Good morning, and welcome to Monday, June 23. Katherine Mangan wrote the top of today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

The war on DEI enters the classroom

In the first few years of attempts to dismantle higher education’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, state lawmakers largely stayed out of the curriculum. That’s no longer the case, as our Katie Mangan reports.

More than a dozen states have passed laws that reach into the classroom. Conservative supporters say the new laws are needed to keep liberal professors from imposing their biases on students and pursuing activist agendas.

• Strict guardrails regulate talk of race: A sweeping bill signed into law last year by Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican of Alabama, puts faculty members at risk of being reported, investigated, and fired if their lessons swerve into “divisive concepts.” Other states have also picked up on the idea of divisive concepts, which President Trump described in a 2020 executive order as including the idea that any race, nationality, sex, or religion is inferior or superior, or that anyone is responsible for actions committed in the past by people with the same characteristics.
• Politically appointed boards gain sway over general-education curricula: Courses cut from gen-ed can be taken as electives, but enrollments typically drop. That has faculty in gender- and ethnic-studies fields worried. The sponsor of a Texas bill awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature says lawmakers have a responsibility to “ensure students graduate with degrees of value, not degrees rooted in activism and political indoctrination.”

That’s a big shift in strategy that raises First Amendment questions.

• Faculty members are joining a growing number of lawsuits, arguing that the laws interfere with free speech and academic freedom. They say the laws unconstitutionally restrict what professors can teach and students can learn, and that they’re written vaguely enough that faculty members are having to self-censor.
• Classrooms in Oklahoma have a reprieve: The Oklahoma Supreme Court decided last week that a law prohibiting certain discussions on race and sex doesn’t apply to college classrooms.

A social-work professor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, worries about teaching historical context on race that she says her students need.

• Cassandra Simon, an associate professor at the University of Alabama, says it’s unclear whether she’ll get in trouble for describing how generations of housing and employment discrimination have affected the populations her students might one day serve.
• And when she shows a PBS civil-rights documentary that in the past evoked strong feelings in both Black and white students, she worries it could violate a rule that students shouldn’t be made to feel guilt or anguish on account of their race.

Stay tuned for how faculty members and students respond to the new laws.

• Will faculty censor what they teach, or stick to their guns, come what may?
• Will students use the new offices and websites set up to monitor complaints about professors being too biased or not welcoming different views?

The bigger questions: Will lawmakers and board members feel emboldened by these new laws and President Trump’s attacks on higher education to press further into regulation of the classroom? Or will the mounting legal challenges force them to back off?

📱 Read Katie’s full story: More States Are Restricting Classroom Discussions on Race and Gender

Federal news

• Columbia activist ordered freed: A federal judge ordered that Mahmoud Khalil be released on bail on Friday, saying: “There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil.” The Trump administration can still pursue its deportation case against Khalil. The decision is the highest-profile setback to the Trump administration’s spring campaign to use the immigration system against pro-Palestinian voices. (The New York Times, The Chronicle)
• Who loses if Grad PLUS goes? Single-focus free-standing law schools and training programs for health professionals stand to lose the largest share of their revenue if Republicans follow through on language in their “Big Beautiful Bill” that would kill the 20-year-old federal student-lending program. Some graduate-level teacher-preparation and M.B.A. programs could also take a hit. Graduate-education proponents worry some students won’t enroll or will have to turn to higher-cost private loans if the lending program is eliminated, while backers of the legislation argue that the uncapped Grad PLUS program can be used like a blank check by colleges. (The Chronicle)
• Business leaders ask Trump to lay off of colleges: More than 200 leaders signed a letter released last week by the business group Leadership Now Project that argues funding cuts and student-visa restrictions are harming America’s economic competitiveness. (The Wall Street Journal)

Quick hits

• Being a Florida college president is lucrative work, if you can get it: Leaders at the University of West Florida, Florida A&M University, and New College of Florida all receive salaries that some compensation experts say are out of the normal ranges their respective institutions would pay. All of the presidents have ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican. (The Chronicle)
• Santa Ono won’t be back in Ann Arbor: The former University of Michigan president will not return after conservatives voted down his bid to lead the University of Florida, Ono and the university said on Friday. An ambiguous contract provision about voluntary resignation had left room for debate about whether Ono was entitled to a faculty role in Ann Arbor. Ono said in a statement that he has “great affection” for the University of Michigan and that he would do anything possible to support the University of Florida in the future. (The Detroit News)
• No Juneteenth celebration at U. of Minnesota: The institution said budget constraints prompted it to stop holding an event that it had hosted since 2022 outside of its Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center. (Minnesota Public Radio)

Quote of the day

“Can we match that level of enthusiasm for our core academic mission?”

— Jennifer Cramer, a linguistics professor at the University of Kentucky and president of the university’s American Association of University Professors chapter, noted the support colleges are sending to athletic departments in the wake of the recently approved $2.8-billion antitrust settlement that allows colleges to pay players.

The list of ways colleges are assisting major athletic departments just keeps growing, as The Chronicle’s Nell Gluckman reports. They include:

• Direct subsidies: In January, long before the settlement was approved, the University of Missouri announced it would give $25 million to its athletic department. Florida’s State University system just approved an emergency rule allowing institutions to route up to $22.5 million in auxiliary funds — revenue generated from the likes of dorms, dining halls, and bookstores — to athletic budgets, the Florida Phoenix reported.
• Loans: Missouri also announced a $15-million loan. The University of Kentucky plans to lend its athletic department up to $141 million in the coming years. Michigan State University’s budget has a line for a $12.1-million internal loan.
• New student charges: West Virginia University is adding a student fee of $125 per student, per semester, for athletics. Wichita State University cited the antitrust settlement when asking a state board to approve a 3.5-percent tuition increase.
• Higher ticket prices: Utah State University announced increased admissions prices for all sporting events, calling the move a “recruitment and retention fee,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
• Restructuring: The University of Kentucky is spinning off its athletic department into a separate nonprofit that will have its own monthly board meetings but report to the university’s Board of Trustees. The change is intended to juice partnerships with private companies, as well as real-estate and facilities development. The University of South Florida’s athletics department added “a new independent division” overseeing its business strategy and sales, calling it a blend of “the best of collegiate and professional athletics through an industry-leading properties division.”

The bigger picture: As the Daily Briefing has noted, private equity has also been sniffing around college-athletics investments that could, in theory, enable institutions to rake in more money over time by adding amenities to facilities. Time will tell whether these are investments fueling a sustainably growing industry or subsidies inflating a bubble that will one day pop.

For more:

• 🏈 Read Nell’s full story: Loans, Fees, and TV Money: Where Colleges Are Finding the Funds to Pay Athletes
• 📧 Tell us what you’re seeing: Has your campus communicated what its plans are in the wake of the settlement? Email Nell at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.

Transitions

• Gaspare LoDuca, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Columbia University, has been named vice president for information systems and technology and chief information officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Martin Mbugua, associate vice chancellor at New York University-Abu Dhabi, has been named senior vice president for communications and public affairs at Bowdoin College.
• James Hintz, acting associate vice chancellor for auxiliary, health, and well-being at the University of Illinois, has been named vice president for student affairs at Michigan State University.

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

Footnote

The difficulty of convincing Americans to share a ride is well established at this point. Less understood is exactly why we resist the idea.

Researchers at Clemson University have some ideas. Many ideas, in fact, because they’ve concluded that riders have varied reasons for going solo instead of choosing a “pooled rideshare,” in which a service like Uber or Lyft offers lower fares to those willing to split a car with another traveler who also happens to be booking a trip in the same direction.

Boomers might enjoy the idea of ride hailing if they’re ensured of a high-quality experience. Gen Z riders might breathe easier if told of environmental benefits.

“One finding in particular stood out,” Clemson’s news service notes. “Saving time and money wasn’t enough to convince people to share rides. While those factors mattered, the study found they came into play only after riders felt safe and trusted the service.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter how inexpensive your ride to the airport is. No one will book it if they can’t count on the car showing up.

Of course, if the car does fail to arrive on time, it might help to have split the fare with someone else who’s going to miss their flight, too. Misery loves company, after all.