Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, April 8. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Brian O’Leary compiled Transitions. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

A flood of visa revocations

The expanding scope of the Trump administration’s student-visa revocation campaign is becoming clearer.

Dozens of international students have had their visas revoked in the last few days alone. Since the start of Friday, revocations include — but are by no means limited to — cases at:

• Central Michigan University: Several current and former students’ visas were stripped without notification, MLive reported.
• Columbia University: Four international students’ visas were revoked, the Columbia Spectator student newspaper reported.
• Harvard University: Three students and two alumni saw their visas yanked, according to WCVB.
• Kent State University: One current student and three recent graduates working under the Optional Practical Training program had their visas yanked, President Todd Diacon wrote.
• Northeastern University: “Several” students and recent graduates were told by the Department of State that their visas were revoked, the university posted.
• Ohio State University: Five students’ visas had been revoked as of Friday, The Columbus Dispatch reported. One reached out to the university, which then discovered others’ immigration statuses had also been changed.
• Stanford University: Four students and two recent graduates had their visas yanked, according to KRON.
• University of Idaho: Two students had their visas revoked this month, a spokesperson told The Spokesman-Review.
• University of Kentucky: A “small number” of graduate students had their visas pulled, the institution’s president announced.
• University of Michigan: Four students’ visas were revoked by the Department of Homeland Security, a spokesperson told WWJ.
• UC Davis: Seven students and five recent graduates lost their visas without explanation, Chancellor Gary S. May said.
• UCLA: Six current students and six graduates had their visas revoked, Chancellor Julio Frenk said.
• UC Santa Cruz: Three students’ visas were terminated without advance notice, Chancellor Cynthia Larive said.
• UC San Diego: Five students’ visas were terminated without warning, the chancellor’s office said on Friday. A sixth student was denied entry at the U.S. border and deported, according to KUSI.

And those are just some recent examples confirmed on the record. A University of Texas at Austin check found two student-visa terminations, a person who didn’t want to be identified for fear of retaliation told the Associated Press last week. Both were graduates who opted to stay in the United States to acquire professional experience, as their visas allowed.

The feds haven’t reported the visa terminations to colleges, campus leaders have often said. That leaves institutions to discover them by checking the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, a Department of Homeland Security database that tracks international-student records.

Campuses are left scrambling to count revocations. Some have been updating tallies multiple times a day, The Los Angeles Times reported. Between Friday and Monday, the publication counted at least 45 revocations in California.

This crackdown isn’t just about war protesters or students with alleged ties to Hamas, which the Trump administration has previously publicized.

“The United States has zero tolerance for non-citizens who violate U.S. laws,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement to the Daily Briefing. “Those who break the law, including students, may face visa refusal, visa revocation, and/or deportation.” The spokesperson declined to provide statistics on the number of visas revoked, calling it “dynamic.”

One California student alleged they lost their visa after minor violations: A speeding ticket and an “alcohol-related driving conviction.” That student is suing the federal government anonymously, alleging their immigration status was illegally terminated and that the State Department had renewed their visa despite knowing about the driving conviction.

“What’s happening now is fundamentally different from what has happened before,” Ahilan T. Arulanantham, faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, told the Times. “The government seems to be revoking visas and arresting and deporting students based on interactions that are too minor to have been of any interest in the past.”

College leaders have sometimes said they’re connecting students with legal assistance, asking them to consult with campus offices, or urging them to contact immigration attorneys.

But they’re walking a tightrope. Leaders can — and have — proclaimed that they support international students and will lobby on their behalf. But they also admit they must follow federal law. And that law gives the Trump administration wide latitude to revoke visas, as The Chronicle has reported.

• “The university will always comply with the law,” Eli Capilouto, president of the University of Kentucky, wrote on Friday. “We also will make abundantly clear that our more than 1,300 international students and scholars are valued members of this special community.”

The bigger picture: Those who lose student visas aren’t always immediately detained for deportation, but they’re exposed. The flood of revocations is casting a chill over programs across the country.

📱 For more from The Chronicle: Trump Has Revoked Student Visas at Dozens of Colleges. Here’s What That Means.

Federal news express

• Community college ends citizenship classes: The Community College of Aurora, in Colorado, is stopping classes that help aspiring citizens prepare for the naturalization test because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security pulled a grant. (Chalkbeat Colorado)
• Immigration-crackdown fears nix community-college trip: Houston Community College called off an Honors College study-abroad trip to London, replaced it with an excursion to San Antonio, and gave conflicting explanations as to why. A spokesperson said “no single cause” can be cited as the college sought the “safest travel experience possible.” Leaders told Honors College students that it was better to keep students closer to home as immigration authorities scrutinize visas. (Houston Landing)
• Air Force Academy weighs civilian faculty cuts: The academy’s superintendent has proposed shrinking the share of civilian faculty members from 37 percent to 20 percent. That would raise the share of uniformed faculty members and lower staffing levels overall, but the move could cause majors to be eliminated. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called for more instructors who are members of the military. (The Gazette)
• SCOTUS allows termination of teacher-training grants: The justices narrowly blocked a lower court’s ruling, which had said the Trump administration’s Department of Education failed to follow proper processes when it cut off grants for teacher training under a policy against diversity, equity, and inclusion. Five justices wrote that the lower-court judge didn’t have authority to order millions of dollars to be paid to providers including colleges. (NBC News)

Quote of the day

“Courage is contagious.”

— Summer Lopez, co-interim CEO and chief officer for free-expression programs at PEN America

PEN America will recognize Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth with its PEN/Benenson Courage Award, it announced on Monday. The free-speech group lauded Roth for a commitment to academic freedom, protecting protest rights, and resisting efforts to quell dissent on college campuses.

The group’s CEO cited Roth’s “refusal to passively comply with political intimidation from Washington, his call to other institutional leaders to stand up for democratic principles, and his insistence on protecting the most vulnerable among us,” calling his actions “the clarion call American society needs right now.”

Quick hits

• City pitches siphoning off endowment dollars: Leaders in the city of Worcester, Mass., plan to ask voters in November whether they support forcing local private colleges to put 0.5 percent of their endowments into a city fund for housing and economic-development projects. Five colleges that would be subject to the measure hold $3.9 billion in endowed assets. Politicians are unhappy after colleges bought $64-million worth of properties over the last 18 months, cutting the local tax base. (MassLive)
• LSU athletics dodges budget cuts: Louisiana State University considers its athletics department to be auxiliary to the university and therefore exempt from 2-percent withholdings announced from other departmental budgets. (Louisiana Illuminator)
• Author cancels appearance over trans admissions policy: Lydia Kiesling was scheduled to speak at Sweet Briar College last Thursday. But she nixed the appearance, citing a controversial new policy that students must be born as female and live as females to be admitted to the private women’s college in Virginia. Kiesling accused Sweet Briar of “pointless cruelty and exclusion,” while the institution’s president retorted that the author was engaging in self-censorship. (WSET)
• College president dies: Maurice (Morrie) Scherrens, the president of Newberry College since 2012, died at home on Sunday at the age of 76. Scherrens had been battling illness, according to the board chair for the private South Carolina college. David Harpool, a special adviser to the president who had been serving as acting president, will take over as interim. (The State)

Transitions

• Brett Welch, dean of the College of Graduate Studies and vice provost for digital learning at Lamar University, has been named provost and vice president for academic affairs.
• Shewanee Howard-Baptiste, vice provost for undergraduate affairs at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, has been named provost and vice president for academic affairs at Berea College.
• Patricia Poitevien, senior associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Brown University, has been named vice president for campus life.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find past Transitions online here.

Footnote

South Dakota’s Valley City State University was founded as a teacher’s college in 1890. So you could say it’s about the same age as everyone’s favorite bath-time toy. The rubber duck’s history can be traced back to the late 1800s, when manufacturers seized on Charles Goodyear’s process for making rubber malleable and started casting solid chew toys, according to The Strong National Museum of Play.

You may be awfully fond of this trivia. But it provides no explanation for why Valley City State students have started filling the institution’s student center with toy ducks.

For the last two years, Brie Storsved has lined the student center with ducks in a joy-spreading effort she calls “Duckmageddon.” This year she and another student deposited 4,800 ducks — though some were stuffed rather than rubber. Passersby who wanted a duck could take one.

“I’m just hoping people have a little good laugh and see that not every day needs to be a bad day,” Storsved told KFYR. “Sometimes, you just need to go forward and smile.”

Who cares if it makes any sense? She’s right. Bath time is not the only part of the day that can be lots of fun.