CounterCurrent: Week of 08/12/24
It is hard to believe that the start of the 2024-25 academic year is already upon us. Professors and students might get a small reprieve to experience summer fun, but the news cycle never rests. So, let us jump into higher education’s state of affairs as we gear up for another year.
First and foremost, Biden’s Title IX updates are—thankfully—still stalled by the courts and the actions of several state Attorneys General who are fighting back against the disastrous proposed changes. The current administration’s Title IX changes were set to go into effect on August 1, 2024, but due to the legal state of affairs, enforcement has yet to take place.
As a refresher, twenty-six states quickly sued the Department of Education in eight separate lawsuits after the Biden administration’s rule was published. There have now been a total of ten lawsuits filed by state Attorneys General and other groups, and in the six complaints where judges have issued decisions, each judge imposed a “temporary injunction on the rule.” By redefining “sex” to include same-sex orientation and “gender identity,” and bringing back the “single investigator” model of adjudication, the proposed Title IX changes throw free speech, the free exercise of religion, equal protection, and due process out of the window. National Association of Scholars’s Policy Director, Teresa Manning, explains,
But this new rule changes the entire ball game by demanding compliance not with nondiscrimination but compliance with radical sex and gender ideologies … or schools will lose millions of federal dollars. In reality, the rule rewrites not just this contractual relationship but arguably the Congressional statute itself. The court filings of Louisiana and other plaintiff states point out that, in attempting to redefine the central term 'sex,' the Department makes policy—or addresses a ‘major question’ of policy and law, which is the exclusive purview of Congress.
As SAVE wisely cautions, schools should delay implementing the Title IX rule until legal challenges are resolved.
The Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) saga continues. For the 2025-26 academic year, rising high school seniors can expect to begin filling out their FAFSA applications by December 1, 2024 at the earliest. After the FAFSA fiasco which unfolded over the last year, where delays, website bugs, and error messages prevented students and their parents from submitting their FAFSA applications in a timely manner, and colleges and universities were delayed in sending full financial aid offers, one would have hoped the Federal Student Aid Office had gotten their act together. But alas, not yet. There will be a soft launch of the FAFSA on October 1, 2024, to test for errors and bugs, but students should plan to submit their FAFSA application by December 1, 2024, whether or not that date gets pushed later. If you are a student, making a list of “financial safety schools” might be worth crafting in the event the FAFSA is delayed again—or you could pick a cheaper school and avoid student loan debt altogether, as one colleague says.
With the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas still raging, it is likely that campus protests will begin anew. This time, higher education leadership should—hopefully and fingers crossed—be prepared to decisively respond to anti-Jewish sentiment and disruptive and violent protests.
The slew of protests that plagued campuses around the nation during the spring semester and affected not only campus life, classes, and commencement ceremonies, also perpetrated anti-Semitism and uncovered cracks in leadership strength. Ahead of the fall semester, some institutions have passed policies that impose clear guardrails on protests. Like Indiana University’s “Expressive Active Policy,” which “limits protests to certain hours of day, bans light projections on buildings without approval, and requires that protesters stay 25 feet away from the entrance to university buildings.” Other institutions will undoubtedly need to follow suit with similar guidelines to maintain a semblance of order on campuses. How will administrators and leadership handle protests and anti-Semitism this time around? Time will tell.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has ended a nearly two-decade opposition to academic boycotts. Interestingly enough, the initial opposition by the AAUP in 2005 amid academic boycotts against Israeli institutions coincided with the end of the Second Intifada. The AAUP denounced the boycotts then, stating that they “strike directly at the free exchange of ideas.” Now, the AAUP says that boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.” Though the AAUP’s policy change is being made in the context of the Israel and Hamas conflict, it is “not advocating for academic boycotts, it’s not advocating for any particular form of academic boycott that’s going on now, it’s just saying that, as a tactic, it doesn’t necessarily violate academic freedom,” according to Rana Jaleel, the chair of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure at the AAUP. We will see if the AAUP holds to their neutral position over time, though the change is more likely to result in more boycotts of pro-Western academics while the coddling of our enemies will continue.
To end on a positive note, Bakersfield College in southern California has agreed to pay former tenured history professor Matthew Garrett $2.4 million dollars in a settlement with the Kern Community College District. The case of Professor Garrett began with workplace retaliation and eventually termination by school officials after he questioned "if grant money was being improperly used to fund social justice initiatives on campus.” He also faced further false allegations for asking questions at a campus diversity meeting, as a member of a free speech coalition at Bakersfield College. Garrett’s exoneration is a win for academic freedom. While this resolution will not right the wrongs perpetrated by the college's officials, it will hopefully give Garrett some reprieve from years of torment.
These headlines are by no means the exhaustive list of everything going on in the higher education news cycle. Much more has occurred and much more will surely pass. In the meantime, be sure to read our latest at nas.org and mindingthecampus.org.
Until next week.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by the NAS Staff. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
