Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, February 11. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s newsletter. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

That lawsuit didn’t take long

Just three days after the National Institutes of Health announced a cap on overhead funding, the courts intervened, as our Megan Zahneis reports.

A federal judge on Monday blocked the NIH from capping indirect-cost rates in research grants in nearly two-dozen states. Indirect costs, or overhead, are earmarked for research-related expenses like laboratories, equipment, and staff members.

• The NIH had slashed indirect-cost funding roughly in half to 15 percent on Friday, effective immediately. The rate, which institutions negotiate individually with the government, averages 28 percent, though some top research universities collect more than 50 percent.
• The cap was estimated to cut $4 billion from the $9 billion the NIH spends on overhead each year. The agency granted $35 billion for research last year.

Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts granted a temporary restraining order requested by 22 states. All of the states have attorneys general who are Democrats.

The states argued the NIH’s lower cap could harm public health. It comes at the cost of those who stand to benefit from “research creating treatments, such as modern gene editing, vaccines such as flu vaccines, and cures for diseases like cancer, infectious diseases, and addiction,” their lawsuit argues.

And they say the cap flouts congressional authority by flying in the face of instructions lawmakers gave when appropriating money for the NIH and federal regulations governing it. They’re calling the change arbitrary and capricious.

More details are shaking free about who, exactly, stands to lose tens of millions of dollars. The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School would lose $40 to $50 million every year, according to court filings. It takes in about $62 million in annual NIH overhead funding.

Colleges supported the states’ lawsuit, even if they’re not direct parties. “A cut this size is nothing short of catastrophic for countless Americans,” Michael V. Drake, president of the University of California system, said in a statement. “This is not only an attack on science, but on America’s health writ large.”

Also filed on Monday: Another lawsuit with direct ties to higher ed. A group including the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, and the Association for Schools and Programs of Public Health sued to stop the NIH’s rate cut, arguing the agency was trying to illegally sweep “aside the entire regulatory and financial structure underlying federal grants for scientific research.”

By the end of the day, a third lawsuit arrived from colleges themselves. The Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities joined a dozen top research institutions, alleging “a flagrantly unlawful action by the National Institutes of Health.”

Monday’s lawsuits come as the Trump administration keeps facing legal setbacks in its efforts to reshape the federal government and often, by extension, higher ed. Also on Monday, a federal judge ordered the administration to end a spending freeze on federal grant programs, including those at NIH, that roiled higher ed at the end of January.

• But the administration isn’t ceding ground willingly. Judges already blocked the spending freeze while legal challenges play out, but states have alleged that the administration nonetheless continued to withhold federal funds. Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island rejected the administration’s argument that he’d issued an unclear restraining order and that agencies are trying to root out fraud. The administration promptly appealed.

The bigger picture: The die is cast, and higher ed’s fights with the feds are going to be very long and messy.

For more from The Chronicle:

• 📱 Read more about the legal wrangling: Judge Halts NIH Policy That Could Cost Universities Billions
• 📉 See how much colleges stand to lose: Trump Wants to Cut Billions in Research Spending. Here’s How Much It Might Cost Your University.

Trump news dump

• Can researchers publish work the feds tried to kill? President Trump signed an executive order that ended an effort to study changes in the country’s lands, water, and wildlife, as well as what those changes mean for residents. But many of the researchers involved work outside of the government. They’re now trying to publish a 12-chapter report that was nearly complete, grappling with questions like how to replace the oversight of a federal steering committee and who the target audience for their research should be. (The New York Times)
• Ed Department yanks support for transgender students: The U.S. Department of Education on Friday told employees it’s ending all contracts, policies, and programs that don’t “affirm the reality of biological sex.” That’s keeping with several executive orders signed by President Trump as well as previously announced efforts like Title IX investigations targeting two universities and an athletic association. (ProPublica, U.S. Department of Education)
• Wheaton College deletes social-media post about OMB director: The evangelical institution in Illinois congratulated and called for prayers for Russell Vought, an alumnus, after he was last week confirmed as OMB director. But after negative comments piled up, Wheaton replaced the post with one saying the college hadn’t intended to become embroiled in “a political discussion or dispute,” stressing that it doesn’t make political endorsements. Vought has been among the most controversial figures of the Trump administration because of his work to expand and centralize executive power. (Fox News, NBC News)

How is Trump’s second term affecting your college?

The Chronicle wants to hear from those on campus. Your submissions help inform our coverage and share your experiences with other readers.

📋 Tell us what you’re seeing. Fill out the form here. Reader responses will be confidential unless you give us permission to publish them.

Quote of the day

“AI will not be used in any future commencement ceremonies to announce our graduates’ names.”

— West Chester University, in Pennsylvania

West Chester said it didn’t know artificial intelligence had read off names during December’s commencement. The university only learned about the AI through a student petition and an Axios reporter’s questions.

The university hired a company to record students’ names in hope of avoiding pronunciation errors, which often crop up when volunteers and staff members do the job. Administrators thought a human was making the recordings, but the contractor, Tassel, used AI.

“We actually identified a particular human that we wanted to use for the announcements,” Jeffery Osgood Jr., West Chester’s provost, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. He said the company didn’t indicate that it had started using AI to clone its actors’ voices.

More than 1,000 people signed a student petition asking for a return to human orators to preserve “the tradition and personalization that this momentous occasion warrants.”

The precedent: Remember when D’Youville University had an AI robot as a commencement speaker?

Quick hits

• Bowdoin suspends pro-Palestinian protesters: Bowdoin College on Monday suspended about 15 Students for Justice in Palestine protesters who’d camped out in its Smith Union building over the weekend, telling them they had to leave campus by 5 p.m. Administrators warned students Sunday night that they’d need to leave the building by 8:30 a.m. to avoid facing discipline. (Portland Press Herald)
• Florida Atlantic U. picks president met by protests: Adam Hasner, a former Florida House Republican majority leader who is also an executive at a prison contractor, drew about 40 student protesters when he visited campus on Friday. Critics said he doesn’t represent the university’s values and lacks the academic experience exhibited by two other finalists, though Students Supporting Israel backed his bid as keeping campus safe. The university nonetheless named Hasner as its next president on Monday, ending a long, troubled search and installing yet another former Republican politician at the top of a public college in the Sunshine State. (The Palm Beach Post, The Chronicle)
• TikTok “university” created by accident: Leah Barlow, an assistant professor of liberal studies at North Carolina A&T State University, unexpectedly received more than 4 million views on a TikTok video outlining an “Introduction to African American Studies” course. That sparked an outpouring from other educators, many at historically Black colleges and universities, who are sharing their own expertise in more than 400 subjects. They’re calling it HillmanTok, a nod to Hillman College, a fictional institution in The Cosby Show and A Different World. (North Carolina A&T, NBC News)
• U. of New Hampshire primed for budget cuts: The public institution has asked deans to identify positions that could be eliminated on the way to slashing $15 to $20 million next year. Its operating budget is $741 million. Leaders are trying to close a structural deficit in the face of likely declines in state funding. (Portsmouth Herald)

Comings and goings

• Sid J. Trant has been named chancellor of the University of Alabama system after serving as interim chancellor since last year.
• Lee Fisher, dean of the Cleveland State University College of Law, has been named president of Baldwin Wallace University.
• Matthew Guterl, a professor of Africana studies and American studies at Brown University, has been named the university’s vice president for diversity and inclusion.
• Jeanette Nunez, lieutenant governor of Florida, has been named interim president of Florida International University.

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

Footnote

Readers keep coming up with TV shows that have interesting college tie-ins. Today’s submission comes from Susanne M. Moskalski, an associate professor of marine science at Stockton University. Susanne writes:

“There was a TV show called Numb3rs that included a decent amount of university stuff. It aired from 2005 through 2010, and it featured FBI agent Don Eppes and his former child prodigy math professor brother Charles Eppes. Each show followed a crime that required math to help solve it in some way.

“Along the way the audience got to see snippets of Charles’s university life and some of his colleagues. It was an enjoyable show, but it made me feel deficient in my math skills every time I watched!”

📺 Do you know a good TV show about college? Email the show’s name and why you like it to dailybriefing@chronicle.com. Include your name and title, and your submission could appear in a future Footnote.