Good morning, and happy Valentine’s Day! It’s Friday, February 14. Len Gutkin contributed the top of today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

📅 A quick scheduling note: The Daily Briefing will not publish on Monday in observance of Presidents’ Day. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.

A lawsuit seeks to block Trump’s anti-DEI orders

Since taking office last month, President Trump has issued over 50 executive orders, several of which have direct implications for higher education. Today we’ll focus on a lawsuit filed in a Maryland District Court by an association of college professors that seeks to block two of them.

The American Association of University Professors is seeking injunctions against two orders: “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” and “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The AAUP filed the suit alongside the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, a professional organization. Both orders they’re challenging threaten to withhold federal funding from institutions with diversity, equity, and inclusion policies the administration argues are illegal.

• If successful, the lawsuit would join a flurry of actions that have blocked some of Trump’s other executive orders, including his efforts to pause huge swaths of federal funding, require that incarcerated trans women be moved to men’s prisons, and rescind birthright citizenship.

The plaintiffs argue the orders are vague and overbroad. “The Constitution demands clarity and consistency,” the lawsuit states. But the executive orders fail to define such key terms as “DEI” and “equity-related,” the plaintiffs allege. “To Defendants, DEIA” — the “A” stands for “accessibility” — “is an ideology that they do not define but nonetheless want to crush,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit also argues that the orders violate the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Vague bans on “DEI,” the lawsuit states, amount to illegal viewpoint discrimination and a violation of academic freedom. Quoting the landmark academic-freedom and free-speech case Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957), the plaintiffs invoke the “essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities.”

The executive orders, conversely, frame DEI initiatives not as speech but as illegal discrimination. For that reason, the order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” invokes federal civil-rights law and emphasizes compliance with SFFA v. Harvard, the Supreme Court case prohibiting race-conscious admissions.

College administrators are already nervous. DEI language is being scrubbed from websites. Large state systems are abandoning DEI efforts they fear might imperil federal money. In an especially sweeping response, the University of North Carolina prohibited “all general-education requirements and major-specific requirements” from “mandating completion of course credits related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Michigan State University even canceled a Chinese New Year celebration. “This decision comes in response to concerns shared by members of our community regarding the current issuance of Executive Orders related to immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion. These actions have prompted feelings of uncertainty and hesitation about gathering for events that highlight cultural traditions and communities,” according to the college’s DEI director. The university has since apologized and rescheduled the luncheon.

Stay tuned for what happens next. We should know more about the fate of this lawsuit soon. Speaking on behalf of the AAUP, Kelly Benjamin told The Chronicle’s Katherine Mangan that the organization is “pushing for a preliminary injunction ASAP. We hope the court will address this very quickly as the order is causing real damage to our education system.”

Long before Trump’s second term began, Republicans attacked higher education on three distinct but related tracks:

1. Indoctrination: DEI training and other noncurricular material have come under fire as forms of indoctrination.
2. Discrimination: Programs aimed at diversifying faculty and student populations have been attacked for being discriminatory.
3. Association: Programs of academic study, such as gender studies and critical race theory, have been impugned, and sometimes canceled, for their association with the political left.

The bigger picture: It is probable that much of the Republican effort to scale back the various programs they have grouped under the label “DEI” will, eventually, be successful. Efforts to target higher education based on its association with the political left are in the most tension with both the law and the theory of academic freedom and free speech. The AAUP says that Trump’s executive orders threaten this core aspect of the university. We will know soon whether the courts agree.

📧 For more of Len’s analysis, check out The Review, his weekly newsletter exploring the big ideas and provocative arguments shaping the academy.

• This week’s edition: What’s Chris Rufo doing in the Education Department?
• An early look at next week’s: Trump’s chaos is on us. How should colleges respond?

Quick hits

• Education Department fires dozens of civil servants: Termination notices went out to some employees in legal, student-aid, civil-rights, and communications offices. At least 160 recent hires were told their continued employment wouldn’t “be in the public interest.” The government has also been sending termination notices to employees at other agencies, most of them recent hires who were still in probationary periods. (Politico, Reuters)
• University protests federal grant cancellation: The University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, says the U.S. Department of Education has moved to end a $6.8-million grant that helps to pay the tuition of aspiring teachers. President Rob Vischer said the program was swept up in the Trump administration’s efforts to end diversity, equity, and inclusion work. But Vischer maintains DEI isn’t the main goal of the program in question, saying the institution merely explained in its grant application how the funding could diversify the teaching profession, as required by the Biden administration. (KARE)
• LSU professor is back in the classroom: A state judge ordered Louisiana State University to reinstate Ken Levy’s instructional duties, the latest legal reversal in a saga that began when the tenured law professor profanely criticized Gov. Jeff Landry and President Trump during a lecture. LSU removed Levy while investigating a student complaint about the incident; his lawyer argued that doing so violated the professor’s rights to academic freedom and due process. The judge said negative comments about politicians are “a way of life” and suggested LSU should invite debate as a way to prepare law students for careers that require facing differing opinions. (Associated Press)
• Ohio Senate OK’s higher-ed overhaul: Republican votes powered a controversial bill to ban DEI programs, prevent faculty members from striking over unfair conditions, require annual evaluations of faculty members with tenure, add as a graduation requirement a course on American civics literacy, require faculty members to post syllabi online, shorten university trustees’ terms, and block donations to colleges from China. The long-stalled measure heads to the House, where Speaker Matt Huffman, a Republican, has signaled support for many of the changes. (The Columbus Dispatch, The Chronicle)
• Yet another Florida politician moves to higher ed: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, continued his track record of finding higher-ed-related positions for politicians by appointing Paul Renner to the Florida Board of Governors. Renner, a Republican, served as speaker of the state House from 2022 to 2024. He wouldn’t be the only former House speaker on the Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s universities. José Oliva, a Republican who was speaker from 2018 to 2020, is also on the board. (Tallahassee Democrat)

Quote of the day

“Four-year college is not for everyone.”

— Linda McMahon, President Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, at her Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday

McMahon avoided saying anything that’s likely to derail her confirmation when answering senators’ questions. She called for more internships and apprenticeships, said she’d like to expand federal Pell Grants to cover short-term certificates, and called for building up “careers, not college debt.”

She put a softer edge on many of Trump’s most contentious policies. Here’s a quick recap of what she said on top issues:

• DEI: Schools should celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month, McMahon said. But she said she’d need to know more before commenting on whether institutions could lose federal funding unless they follow the lead of the U.S. Military Academy, which shut down race-based clubs like the National Society of Black Engineers.
• Title IX: McMahon pledged to support sexual-assault survivors. She added that she wants to make sure students are “treated fairly” in Title IX proceedings, a likely nod to conservatives’ criticism that Democratic administrations’ Title IX rules haven’t given students accused of sexual assault an adequate chance to defend themselves.
• DOGE: Employees of Elon Musk’s government-efficiency effort “operate under the restraints” of the department, she said. The department has already cut $900 million in contracts under its data-gathering arm.
• Freezing spending: “We will certainly expend those dollars that Congress has passed,” McMahon said. “But I do think it is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door.”
• Disbanding the department: “I am all for the president’s mission, which is to return education to the states,” McMahon said. She acknowledged that Congress would need to act to eliminate the department, even as she endorsed the Republican argument that other federal agencies could take on some of its key functions.
• Antisemitism investigations: She endorsed defunding institutions that don’t crack down on antisemitism and revoking visas for international students who break the law.
• PSLF: McMahon promised to implement Public-Service Loan Forgiveness as passed by Congress. Trump’s first education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was accused of slow-walking the program.

The bigger picture: “College for all” is out of vogue, so McMahon’s skepticism of the sector isn’t surprising, even as it’s notable.

📱 Read the full story from The Chronicle: Here’s What Linda McMahon, Nominee for Education Secretary, Had to Say About Higher Ed

Weekend reads

• These Colleges Banned DEI Even Though It Wasn’t Required by Law (The Chronicle)
• Ben Sasse Came Under Fire for His Spending. A New Audit Has More Details. (The Chronicle)
• Higher Education Is Exhausted (The Chronicle)
• 16 Bold Ideas to Make Higher Ed a Better Place to Work (The Chronicle Review)
• The Folly of Academic Self-Help (The Chronicle Review)
• How Colleges Can Kick Their Addiction to Consultants (The Chronicle Review)
• Institutional Neutrality Is Censorship by Another Name (The Chronicle Review)
• The Problem With FIRE’s Data (The Chronicle Review)

Comings and goings

• Alan L. Smith, dean of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University, has been named interim president.
• Jawshing Arthur Liou, a professor in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture, and Design at Indiana University at Bloomington, has been named dean of the Robert S. Geer Family College of the Arts at Kennesaw State University.
• Brad Behnke has been named dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences at Kansas State University after serving as interim dean for two years.

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

Footnote

The Daily Briefing could send no better Valentine to its readers than to continue featuring their recommendations for television shows about college. Kevin J. Harty, a professor of English at La Salle University, offers a suggestion that will read like a love letter to classic-radio enthusiasts. Harty writes:

“The Halls of Ivy originally was a radio situation comedy running on NBC from 1950-1952. It then became a CBS TV show from 1954-1955 — it was later broadcast in Australia. The show on the radio and TV starred Ronald Colman — the famous screen actor — and his wife Benita Hume. Colman was Dr. William Todhunter Hall. Hall was the president of the fictional Ivy College in the Midwest.

“The 39 episodes feature Hall’s interactions with his wife, the trustees, the faculty, and the students. Puns were a hallmark of the show’s script, starting with the title of the series. The radio version won a number of awards.

“Further afield, there is, of course, the 1932 Marx Brothers’ film Horse Feathers, in which Groucho was Dr. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, president of Huxley College, who is intent on beating rival Darwin College in their annual football match-up. Huxley cheats by loading their team with non-college players and wins — the final game scenes being one of the high points of college football on the screen.”

📺 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.