President Donald Trump’s higher education policies have shaken universities across the nation, with impacts ranging from reduced research funding to eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The federal government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant funding at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon directed the National Center for Education Statistics to start collecting data on race, sex, GPA and test scores of college applicants and admitted students to prevent “rampant racial preferencing” in college admissions on Aug. 7. Half of Princeton’s frozen grant funding was restored in August, and all of the University of Pennsylvania’s frozen funding in July, according to the Princeton Alumni Review and CNN.
At American University, administrators announced in April the federal government had revoked some AU international students’ visas. In May, university officials renamed the Center for Diversity and Inclusion to the Center for Student Belonging. In a September Faculty Senate meeting, Deputy Provost and Dean of Faculty Monica Jackson said the university is no longer collecting race and gender data from prospective faculty hires.
AWOL is tracking the AU administration’s response to federal policies. We aim to provide the community with a means to monitor the Trump administration’s higher education policies and what the university is doing to respond, and will update the tracker as new developments unfold.
Edited by Will Sytsma, Syd Patak, Stevie Rosenfeld, Caleb Ogilvie and Kalie Walker.
