Ryan Quinn

The War on Student Speech Following disruptive pro-Palestinian protests in spring 2024, the federal government, state lawmakers and college officials have imposed sweeping restrictions on student speech, resulting in a wave of...

I finally got time this weekend to read Josh Moody's great story on the war against student free speech (including student journalism). You should read it, too:
www.insidehighered.com/news/student...

OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash

OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/t...

Iran Says Dozens Killed in Strike on School

Awful
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/w...

The moment many of us in #edresearch have been waiting for...

Reimagining the Institute of Education Sciences has been released.

ies.ed.gov/ies/2026/02/...

UNC Board OKs Definition of What Academic Freedom Is—and Isn’t The university system dropped proposed language saying teaching “clearly unrelated to the course description” wouldn’t be protected. The AAUP remained opposed.

UNC Board OKs Definition of What Academic Freedom Is, and Isn’t
www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

ED’s DEI Guidance Is Dead, but Trump’s Crackdown Isn’t Diversity advocates say the courts have been clear—Trump has no justification to ban DEI. But other legal experts say the administration has plenty of other tools it can use to accomplish the same goa...

The Dear Colleague letter, a key tool in Trump’s attack on DEI, had been blocked for months. Then, ED dropped its appeal, killing the policy for good.

Some DEI advocates declared it a “major win,” but other legal experts say the war is far from over.

www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Senior Correspondent, Politics WIRED is where a better future is imagined. For three decades, we have been the indispensable guide to a world in constant transformation. We cover humanity’s biggest challenges, from climate change t...

Journalism job alert: @wired.com is hiring an experienced politics writer. I might be biased, but WIRED is doing some of the best political coverage out there. This is your chance to join our amazing newsroom! condenast.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CondeC...

NSF Plans to Boost Staffing, Halve Grant Solicitations Following last year’s cuts, the chief management officer of the federal research funding agency says its number of employees is “too low.”

NSF Plans to Boost Staffing, Halve Grant Solicitations
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Iowa House passes tuition freeze, continuing education, anti-DEI bills • Iowa Capital Dispatch Iowa House lawmakers debated freezing tuition, restricting the Iowa Tuition Grant program and more Tuesday afternoon.

Some of the Iowa higher ed legislation has now passed the House, per Capital Dispatch:

Iowa House passes tuition freeze, continuing education, anti-DEI bills iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/02/24/i...

DOJ Sues UC, Alleging 'Hostile Work Environment' for Jews The Justice Department sued the University of California system Tuesday, alleging it has tolerated antisemitism to such an extent that it's created a hostile work environment for Jewish and Israeli em...

DOJ Sues UC System, Alleging ‘Hostile Work Environment’ for Jews at UCLA
www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

ED Partners With State Dept. to Track College Foreign Funds The partnership is part of a broader effort to dismantle the federal education agency.

The Education Dept. said State will “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats.”
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

ED Partners With State Dept. to Track College Foreign Funds The partnership is part of a broader effort to dismantle the federal education agency.

ED Partnering With State Dept. to Track Universities’ Foreign Funding
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

But it's also true to call them low-earning relative to other degrees... the story gets into the debate about whether earnings are the best measure of value.

Why do you say that?

Indiana Bill Would Use Federal Earnings Test to End Programs Congress’s new earnings test will stop students from receiving federal aid for some programs. A Hoosier State bill goes further, putting those degrees on the chopping block.

U.S. Plans to Stop Funding Low-Earning Degrees. Indiana May Just End Them.
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Every day I wake up and deal with people romanticizing the early 2000s and making me feel old

Juicy on the ass

Someone a decade+ younger than I asked me if I saw the Matrix in theaters and how cool that must have been

After Research, Tennessee Lawmaker Drops Bill to End Tenure Tennessee’s House Higher Ed Subcommittee chair has withdrawn his bill to end tenure in public universities after saying he “stumbled into a little bit of the history” and “got a little deeper than I t...

After Researching Tenure’s History, Tennessee Lawmaker Drops Bill to End It
www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

NIH Director Will Be Acting CDC Chief; O’Neill to Head NSF The National Institutes of Health director will become acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and President Trump will nominate the CDC’s former acting director to lead the...

NIH Director Will Be Acting CDC Chief; O’Neill to Be Nominated NSF Director
www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

An image of Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger speaking next to an image of former governor Glenn Youngkin speaking.

Richard Bland College Board Removed

Virginia lawmakers rejected seven lingering board picks from former governor Glenn Youngkin, effectively removing the entire Richard Bland College Board of Visitors. https://bit.ly/468i4A4

#EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments The FDA has taken down a webpage warning about therapies and products making “false claims” of treating autism. It’s part of a series of actions the agency has taken under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy ...

NEW: The FDA has removed a webpage warning about dangerous therapies claiming to treat autism. It’s part of a series of actions the agency has taken under RFK Jr. to discredit long-established science.

By @megomatz.bsky.social

Kansas May Cut Millions From Colleges With “DEI” in Gen Ed The budget bill would also freeze tuition revenue, allow institutions to fire tenured faculty faster and develop plans to eliminate a tenth of positions and expenses from universities’ leadership offi...

Kansas May Withhold Millions From Universities With ‘DEI-CRT’ in Gen Ed
www.insidehighered.com/news/diversi...

Germany and England are both top 5 contributors here, and if you add "UK" to England it's almost as much as China.

Judge Orders U.S. to Facilitate Return of College Student Who Was Deported in Error

Judge Orders U.S. to Facilitate Return of College Student Who Was Deported in Error www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/u...

The thing about Casablanca being the greatest film of all time is people don't believe you and then they watch it

More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

When the Supreme Court allowed immigration agents to consider race during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned because agents will “promptly let the individual go.”

For these Americans, that wasn’t true.

(Published Oct. 2025)

Virginia Tech Bans University-Funded Affinity Graduations Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has banned university-funded, "identity-based Graduation Achievement Ceremonies," the institution announced on its website. The Virginian-Pilot repo...

Virginia Tech Bans University-Funded Identity-Based Graduations
www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

FAMU Says Censoring the Word “Black” Was a Mistake Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a historically Black institution, said it mistakenly objected to its Black Law Students Association using the word “Black” in Black History Month fliers...

FAMU Says Censoring the Word ‘Black’ Was a Mistake
www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

Old tweet from @shelfcomedy: me: god, why must you give me your hardest battles god: i don't. you are my weakest soldier and these battles are so easy. it's an email why are you crying

The morning so far

NIH Avoided Cuts, but Lacks Permanent Leaders in Top Posts After Trump administration terminations and other departures, the federal research funding agency has acting directors leading more than half of its 27 institutes and centers.

NIH Avoided Funding Cuts. But It Lacks Permanent Leaders in Top Posts.
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Hi I'm an @insidehighered.com reporter writing about advisory council and director vacancies at NIH. I'm wondering if you can tell me a bit about this issue. Could you please email me today at ryan.quinn@insidehighered.com to set up an interview, even if off record? Deadline 4 pm Eastern