Lawmakers across the country tried to enact 563 measures to restrict the teaching of “critical race theory” from 2021 to 2022, according to a new report from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law.

Of those measures aimed at limiting instructors’ ability to teach about America’s fraught racial history, 241 were adopted, and nearly half borrowed language from Donald Trump’s 2020 executive order against the teaching of “divisive concepts” in public schools.

The report also found that 91 percent of proposed anti-CRT measures, and 94 percent of enacted measures, targeted K-12 schools. Only 20 percent of proposed measures and 12 percent of those enacted targeted institutions of higher education during the same time period; those that were enacted affected just 29 institutions of higher education, compared to 226 K-12 schools.

Still, the report’s authors wrote, “while individual measures aimed at systems of higher education are less numerous than those targeting local school districts, such measures impact hundreds of thousands of college and graduate students.”

The report, part of a larger project tracking attacks on critical race theory, was undertaken by the law school’s Critical Race Studies Department, also highlights more recent data, which suggest that the barrage of anti-CRT proposals from state and local government officials is not slowing down.

“Government officials at all levels are introducing an equal or greater number of measures in 2023 as they did in 2021 or 2022,” the authors wrote.

State funding for public higher education in fiscal year 2023 increased by 6.6 percent over last year, to $112.3 billion, according to a new report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, or SHEEO. It's the second time state support for higher education has topped $100 billion.

Nearly half of the state funding went to four-year institutions, while two-year colleges received 22 percent; another 13.2 percent was allocated to financial aid, and 11.4 percent went to research, hospital expansion and medical schools.

State support rose in 38 states, and 14 reported increases of 10 percent or more, including Arizona (19.8 percent), Mississippi (26.6 percent), New Mexico (23.5 percent) and Tennessee (22.1 percent). Funding decreased in five states and Washington, D.C., and Connecticut saw the most dramatic decrease in funding—down 9.2 percent from last fiscal year.

For the past two years, SHEEO has also tracked data on the federal stimulus money that states allocated to higher education. In fiscal 2023, states allocated $1.2 billion of federal funding to higher ed, bringing the total federal stimulus money allocated to higher ed between 2020 and 2023 to $8.8 billion.

Taking these most recent data into account, state support has increased 27.5 percent nationally in the past five years, without accounting for inflation, the report noted.

The data collected in the SHEEO report represent state funds approved from October to January and may change throughout the year.

The federal government has settled a lawsuit with Hunter College and a former Hunter professor alleging fraudulent use of grant funding from the National Institutes of Health between 2010 and 2018, according to a statement the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York released Monday.

The lawsuit centered on Jeffrey Parsons-Hietikko, a former psychology professor who also led Hunter’s Center for HIV Educational Studies (CHEST), which he founded in 1996. Parsons-Hietikko, whom the attorney’s office said was “singularly proficient” at procuring NIH funding, admitted to seeking reimbursements for expenses entirely unrelated to his or CHEST’s research, including for scuba-diving excursions, international flights for him and his family, a tropical birthday celebration, and trips to visit private consulting clients. According to the statement, he falsely claimed those expenses were for academic or research purposes.

Parsons-Hietikko resigned from Hunter in 2019 after a series of sexual harassment complaints that ultimately cost the City University of New York system, of which Hunter is a part, $1.25 million in settlement money.

Hunter College also admitted to improper use of NIH funds, including submitting false timekeeping records that resulted in CHEST staff being reimbursed for unapproved work and using $90,000 in NIH money to pay Parsons-Hietikko undisclosed retention bonuses.

According to the terms of the settlement, Parsons-Hietikko will pay $375,000 and Hunter will pay $200,000.

Hundreds of students at Bethune-Cookman University gathered on campus Monday afternoon to protest what they said were unlivable conditions in dorms and facilities, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal. The unrest stemmed in part from the university’s decision not to move forward with a contract for Ed Reed, whom it had tentatively agreed to hire as head football coach last month, after he posted videos complaining about the state of the campus.

Students at B-CU, a historically Black university in Daytona Beach, Fla., said there was mold growing in dorm rooms, a lack of hot water and air-conditioning, and more—and that the B-CU administration had ignored such problems for too long. During the protests, students demanded the removal of the entire Board of Trustees and that the university rectify the facilities problems and resume contract negotiations with Reed.

B-CU reached an “agreement in principle” with Reed on Dec. 27 but never finalized the deal; he had been working on campus without a contract since. After Reed posted profanity-laden videos on social media last week complaining that the athletics facilities were in disarray and that he and members of the football team had had to pick up trash on campus, the university announced that it had “decided not to pursue contract negotiations” and was reopening the search for a new coach.

B-CU president Lawrence Drake II issued another statement Tuesday responding to the student protesters’ complaints—which he said would be addressed in meetings with university leaders—and elaborating on the decision to end negotiations with Reed.

“As we continued to observe him, we felt that his behavior was not aligned with the traditions of our founder and the university,” Drake wrote, adding that a new coach would likely be chosen in the next “week to ten days.”

Daytona Beach was also one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Ian in October, and Bethune-Cookman suffered more damage than most campuses in the state. It was closed for two weeks afterward, and cleanup efforts and reconstruction are still underway; Drake implied that this damage contributed to the dilapidated state of the campus.

“For some buildings and facilities, in light of two unprecedented weather events … and enrollment growth, we have begun renovation and construction immediately,” he wrote.