04 Culture
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While limiting strings-attached grants and curbing federal regulation, President Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education also take aim at a key tool bureaucrats use to oversee schools in all 50 states: civil rights investigations.
Probes handled by the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against public schools, colleges, and universities roughly doubled during the Biden administration, topping 20,000 last year. Investigations by hundreds of OCR lawyers and staff members – and responses to them by untold numbers of school officials and administrators – touched on everything from allegations of sexual violence and disability accommodations to website compatibility.
Defenders of the office say it has been an invaluable protector of civil rights for America’s nearly 70 million students. They say eliminating or even downsizing the office, which has already begun, would kneecap thousands of ongoing investigations while abolishing a prime instrument of justice.
“This reckless action strips students of vital resources and tears down statutorily mandated functions that are essential to addressing racial and economic inequality in education,” the ACLU declared last month. Trump, it said, has put “millions of students’ education and civil rights at risk.”
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President Donald Trump has officially urged Congress to begin the process of pulling federal taxpayer funding from left-wing media outlets NPR and PBS.
The New York Post reported Monday that Trump’s White House budget director Russ Vought drafted a memo asking GOP lawmakers to cut the funding.
The memo requests Congress to slash $1.1 billion allotted to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), as well as $8.3 billion that was allotted to USAID.
In the memo, Vought wrote:
“Since day one, the Trump Administration has targeted waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal spending through executive action, DOGE review, and other efforts by departments and agencies.
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The Trump administration acted quickly on Monday to punish Harvard University after it refused to comply with a list of demands from the federal government that the school said were unlawful.
On Monday afternoon, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements, setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university. By the evening, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard, along with a $60 million contract.
Other universities have pushed back against the administration’s interference in higher education. But Harvard’s response, which called the Trump administration’s demands illegal, marked a major shift in tone for the nation’s most influential school, which has been criticized in recent weeks for capitulating to Trump administration pressure.
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The federal government says it’s freezing more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University, after the institution said Monday it won’t comply with the Trump administration’s demands to limit activism on campus.
In a letter to Harvard Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies, and an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks — a measure that appears to target pro-Palestinian protesters — and pressure the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment.”
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Good for Ohio. Other states should look at this strategy and try to replicate it.
The Enquirer reports:
Ohio private universities could lose scholarship money if they keep DEI programs
Ohio’s sweeping higher education law, Senate Bill 1, didn’t touch private universities. But a change added to the state budget would penalize private institutions that don’t ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Under the proposed change, students couldn’t use a popular scholarship at a private university unless that institution complies with portions of the higher education overhaul and accepts the top 10% of high school graduates.
Lawmakers are using the Governor’s Merit Scholarship, awarded to Ohio high school students in the top 5% of their class, as a carrot and a stick. Private universities aren’t required to make the changes in Senate Bill 1. But those that don’t risk losing scholarship students to other universities.
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A far-left online project from the Smithsonian has disappeared, just weeks after President Donald Trump signed executive orders enforcing laws against racial discrimination. The project was previously exposed for pushing racist claims about white people.
Soon after taking office in January, Trump signed executive orders Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity and Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing. The orders banned discrimination in the name of “diversity” across the government and directed the attorney general to enforce anti-discrimination law accordingly.
Following these orders, the Smithsonian removed its main webpage on “Talking About Race” sometime between late February and early March, according to internet archives. The page now redirects to “teaching and learning” resources.
Colleges Reinstate Standardized Testing Requirements– www.dailysignal.com
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In the name of “equity,” many competitive colleges had stopped using entrance exams in their application process.
Now, the pendulum has swung: Realizing that standardized tests actually do help school officials evaluate applications, administrators at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Brown, MIT, and more have reinstated use of the SAT and ACT.
This is a good course correction and a welcome return to a time when student merit and effort mattered.
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NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — The New York Police Department charged a pro-abortion woman after she appears to have assaulted a pro-life journalist named Savannah Craven Antao and sent her to the hospital.
Law enforcement charged Brianna Rivers with second-degree assault, according to National Review. Antao engaged Rivers in conversation on April 3 in a man-on-the-street type interview. Antao’s husband was filming the conversations.
“Thank you detectives at the 28th precinct NYC!,” Antao, a journalist with Live Action, wrote on Instagram.
As previously reported by LifeSiteNews:
“You don’t understand the magnitude of having a child,” the abortion supporter told Craven Antao in video footage published by Live Action.
“I’m not the one who admitted they would be okay with killing babies in foster care and killing children that had been abused,” Craven Antao responded.
“That’s not my point,” the women replied before lunging at Craven Antao and punching her repeatedly in the face, knocking her to the ground.
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Prof believes universities are ‘independent’ and ‘beacons of academic integrity and free speech’
The latest authoritarian hyperbole out of academia comes from an Arizona State University “teaching and learning innovation” professor and dean.
In The Conversation, Iveta Silova chides President Trump’s efforts to curb antisemitism and DEI on American campuses, claiming “many” universities are “widely seen globally as beacons of academic integrity and free speech.”
Silova (pictured), “a scholar of comparative and international education,” says the president’s strategy of pressuring universities has “a few historical parallels” … which just happen to include Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR.
In the former, Silova says universities “adapted” to the Nazis’ takeover of government, and once Hitler had control he “moved swiftly to purge academic institutions of Jews and political opponents” through such means as the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.”
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A woman brazenly punched a pro-life reporter because she could not handle the truth. After video evidence and her admission, the NYPD arrested her for second-degree assault.
According to the New York Post:
Brianna J. Rivers, 30, was arrested Thursday on one count of second-degree assault for her callous beating of activist Savannah Craven Antao during a street interview on the topic of abortion last week, according to the NYPD.
“Just got word from detectives Brianna J Rivers was arrested! God is good!,” Craven Antao wrote in an Instagram post, adding in the caption,”#BlueLivesMatter #JusticeIsServed #ThankYouGod.”
The ham-fisted alleged assailant was taken into custody Thursday morning for the boorish assault that took place during a filmed interview in Harlem last Thursday.
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Legal Insurrection readers may remember my recent post on Neela Rajendra.
Rajendra once held the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Officer role at NASA’s famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is steeped in the DEI movement, having co-founded the Science of Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (SODI) and advised various organizations on DEI strategies.
The organization retained Rajendra after rebranding her position in an apparent effort to evade President Donald Trump’s executive orders regarding the ending of DEI. She managed to cling to her job, even after 900 others at JPL were terminated.
Less than a week after this evasion came to light courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon, NASA jettisoned Rajendra.
NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has parted ways with its top diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed her title in an effort to keep her.
“Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory],” lab director Laurie Leshin said in an all-staff email on Thursday. “We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best.”
Leshin added that the newly formed Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success—intended to replace the DEI team Rajendra had led—would be moved to the Office of Human Resources.
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Woke officials in Maryland called the police when a Baltimore County high school student asked why there were no American flags on display in classrooms.
Parker Jensen, a senior at Towson High School and an aspiring U.S. Marine, was suspended for seven days over the “incident.”
Jensen and his family have now filed a lawsuit over the punishment, citing what he believes to be a violation of state education policy and his constitutional rights.
The teen came under fire after he visited the Baltimore County Board of Education to inquire about the lack of patriotic flags in school classrooms.
However, Jensen’s inquiries triggered outrage from the board’s woke officials.
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… But that doesn’t mean they aren’t scared. Around 55% of leaders surveyed say they have serious concerns about lawsuits, additional government actions, and shareholder votes, forcing them to make serious changes to their programs. Costco and Apple, for example, were recently faced with proposals from anti-DEI shareholder activists, both of which were voted down.
Keeping a cool head right now is critical. Some research suggests that businesses that rapidly change viewpoints on issues customers care about could face backlash for coming off as “inauthentic.” And experts say that despite the fear created by Trump’s recent executive orders focused on eliminating DEI, if a corporate diversity program is open to everyone and compliant with existing civil rights laws, it’s perfectly legal.
“Despite the increased scrutiny, many companies seem to be taking a measured approach, rather than rushing to end or scale back IE&D efforts,” Jeanine Conley Daves, an employment attorney at Littler and member of the firm’s IE&D consulting practice, told Fortune. “It makes sense not to make extensive changes to efforts and initiatives that have helped to build a strong company culture.”
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The Senate confirmed Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent pro-life attorney, as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday
The vote marks a significant shift in the agency’s approach to civil rights enforcement under the Trump administration. The vote, which followed party lines with Republicans approving and Democrats voting no, ended with a 52-45 tally, with three senators absent.
Dhillon, nominated by President Donald Trump in December 2024, pledged during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in February to end what she described as the targeting of pro-life Christians by the DOJ. Her appointment replaces Kristen Clarke, a pro-abortion Biden-era official criticized by conservative groups for aggressively prosecuting pro-life activists under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
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Polish presidential candidate Slawomir Mentzen has been targeted for his pro-life comments defending unborn babies conceived in rape.
During a March 26 interview with journalist Krzysztof Stanowski, conservative political party New Hope leader Slawomir Mentzen declared that he is pro-life, regardless of whether the baby is conceived in rape, prompting backlash from abortion activists and pro-abortion candidates.
“We have no right to kill another person just because they upset us, are unpleasant to us, or could seriously harm our lives. We do not kill innocent people – I believe this is very important,” he said.