	WY
American University of Antigua College of Medicine	Coolidge
CETYS Universidad	Mexicali
Cranfield University	Bedford
University of Buckingham	Buckingham