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☆ The House Republican Going After Universities on Antisemitism
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Virginia Foxx, the Republican congresswoman from North Carolina, has spent the last few months giving elite schools a hard time. As the chairwoman of the House committee on education, she oversaw a tense hearing in December that spurred the resignations of the presidents of University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. She has led an investigation of a half-dozen institutions for their handling of antisemitism claims. On Wednesday, she will preside over another hearing, this time with officials at Columbia University. The drubbing is part of a campaign by Republicans against what they view as double standards within elite education establishments — practices that they say favor some groups over others, and equity over meritocracy.

Persons: Virginia Foxx Organizations: University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Columbia University, Republicans, meritocracy Locations: North Carolina

☆ Harvard Will Require Test Scores for Admission
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | Stephanie Saul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Harvard will reinstate standardized testing as a requirement of admission, the university announced Thursday, becoming the latest in a series of highly competitive universities to reverse their test-optional policies. Students applying to Harvard in fall 2025 and beyond will be required to submit SAT or ACT scores, though the university said a few other test scores will be accepted in “exceptional cases,” including Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests. Harvard was one of nearly 2,000 colleges across the country that dropped test score requirements over the last few years, a trend that escalated during the pandemic when it was harder for students to get to test sites. Dropping test score requirements was widely viewed as a tool to help diversify admissions, by encouraging poor and underrepresented students who had potential but did not score well on the tests to apply. But supporters of the tests have said without scores, it became harder to identify promising students who outperformed in their environments.

Organizations: Harvard

☆ After a Year of Turmoil, Harvard’s Applications Drop
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | Stephanie Saul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Applications to Harvard College were down this year, even as many other highly selective schools hit record highs. The drop suggests that a year of turmoil — which went into overdrive with a student letter that said Israel was “entirely responsible” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — may have dented Harvard’s reputation and deterred some students from applying. Harvard’s announcement on Thursday evening came as all eight Ivy League schools sent out their notices of admission or rejection, known as Ivy Day. While Brown University also saw a drop in applications, applications rose at many other elite colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Columbia, M.I.T., Bowdoin, Amherst and the University of Virginia.

Persons: Israel, — Organizations: Harvard College, Ivy League, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, Amherst, University of Virginia Locations: Dartmouth, Columbia, Bowdoin

☆ Harvard’s Response to Subpoenas Is Called ‘Useless’ by House Committee
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Representative Virginia Foxx, who is leading a House investigation of campus antisemitism, blasted Harvard University on Tuesday for handing over “useless” documents in response to subpoenas. “I don’t know if it’s arrogance, ineptness, or indifference that’s guiding Harvard,” Representative Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said in a statement. “Regardless, its actions to date are shameful.”Many of the 2,500 pages were duplicates of already submitted documents, she said, and heavy redactions made some documents worthless. Harvard said it has been acting in good faith and since January has turned over nearly 4,900 pages of material to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, not including any duplicate material.

Persons: Virginia Foxx, “, Foxx, Harvard Organizations: Harvard University, Harvard, ”, North Carolina Republican, Education, Workforce

☆ Jewish Students Describe Facing Antisemitism on Campus to Members of Congress
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nine Jewish students from prominent universities told members of Congress on Thursday that they feel unsafe on campus, but that their complaints of antisemitism had been waved away by university administrations. At a bipartisan round table organized by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the students described various episodes of antisemitism they had experienced on campus since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, accusing their schools of pandering to violent and disruptive protesters while minimizing the threat to Jewish students. “I’ve been told over and over again that the university is taking these issues seriously, but always — no action,” said Noah Rubin, a student at the University of Pennsylvania. The round table in Washington was led by Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina. The 20 members of Congress, including Ms. Foxx, who participated were evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Persons: “ I’ve, ”, Noah Rubin, Representative Virginia Foxx, Foxx Organizations: Education, Workforce, University of Pennsylvania, Representative, Republican, Republicans, Democrats Locations: Israel, Washington, North Carolina

☆ Co-Chair of Harvard Antisemitism Task Force Resigns
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The co-chair of a task force set up by Harvard University to combat antisemitism resigned on Sunday, the second high-profile resignation in the university’s efforts to address complaints that Jewish students have felt increasingly uncomfortable on campus since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. “Basically her conclusion is that she didn’t feel confident or satisfied that she could lead and influence this process in a way that made sense to her,” said Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi of Harvard Chabad, a Jewish campus organization. He said that he had spoken with several people with knowledge of Dr. Sadun’s thinking. A nationally prominent rabbi, David Wolpe, resigned from a previous antisemitism advisory committee in early December, after widely criticized testimony about campus antisemitism before Congress by the former Harvard president, Claudine Gay. “Both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” he wrote on X at the time.

Persons: Raffaella, ”, Hirschy Zarchi, David Wolpe, Claudine Gay Organizations: Harvard University, Harvard

☆ Bill Ackman and Mark Zuckerberg Fail to Land Candidates on Harvard’s Board of Overseers
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It’s hard to get into Harvard, even if you’ve done it before. Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, and Bill Ackman, head of the Pershing Square hedge fund, discovered as much, in their failed push to get dissident candidates onto the Harvard Board of Overseers, one of the university’s two governing bodies. The candidates — a slate of four backed by Mr. Ackman and one candidate backed by Mr. Zuckerberg — said on Friday that they had not collected enough petition signatures to get on the April ballot for election to the board. “We are disappointed but greatly appreciate all the support,” Zoe Bedell, an assistant U.S. attorney, who ran on the Ackman slate, said in a statement on Friday. “We look forward to trying again next year.”Their failure raised the question of how much support existed for Mr. Ackman’s persistent campaign against Harvard’s leadership over the past few months.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Ackman, Ackman, Zuckerberg —, ” Zoe Bedell, ”, Ackman’s Organizations: Harvard, Meta, Mr Locations: Pershing, U.S

☆ Florida Eliminates Sociology as a Core Course at Its Universities
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Students can no longer take sociology to fulfill their core course requirements, Florida’s state university system ruled on Wednesday. Instead, its board of governors approved “a factual history course” as a replacement. The decision by the 17-member board of governors came after fierce opposition from sociology professors in the university system, which includes the University of Florida and Florida State. Ron DeSantis to challenge the education establishment, and what the governor portrayed as its liberal orthodoxy. Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, had tried to leverage his education record in his failed campaign for president.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, DeSantis, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, ” Organizations: University of Florida, Florida State, Gov, Republican Locations: Florida

☆ Critics Protest Harvard’s Choice to Lead Antisemitism Task Force
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Harvard task force on antisemitism has gotten off to a rocky start, with complaints that the professor chosen to help lead the panel had signed a letter that was critical of Israel, describing it as “under a regime of apartheid.”Harvard’s new interim president, Alan Garber, announced the formation of two “presidential task forces” forces on Friday, one to combat antisemitism and the other to combat Islamophobia. The move came less than a month after his predecessor, Claudine Gay, was forced to step down over plagiarism accusations and criticism that she was weak on reining in antisemitism. Dr. Garber’s choice for co-chair of the antisemitism task force, Derek J. Penslar, a professor of Jewish history at Harvard, met with immediate opposition from Lawrence H. Summers, a former Harvard president, and Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager whose relentless criticism of Dr. Gay helped bring about her downfall. Dr. Penslar was among nearly 2,900 academics, clergy members and other public figures who signed an open letter in early August, before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, condemning the Israeli government and saying it was determined to “ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population.” The letter said that “Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.”

Persons: Alan Garber, Claudine Gay, Derek J, Lawrence H, Summers, Bill Ackman, Gay, Penslar, ” Organizations: Harvard Locations: Israel

☆ Harvard Defends Its Plagiarism Investigation of Its Former President
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a report to a congressional committee, released on Friday, Harvard gave its most detailed account yet of its handling of the plagiarism accusations against Claudine Gay, who resigned this month as the university’s president. The basic outlines of the saga were known, but Harvard had not disclosed many details, which had led to questions about the impartiality and rigor of its investigation. In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. But its account also shows a university governing board that was slow to do a full accounting of her work. Instead, over several weeks, Harvard scrambled to investigate a steady drip of plagiarism accusations, unable to give an immediate, authoritative response to questions about Dr. Gay’s scholarship.

Persons: Claudine Gay, Harvard Organizations: Harvard

☆ The Next Battle in Higher Ed May Strike at Its Soul: Scholarship
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-14 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Stanford, resigned in August after an investigation found serious flaws in studies he had supervised going back decades. Claudine Gay, president of Harvard, resigned as the new year dawned, under mounting accusations of plagiarism going back to her graduate student days. Then Neri Oxman, a former star professor at M.I.T., was accused of plagiarizing from Wikipedia, among other sources, in her dissertation. The attacks on the integrity of higher education have come fast and furious over the last few years. The affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard exposed how Asian American students must perform at a higher standard to win entry.

Persons: Marc Tessier, Lavigne, Claudine Gay, Neri Oxman, Bill Ackman, Gay’s, ’, Sally Kornbluth Organizations: Stanford, Harvard, federal Varsity Blues Locations: résumé, Israel

☆ Federal Civil Rights Investigation Opened Into Antisemitism at Harvard
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Education Department has opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at Harvard University, where the campus, like many others, has been roiled by demonstrations and confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students in the weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The complaint against Harvard, filed on Tuesday, joins a growing list of federal civil rights investigations into complaints of discrimination based on “shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” including at Columbia, Cornell, Wellesley College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Tampa and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. The list includes a handful of school districts as well, including New York City public schools, Clark County School District in Las Vegas and Hillsborough County Schools in Tampa. The Office for Civil Rights announced on Nov. 16 that it was investigating such complaints as part of its efforts to “take aggressive action to address the alarming nationwide rise in reports of antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and other forms of discrimination and harassment on college campuses and in K-12 schools since the October 7 Israel-Hamas conflict.”

Persons: “, ” Organizations: Civil Rights, U.S . Education Department, Harvard University, Israel, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Wellesley College, University of Pennsylvania, University of Tampa, Cooper Union for, Advancement of Science, New, Clark County School District, Hillsborough County Schools Locations: Israel, New York City, Las Vegas, Hillsborough, Tampa

And all three universities formed task forces to address antisemitism on campus. “Let me reiterate what I and other Harvard leaders have said previously: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Dr. In addition, many pro-Palestinian students point out that they have faced doxxing and harassment — and they are asking on social media for similar efforts against Islamophobia. The groups have been at the center of weeks of intense demonstrations that have sharply divided students and shaken Columbia’s Manhattan campus. The university’s decision will bar the group from holding events on campus or receiving university funding through the end of the fall semester.

Persons: ” Dr, Gay, Gerald Rosberg, ” Organizations: Harvard, Palestinian, Columbia, Justice, Jewish, Peace Locations: Gaza, Israel, Egypt, Palestine, Manhattan

Pro-Palestinian students like Ms. Babboni see their movement as connected to others that have stood up for an oppressed people. And they have adopted a potent vocabulary, rooted in the hothouse jargon of academia, that grafts the history of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples onto the more familiar terms of social justice movements at home. They also argue that charges of racism betray a misunderstanding of the region, because it is estimated that half of Israelis are of Middle Eastern or North African descent. Since the crisis began, statements and counterstatements have volleyed back and forth among college administrators, students, faculty and alumni. Each takes issue with the language used by the others, and helps explain why the gyre of recriminations only widens with every new statement offered up by students or faculty.

Persons: Babboni, “, ” Organizations: Israel, “ Palestine Solidarity Groups, Columbia University, U.S . Locations: Palestinian, South Africa, Israel, Gaza, Eastern

☆ Can Humanities Survive the Budget Cuts?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The state auditor of Mississippi recently released an eight-page report suggesting that the state should invest more in college degree programs that could “improve the value they provide to both taxpayers and graduates.”That means state appropriations should focus more on engineering and business programs, said Shad White, the auditor, and less on liberal arts majors like anthropology, women’s studies and German language and literature. Those graduates not only learn less, Mr. White said, but they are also less likely to stay in Mississippi. More than 60 percent of anthropology graduates leave to find work, he said. “If I were advising my kids, I would say first and foremost, you have to find a degree program that combines your passion with some sort of practical skill that the world actually needs,” Mr. White said in an interview. (He has three small children, far from college age.)

Persons: Shad White, White, Mr Locations: Mississippi

☆ After Writing an Anti-Israel Letter, Harvard Students Feel the Repercussions
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-18 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a campus already bitterly divided, the statement poured acid all over Harvard Yard. The letter, posted on social media before the extent of the killings was known, did not include the names of individual students. But within days, students affiliated with those groups were being doxxed, their personal information posted online. Wall Street executives demanded a list of student names to ban their hiring. But the war between Israel and Hamas has heightened emotions, threatening to tear apart already fragile campus cultures.

Persons: Israel, “ Organizations: Harvard, Wall Street, Hamas Locations: ”, Israel

☆ Anti-Affirmative Action Group Sues West Point Over Admissions Policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The group that won a major Supreme Court victory against affirmative action in June sued the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, arguing that the court’s ruling barring race-conscious college admissions should extend to the nation’s military academies as well. The group, Students for Fair Admissions, was the driving force behind the lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to strike down race-conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, a decision that has roiled admissions programs at colleges and universities across the country. But the court specifically excluded the military academies, including West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, from its decision that affirmative action in college admissions could not be reconciled with the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. In a footnote to the majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that the court was not ruling one way or the other on the academies, because of “the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”That footnote created an opening for a new round of litigation, and Students for Fair Admissions took it.

Persons: John G, Roberts Organizations: U.S . Military Academy, West, Fair, Harvard University, University of North, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy Locations: University of North Carolina, West

The same month, Elis for Rachael filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the university of discriminating against students with disabilities. Yale is not the only elite university to face legal challenges over its mental health policies. By offering part-time study as an accommodation, Yale has provided relief beyond what Stanford did, said Monica Porter Gilbert, an attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law who represented plaintiffs in both cases. “It’s the students and the plaintiffs in this case making their voices heard and bringing Yale to the table to have difficult conversations,” she said. “As a nation, we talk about mental health differently now.”

Persons: ”, Pericles Lewis, Dean Lewis, Elis, Rachael, Brown, Monica Porter Gilbert, “ Organizations: Yale College, Yale, Washington Post, of Justice, Princeton, Stanford, Bazelon, Mental Health Law

☆ Slashing Its Budget, West Virginia University Asks, What Is Essential?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Over the last decade, the university has invested in projects like new buildings for agriculture, engineering, student health, student housing and recreation, conferences and labs, and it has renovated its athletic facilities. Faculty member say that capital spending was imprudent when West Virginia’s population was declining. The athletic department must raise money and “is expected to carry its own weight,” according to April Kaull, a university spokeswoman. Dr. Gee said that pandemic aid had provided a false sense of security. “We were given a lot of relief during the pandemic, and some of that free money sometimes doesn’t bring about the best results,” Dr. Gee said.

Persons: ”, Scott Crichlow, Gee, Kaull, ” Dr Organizations: Faculty, State Legislature Locations: West

☆ Administration Urges Colleges to Pursue Diversity Despite Affirmative Action Ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Biden administration, in its first guidance on how to handle the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action, offered colleges and universities on Monday something of a road map for how to achieve diverse classes while abiding by the court decision. The administration said schools still had broad latitude when it comes to expanding its pool of applicants, through recruitment, and retaining underrepresented students through diversity and inclusion programs, like affinity clubs. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, in a news briefing, made it clear that the administration faced the task of enforcing a court ruling that it strongly disagreed with. “This is a moment of great urgency in higher education,” Dr. Cardona said. Alluding to how the enrollment of students of color had initially plunged in states that have banned affirmative action, he said, “We cannot afford that kind of backsliding on a national scale.”

Persons: Miguel Cardona, Dr, Cardona, “ Organizations: Biden, Education

“Tell us about an aspect of your identity or a life experience that has shaped you.”— Johns Hopkins UniversityFor college applicants, this is the year of the identity-driven essay, the one part of the admissions process in which it is still explicitly legal to discuss race after the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in June. A review of the essay prompts used this year by more than two dozen highly selective colleges reveals that schools are using words and phrases like “identity” and “life experience,” and are probing aspects of a student’s upbringing and background that have, in the words of a Harvard prompt, “shaped who you are.”That’s a big change from last year, when the questions were a little dutiful, a little humdrum — asking about books read, summers spent, volunteering done. But even if candidates can — or feel compelled to — open up, colleges face potential legal challenges. The Supreme Court warned that a candidate’s race may be invoked only in the context of the applicant’s life story, and colleges have consulted with lawyers to determine the line between an acceptable essay prompt and an unconstitutional one.

Persons: ” — Organizations: ” — Johns Hopkins University

☆ The Next Affirmative Action Battle May Be at West Point
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Students for Fair Admissions, fresh off its Supreme Court victory gutting affirmative action in college admissions, is preparing for another potential lawsuit. The group is soliciting possible plaintiffs — applicants rejected from the U.S. Military Academy, known as West Point; the Naval Academy; and the Air Force Academy — for an effort to challenge race-conscious admissions at the three major American service academies, which are responsible for educating and training many of the country’s future military leaders. “Were you rejected from West Point?” asks a new webpage, WestPointNotFair.org, set up on Thursday and apparently aimed at white and Asian applicants. “It may be because you’re the wrong race.” It goes on to urge, “Tell us your story,” and provides a form requesting detailed contact information. Affirmative action at U.S. military academies was not addressed by the Supreme Court ruling in June, because Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, in a footnote, that they had “potentially distinct interests.”

Persons: “, John Roberts, ” Organizations: Fair, U.S . Military Academy, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy Locations: West

About the role familial connections played in the success of many alumni. About whether the practice of legacy admissions, which has long favored white families, should be eliminated just as a more diverse generation of graduates is getting ready to send its own children to college. About how to reconcile the belief that privileges for the privileged are wrong with the parental impulse to do whatever they can for their own children. A new analysis of data from elite colleges published last week underscored how legacy admissions have effectively served as affirmative action for the privileged. Children of alumni, who are more likely to come from rich families, were nearly four times as likely to be admitted as other applicants with the same test scores.

Persons: James, Chakraborty

The Supreme Court’s decision to effectively end race-conscious admissions in higher education last month was historic in its own right, removing a tool that the nation’s colleges have used for decades to increase racial diversity on their campuses. But what started with affirmative action has morphed into a far broader reconsideration of fairness and privilege in college admissions and what it means for American higher education. On Tuesday, the Education Department announced that it had opened a civil rights investigation into Harvard University’s admissions preferences for the relatives of alumni and wealthy donors. And at what the department billed as a “National Summit on Equal Opportunity in Higher Education” in Washington on Wednesday, more than 100 academics, government officials and education administrators focused on how much is now up for grabs well beyond affirmative action. “We come together today at a turning point in higher education — perhaps in all of education,” the education secretary, Miguel Cardona, said in his keynote address.

Persons: Miguel Cardona, ” Organizations: Education Department, Harvard, Higher Locations: Washington

☆ After the Affirmative Action Ruling, Asian Americans Ask What Happens Next
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-08 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even so, she said she believed the court’s ruling was wrong. “Why would you shut the entire thing down?” she asked. Students already feel pressure to write about hardship, said Rushil Umaretiya, who will go to the University of North Carolina in the fall. Even before the decision, he had seen anxious classmates at his selective high school, Thomas Jefferson High School, in Alexandria, Va., making up stories about facing racial injustice. “I think college admissions has really dipped into this fad of trauma dumping,” he said.

Persons: ”, “, John G, Roberts, Rushil Umaretiya, Roy Rogers, Thomas Organizations: ”, University of North, Thomas Jefferson High School Locations: University of North Carolina, Alexandria, Va

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