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Last week, Bob Jones University president Steve Pettit announced his resignation. He will leave office at the end of the academic year in May. His resignation came only a few months after the board re-elected him.
He left amid a conflict over Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. He has sent a letter to the board chair, John Lewis. In the letter, Pettit said Lewis allegedly kept information away from Pettit and obstructed a Title IX investigation.
Now Pettit has announced that Lewis will leave the board. The Greenville News reported that a press release said, “Late this afternoon, I was notified that Bob Jones University Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. John Lewis has resigned effective immediately.”
It is unclear if Pettit will rescind his decision to leave the university.
Today on the Academic Minute: Kimia Ghobadi, a John C. Malone Assistant Professor in the department of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering, explains how AI might help us become healthier. Learn more about the Academic Minute here.
Hundreds of American University students and alumni have signed a petition demanding that Narcan, a brand of naloxone, be made available at all dormitories on campus, WUSA9 News reported.
The petition follows an overdose on campus of a nonstudent, who did not die but was hospitalized.
“Narcan’s singular purpose is to reverse an opioid overdose. With the rise in accidental opioid overdoses (e.g., fentanyl in other substances like cocaine, etc.), Narcan is an excellent tool to have readily available. There are no negative consequences to using Narcan if the user is not having an opioid overdose,” said the petition.
The petition noted that other colleges have made Narcan available in dormitories. “To wait to implement Narcan at AU is unethical and deadly. Students will continue to use substances during college, and it is in the interest of their health to prepare for action,” the petition said.
An American spokesman told WUSA9, “American University is working with our community on the appropriate approach for Narcan on campus while addressing significant legal and regulatory elements under D.C. law. We support training and education for the community on Narcan use and safety. We have received the letter from our alumni and will respond to them.”
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.
Following months of closure talks related to ongoing financial issues, the Board of Trustees at Birmingham-Southern College voted unanimously Wednesday to remain open, AL.com reported.
The private Alabama college has made appeals to state and local authorities in recent months, requesting a $37.5 million lifeline, which lawmakers have not delivered, despite concerns of closure. Birmingham-Southern has also launched an effort to raise $200 million by May 2026.
The meeting on Birmingham-Southern’s fate lasted more than eight hours, according to AL.com.
Though lawmakers have suggested a public bailout for the private college is unlikely, a statement from BSC Board of Trustees chairman Reverend Keith D. Thompson indicated otherwise. He noted in a news release after the vote that the board had “made the informed and thoughtful decision to keep Birmingham-Southern open” and that the college has “been working closely with our allies in state and local government to secure bridge funding.”
BSC’s financial crisis dates back more than a decade. In 2010 it was discovered that errors in administering financial aid cost the college millions of dollars, which then prompted layoffs. The college has also struggled in other areas in the past, including significant leadership turnover. Birmingham-Southern has also struggled with falling enrollment in recent years.
San Francisco State University is investigating a professor, Maziar Behrooz, for showing an image of the prophet Muhammad in a course last fall on the history of Islam, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
FIRE has criticized Hamline University in Minnesota for not renewing the contract of an adjunct for similar reasons.
“Here, Behrooz displayed a historical image depicting the Islamic prophet in a class session on the history of the Islamic world between 500 and 1700. Behrooz even reportedly explained to administrators that the type of drawing he showed can be bought at markets near holy shrines in Tehran, where Behrooz was born. But after a student complained in the fall, the institution chose to launch an investigation in March—months later. As we told SFSU, the university cannot investigate an instructor, which implies the potential of punishment, for displaying pedagogically relevant material in their classroom, regardless of whether it offends some, many, or most students,” said a FIRE press release.
FIRE sent a letter to the university demanding that it stop investigating Behrooz.
“Even if SFSU doesn’t ultimately formally punish Behrooz, investigation of clearly constitutionally protected speech can itself violate the First Amendment. The question is not whether the university formally punishes someone for their protected speech, but instead whether the institution’s actions will chill future speech. SFSU’s investigation almost certainly will,” FIRE added.
A spokesman for the university said via email, “SF State stands by its long commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression. We are also committed to being a university where all students and employees have the right to learn and work in an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, sexual misconduct and retaliation. While we cannot comment on specific reports or investigations, we can supply some information about our nondiscrimination policy. The university has a duty to respond to all reports of discrimination, harassment, sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation, dating violence, domestic violence, stalking and retaliation. When a complaint is reported to the university, our Equity Programs and Compliance Office is obligated to assess the report and provide outreach to the complainant named in the report. An investigation is opened if, accepting the reported conduct as true, it may constitute a violation of the nondiscrimination policy. It is important to note that in making this determination, the Title IX Coordinator/DHR Administrator does not make a qualitative assessment of the reported conduct and the opening of an investigation does not mean that any decision has been made that the respondent is in any way responsible.”
Faculty members and academic support professionals began striking Thursday at another public Illinois university, after fellow faculty walked out at Chicago State University Monday.
The newly striking Eastern Illinois University chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois represents a bargaining unit of 450 employees, said Jennifer Hill, media director for the affiliated Illinois Federation of Teachers.
Members of the University Professionals of Illinois also launched the continuing Chicago State University strike, and the same union is poised to walk out at Governors State University next week.
University Professionals of Illinois president John Miller said the academic support professionals are mostly advisers. He said the walkout issues include workload and compensation, saying salary increases haven’t kept up with inflation.
“Salaries are not competitive,” Miller said.
In a statement on its website, Eastern Illinois University said it “remains committed to reaching a good-faith resolution that sensibly balances its employees’ needs with the opportunity, accessibility and quality education all EIU students and families have come to expect.”
A university spokesman said in an email that the institution is “unable to share any details surrounding its ongoing negotiations.”
Hundreds of American University students and alumni have signed a petition demanding that Narcan, a brand of naloxone, be made available at all dormitories on campus, WUSA9 News reported.
The petition follows an overdose on campus of a nonstudent, who did not die but was hospitalized.
“Narcan’s singular purpose is to reverse an opioid overdose. With the rise in accidental opioid overdoses (e.g., fentanyl in other substances like cocaine, etc.), Narcan is an excellent tool to have readily available. There are no negative consequences to using Narcan if the user is not having an opioid overdose,” said the petition.
The petition noted that other colleges have made Narcan available in dormitories. “To wait to implement Narcan at AU is unethical and deadly. Students will continue to use substances during college, and it is in the interest of their health to prepare for action,” the petition said.
An American spokesman told WUSA9, “American University is working with our community on the appropriate approach for Narcan on campus while addressing significant legal and regulatory elements under D.C. law. We support training and education for the community on Narcan use and safety. We have received the letter from our alumni and will respond to them.”
The Faculty Senate at Florida International University narrowly voted no confidence in chairwoman Deanne Butchey on Tuesday due to what members argue is a failure to push back on sweeping higher education reforms driven by Republican governor Ron DeSantis.
The vote of no confidence passed 30 to 28, The Miami Herald reported.
Faculty members who backed the measure suggested that Butchey needs to take a more aggressive approach to proposed reforms that would defund diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at state institutions; concentrate hiring power in the hands of trustees; limit institutional autonomy; eliminate majors in certain subjects focused on race and gender; and undermine tenure protections. The proposed reforms are currently advancing in the Florida Legislature.
FIU has put forth four resolutions this year taking aim at various concerns related to higher education in Florida, but faculty members believe Butchey has not adequately promoted those resolutions to FIU’s Board of Trustees. Butchey has denied that charge, arguing that she has taken a more diplomatic approach focused on private rather than public advocacy.
“I cannot demand; I have to be very respectful,” Butchey said, according to the Herald. “I’m taking calculated risks. I don’t think many understand that my way of working is catching more flies with honey.”
Butchey’s appointment as Faculty Senate chair runs through June.
The no-confidence vote comes as many university leaders in the state remain silent on the DeSantis-backed reforms. Of the 40 presidents of Florida’s public colleges and universities, none agreed to discuss the reforms with Inside Higher Ed in recent weeks, even when offered anonymity.
Syracuse University graduate student workers have successfully unionized.
Syracuse Graduate Employees United, affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, said in a news release that the vote was 728 to 36, with 90 contested ballots.
The union will represent graduate assistants, research assistants and teaching assistants paid via stipends, said Amanda Beavin, a graduate assistant. She told Inside Higher Ed that graduate employees who are paid hourly aren’t included but are “actively organizing” in what would be a different bargaining unit.
In a news release, the union said graduate workers have cited low pay, high workloads, poor health-care benefits and lack of support for international and marginalized employees.
“This win sets an important precedent for our relationship with the administration, giving us a voice in our working conditions,” said Nathan Pérez-Espitia, another graduate assistant, in the release. “Over time, I’m confident that it will make Syracuse University a better place to learn and work.”
Gretchen Ritter, Syracuse’s provost and chief academic officer, said in a statement that the union will represent 1,124 graduate students.
“We will negotiate in the spirit of partnership and respect that have been the hallmarks of our labor-management relationships to date,” Ritter wrote. “In the meantime, we remain committed to ensuring a positive, rewarding and successful experience for all our graduate students. Finally, I want to thank our graduate students, union representatives and all members of our community for engaging in a constructive and respectful union election.”
A new report from the Anti-Defamation League found that antisemitic incidents on campuses increased by 41 percent in 2022.
That is greater than the 36 percent increase in incidents in the United States over all.
Of the 219 campus incidents, 127 were incidents of harassment, 90 were incidents of vandalism and two were assaults. Some 33 percent of the campus incidents included swastikas.
“Acts of vandalism on campus included the desecration of mezuzot (small ritual items that some Jews affix to the doorframe of their homes) in residence halls, as well as antisemitic messages such as ‘Jews did 9/11,’ ‘Kanye was right,’ ‘Hitler’ and ‘Fuck Israel’ in academic and residential halls.”
The report added, “In addition to the 219 incidents that took place on college campuses, 25 incidents occurred at Hillels. Hillels are centers of campus Jewish life … Hillel-related antisemitic incidents add to an environment of fear for Jewish students on campus.”
The ADL did not count resolutions calling for a boycott of Israel as antisemitic, the report said, “because they do not target individuals. However, these are antisemitic and contribute to the pressures faced by Jews on campus.”
The Education Department is gearing up for the next round of negotiated rule making, which will touch on a variety of issues, from distance education to accreditation to cash management.
The department plans to form at least one rule-making committee, which will begin meeting in fall 2023. Before that, the agency will hear feedback on its agenda in virtual public hearings on April 11 to 13. After those hearings, the department will finalize the issues that will be addressed during negotiated rule making and request nominations for negotiators to serve on the committee.
More information on the hearings is available here.
The department is planning to hold three four-day sessions of negotiated rule making starting in early this fall, according to the notice on the Federal Register.
“The department’s primary responsibility is to serve students and help them succeed,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “That means we must continue to take a look at a range of regulations to ensure that colleges and programs serve our students well and that Department processes work in their best interest.”
A Roman Catholic professor who publicly renounced identifying as gay says Western Michigan University chose to not renew his contract after a quarter century there due to his religious views on homosexuality.
Daniel Mattson on Monday sued the university’s president, its College of Fine Arts dean, its School of Music director and a former director. His lawsuit, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, says he is a “world-class trombonist” who worked as an adjunct professor and performer for the university since 1999.
He also wrote the 2017 memoir Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Reality and Found Peace. For First Things, he wrote the 2018 article “Why Men Like Me Should Not Be Priests.”
“In the fall of 2021, campus activists discovered Mr. Mattson’s writings on Catholicism and same-sex attraction,” his lawsuit says. “They claimed that his Catholic views were offensive to homosexual students and protested his continued affiliation with the school. In short order, the school administration removed Mr. Mattson from a student-faculty ensemble, and did not renew his annual contract. Even though Mr. Mattson never expressed his religious views at Western Michigan University, he was maligned and punished solely for holding to and expressing orthodox Catholic teaching elsewhere.”
Mattson is alleging violations of his federal constitutional rights to freedom of speech, religion and equal protection. His lawsuit seeks, among other things, financial damages and his job back.
A university spokeswoman told Inside Higher Ed Thursday that “As this is a matter of pending litigation, I cannot comment on it.”
Students at West Texas A&M University held a protest Wednesday of President Walter Wendler, who wrote in an opinion piece that “drag shows are derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny, no matter the stated intent.” He also wrote that “drag shows stereotype women in cartoonlike extremes for the amusement of others.” And he canceled a drag show at West Texas A&M.
Dozens of students waved gay pride flags and held signs that included the sayings “Women for Drag,” “Drag Is Rad” and “Everybody Say Love” at the Wednesday protest, the Associated Press reported.
WT Spectrum, a student group for LGBTQ students and allies, was recruiting participants for the March 31 drag show to raise money for the Trevor Project, a group that works to prevent suicide among LGBTQ young people.
A petition in favor of the show had nearly 4,500 people signatures by Tuesday. By Thursday evening, it had nearly 10,000 signatures.
A deeply divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday resuscitated a class action that seeks to require New York University to reimburse students for tuition and fees they paid when it pivoted to remote instruction in spring 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A lower federal court had ruled that the parent of an NYU student who brought the lawsuit lacked standing to sue, and it rejected an effort to amend the original complaint to add a current student as a plaintiff, concluding that the case was unlikely to succeed on its merits. A majority of the three-judge panel supported the lower court’s view that the parent did not have standing to sue, since the parent herself did not suffer harm. But it concluded that adding a current student plaintiff would not be futile, writing that the revised complaint makes “plausible” claims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment.
“In doing so, we join three of our sister circuits that have recognized the plausibility of implied breach of contract claims brought by students seeking partial tuition reimbursements in the COVID-19 context,” the Second Circuit majority wrote.
One of the judges who joined the majority wrote separately to say that he believed the court should not have dismissed the original plaintiff’s right as a parent to sue NYU for unjust enrichment.
The third judge said the majority should not have agreed to hear the amended case, saying the current student’s claims lack merit.
Millikin University in Illinois is poised to lay off 15 employees and reduce a number of unspecified vacant positions, citing “the effects of the [coronavirus] pandemic, coupled with increased expenses, and changing demographics,” according to WAND-TV.
“The majority of the reductions will be made through a combination of open vacancies and retirements, and one-year contracts that will not be renewed. Fifteen layoffs are included, with several of those being part-time or reduced hours. All tenured and tenure-track faculty members laid-off will receive 10-month terminal contracts, and those affected by administrative and staff reductions will receive a 90-day notice to assist in planning and seeking alternative employment,” read part of a university statement to WAND-TV.
Employees affected by the layoffs will reportedly be informed by the end of this month.
Four students from Auburn University were likely drugged by a ride-share driver who offered them drinks on campus last Friday, The Miami Herald reported.
University officials released a statement Wednesday saying that the students used a local ride-share bus to take them from campus to an off-campus event. One of the students told campus security that she and three other young women became ill after consuming the mixed drinks, experiencing vomiting, numbness, confusion and memory loss.
“Giving someone a drug without their permission is considered aggravated assault and is a felony,” the university statement said. “This type of crime can occur anywhere. Watch your drink be opened or open it yourself, always keep it with you, and avoid common, open containers.”
Safety officials have not yet released the name of the ride-share service or the driver.
Houston Christian University filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the American Association of Christian Counselors and its president, Tim Clinton, alleging fraud, breach of contract and a cover-up of Clinton’s alleged plagiarism, according to the independent news site The Roys Report.
HCU, a private Baptist university, hired Clinton and AACC—a large Christian counseling service—for $5 million in 2016 to help drive enrollment and develop courses for its counseling program. Clinton was also contracted to help launch and promote a mental health center at HCU.
Now the university is seeking $1 million from Clinton and AACC, alleging that the defendants did not deliver on “the expressed scope of the contracts.” HCU claims in the lawsuit that AACC outsourced course development to a third party instead of conducting it itself, and that it delivered only one new student—far short of the 133 that had been promised.
Clinton has been accused of multiple instances of plagiarism, including lifting the work of legendary boxer and entrepreneur George Foreman, which HCU claims was not revealed. Given the importance of academic honesty, HCU argues the plagiarism should have been made clear. The allegations caused HCU to rethink naming a health center after Clinton.
AACC has filed a counterclaim, alleging it “performed all of its obligations under the agreement” and that HCU breached deals with Clinton and AACC, failing to fully compensate both parties.
In addition to his role at AACC, Clinton is also the executive director of the Liberty University Global Center for Mental Health Addiction & Recovery. The Roys Report notes that Clinton joined Liberty in 2021 while under contract for an “exclusive license and services agreement” with HCU.
Last summer, the White House mandated that any research based on federally funded studies must be made freely available to the public without an embargo. The new requirement, which updates an existing policy that allowed a 12-month embargo for making research freely available, will take effect by the end of 2025.
At the time, many open-access advocates celebrated the decision, but some scholars wondered who would fund the policy, given the high cost to researchers who publish open access.
Now, a paper published in the Journal of Science Policy and Government offers recommendations for colleges, publishers and funding agencies interested in supporting open access moving forward.
Colleges might cancel subscriptions with major publishers in favor of paying for researchers’ open-access article processing charges, according to the paper. They might also “reevaluate the weight that journal impact factor carries in the tenure and promotion review process,” given an absence of evidence correlating journal impact factor with research quality. Such a change would facilitate researchers’ incentives to publish in newer, open-access journals over “established, expensive, higher impact journals.”
Publishers should be more transparent about journal operating costs and how article processing charges are used, according to the paper. They might also offer a wider range of open-access publishing options.
Funding agencies might increase grant budgets to offset the expected higher costs of open-access publishing, according to the paper. The authors of the study described such a measure as “temporary, if expensive.” Funders could also increase their scrutiny of publication costs in researchers’ proposed budgets and “openly endorse non-profit [open-access] journals and platforms with minimal or no fees for researchers.”
The new policy presents hurdles for colleges, publishers and funding agencies, but some expect that it will benefit society.
“When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives, provide policy makers with the tools to make critical decisions, and drive more equitable outcomes across every sector of society,” Alondra Nelson, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote last August when the policy was announced. “The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research.”
Today on the Academic Minute: Britteny M. Howell, assistant professor of health sciences and director of the healthy aging research laboratory at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, explains why some of the things we need to age in a healthy way may be hard to obtain. Learn more about the Academic Minute here.
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