Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, February 4. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Diminished legacy

The use of legacy preference in admissions has been in reformers’ crosshairs since the Supreme Court outlawed race-conscious admissions in 2023. But the practice was already waning, our Maya Stahl reports.

Admissions preferences for children of alumni and donors are becoming increasingly scarce, according to a Monday report from the advocacy organization Education Reform Now.

The share of four-year colleges practicing legacy admissions has fallen by half over a decade. Ten years ago, 49 percent of the 1,800 four-year institutions that were evaluated considered legacy status. Just 24 percent do so today, the report found.

• A total of 452 colleges have dropped legacy preferences since 2015.

Most of the changes were voluntary, although some were prompted by new state laws.

Holdouts are mostly highly selective, private — and, of course, wealthy. A third of all private institutions, 358 colleges, still practice legacy admissions. It’s most common among selective colleges in the Northeast.

The bigger picture: Ninety-two colleges dropped legacy admissions since the Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions. But ending a side door for those with overwhelming advantages isn’t the same thing as compensating for an education system that remains sharply divided along lines of wealth, class, and race.

Read the full story: Far Fewer Colleges Give an Edge to Legacy Applicants Anymore, New Report Says

Trump news dump

• Education Department’s future in limbo: Officials were debating breaking apart the U.S. Department of Education, perhaps via an executive order to shift the agency’s work elsewhere in the government or shutter functions that aren’t written into the law. It would also call for drafting legislation to close the department, which would require congressional approval. But the team working with Linda McMahon, President Trump’s pick to be education secretary, wants the White House to wait until after her confirmation hearing, which has been delayed by a wait for her ethics paperwork. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Agency officials placed on leave: At least 60 employees working across multiple offices including civil rights, public relations, and information technology were placed on paid administrative leave on Friday night, according to the union that represents them. They were told the move was tied to President Trump’s executive action targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. A union representative called the move “an act of intimidation,” alleging it’s tied to diversity training that employees were encouraged to take part in during the first Trump administration. (USA Today)
• New antisemitism task force: The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday announced a multi-agency task force “to root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.” It’s soliciting complaints. (U.S. Department of Justice)
• New antisemitism investigations: The U.S. Department of Education announced new shared-ancestry investigations into Columbia, Northwestern, and Portland State Universities, as well as the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. A statement from Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, focused exclusively on antisemitic harassment and protester encampments without reference to potential anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias that the Biden administration often scrutinized. (U.S. Department of Education)
• CDC scrubs data and scientific journals: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deleted or edited references to gender and equity as the government acts on an executive order targeting “gender ideology.” That includes websites and data sets used by researchers, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which tracks high-school students’ behavior. Agency staff members were also instructed to tell scientific journals to yank accepted manuscripts that have yet to be published if they don’t comply with the order. Some of the purged pages reappeared after backlash from scientists, but certain information could only be accessed via a Google search, rather than through the CDC’s online portal. (The Washington Post, The New York Times)
• NSF restores payment system after five days: The National Science Foundation has placed back online a system that postdoctoral fellows use to request funding. It did so to comply with a judge’s order halting the federal-spending freeze that roiled colleges last week. Still, the NSF warned of delays processing payments because it anticipates a high number of requests. (STAT)
• University hospitals split on trans care: NYU Langone Health reportedly started canceling appointments for transgender children in the wake of an executive order from President Trump that threatens federal funding for providers of gender-affirming care. The University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical systems both announced they had suspended such care, but Oregon Health & Science University said it doesn’t anticipate service interruptions. (The New York Times, Dogwood, The Oregonian)
• ICE impersonators on campus: Three people allegedly disrupted a business and tried to enter a residence hall on Saturday, leading to a Temple University student being taken into police custody and suspended, according to the Philadelphia university. Two of the people were allegedly impersonating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and the third was recording them. Outside of Philadelphia, West Chester University officials said someone drove through campus in a vehicle with an “ICE Volunteer Corps” sticker “for the purposes of creating anxiety and uncertainty.” (Temple University, The Daily Local News)
• Higher ed throws a punch: The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and the American Association of University Professors were among a coalition of groups that sued the Trump administration late Monday, alleging that the president exceeded his authority by trying to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion across the government and private sectors via executive order. (Washington Post)

The bigger question: Will the Trump administration’s opening blitz lose steam as it shifts from issuing executive orders to implementing them? The chaos and confusion it’s causing certainly shows no signs of abating.

Stat of the day

4.3 percent

That’s how much state support for higher education increased this fiscal year, according to preliminary data from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association’s annual Grapevine survey.

State support for higher ed jumped to $129.1 billion in total, the fourth year the states have collectively allocated more than $100 billion. States also routed $638 million in federal stimulus funding to higher education this year.

The bigger picture: States’ higher-ed spending has jumped by 32.9 percent over five years. But that’s not accounting for inflation, which steals a big chunk of the money’s spending power.

Quick hits

• Pell shortfall looms: New projections warn of a coming gap between the amount appropriated for Pell Grants and what the program will spend. Absent congressional action, that could mean cuts to financial aid for students and limits to who is eligible, student advocates warn. (The Institute for College Access & Success)
• Key Republican wants report on athletics and tuition: Tim Walberg, who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, asked the Government Accountability Office to scrutinize how Division I and Division II colleges’ athletic spending affects tuition. The effects of recruiting and pay-for-play are among his questions. (Education and Workforce Committee)
• Morgan State examines falloff in Black male enrollment: David K. Wilson, the president of the public historically Black university in Maryland, has charged a new task force with finding best practices for reversing declines in enrollment and retention across higher education and at HBCUs. (Morgan State)
• Boston U. closing Center for Antiracist Research: The center will shut down just a few years after it was created in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and as its founder, Ibram X. Kendi, leaves for Howard University. The center went through layoffs in 2023 but still has 12 employees, who will remain as staff members until June 30. (Axios Boston, The Chronicle)
• U. of Houston ends staff hybrid work: The public institution will no longer allow staff members to split time between working from home and on campus, its president announced on Friday. Faculty members and student workers aren’t covered by the new policy, which comes as the city of Houston and the federal government are also pushing in-person work, and after the University of Texas at Austin nixed most remote work last semester. (Houston Public Media, KUT)

Life in the fishbowl

Catch up on some notable news developments in the fishbowl that is the college presidency.

• Former president criticizes cuts: St. Norbert College’s leaders would be undermining their morals and changing the identity of the Wisconsin institution if they keep making cuts, Tom Kunkel said in a letter to trustees. Kunkel led the college for a decade beginning in 2008. The college is weighing layoffs and eliminating 13 majors. (WBAY)
• Trustees support embattled Lafayette leader: The Pennsylvania college’s governing board unanimously voted to back President Nicole Hurd after faculty members passed a vote of no confidence in her leadership last week, citing a lack of shared governance and administrative turnover. (Lehigh Valley Live)
• President lasts a year in Pueblo: Armando Valdez resigned as president of Colorado State University at Pueblo after an investigation found he violated a university policy. Officials declined further comment, saying it’s a personnel matter, while Valdez said he realizes he’s lost system leaders’ confidence, even as he disagrees with the investigation’s conclusion. Valdez had resigned from the Colorado State Board of Governors to become a candidate for the presidency. (The Pueblo Chieftain, KRDO)
• Another Florida hire with political connections: Torey Alston was chosen as president of Broward College. Alston lost re-election for a Broward County School Board seat last August, two years after he was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican. As a school board member, Alston was accused of lobbying for charter-school funding without disclosing that his wife did business with some of the schools. He told college trustees the complaint is near dismissal. (Florida Politics)
• Breaking bread over breakfast: Suresh Garimella, who took over as the University of Arizona’s president last fall, plans to hold breakfast meetings with faculty members to establish regular “unstructured and informal conversations.” The university’s last president, Robert C. Robbins, had a notoriously poor relationship with faculty members, who were unhappy with his attempts to circumvent the Faculty Senate and a financial crisis on his watch. (Arizona Daily Star, The Chronicle)

Comings and goings

• Julian Vasquez Heilig, provost at Western Michigan University, has stepped down and will join the faculty.
• Katricia Pierson, president of Crowder College, in Missouri, has stepped down. Chett Daniel, the college’s associate vice president for career and technical education, has been named interim president.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Regular Footnote readers will no doubt recall the story of Bertha the Moose, a mounted animal “much beloved in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation” at the University of Montana. Bertha horned her way into this space in August, when the Footnote needed a bit of elk-phemera.

Bertha was given to the Forestry Club in the 1920s. Since then, she’s often been kidnapped by law students as a prank before the annual foresters ball.

Someone absconded with poor Bertha again this year, shortly before the ball was to take place last weekend. Fortunately, the foresters secured her return in time for the festivities. The Daily Briefing has obtained a photo of Bertha being placed in her spot of honor, courtesy of the University of Montana’s Tommy Martino. You can view it below.

Reports also indicate the ball is a grand old time filled with all-night dancing, ax throwing, costumes, cow pie slinging, scholarship fundraising, and a replica logging village built by students. The goal is to raise awareness of forestry and forest management, with a special focus on firefighting this year.

Also on tap were fake marriages and fake divorces. No wonder the law students try to disrupt the ball. That sounds like a lot of fake court proceedings.