Introduction
For generations, Americans assumed that sending a child to college was the safest financial decision a family could make. Today, that assumption deserves far more scrutiny. For many students, college remains an excellent investment. For others, it may become the biggest financial mistake of their lives.
In <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-americas-colleges-are-far-more-fragile-than-they-appear-part-i?row=0&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;rowType=Web+Search+Overlay" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parts I</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-americas-colleges-are-far-more-fragile-than-they-appear-part-ii?row=0&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;rowType=Web+Search+Overlay" target="_blank" rel="noopener">II</a> of &#8220;Why America’s Colleges Are Far More Fragile Than They Appear,&#8221; we were descriptive, outlining the mounting financial pressures facing colleges and universities, pressures that have reshaped the economics of higher education in ways families can no longer ignore.
This article is prescriptive. Rather than diagnosing higher education’s structural problems, we want to help families make better decisions before investing tens — or even hundreds — of thousands of dollars in pursuit of a college degree. College deserves the same level of scrutiny as buying a home or starting a business. Yet many families conduct almost no financial analysis before making this six-figure investment. They focus on dreams, traditions, prestige, and acceptance letters while overlooking financial risk.
Increasingly, that is a costly mistake that could haunt them for decades.
The premise that all students are “above average” and ready for college is fiction. According to the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/bps/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Center for Education Statistics</a>, 43% of students who enter postsecondary education complete no credential after six years. Most of those dropouts — roughly 60-70% — have student loan debt when they leave. Federal student loan balances now exceed<a href="https://thecollegeinvestor.com/student-loan-debt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> $1.8 trillion</a>, or about $40,000 per borrower, not including another $40,000 on average for parents using Parent PLUS loans.
The fastest-growing cohort of student loan debtors is <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/insights/seniors-with-student-loans-15-years-of-debt/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seniors aged 60+</a> — not because so many elderly are going back to school, but because they are turning 60 while still carrying old debt, or borrowing for their younger relatives. This group has grown sixfold since 2004, and their debt has grown 19-fold.
Employers think today’s college graduates are less prepared for jobs. A <a href="https://www.luminafoundation.org/resource/aligning-education-and-work/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2026 Lumina-Gallup report</a> found that 58% of employers believe the class of 2026 is less prepared than graduates a decade ago. Another study found 75% of <a href="https://workplaceintelligence.com/college-graduate-skills-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HR managers</a> believe most college educations are not preparing people for their jobs, and 91% say onboarding recent graduates costs more because they lack readiness. The same study found that 85% of graduates themselves say they wish their college had better prepared them for the workplace.
One likely contributor is that so many of them weren’t prepared to enter college at the outset. According to a new analysis of scores from <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/act-only-1-in-5-high-school-graduates-in-2023-fully-prepared-for-college/2023/10?utm_source=perplexity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ACT college-admissions tests</a>, only one in five high schoolers in the class of 2023 graduated ready to succeed in their core introductory college classes.
Many graduates also struggle to find jobs aligned with their credentials. For years, <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:unemployment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40–45%</a> of college graduates have worked in roles that do not require a degree. Nearly <a href="https://freopp.org/whitepapers/does-college-pay-off-a-comprehensive-return-on-investment-analysis/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half of master’s degree programs</a> leave students financially worse off.
A college degree still provides value for many students — but the value of a diploma now varies widely depending on the institution, its cost, the student’s likelihood of graduating, and the chosen field of study.
Meanwhile, many institutions have expanded recruitment far beyond the traditional college‑bound population. Financial pressures have pushed schools to pursue enrollment growth aggressively, including among students who may not be academically or financially prepared for the challenges ahead. As we previously outlined, many institutions now target these groups specifically — often including underrepresented students who face greater risks.
Of course, some students attend college for reasons unrelated to economics. Wealthy families, or students seeking the educational or social experience, may not prioritize cost‑value analysis. But for everyone else — the overwhelming majority of the market — a far more critical assessment is essential. That assessment begins with this fundamental question: Does college make economic sense for me? Answering that question should involve an unbiased financial analysis.
Assessing the Odds and Risk
With the cost of a degree at a top‑tier university often exceeding $300,000, a non‑wealthy family would be unwise not to evaluate the likely economic costs and rewards. Historically, many families avoided such analysis — confident that the economic payoff would exceed the cost, or citing a student’s “passion” as justification. Few parents would buy their teenager a $300,000 Ferrari simply because he was passionate about sports cars. Yet many spend comparable sums on degrees without demanding any evidence that the investment will pay off. The financial stakes — and potential damage — are similar even at less expensive schools if the family cannot truly afford the investment.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Colleges often highlight “the college premium,” noting that graduates tend to earn more than non‑graduates. <a href="https://www.aplu.org/our-work/4-policy-and-advocacy/publicuvalues/employment-earnings/?utm_" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Schools</a>, and even the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/beyond-bls/the-college-payoff-a-look-at-income-and-wealth-premiums.htm?utm_" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal government</a>, frequently imply this is a causal relationship — a classic error of conflating correlation with causation. This is like claiming gym memberships cause longer lifespans. In reality, the correlation reflects underlying factors: higher incomes, healthier lifestyles, better diets, and lower smoking rates.
Additionally, college ROI projections often rely on one or more flawed assumptions:
Assumption #1: The student graduates. 
Only <a href="https://nscresearchcenter.org/yearly-progress-and-completion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">61%</a> of first‑time, full‑time undergraduates finish within six years. <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ987305.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Underprepared students</a> have even lower graduation rates and are a growing portion of the overall student population. Some <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2024-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202505.pdf?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">60—70%</a> of those who leave college without a degree take student loan debt with them, and they are <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/use-work/resource-library/report/statistics-brief/federal-student-loan-debt-burden-noncompleters?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five to six</a> times more likely to default on those loans than graduates.
Assumption #2: College takes four years. 
The average time to graduate is <a href="https://www.earnest.com/blog/average-time-to-earn-degree" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five to six</a> years, with only <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=569" target="_blank" rel="noopener">44%</a> finishing in four. Additional years mean more tuition, room and board, fees, and living expenses. With college inflation at 3–4%, years five and six cost 16% and 20% more than year one. ROI calculations rarely include this.
Assumption #3: The major never changes. 
Up to <a href="https://www.clrn.org/what-percentage-of-students-change-their-major/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">70% of students change their major</a> at least once, often to less rigorous and less lucrative majors — <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018434/index.asp?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">especially true between STEM and non‑STEM fields</a>, and with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775718304680?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">women disproportionately</a> making this switch. Only <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10863898/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10-15%</a> of students who begin as “pre‑med” matriculate into medical school. The earnings expectations vary greatly across these majors, making huge differences in long-term ROI projections.
Assumption #4: Opportunity costs don’t matter.
Two major opportunity costs are often overlooked:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Alternative uses of the money</li>
</ul>
Assume that a family is considering spending $35,000 per year to fund a student’s education. Alternatively, investing $35,000 per year in an S&amp;P 500 index fund for five years at a conservative 9% annual return would yield $228,000 after five years — and $1.97 million after 25 more years with no additional contributions. Might that be a better investment — especially for one of the four out of five students whom ACT identifies as unprepared for college?
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Lost earnings during college</li>
</ul>
The median annual wage for non‑college graduates is $47,500. Four or five years of earnings — and savings — must be included in any realistic ROI analysis.
Assumption #5: Wage premiums stay high. 
The wage premium for college rose sharply from the <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/wp2025-01.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1980s through the early 2000s</a>, but since the mid-2010s, <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/08/falling-college-wage-premiums-by-race-and-ethnicity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the premium has been largely flat or slightly down</a>. More recently, a number of bachelor’s programs have been projected to have <a href="https://www.universityherald.com/articles/80290/20260419/college-majors-worst-return-investment-2026-ranked.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">negative ROIs</a>.
Conclusion
Families should approach the college decision with the same discipline they would apply to any major investment: understand the risks, weigh the expected return, and make decisions based on evidence rather than emotion. Doing so will not eliminate risk, but it can greatly improve the odds that a college education, if chosen, becomes a sound investment rather than a costly mistake.
Our purpose is not to discourage students from attending college. Rather, it is to encourage informed decision-making based on evidence instead of flawed assumptions. College remains one of America’s greatest institutions when the right student chooses the right school and the right course of study at the right price. But it is not a one-size-fits-all path to prosperity, and the downside risks are far greater for some than others.
College is neither a guaranteed ticket to prosperity nor a decision that should be made on faith or passion. It is an investment. Like any investment, it should be evaluated on expected return, probability of success, and financial risk. Families who approach college with that discipline will make better decisions — and avoid turning one of life’s biggest possible opportunities into one of its biggest financial mistakes.
***
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., serves on the Board of Advisors for <a href="https://starrs.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">STARRS.US</a> and is the former president of Western Colorado University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, an M.A. from the University of Illinois, and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC.
John Kawauchi, MBA, is a former VP of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Western Colorado University and Lake Superior State University, after spending most of his career in Retirement Planning and Product Marketing in the Financial Services industry. He earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from Cornell University.

Students of human medicine in Leipzig

Why College Can Be The Biggest Financial Gamble You’ll Ever Make

College

Education

Universities

A new House proposal aims to crack down on abuses of the student visa system, including by imposing tougher penalties on administrators and institutions found responsible for visa fraud.
The “Student Visa Integrity Act,” introduced by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), would tighten visa expiration dates and require in-person interviews for visa extensions for applicants from countries considered sponsors of terrorism or that are in programs otherwise deemed high national security risks.
Under the proposal, students from state sponsors of terrorism, nations with an overstay rate of 10% or higher, or institutions that do not use E-Verify would be limited to a maximum student visa term of two years.
“Studying in the United States is a privilege, not a right,” Gill told The Daily Wire. “Unfortunately, a system intended to spread the American dream has been abused by fraudsters and bad actors. My bill restores integrity to a system that has been exploited for decades by protecting national security, enforcing immigration law, and ensuring the student visa program serves America’s interests.”
Gill’s proposal would also require educational institutions and affiliated organizations to disclose any financial links to China. In addition, the bill would set new limits on foreign students wanting to transfer between schools.
The bill also empowers the Department of Homeland Security to reject student visa applicants from “countries of concern” if the applicant could pose a future national security risk to the United States. That includes individuals seeking to work in “the energy sector of Iran” or to “participate in coursework or training relating to or otherwise engage in flight training, aviation maintenance, or flight operations.”
Under President Donald Trump, the State Department revoked roughly 100,000 visas in 2025, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-administration-revokes-more-than-100000-visas-first-year-back" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a>. The outlet noted that 8,000 of those were student visas.
According to a 2024 <a href="https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/btn/25_0605_2024-sevis-btn.pdf#:~:text=The%20total%20number%20of%20SEVIS%20records%20for,of%205.3%20percent%20from%20calendar%20year%202023." target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, just under 1.6 million individuals were “active” students in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. The report noted a 5.3% increase from 2023, with Asia as the most common “continent of origin.”
Roughly 50,000 people may have overstayed their student and exchange visa as of fiscal year 2023, a DHS <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/24_1011_CBP-Entry-Exit-Overstay-Report-FY23-Data.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> at the time revealed.

Widener Memorial Library with Huge Veritas Banners Harvard University Cambridge MA

EXCLUSIVE: GOP Proposal Targets Fraud, Security Gaps In Student Visa Program

Congress

Immigration

Visas

A new <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/12/08/us-news/f-grades-handed-to-14-colleges-in-antisemitism-report-card-as-jewish-students-forced-to-hide-identities/">report</a> by the civil rights watchdog StopAntisemitism finds that antisemitism has become widespread and deeply entrenched across American college campuses, with many Jewish students reporting fear, harassment, and inadequate institutional protection.
Based on a survey and incident data from 90 colleges, the group’s annual “report cards” show that 39% of Jewish students have concealed their identities on campus, while 62% say they have been directly blamed for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Fifty-eight percent report experiencing antisemitism personally, and nearly two-thirds feel unwelcome in parts of campus amid escalating anti-Israel protests.
Fourteen colleges received failing grades, including Columbia University, the New School, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Penn, MIT, Northwestern, and UC Berkeley. According to the report, these institutions allowed a “pervasive” and sometimes violent environment to develop, one marked by harassment, property vandalism, hateful communications, and protest disruptions. Columbia and the New School were specifically cited for federal findings of “deliberate indifference” toward Jewish students. StopAntisemitism founder Liora Rez argued that the worst-performing schools have become “ground zero” for antisemitism in higher education.
Some institutions improved. Cornell rose from an F to a C for more responsive administrative action, while Vassar increased from a D to a B. Fifteen schools earned A ratings — including Baylor, Clemson, Elon, and Colorado State — highlighted as examples of campuses that consistently enforce standards and act proactively against antisemitism.
The fallout has extended to federal intervention. In July, the Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-university-retreats-as-trump-scores-historic-220m-settlement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">administration reached a high-profile settlement </a>with Columbia, requiring the school to pay $200 million to the federal government and $20 million to Jewish employees, in exchange for lifting freezes on federal funding and ending several investigations. Columbia also agreed to eliminate race-based DEI initiatives, ensure merit-based admissions and hiring, provide compliance data, and take steps to better support Jewish students. University leadership emphasized that while they disputed wrongdoing, they recognized the need to address harmful incidents.
Harvard likewise <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-finds-harvard-discriminated-against-jewish-students-threatens-funding">faced</a> a federal civil rights finding in June. A letter from the Department of Health and Human Services concluded that Harvard violated Title VI by failing to stop discrimination, threats, and physical intimidation against Jewish and Israeli students. Investigators cited assaults, hate imagery, rule-breaking demonstrations, and lenient discipline of offenders. The administration warned Harvard could lose federal funding without swift reforms. Harvard disputed the findings but acknowledged antisemitism as a serious problem and said it was committed to improving campus safety and inclusion.
Overall, only 62% of surveyed Jewish students would recommend their schools to other Jews. StopAntisemitism urged universities nationwide to emulate the highly rated institutions by condemning antisemitism unequivocally, enforcing clear policies, and ensuring transparent investigations into hate-based incidents.

Pro-Palestinian-Student-Protests-at-Columbia-University

Almost 40% Of Jewish Students Have Hidden Their Identity On Campus: Report

antisemitism

Israel

U.S.

University of Maryland administrators told its Turning Point USA chapter that it may not be able to host a Daily Wire journalist on Wednesday, unless the chapter pays for extensive additional security.
The event, featuring Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips, is virtually identical to the classes that occur every day on college campuses — except with an affable, center-right journalist at the head of the room instead of a cantankerous leftist professor.
That The Daily Wire has exposed not one, but two University of Maryland presidents for plagiarism — including the president of its flagship College Park campus, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-copied-rocket-science-paper-from-aussie-student" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Darryll Pines</a>, whose capitulation to Hamas supporters this publication has also chronicled — suggests that the college’s motives for the security requirement may be less than honorable.
Turning Point isn&#8217;t being charged for security because its members might be unruly. It&#8217;s because the university believes that its own students will commit ideologically motivated violence — and, instead of addressing that, it&#8217;s punishing their prospective victims. The group&#8217;s founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated on a college campus six weeks ago, ending a career dedicated to facilitating ideological diversity and open debate at universities.
Maryland has taken the wrong lesson from that assassination.
Conservatives make up the majority of the voting public, as evidenced by the most recent national popular vote. If being exposed to center-right ideas is so unusual for college students that it would trigger violent rage, that&#8217;s the issue. Coming across someone like Phillips on campus shouldn&#8217;t be cause for violence. It should be just another Wednesday.
The move continues a pattern of selective commitment to free speech for Pines, who vociferously defended an anti-Israel group&#8217;s right to mark the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, then threatened to<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-copied-rocket-science-paper-from-aussie-student" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> call the police</a> on a Jewish woman for complaining about it.
Jewish parents asked Pines, who is Black, to engage in a thought experiment: would he be as supportive if the KKK were burning crosses on campus? The analogy went right over his head, and in a twist of unfathomable irony, Pines banned all events that day because of what he suggested were anti-black threats and the prospect of violence by Jews. Then he paid the school&#8217;s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which proudly says it supports &#8220;armed struggle,&#8221; a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-will-pay-100000-to-anti-israel-group-that-held-campus-rally-on-october-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> $100,000 settlement</a> when they filed suit over the cancellation.
His latest move suggests that it was a payoff to his allies, not a recognition of the need to preserve free speech.
Campus police told TPUSA that because of an &#8220;increase in threats related to Turning Point events,&#8221; police would staff the event, while TPUSA would be required to hire a security firm at its own expense to &#8220;conduct metal/weapons detection and bags checks upon entry.&#8221;
Lawyers from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) told the university that if increased security is required, &#8220;the law does not allow public institutions to shift this increased burden to the targeted group.&#8221;
“Doing so gives those most willing to engage in political violence the ability to silence or burden their opponents through the agency of the state. Raising costs on TPUSA in the wake of its leader&#8217;s assassination is a stark reminder of how literally deadly such a perverse incentive can be.&#8221;
In other words, UMD would be carrying water for terrorists.
&#8220;With the precedent UMD has set here, any student or community member could announce plans to disrupt a group&#8217;s campus event, and encourage others to do so, in the hope that UMD would respond by financially burdening the group,&#8221; FIRE wrote.
University of Maryland Associate General Counsel Christopher Lord replied with a denial that the fee was based on viewpoint. He said one of the factors the university uses to determine required security is &#8220;the history of similar events and/or of performer/speakers at other locations,&#8221; and invoked &#8220;the tragic assassination of Mr. Kirk.&#8221;
Lord also acknowledged that earlier this month, on October 7, the university bore the cost for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a &#8220;Boycott Israel fest,&#8221; as well as pro-Israel counter-protesters.
He said the university is more likely to cover costs for outdoor events due to a Fourth Circuit Court ruling deeming outdoor spaces &#8220;limited public forums.&#8221; That suggests that if the university has a commitment to free speech, it&#8217;s to the extent that a court forced it to, and that, ironically, it doesn&#8217;t apply in classrooms themselves. If a group like Turning Point wants to avoid fees, it can hold an event outdoors — like the sort at which Kirk was assassinated.
Making the situation all the more outlandish is that the Daily Wire personality at the center of this controversy, Cabot Phillips, is unaccustomed to being the center of controversy. Phillips is not an opinion commentator like Ben Shapiro or Michael Knowles; he is the genial and cheery personality at the center of news broadcasts like Morning Wire.
As Conor Clayton of the Maryland Turning Point chapter told us, Phillips is “not controversial.”
“It&#8217;s very strange that they would make this determination that there would be massive protests or threats,&#8221; Clayton said. Representatives for the University of Maryland and its parent organization didn&#8217;t respond when we asked if they could identify a single inflammatory statement by Phillips.
Given that Clayton told us that his chapter hosted another indoor event at a campus chapel, a vigil for Kirk, without being charged for security, that suggests that the Daily Wire’s involvement may be the critical wrinkle in this already sorry state of affairs.
Pines is currently under investigation for blatant plagiarism, which was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-copied-rocket-science-paper-from-aussie-student" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exposed</a> by The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak. It has been more than a year since Pines admitted <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-copied-rocket-science-paper-from-aussie-student" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;recurrent language&#8221;</a> in an academic paper after it was unearthed by what he<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-acknowledges-recurrent-language-submits-to-plagiarism-review" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> called</a> &#8220;a blogger,&#8221; and he has faced no accountability.
This month, The Daily Wire<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maryland-college-president-heidi-anderson-plagiarized-dissertation?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=8&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Another+College+President+Plagiarized+Her+Dissertation.+That%E2%80%99s+Just+The+Tip+Of+The+Iceberg." target="_blank" rel="noopener"> exposed a second president</a> of a Maryland campus, University of Maryland Eastern Shore&#8217;s Heidi Anderson, for massive plagiarism. All of this suggests a significant moral rot under the leadership of Jay Perman, the chancellor of the state&#8217;s public university system.
The security fee in question is minimal, just $150. But as Clayton lays out, that’s not the point.
&#8220;It&#8217;s really not about the monetary amount, it&#8217;s about ensuring that the university commits itself to the First Amendment,” Clayton told us. “This is a prior restraint on our free speech, because if we don&#8217;t pay this fee we can&#8217;t have the event.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s really a slap in the face. Charlie Kirk, literally all he did is talk with people and share a conservative message, and they killed him for it. The university sees that and instead of trying to encourage conservative speech, they&#8217;re doing everything they can to restrict our speech.”

Charlie Kirk and UMD President Darryll Pines

Revenge Of The Plagiarists? University Of Maryland Interferes With Turning Point USA Event

Charlie Kirk

Free Speech

Maryland

Terrorism

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday that the state is actively going after professors at public universities who push leftist ideologies over important studies.
Abbott made the comment in response to a University of Texas at Austin professor getting dismissed from an administrative post over &#8220;ideological differences,&#8221; a move that was <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2025/10/15/university-of-texas-mark-artman">reported</a> by Axios last week. In a <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1979953044977598674">post</a> on X sharing the Axios story, Abbott wrote, &#8220;Texas is targeting professors who are more focused on pushing leftist ideologies rather than preparing students to lead our nation.&#8221;
&#8220;We must end indoctrination and return to education fundamentals at all levels of education,&#8221; he added.
After being dismissed, tenured psychology professor Art Markman said on LinkedIn he’s preparing for “a new chapter” in his career. He had been at the University of Texas for 27 years, eventually becoming senior vice provost for academic affairs. Markman is also a co-host of the science podcast, &#8220;<a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/381443482/two-guys-on-your-head">Two Guys on Your Head</a>.&#8221; He did not say what &#8220;ideological differences&#8221; led to his dismissal.
The Daily Wire reached out to the University of Texas at Austin, seeking comment.
Markman&#8217;s dismissal came as the University of Texas System, which consists of 14 academic and health institutions across the state, launched a review of gender identity and LGBTQ studies, the Austin American-Statesman <a href="https://www.statesman.com/news/education/article/ut-system-audits-gender-courses-gop-targets-21075365.php">reported</a>. The probe will look into courses at all 14 of the system&#8217;s institutions.
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&#8220;The U.T. System has been reviewing courses on gender identity taught at all U.T. institutions to ensure compliance and alignment with applicable law and state and federal guidance, and to make sure any courses that are taught on U.T. campuses are aligned with the direction and priorities of the Board of Regents,&#8221; the University of Texas System said in a statement. &#8220;This review will be discussed at the November Board of Regents’ meeting.&#8221;
Pressure has ramped up on Texas universities to gut courses that include diversity, equity, inclusion, and radical gender theory as President Donald Trump takes action against schools that push leftist ideologies.
Texas A&amp;M, which is not part of the University of Texas System, has also faced controversy in recent weeks after Dr. Melissa McCoul, an English professor, was filmed in class pushing pro-LGBT talking points and telling a student who opposed her to leave a lecture. The videos showing McCoul spouting radical gender theory in a children&#8217;s literature class at the university were obtained by Republican Texas Rep. Brian Harrison and first <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-texas-am-student-booted-from-lecture-after-objecting-to-professor-pushing-radical-gender-theory">reported</a> by The Daily Wire.
Harrison then went on a crusade accusing Texas A&amp;M of leftist bias and pushed for the university&#8217;s president, Mark Welsh to step down or be fired. Welsh&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-am-president-to-resign-after-leftist-politics-infiltrated-university-childrens-lit-course">resignation</a> was announced less than two weeks later.
Harrison appears unconvinced that Texas is going far enough to address LGBT courses at public universities. The state lawmaker <a href="https://x.com/brianeharrison/status/1979965546637472043">responded</a> to Abbott&#8217;s post on Sunday, saying that the University of Texas System is still promoting &#8220;LGBTQ Studies.&#8221; The University of Texas <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/wgss/courses/">offered</a> numerous courses on LGBT topics this fall, including &#8220;Queer Eastern Europe,&#8221; &#8220;Queer Latinx Aesthetics,&#8221; and &#8220;Black Queer Art Worlds.&#8221;

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

Greg Abbott Says Texas Is ‘Targeting Professors’ Who Push Leftism

Greg Abbott

Leftism

LGBT

Politics

Texas

University of Texas

The University of Maryland has agreed to pay Palestine Legal and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) $100,000 after the university first defended, but then briefly tried to reschedule, a rally on the anniversary of Hamas&#8217;s October 7, 2023 attacks by a campus group that advocates &#8220;the right of Palestinians to carry out armed struggle.&#8221;
The public university&#8217;s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter “will spend every dollar we receive from the $100,000 penalty for banning our vigil on organizing and supporting the movement for a free Palestine,” group member Daniela Colombi said in a <a href="https://www.cair.com/press_releases/palestine-legal-cair-announce-historic-100k-settlement-from-u-of-maryland-for-unlawfully-suppressing-pro-palestinian-student-speech/">statement</a>.
&#8220;Capitulating to bad faith, anti-Palestinian pressure will cost you,&#8221; Ahmad Kaki, a CAIR attorney, added, calling it a &#8220;transparent censorship attempt&#8221;—although even as CAIR fought for the right of students to demonstrate on October 7 on free speech grounds, it tried to force the university&#8217;s medical school to <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2025/01/umd-medical-school-stands-by-israeli-surgeon-after-cair-played-role-canceling-his-talk/">cancel</a> a lecture by an Israeli surgeon.
CAIR noted that the Maryland public institution agreed to pay the anti-Israel group even as the Trump administration has extracted <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-university-retreats-as-trump-scores-historic-220m-settlement">massive</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-will-pay-6-million-to-settle-antisemitic-discrimination-complaints">payments</a> from other universities for failing to protect Jews from antisemitism on campus. 
 University president Darryll Pines had in fact gone to great lengths to allow Students for Justice in Palestine to rally on the anniversary of the terror attack — an event advertised as &#8220;honor[ing] the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-will-let-anti-israel-group-hold-oct-7-rally">150,000+ martyrs</a> who have lost their lives within the past year&#8221; — including his personally echoing the false claim that Israel had killed 150,000 people, which not even Hamas contended.
But that freedom appeared to extend only to certain groups. In an email obtained by the Daily Wire, Pines threatened to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-of-maryland-prez-said-anti-israel-protesters-could-rally-on-10-7-then-threatened-to-call-police-on-jew-for-complaining">call the police on a Jewish woman</a> if she did not stop emailing faculty and staff with complaints about antisemitism.
When Jewish critics raised that double standard by wondering how Pines, who is black, would respond if it were a KKK rally instead of an anti-Israel rally, or confederate flags instead of Palestinian ones on the campus&#8217;s central quad, the rhetorical device seemed to go over Pines&#8217; head: he took it as a literal assertion that there was actually a KKK rally planned for October 7, and suddenly his prior First Amendment concerns no longer seemed to apply. 
Patricia Perillo, the University of Maryland’s Vice President of Student Affairs, later said in an affidavit that “on August 26, 2024, an individual emailed University President Darryll J. Pines, who is Black, advising that if the University was going to permit SJP’s event to go forward, ‘then my Klan Rally with sheets and a noose are also approved.’”
Pines cancelled all events on October 7, not because of his aversion to the anti-Israel event, but because of what he suggested was anti-black racism and threats by Jewish people, requiring the cancellation of events to protect the safety of the Palestine activists, according to prior Daily Wire reporting and CAIR&#8217;s summary of the lawsuit.
&#8220;The University <a href="https://palestinelegal.org/s/Defendants-Opposition-to-Plaintiffs-Motion-for-TRO-and-PI.pdf">responded to CAIR and Palestine Legal’s lawsuit</a> by claiming that it was forced to cancel all events due to racist threats from pro-Israel individuals, who had threatened to organize a KKK rally and come to campus armed if SJP’s vigil was allowed to proceed. At the hearing, University of Maryland Police Chief David Mitchell testified that pro-Israel individuals even threatened UMD President Darryl Pines’ family and used the N-word,&#8221; CAIR said in its statement heralding the settlement.
But the postponement of all October 7 gatherings on campus was short-lived. Despite Pines&#8217; general sympathy to the group, SJP sued his university in federal court, backed by lawyers from CAIR. On October 2, U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte wrote that the Palestinian group would suffer &#8220;irreparable harm&#8221; if it could not congregate on that date to mark &#8220;what it calls Israel&#8217;s most recent &#8216;genocidal campaign,'&#8221; and ordered the event <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-judge-says-university-must-let-anti-israel-group-hold-oct-7-event">reinstated</a>.
In its statement on the settlement, CAIR cast the planned event as a &#8220;vigil&#8221; somberly mourning the deaths of people in the Israel-Hamas war, but that is not what contemporaneous documents indicate. SJP&#8217;s national headquarters had called for a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-student-group-is-calling-for-a-week-of-rage-beginning-october-7">&#8220;Week of Rage&#8221;</a> coinciding with the anniversary of the Palestinian terrorist group&#8217;s slaughter of 1,200 Israelis. 
An application for reserving campus space, filed August 1, contained only a nine-word description of the event (&#8220;One year since the genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza&#8221;), according to documents obtained under public records laws, and Jewish critics have raised questions about whether the group failed to properly comply with the university&#8217;s rules for getting events approved, which would have given Pines a mechanism for blocking the event. 
Pines dismissed complaints from Jews by claiming that the group had &#8220;condemned the horrific attack by Hamas,&#8221; but a Daily Wire review of SJP&#8217;s social media showed no such sentiment. SJP instead said on Instagram that it supports the “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C_WntvnPe2D/?img_index=5">right of Palestinians to carry out armed struggle,</a>” and “unequivocally states that the Zionist state of Israel has <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C9yDEB3PJv6/?img_index=5">no right to exist</a>.” 
Pines was so invested in defending the anti-Israel group that he resorted to academic misconduct, sending a Jewish critic what he said was original &#8220;faculty research&#8221; from Middle East scholars on campus that proved that the Palestinian flag was not objectionable. The Daily Wire found that what he called the &#8220;consensus opinion from these faculty scholars,&#8221; whom he claimed he personally consulted with, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-plagiarized-from-chatgpt-to-justify-anti-israel-oct-7-rally">actually came from ChatGPT</a>.
That misrepresentation spurred The Daily Wire to check Pines&#8217; past academic work for plagiarism, and it found that nearly one-third of a 5,000-word paper was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-copied-rocket-science-paper-from-aussie-student">copied and pasted from an Australian student</a>, who was never referenced anywhere in the paper. There was evidence that Pines (or his co-author) had not accidentally mixed up someone else&#8217;s work with their own, because the British spellings in the Australian version had — with one exception that was missed — been changed to the American versions.
Pines acknowledged &#8220;recurrent language&#8221; but denied misconduct, and the state&#8217;s university system opened a review into his academic integrity. Ten months later, the review panel has <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;rct=j&amp;opi=89978449&amp;url=https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/education/higher-education/university-of-maryland-darryll-pines-plagiarism-AHZESFHKN5HA5DLTEF32CER46E/">issued no findings</a>.
The University of Maryland did not answer The Daily Wire&#8217;s questions, but said in a statement that &#8220;the litigation in federal court has been mutually resolved through a settlement agreement with no admission of liability by the University.&#8221;
&#8220;UMD SJP is a registered University student organization in good standing which has had more than 100 events on campus since October 7, 2023, for which it consistently followed the University’s policies and procedures governing such events,&#8221; it added. &#8220;The University reiterates its support for the First Amendment and particularly making campus space available for individuals and groups of all viewpoints to share their opinions pursuant to its Guidelines for Expressive Activities and the First Amendment. The University takes very seriously its responsibilities for the safety and security of all University students and other members of its community.&#8221;
A top senator this week <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-to-long-investigate-cair-for-ties-to-terrorists">called</a> for CAIR&#8217;s tax-exempt status to be examined due to its &#8220;ties to terrorists.&#8221;

UMD Students for Justice in Palestine / Instagram

University of Maryland Will Pay Anti-Israel Group That Planned Campus Rally On October 7

Anti-Semitism

University of Maryland

It’s back-to-school season once again. And thanks to President Donald Trump, universities are back on the right track and ditching leftist dogma. 
Under the Trump administration, woke indoctrination doesn’t fly. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-university-agrees-to-trumps-demands-to-ban-masks-empower-campus-police">Columbia</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harvard-open-to-paying-500m-settlement-amid-trump-crackdown-on-campus-antisemitism">Harvard</a> — those ivory towers of elitism — got pummeled by Trump for the antisemitic and anti-American nonsense that flourished on their campuses last year. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-university-retreats-as-trump-scores-historic-220m-settlement">Columbia</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harvard-open-to-paying-500m-settlement-amid-trump-crackdown-on-campus-antisemitism">Harvard</a> both recently gave up their fights against Trump and agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle allegations of antisemitism and discrimination. And just this week, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-will-pay-6-million-to-settle-antisemitic-discrimination-complaints">UCLA</a> also agreed to settle a $6 million lawsuit brought by Jewish students, alleging that the university allowed antisemitism on its campus.
Campus antisemitism and university <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/">DEI programs</a> took a gut punch from our president, and the transgender nonsense is in retreat. Along with targeting woke Ivy League schools for their alleged discriminatory practices, Trump is also pursuing states that allow men to compete against women in high school and college sports. 
That’s right, Trump isn’t going to look the other way while male athletes like Lia Thomas jump in a pool and beat talented women. The Trump administration has already pressured <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/department-of-education-says-california-violated-title-ix-threatens-legal-action">California</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-freezes-maines-federal-funds-over-men-in-womens-sports">Maine</a>, and <a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/06/trump-administration-escalate-probe-into-minnesota-transgender-athletes-00403144">Minnesota</a> to put an end to the transgender sports insanity.
Conservatives are winning numerous battles right now, but the war over our education isn’t over. 
Even under Trump in 2025, schools and universities across the country could still try to push ideas like diversity, equity, and inclusion; white privilege; and LGBT craziness — and they’re being more sneaky about it. 
Think your school or your kid’s school is immune to leftist influence? We hope so, but don’t let your guard down. Even administrators at universities in heavily Republican states have recently bragged about how they still pursue DEI. 
Take <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-video-vanderbilt-administrator-caught-saying-dei-remains-part-of-what-we-do?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=EXCLUSIVE+VIDEO%3A+Vanderbilt+Administrator+Caught+Saying+DEI+Remains+%E2%80%98Part+Of+What+We+Do%E2%80%99">Vanderbilt University</a> and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-tennessee-department-head-boasts-of-dei-flying-under-the-radar-in-red-state?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=Exclusive&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=University+Of+Tennessee+Department+Head+Boasts+Of+DEI+Flying+Under+The+Radar+In+Red+State">University of Tennessee</a>, for example: two colleges in a red state, where employees were exposed earlier this month for admitting that DEI hasn’t really gone away — it’s just gotten a new name. 
If that’s happening in Tennessee, who knows what teachers, professors, and administrators will try to get away with in places like New York and California once the school year starts. 
Teachers, professors, and administrators are doubling down, weaving their ideologies into lesson plans and campus policies with surgical precision. But here’s the good news: parents, students, and everyday Americans are waking up. The battle lines are drawn, and we must continue the fight with vigilance and resolve. 
Speaking of standing tall against the woke onslaught, do you know any students about to head back to school? Arm them with gear that fights back against campus insanity. <a href="https://www.jeremysrazors.com/products/gen2-p5-1year-kit-1?selling_plan=3795681493?utm_campaign=back-to-school&amp;utm_content=20250730&amp;utm_source=editorial">Jeremy’s Razors Precision 5 1-Year Supply</a> delivers barber-grade blades that&#8217;ll keep them sharp for the entire academic year. The <a href="https://www.jeremysrazors.com/collections/hair-body/products/all-day-set?selling_plan=3028484309?utm_campaign=back-to-school&amp;utm_content=20250730&amp;utm_source=editorial">Hair &amp; Body Bundle</a> ensures they can wash the liberal indoctrination right off after those mandatory &#8220;diversity&#8221; seminars. For the ultimate rebellion against campus conformity, grab <a href="https://www.jeremysrazors.com/products/legendary-razor-bundle?utm_campaign=back-to-school&amp;utm_content=20250730&amp;utm_source=editorial">The Legendary Bundle</a> — because legends don&#8217;t bow to woke professors and administrators. And yes, we&#8217;ve got the <a href="https://www.jeremysrazors.com/products/womens-2gen-upgrade-1yr?selling_plan=4060971221?utm_campaign=back-to-school&amp;utm_content=20250730&amp;utm_source=editorial">Women&#8217;s Razor 1-Year Bundle</a> for the fierce ladies who refuse to let biological males steal their scholarships and championships. These aren&#8217;t just personal care products — they&#8217;re weapons in the war against collegiate cowardice.
This school year, don’t just send your kids to class — send them prepared to stand tall against the woke onslaught. The future depends on it.
<a href="https://www.jeremysrazors.com/collections/back-to-school-2025?utm_campaign=back-to-school&amp;utm_content=20250730&amp;utm_source=editorial"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-954563 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed-576x576.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/JR-Legend-P5_1Year-Back-to-school-Shop-Now-1x1-compressed.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" /></a>
Jeremy&#8217;s Razors shares common ownership with The Daily Wire.

American flag

Trump Crushes Woke Colleges, Ignites Meritocracy’s Epic Comeback

Donald Trump

Jeremy's Razors

Wokeness

The following excerpt is taken from “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Persistence-Ideological-Lie-Daniel-Mahoney/dp/1641773731">The Persistence of the Ideological Lie: The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now</a>,” by Daniel J. Mahoney (Encounter Books).
* * *
<h3>The Crisis Of The West Reconsidered</h3>
From Sydney to London to untold numbers of American college campuses, we hear incendiary cries for destroying the Jewish state, for a new Jihad or global intifada, all in the name of a purportedly noble and just “anticolonialist” struggle. Tens of thousands march in major European cities and with frenzied glee defend the indefensible. “From the river to the sea,” cry the mobs of Islamists, Palestinians, activists, and radicals, shamelessly announcing their own genocidal sympathies and intent.
The so-called crisis of the West is nothing new. In 1949, the political philosopher Leo Strauss lamented that the main currents of social science in the United States, and in the Western world more broadly, could not understand tyranny for what it was since they were blindly committed to the absurd position that “facts” had nothing to do with “values.” He added that a social science that could not speak reasonably — and forcefully — about the evil that is tyranny (especially in its modern ideological forms) was no better than a medical science that could not name and describe cancer. In the following decade, Raymond Aron and Hannah Arendt brought the full arsenal of political philosophy to bear on the “novel” form of tyranny that was totalitarianism and, in the process, mourned the indulgence of so many intellectuals toward it.
In 1964, James Burnham published a still-potent and relevant book called “The Suicide of the West,” where he took aim at Western self-hatred, romanticism about what would soon be called the Third World (some of which came to resemble “Caliban’s kingdoms,” in the striking and provocative words of Paul Johnson), and the degeneration of a once-noble and hardy liberalism into rank sentimentality, free-floating compassion, and a suicidal preference for our murderous and tyrannical enemies over our sometimes-imperfect friends and even our own country and civilization.
<div id="attachment_953015" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Persistence-Ideological-Lie-Daniel-Mahoney/dp/1641773731"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-953015" class="wp-image-953015 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-384x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Encounter Books/Studio Dixon" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-28-Jul-2025-10-13-AM-1245-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Credit: Encounter Books/Studio Dixon</div>
By 1970, the great English writer and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge wrote with eloquence and biting wit about “The Great Liberal Death Wish” in a seminal 1970 essay by that same name in Esquire. Muggeridge saw in the decayed liberal mind a perverse preference for nihilistic self-flagellation that led to the systematic “depreciating and deprecating” of “every aspect of our Western way of life.” God and all moral certitudes were dethroned even as a “Praetorian Guard of ribald students, maintained at the public expense,” were “ready at the drop of a hat to go into action, not only against their own weak-kneed bemused academic authorities, but also against any institution or organ for the maintenance of law and order still capable of functioning, especially the police.” These words could have been written in the summer of 2020 amidst the violence, mayhem, and ritualistic self-flagellation that followed the death of George Floyd, or in the hours and days after the savage Hamas assault on Israeli innocents on October 7, 2023. Muggeridge went on to opine that if and when the West falls, it will not be the result of a barbarian invasion nor the murderous enmity of Communists, fascists, and Nazis, but because of the suicidal death wish of a liberalism gone badly awry. It is hard to say that Muggeridge was wrong.
The better liberals, humane and decent people, are rightly shocked by professors, students, and activists who celebrate or apologize for the savage nihilism of Hamas or who think that these cruel ideologues and terrorists, heedless to the lives of their own people, whose deaths they relish for the propaganda value, somehow represent the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people. But what reason do we have for being surprised? English departments everywhere have given up teaching literature and humane letters and now specialize in the hate-filled jargon that defines “postcolonial” studies and discourse (more on this to come). “Intersectionality” is the order of the day — everyone who desires to be ideologically correct must unthinkingly parrot demands for CRT, gender ideology, abortion on demand, environmental extremism, sympathy and support for radical regimes and ideologies, contempt for religion and traditional morality, and a hatred of the West — above all for Israel, which is freely and ludicrously compared to apartheid South Africa and, most obscenely of all, Nazi Germany. DEI departments on most campuses enforce this new regime in a totalitarian spirit that is hardly “soft” or benign. For too long, economistic and anti-intellectual conservatives thought this had little to do with the “real world” and still proudly sent their children to utterly corrupt but still-prestigious universities and liberal-arts colleges. But as the journalist Andrew Sullivan likes to say, “We are all living on campus now.”
Political correctness has been omnipresent for many years now, but somehow former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, the quintessentially “moderate” politician, just noticed: after witnessing the temerity of the University of Pennsylvania’s response to its mob of anti-Semitic agitators, he decided he could no longer be a benefactor of the corrupt institution. He is a decent human being, and I am glad he is appalled by the fact that UPenn was incapable of truly, unequivocally condemning what Hamas so brutally did to innocents on October 7, 2023. But why precisely was he surprised? UPenn was only being itself when it shamelessly indulged the enemies of Israel — and Western civilization. This is a university that took down, as if in a parody of political correctness, a picture of William Shakespeare in its English department. It regularly encourages every manifestation of crude, ritualistic anti-Western and “anticolonial” ideology.
The institution has long hounded conservative and other independent-minded faculty (and students) for not toeing the party line. Progressive ideology requires absolute fealty to the cause. To be sure, many Arabs and Palestinians (and their Western sympathizers) casually give way to Jew-hatred. But progressives hate Israel mainly because they hate themselves and the Western world of which they are a part, though that self-loathing has quickly given way to fierce and crude anti-Jewish rhetoric and behavior. A figure long at the head of this charge, the radical intellectual and celebrated linguist Noam Chomsky, once accused Cambodian refugees of exaggerating the “excesses” of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and wrote a foreword to a book by the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. Chomsky had no real deep affinity for monstrous regimes, but he was adamantly committed, and remains committed, to the view that the United States, and the Western world more broadly, is the primary author of evil in the world. Chomsky embodies the reductio ad absurdum of self-flagellating radicalism. On the left, he is still perversely celebrated as a courageous truth teller.
Writing in “The Abolition of Man” in 1943, the Christian apologist and man of letters C. S. Lewis wondered why our contemporary “men without chests,” who had abandoned both reason and faith, who confused moral judgment with mere emotivism, and who belittled the virile virtues and the essential connections between reason and a spirited regard for liberty and civilization, were surprised by the inevitably destructive consequences of their doctrines. In words that stick to memory and that are as relevant as ever, Lewis writes:
<blockquote>In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.</blockquote>
Those false liberals who actively supported the progressivist degradation of our colleges and universities ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Those who marched with the totalitarian Marxists and Maoists of BLM (and who now predictably cheer Hamas on) in the summer of 2020 — including foolish white progressives such as Senator Mitt Romney — are complicit in the madness that has taken hold of our political culture. They are also fools, naïfs.
As the Russianist Gary Saul Morson argued in a powerful piece that appeared in The Wall Street Journal (“Dostoevsky Knew: It Can Happen Here,” October 18, 2023), those ideologues and intellectuals who justify the unjustifiable would do it to us if they had the chance. As Morson argues, the militant “anticolonialism” that is regnant today on our campuses and in bien-pensant intellectual circles is only the latest totalitarian ideology to justify the destruction of their “designated enemies.” And the soft leftists — the naïve fellow travelers — always go first. One thinks of the politically correct bourgeoisie in Saint Petersburg, as described so vividly in Solzhenitsyn’s “The Red Wheel” (March 1917), who proudly wore red and waved red flags (for two hundred years the color of the radical Left) to display their fine feelings and progressive leanings. They were the first to be condemned as class enemies and marched off to the camps in Lenin’s new totalitarian dispensation. It is high time for their American counterparts to be mugged by reality before it is too late for them — and for the rest of us.
* * *
This excerpt from “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Persistence-Ideological-Lie-Daniel-Mahoney/dp/1641773731">The Persistence of the Ideological Lie</a>” is published by permission from Encounter Books.
Daniel J. Mahoney is professor emeritus at Assumption University (where he taught from 1986 until 2021), senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and senior writer at Law and Liberty. He has written extensively on statesmanship, French political thought, the art and political thought of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, conservatism, religion and politics, and various themes in political philosophy. His 2022 book, “The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage, And Moderation” (Encounter Book was awarded the Paolucci Prize for Conservative Book of the Year by ISI in 2023.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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How The Liberal Death Wish Birthed A New Totalitarianism

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NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A Vanderbilt University administrator was caught on camera admitting that the school is actively pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion goals in violation of President Donald Trump&#8217;s executive action cracking down on colleges pushing the leftist DEI agenda.
G.L. Black, the Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, said last month that the school remains &#8220;thoughtful around DEI work&#8221; and its &#8220;focus on belonging and building communities and sustaining communities and access and resources,&#8221; according to a video obtained by The Daily Wire.
&#8220;All the things that I would say are components of DEI work are part of what we do,&#8221; Black added. &#8220;Even if we don&#8217;t label everything as DEI work.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Footage obtained by The Daily Wire shows the <a href="https://twitter.com/VanderbiltU?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VanderbiltU</a> Vice Provost for Student Affairs admitting that the university continues to push DEI, &#8220;even if we don&#8217;t label everything as DEI work.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/MZbv8enIgf">pic.twitter.com/MZbv8enIgf</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1948423032411688999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Along with being nationally recognized for its pre-law and business programs, Vanderbilt — located in Nashville, Tennessee — is also a leading medical school, <a href="https://news.vumc.org/2024/03/11/school-of-medicine-in-top-10-in-nih-funding-survey-2/#:~:text=Vanderbilt%20University%20School%20of%20Medicine,of%20the%20last%2010%20years.">receiving</a> hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Last year, Vanderbilt ranked 10th in the country in total research support from the NIH.
After taking office in January, President Trump signed multiple executive orders targeting DEI practices in the federal government and at federally funded colleges and universities. In one executive <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/">order</a>, Trump blasted DEI policies, saying they &#8220;undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.&#8221;
Vanderbilt told The Daily Wire that it remains &#8220;fully compliant with all applicable federal and state laws&#8221; and added that it is &#8220;aware of recent covert recordings by external groups on university campuses nationwide.&#8221;
&#8220;Any comments by individual employees that suggest otherwise do not reflect university policy and are being reviewed through appropriate channels,&#8221; the university said.
Vice Provost Black did not return a request to comment from The Daily Wire.
After publication of this article, Vanderbilt released a statement saying that it hired the law firm Baker Donelson, which &#8220;will be tasked with reviewing the specific circumstances related to the recordings and identifying steps the university can take to ensure all employees fully understand the university’s policies and consistently act in accordance.&#8221;
&#8220;The university will review the findings and recommendations of the report and take any appropriate follow-up actions,&#8221; the statement added. &#8220;As part of our protocol, staff involved will step back from regular responsibilities to allow the review to unfold.&#8221;
The Education Department told The Daily Wire that Vanderbilt is already under investigation &#8220;for allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs.&#8221; That <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigations-institutions-of-higher-education-0">investigation</a>, which was announced in March, also targets 44 other universities nationwide. The Education Department alleges that Vanderbilt&#8217;s PhD Project, which focuses on providing networking opportunities for PhD students, “limits eligibility based on the race of the participants.”
&#8220;We expect all academic institutions that receive taxpayer support to abide by federal law and will continue to vigorously hold violators accountable,&#8221; the Education Department added.
Another Vanderbilt employee was recently caught on camera saying that the university&#8217;s DEI agenda has remained unchanged, even if the name has changed, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/watch-dei-efforts-were-rebranded-2-red-state-colleges-skirt-trump-orders-staffers-admit">reported</a>. She said the new names for DEI help &#8220;clue people in.&#8221;
&#8220;At one point, you know, everybody, like different universities, were under investigation for their, like, DEI practices and stuff like that. So, that&#8217;s why I think the naming has changed,&#8221; said Ivie Carmouche, an academic coach at the university&#8217;s Center for Student Wellbeing.
&#8220;We&#8217;re in the Center for Student Wellbeing — like I said, we have things that clue people in and let people know that this is a safe space for everybody,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Belonging and Communities is like as close to that DEI work you can probably get. Previously, they were the Center for Social Justice and Identities.&#8221;
Yet another Vanderbilt employee was recently caught discussing the school&#8217;s DEI policies and ripping Republican Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn.
&#8220;We have this one, gosh I think she&#8217;s a representative or something like that, and I just heard that she may run for governor. And I&#8217;m going, oh God, help us,&#8221; said Janet Roberts, Vanderbilt&#8217;s Peabody Facilities Manager. &#8220;She&#8217;s ridiculous.&#8221;
&#8220;We are heavily supported by federal funding &#8230; we&#8217;re not advertising diversity and inclusion lectures,&#8221; Roberts added. &#8220;We&#8217;re flying under the radar.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨BUSTED: <a href="https://twitter.com/VanderbiltU?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VanderbiltU</a>&#39;s Janet Roberts was CAUGHT ON CAMERA disparaging Sen. Marsha Blackburn and hiding the school&#39;s DEI practices. 
&quot;God help us&#8230;[<a href="https://twitter.com/MarshaBlackburn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MarshaBlackburn</a>&#39;s] ridiculous&quot;
&quot;We are heavily supported by federal funding&#8230;[so] we&#39;re not advertising diversity and… <a href="https://t.co/CIxV6FCrwe">pic.twitter.com/CIxV6FCrwe</a>
&mdash; Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1948057680871886969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Blackburn on Wednesday wrote to Vanderbilt University Chancellor Dr. Daniel Diermeier to express her &#8220;concern regarding reports that Vanderbilt University is concealing its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs instead of fully complying with President Trump’s executive action to end wasteful DEI programs in educational institutions,&#8221; The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-blackburn-warns-tennessee-universities-against-hiding-dei-programs-behind-coded-language">reported</a>.
&#8220;Renaming woke DEI programs to circumvent compliance and public scrutiny degrades the educational experience of your students and the trust placed in institutions of higher education like Vanderbilt,&#8221; Blackburn added. &#8220;As a beneficiary of federal funding, Vanderbilt has a responsibility to align with the President’s executive order and return to a focus on providing quality education to your students. Instead of rebranding harmful, woke DEI initiatives, woke DEI initiatives, Vanderbilt should focus on the important work of research and workforce development that the institution does so well.&#8221;
Administrators at two other Tennessee universities, the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/watch-dei-efforts-were-rebranded-2-red-state-colleges-skirt-trump-orders-staffers-admit">University of Tennessee</a> and <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/07/16/belmont-university-is-hiding-illegal-aliens-on-campus-n2659728">Belmont University</a>, were recently caught on camera discussing their respective institutions&#8217; DEI goals.
This article has been updated to include an additional statement from Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Vanderbilt Administrator Caught Saying DEI Remains ‘Part Of What We Do’

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The &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill,&#8221; backed by President Donald Trump, fulfills one of Republicans&#8217; most provocative promises: to tax universities with massive endowments. The tax would help reduce the United States deficit by taxing multibillion dollar institutions of privilege as if they were hedge funds with classrooms attached — which critics say institutions like Harvard are.
The version of the bill passed by the House would institute hefty taxes on &#8220;net investment income&#8221; for universities with the largest endowments, topping out at 21% for colleges with endowments equivalent to more than $2 million per student. Colleges with endowments less than $500,000 per student wouldn&#8217;t be taxed, while those with endowments between $500,000 and $750,000 per student would be taxed 1.4%, with two other rates in between.
But the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text">language</a> is not just designed to punish colleges that Republicans say have become liberal political organizations; it is written in a way that could benefit Americans by significantly increasing the slots available at high-level universities for citizens, rather than foreigners.
The calculation of endowment per student counts only students from the United States. So, one of the ways colleges can avoid taxes is by ensuring that more of their slots go to Americans. If a college has a $1 billion endowment and 1,000 students, that works out to $1 million per student, which would fall under a 7% tax rate. But if half of those students are foreigners, the rate would actually be based on dividing $1 billion by 500 students, resulting in a $2 million figure — and a much higher tax rate.
In some ways, the massive flow of foreigners to American colleges mirrors the surge in immigrants crossing the southern border. According to <a href="https://opendoorsdata.org/annual-release/international-students/">Open Doors</a>, which tracks international scholarship, more than 1.1 million foreigners studied at American colleges in the 2023-24 school year, up 7% from the previous year. The number of foreign graduate students was at &#8220;an all-time high,&#8221; it said, at 500,000. Most of the students came from India and China, and the highest growth rate came from sub-Saharan Africa.
The group said New York University had more than 27,000 international students, while Northeastern University had 21,000 and Columbia had 20,000. According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/data/how-many-foreign-students-are-every-us-college-2025-05-22/">Reuters</a>, 42% of students at Carnegie Mellon were foreign, while the rate was 39% at Northeastern and Columbia, and 34% at NYU.
Universities say they prefer to admit foreign students because they are often wealthy people paying full tuition, and their progressive tuition model relies on charging high prices for some to subsidize financial aid for poor people.
But Republicans say that makes it more difficult for Americans to gain admittance to American schools at all, and that colleges get preferential tax treatment and significant government funding on the premise that they are educating American taxpayers.
Open Doors said that 55% of the foreign students pay for school using foreign money, typically from their family, while 41% are funded with money from the United States. In half of those cases, the money comes from the colleges, often through &#8220;federal government research grants disbursed to the student through the institution,&#8221; it said.
Republicans also say using American universities to train and conduct research by foreigners poses national security concerns. A common way that people begin residing illegally in the country is by coming on a student visa, and then never leaving when it expires. Mohammad K. Dabous of Jordan, for example, was arrested for allegedly ramming a truck through the gates of the Quantico military base after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/illegal-who-tried-to-infiltrate-quantico-was-let-into-country-to-attend-u-s-college">overstaying a student visa</a>.
Giving foreigners, instead of Americans, a significant number of slots at elite institutions also leads to the argument that we need high immigration to staff the country with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-h1-b-jobs-that-prove-the-visa-program-badly-needs-reform">doctors and engineers</a>, because there aren&#8217;t enough Americans with the necessary training.
The percentage of foreign students at some universities has become so high that instead of the American way of life rubbing off on a few visitors, antisemitism and third-world blood feuds have become a part of a dominant culture. Columbia, with its sizable international population, was at the epicenter of anti-Israel and anti-Western unrest, with Muslim immigrants radicalizing privileged Western leftists.
The &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill,&#8221; which awaits passage by the Senate, would also overhaul how student loans are administered, forcing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-how-the-big-beautiful-bill-sticks-it-to-universities-that-churn-out-unemployed-debtors">colleges to eat the costs of bad bets when students can&#8217;t pay their loans</a>—in turn putting pressure on colleges to lower tuition, admit only qualified students, and deemphasize useless majors.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/george-washington-university-antisemitism-lawsuit">U.S. Diplomat Training Ground Let Antisemites Take Over Its Faculty, Lawsuit Says</a>

Pro Palestine Columbia students continue occupation of campus

How The Big Beautiful Bill Would Push Colleges To Educate Americans, Not Foreigners

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The “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” backed by President Donald Trump and awaiting passage in the Senate, would revolutionize how colleges distribute student loans, disincentivizing schools from saddling students with debt for degrees that don’t lead to employment.
The move would not just provoke left-wing colleges that have been a thorn in Republicans’ side, but also provide a practical, good-governance change that could save taxpayers billions and prevent people from being saddled with student loan payments they can&#8217;t afford.
Under the bill, colleges will have “skin in the game,” meaning if they churn out dropouts or graduates with a particular major who can&#8217;t afford to pay their student loans, the college will have to eat those costs. That makes it in their interest to discourage people from going into debt for programs in useless or low-quality fields, admitting students who are unlikely to be able to complete a useful program, or charging such high tuition that the increase in earnings isn&#8217;t worth it.
Colleges will no longer be able to admit an endless stream of people who take $150,000 in student loans for a gender studies degree when half of them default on their loans and stick taxpayers with the bill. Schools will have to reimburse the federal government for missed loan payments based on the percentage in a “program of study,” meaning a major within a particular school, who drop out or don’t see increased earnings based on the degree.
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A “value-added earnings” amount is calculated for graduates of each program based on their median salary four years after completing an undergraduate or doctoral degree, or two years after an associate’s or master’s degree. It looks at how much higher that salary is than 150% of the poverty level for those with undergraduate degrees, or 300% of the poverty level for people with graduate credentials. The number is further adjusted based on the cost-of-living in the metro area of the university, even though graduates may not be working in that region.
How much money schools have to repay is based on the relationship between total tuition cost and value-added earnings. Divide the median value-add by median cost of attendance. That&#8217;s the percentage of missed principal and interest payments that taxpayers will eat. Colleges must reimburse the government for the rest.
Let’s say a class of students spends four years earning degrees in critical race theory, with tuition of $50,000 a year, totaling of $200,000. Four years after that, at 26 years old, they are making a median of $30,000 in their jobs. The poverty level is $15,650, so college graduates should be expected to make more than 150% of that, or $23,475. That means the CRT program has value-added earnings of $6,525. Divide that by the cost of attendance, and you get 3%. When those graduates failed to make loan repayments, the colleges would have to eat 97% of the revenue that would otherwise be lost by taxpayers.
Left-wing colleges have also put taxpayers and impoverished young people at risk by lowering admissions standards — often in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion — to the point where huge portions of those admitted aren&#8217;t capable of college-level work and wind up dropping out. Then, they default on their loans since they incur costs but do not earn a degree.
The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text">Big Beautiful Bill</a> would force colleges to own the results of their admissions decisions, with a separate reimbursement rate for missed student loan payments by people who dropped out of a given academic program. Colleges would have to reimburse the government for dropouts&#8217; missed loan repayments based on the percentage of community college students who didn&#8217;t graduate in six years, and other students who didn&#8217;t complete the program within 150% of its expected time.
Let&#8217;s say a disreputable college is admitting people with abysmal math SAT scores, and using them as cash cows to pay reams of administrators and faculty who claim they&#8217;re making math majors out of them. All of the students are impoverished and pay tuition using student loans, and six years later, only half of them actually graduated. The other half defaulted on their student loans, missing a combined million dollars in payments per year. The school would have to reimburse the federal government for half of that amount, or $500,000.
The bill&#8217;s education provisions are aimed not just at mitigating taxpayers&#8217; losses, but correcting the root cause: colleges should not admit people who are likely to drop out, and they should not encourage people to take on debt to major in things like art history. If they do offer majors that don&#8217;t lead to gainful employment, they can protect their bottom line by making sure tuition is low, making it easier to hit the required ratio.
The rates are calculated only based on people who take student loans, so if people really want to major in dance, knowing that most of them won&#8217;t make money, they can do so if they pay using private sources of funding. Colleges are also empowered to protect themselves the same way banks do when making an investment they know is risky, by limiting the amount of student loans people can use for particular majors.
The bill also stops students from taking out huge amounts of student loans. That comes after President Joe Biden waived billions of dollars in loan repayments, even though a court told him he didn’t have the authority. Democrats pushed the initiative by highlighting the sob stories of people who had hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, and whose lives have been ruined as a result.
Republicans say the best policy solution is making sure people never get in that situation to begin with. The bill caps lifetime federal student loans to $200,000, plus $50,000 in federal loans in a parent&#8217;s name. That will provide a strong disincentive for colleges to raise tuition, because they would lose out on many prospective customers if they do.
It also prevents the president from using executive orders or regulations that “would result in an increase in a subsidy cost.” Typically, when Democrats have tried to make college more affordable by subsidizing more of the cost, colleges simply raise tuition by that amount and pocket the proceeds.
&#8220;Colleges should have a stake in their students’ success and be responsible for reimbursing taxpayers for a portion of their losses if students don’t see financial value from enrolling in an institution and can’t repay,&#8221; Republicans on the House Committee on Education and Workforce said.
&#8220;Students, families, and the federal government pay tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands of dollars in tuition while many degrees offer students no additional value but leave graduates with debt. Too many are left worse off than if they never enrolled in the first place.&#8221;

Here’s How The Big Beautiful Bill Sticks It To Universities That Churn Out Unemployed Debtors

Student Loans

A university known for training American diplomats let an anti-Israel activist group operate out of its international affairs school, leading to rampant antisemitism on a campus where more than one in four students is Jewish, a lawsuit said.
Jewish students in May sued George Washington University in federal court for violating the Civil Rights Act and breach of contract, giving 180 pages of examples of shocking antisemitism on campus. The school allegedly refused to hold perpetrators accountable, misled Congress about it, and treated Jews differently from other minorities.
George Washington traded academic inquiry for activism when, in 2019, its Elliot School of International Affairs agreed to <a href="https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/middle-east-studies-association-moves-gw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">house</a> the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), an activist group dedicated to boycotting Israel, the lawsuit said. That led to an explosion of activist professors and one-sided events at the school’s Washington, D.C., campus near the State Department, it said.
The suit comes amid efforts by the federal government designed to crack down on antisemitism and conduct detrimental to national security at American universities. “Because GWU accepts taxpayer money, it has a legal obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ensure that students of every race, color, and national origin enjoy their academic studies free from a hostile environment,” the suit <a href="https://www.holtzmanvogel.com/uploads/ECF-001-52225-Soffer-v-GWU-Complaint.pdf">said</a>.
MESA “developed and disseminated programming deliberately designed to incite anti-Zionist hostility within the GWU community,&#8221; the lawsuit reads. &#8220;These activities were billed as legitimate academic inquiry, but they systematically suppressed intellectual diversity and ensured that students were not exposed to any pro-Israel perspectives or a full, accurate account of Jewish history,&#8221; it added.
George Washington purportedly <a href="https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-studies-association-expelled-from-64631" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cut ties</a> with MESA in late 2023. But by then, its staff had blended with the Elliot School of International Affairs’ Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES), which hosted “unrelenting anti-Zionist and antisemitic events in the wake of the October 7th terror attacks.”
IMES faculty included William Youmans, associate professor of Media and Public Affairs and the Director of the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, who was a founding leader of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and publicly defended Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 terror attack, the suit said.
It also included Ilana Feldman, a professor of Anthropology, History, and International Affairs, who was on MESA’s board and who tried to get an anthropology group to boycott Israel. Feldman “negotiated with the GWU Administration on behalf of” anti-Israel protesters who took over campus. She also led a panel where a MESA member said that recognizing that Israel is genocidal is a “litmus test to even be affiliated with Palestine study.”
Youmans and Feldman did not reply to requests for comment.
IMES partnered with the Middle East Research &amp; Information Project, a group that described “the U.S. and Israel’s war machine on one side and the ‘Resistance Axis’ and popular anti-normalization movements on the other,” referring to Iran and U.S.-designated terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, the suit said.
After Hamas&#8217; October 7, 2023, terror attack, IMES hosted a series of talks and refused proposals for pro-Israel academics to take part, betraying the idea that it is an academic group founded on open inquiry, the suit said.
“Every IMES event surrounding Israel has been, and remains, explicitly hostile toward Israel,” the suit said.
A week after the terror attacks, it hosted a panel about “Palestinian resistance groups,” using euphemism for Hamas despite it being designated a terrorist organization by the same State Department for which many George Washington grads will go on to work.
“During the panel discussion, IMES faculty members Ilana Feldman, Michael Barnett, and Arie Dubnov; MESA members Shay Hazkani and Laila El-Haddad; and IMES invitee Yousef Munayyer, all justified the October 7th attacks by Hamas, which included murders, rapes, and abductions, as legitimate acts of resistance in response to a foreign colonial regime,” the suit said.
The school began using students’ tuition to pay academics to try to convince Jews to betray their own religion, with IMES organizing events such as “The Colonizing Self” and screening the film “Israelism,” about two young Jews who discover that “the Jewish institutions that raised them not only lied, but built their Jewish identity around that lie.” Students were given extra credit to attend a screening of the film.
At an IMES event, MESA president Asli Bali claimed Jews had “ultra loyalty to a national imagined identity and participation in an imagined community.”
<h2>Campus-wide.</h2>
Antisemitism among George Washington faculty soon spread beyond IMES, the suit said.
“For instance, the GWU American Studies department sent a department-wide email to its students mobilizing them toward an anti-Israel ‘Freedom Seder’ that likened the Warsaw Ghetto uprising to Palestine Liberation efforts, specifically the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.”
George Washington&#8217;s Political Science Department gave an award to student Vidya Muthupillai, who “was featured on the website wearing a Keffiyeh, and whose bio publicly stated her intent to pursue a legal career as a ‘movement lawyer to protect and defend anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, decarceral, and all communities fighting for liberation.’”
Its History Department’s social media account said of anti-Israel protesters, “History will absolve this movement and justice will prevail!” More than 100 George Washington faculty members signed a letter supporting anti-Israel students who unlawfully created an encampment in the campus square.
Psychology professor Lara Sheehi taught a mandatory diversity class where she assigned reading that referred to Jews as white supremacists, the suit said. She said it was not possible to be a good psychologist and a Zionist, called Israelis “genocidal f—ks,” and told a student, “It’s not your fault you were born in Israel,” <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.280890/gov.uscourts.dcd.280890.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the suit</a> said.
Jewish students complained, but MESA defended Sheehi and faulted the students who complained, it said. An investigation commissioned by the school cleared Sheehi and instead resulted in discipline against the complainants, it said, until the Department of Education ordered it to undo that discipline.
Sheehi has since left George Washington to teach in Qatar, the nation that harbors the leadership of Hamas, the lawsuit indicated.
“Through the present day, entire GWU academic departments continue to sponsor and invite their students to anti-Israel events that distort Jewish history,” it said.
As recently as last month, a professor brought in a lesbian feminist guest lecturer who was Jewish to lecture on an unrelated topic, and a student took over the class and demanded that the lecturer denounce Zionism — with the professor siding with the student and apologizing for inviting a Jewish academic, the suit said.
<div id="attachment_925819" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925819" class="wp-image-925819 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2151295867-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />The statue of George Washington at the university that bears his name , May 6, 2024. (Photo by Allison Bailey / Middle East Images via AFP)</div>
<h2>&#8220;Hamas is me. Hamas is you.&#8221;</h2>
The suit also seeks accountability for George Washington administrators’ timidity in enforcing laws and rules after anti-Israel protesters took over central areas of campus for weeks.
On October 24, 2023, the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter projected “glory to our martyrs” on a library named after a Jew. The school suspended the SJP chapter, over the objections of MESA’s president, but it didn’t suspend its leaders, and they immediately began operating a different group with the same name.
Hundreds took over the central quad of campus for two weeks in April 2024, drawing borders that said “No Zionists” and “Settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone.” So-called marshals identified Jewish students and forced them to leave, the suit said. The protesters did not seek to ascertain the political beliefs of these Jews, targeting them based solely on their religion, it said.
One of the first speakers was Osama Abuirshaid, the head of American Muslims for Palestine, who “has written articles for the website of Hamas’ military wing,” the suit said.
Protesters defaced the university’s statue of George Washington, and as Dean of Students Colette Coleman watched passively, one described that their goal was to weaken America, saying “when you destroy Zionism you really weaken the White House…Hamas is me. Hamas is you,” the suit said.
When a Jewish mother and father were visiting their child on campus, 40 protesters surrounded them and chanted “Zionists get out,” with one protester attempting to strike the mother, the suit said.
The group held noisy protests during finals week in violation of campus rules, but university administrators “capitulated” to protesters.
“A protest leader called out over a microphone: ‘Unless Dean Colette Coleman is here to meet our demands, get the f&#8211;k out of our liberation zone.’ She acquiesced and left,” the suit said.
At one point, students unfurled a seven-story-high Palestinian flag on a campus building. George Washington did not suspend the students responsible, but only put two on probation.
The protest later moved to outside of a residence hall, and Jewish students who had just finished taking exams were unable to return home “with nowhere to go and no one to protect them,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said professors “openly encouraged these perpetrators by forgoing important class time to laud or even attend the protests,” with onetime IMES director Youmans saying “students enact what we teach” and professor Imani Cheers saying “liberation movements start with the young.”
“The faculty’s encouragement and indoctrination of students fueled the animus that led to the encampment on GWU’s campus,” with twenty to thirty faculty and staff linking arms to protect the protesters, the suit said.
<div id="attachment_925821" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925821" class="wp-image-925821 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2150145969-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Students broke through the barricades set up around their Gaza solidarity encampment by the university administration. (Photo by Allison Bailey / Middle East Images via AFP)</div>
<h2>Double standards.</h2>
Students ruthlessly targeted incoming university President Ellen Granberg, leading the school to cancel her July 2023 inauguration ceremony due to “safety risk,” and holding it virtually instead.
Granberg directed Jews to avoid the main campus square instead of ensuring their safe passage, the lawsuit said, despite laws requiring federally-funded schools to take steps to end harassment and hostile environments.
“The irony here, of course, is that when students begged President Granberg to ensure their safety while on campus, she declined and instead instructed the students themselves to stay away from the threats permeating the University. When President Granberg herself became the subject of potential criticism or harassment, she capitulated to the very students promoting hostility—rather than holding them accountable for their threats and disruptive conduct,” the suit said.
When Granberg and other administrators ventured near the encampment, they were protected by a squad of police officers. Still, Granberg said the university didn’t have the resources to bring the protesters to heel, the lawsuit said. If it “lacked the resources to maintain order, GWU should have tapped a tiny fraction of its $2.5 billion endowment and hired officers and security,” it said.
Granberg claimed that George Washington could take no action against anti-Jewish protesters unless it was something that “the FBI would arrest someone for,” despite protests routinely violating D.C. law and university rules.
But George Washington took swift action in 2019 against microaggressions deemed insensitive to black students, including suspending all sorority activities after one sorority member made an off-color joke about a plantation. One professor was driven off campus after he requested permission from students to read a historic text with the n-word, even though he did not say the word.
The university suspended only a single student despite months of antisemitic unrest, according to the lawsuit.
“GWU’s double standard (punishing hate directed toward all groups except Jewish and Israeli students) underscores the legal and moral violation,” the suit said. “It promptly investigates discrimination against minorities other than Jews and Israelis, and then metes out serious discipline to offenders.”
The only advocates for Jews at George Washington have been congressional Republicans. The suit said the university gave Congress false information about its response to antisemitism.
For example, on November 15, 2023, shortly after Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack, a student threw a rock at a truck that said “JewBelong,” shattering its glass. George Washington found the student responsible, but did not suspend or expel him. It falsely told Congress the truck was a “doxing truck,” the suit said.
A Jewish student studying Arabic and Hebrew Language and Culture said on October 7, other students, including SJP President Lance Lokas, “stared, laughed, and pointed at her in a taunting fashion in front of the professor, who said and did nothing.” Lokas later allegedly spat at the student, who filed a report against him but was told by GW administrators that they would not pursue discipline, the suit said. GW falsely told Congress the case was closed because it was a case of mistaken identity, the suit said.
A George Washington spokesman said in a statement that “We take the concerns of the students who filed the lawsuit extremely seriously. We condemn antisemitism in the strongest terms and have taken, and continue to take, robust action to support our Jewish and Israeli students and community.”

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U.S. Diplomat Training Ground Let Antisemites Take Over Its Faculty, Lawsuit Says

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