AAUP Presents

Public Life on the Line

• The AAUP • Season 5 • Episode 4

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This  is the second episode  of the limited series AAUP Presents: Academic Freedom on the Line. Our guest Dr. Stephanie Hall is a leading expert on college accountability and the for-profit higher education industry. Her research and advocacy in these areas have been instrumental for federal and state legislation, congressional oversight, and federal agency action. We ask her what the Department of Education is for, why the right perceives it as a threat, and how the right uses “polarizing” language to obfuscate its attacks on civil rights. 

CDAF host Vineeta Singh is joined for this episode by  Hall and Barrett Taylor. Dr Hall began her more than 20-year career in education as a middle and high school teacher in Atlanta and then Brazil. She has spent the past decade focused on policy issues including the governance of education policy and institutions, teacher education policy, undergraduate pathways, and workforce development, most recently as the senior director for higher education policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP). Prior to CAP, Dr. Hall worked with the Century Foundation and the University System of Maryland office of Academic and Student Affairs. Barrett Taylor is professor and coordinator of the higher education program at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on the relationship between universities and their environments, with particular attention to state politics and policy, the organization of academic work, and institutional inequality. 

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Academic Freedom on the Line Episode 2: Public Life on the Line

Stephanie: [00:00:00] Regardless of what the agency's called, where it lives, the functions that the Department of Ed currently does are so important for students to be able to access K 12 schooling on a fair, you know, equal ground. We've got all those protections for students with special needs or learning disabilities.

You know, the Department of Ed is there to make sure that things are a certain baseline of fair for those students. But then for college students, the department facilitates access. Through funding, either Pell grants for the lowest income folks, or student loans for everyone else who can't afford to pay out of pocket.

I think we need to be thinking creatively about how the government serves us and what would that look like if we let our imagination actually do its thing and we weren't constrained by. Funding coming from Congress, you know? But if we weren't constrained by that, what would that agency do and how would it serve students?[00:01:00] 

Mariah: Welcome to AAUP. Presents a podcast by the American Association of University Professors. I'm the host, Mariah Quinn. Today I'll be turning the show over to Vineeta Singh, a fellow in the center for the defense of Academic Freedom, who is hosting A A UP presents special series Academic Freedom on the line in episode two of the series, public Life on the Line.

 Vineeta and her guests will discuss what the Department of Education is for, why the right perceives it as a threat, and how the right uses polarizing language to mask its attacks on civil rights. Here's Vineeta.

Vineeta: Today we're joined by Dr. Stephanie Hall, a leading expert on college accountability and the for-profit higher education industry. I. Her research and advocacy in these areas have been instrumental for federal and state legislation, congressional oversight, and Federal Agency Action. Dr. Hall has spent the past decade focused on [00:02:00] policy issues including the governance of education policy and institutions teacher education policy, undergraduate pathways and workforce development.

Most recently as a senior director for higher education policy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to cap, Dr. Hall worked with the Century Foundation and the university system of Maryland Office of Academic and Student Affairs. Helping me interview Dr. Hall is my fellow CDAF fellow Barrett Taylor.

Dr. Taylor is professor and coordinator of the Higher Education Program and the University of North Texas. His research focuses on the relationships between universities and their environments with particular attention to state politics and policy, the organization of academic work and institutional inequality.

Be able to tell from those short bios. This episode is all about the implication of higher education and governance in the United States. 

 It is worth [00:03:00] noting that we've recorded this episode last month 

Soon after we recorded. The Department of Education experienced massive layoffs, amounting to 50% of the workforce. More recently, an executive order has directed the transfer of the Department of Education's responsibilities to state and local authorities.

We asked Dr. Hall for an update and here's what she shared. Trump issued an executive order with the stated intention of modifying the public service loan forgiveness program to exclude borrowers associated with organizations involved in what the administration deems are illegal activities.

The Trump administration also limited the number of repayment plans available to borrowers. Plans are also supposedly underway to move the student loan portfolio. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration, this has student borrower advocates worried given the size of the student loan [00:04:00] portfolio and the small business administration's own workforce reductions if they haven't already.

Dr. Hall strongly advises student loan borrowers to immediately download or take screenshots of documentation related to their accounts. And to make plans to vigilantly monitor their balance and record of payments, Dr. Hall will be on stage at A-S-U-G-S-V next month discussing and debating the oversight of higher education.

You can find a link to this event in our show notes. 

I will start with posing a really broad question about the relationship between universities and democracy. Stephanie. Uh, you said very eloquently that, you know, attacks on academic freedom aren't just attacks on education. They're not just attacks on higher education, they're [00:05:00] attacks on public life. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean when you say that?

Stephanie: I think it's something that a lot of us in the public are waking up to over the past week or so with the frozen funds from various orders. Mm-hmm. The threats to federal research grants that could have major implications for universities just staying open. Um, and then people realizing, well, what was actually happening in those research grants?

Mm-hmm. Like what were people studying? I think people are realizing that what goes on at universities does impact. Our day-to-day life. Like it can impact safety, it can impact what we understand about the climate or what we are doing to the environment with, you know, development. It has so many ramifications for daily life, safety, health, and I think helping the public understand that seems really important.

Unfortunately, I think we, we missed that chance and, and we've [00:06:00] lost sight of that and I think that's why. One of the reasons we're in the position we're in now, but I don't think it's, you know. A foregone, colu conclusion. I think it can be addressed. Just reminding folks that universities are part of a community.

Mm-hmm. And they're also part of a broader society. And what do they do at those two levels and how do they impact day-to-day life, um, and what we understand about the world and making it clear that that connection is important, whether you went to that university or not. Mm-hmm. Like the existence of the institution.

Does benefit you even if you never go, even if you never set foot on the campus or you don't send your kids there. There's those social returns that are really hard to capture, but they are there and I think we're probably going to feel the loss of some of those in the next few years.

Vineeta: And why have we not been able to communicate that more effectively,over the last few years, but also just over the last [00:07:00] 40 years, right? Um, why are we so bad at this? Aren't we supposed to be writers and communicators and educators? Why can't we do this? 

Barrett: Um, one reason that that prevented us from telling our story is that we were focused on.

Improving the experiences and, and outcomes and the sort of consumer, you know, pass through the journey of, of individuals. And that's important. We should do that, right? I'm not opposed to that kind of thing. But what that also means is when we don't frame higher education as, as a public good, as a common good, as something that benefits communities.

Then as our, our political life has become more acrimonious and as partisan politics have become entrenched, right, I think it becomes easier to think about, well, I want higher education to be. For me and people who vote like me, and I'm not as worried about whether higher education is provided for, for other folks.

I want higher ed to include ideas that I like and that I'm comfortable with and not ideas that, that make me [00:08:00] uncomfortable. And I think that sets up a world where, where higher ed's understood not as a, a public benefit for communities. And democracy and society not as a private benefit for individuals and employers and, and industries, but as a partisan benefit.

Right. And that leads, I think, to directly to these conversations and attempts to undermine and redefine what a college or university is and who and how it should, uh, be providing services. 

Stephanie: I love that framing and want to pick on it a little bit if we can. The is, is the post neoliberal postliberal institution what we're headed towards, or do you think we were, we are already there.

Barrett: Uh, well, it's a, it is a great question. I, I think yes to both, right? I think in my judgment there, there are legacies and relics of the old liberal public good kind of order that are still operational, right? Uh, that, that still matter. there are certainly legacies of the [00:09:00] neoliberal order that are still operational and still matter, and in fact, those things often facilitate the transition to a more, more postliberal model of governance, right?

So if you are following things going on in the states. And some of the, uh, attacks on curriculum and general education at which courses can be counted and things like that. It's often framed as a return on investment thing That's neoliberal logic, right? And that's something that a lot of, uh, sort of neo classically inclined economists have been trying to bring to higher education accountability for years.

But it's often being applied. Now, not with a neoliberal goal of improving efficiency and private returns, but with a postliberal goal of getting rid of programs we don't like. Getting rid of practices that we don't like and replacing them with something else. So I think it's happening right now. I think enough has already happened that.

At least to my way of thinking, higher education is really different than it was a decade ago. [00:10:00] Right. The con, the policy consensus is really different than it was a decade ago, but I also don't think it stopped, I don't think we've reached a, a destination yet. 

Stephanie: Yeah. The logic of the neoliberal way of managing an institution, that accountability stuff.

Is so convenient for anyone with nefarious purposes in, in how they want to use an institution or limit access to it. Um, and I've been highly, highly aware of it and con and cautious, you know, as I've, I've focused a lot of my own work on college accountability of. You know, wanting to put in systems and accountability structures that make sense for students and truly protect them, but not accidentally walking us down the road of, yeah, killing off programs because they don't serve a corporate interest, which I think is the direction we're headed.

I'm very concerned about the ROI conversation and the ROI framing and the dangerous directions that could lead us. Even though like, I [00:11:00] think it's important to recognize the folks. Doing that work and pushing it. I, I don't think they have bad intentions necessarily. I think they really just have a way of thinking about a return on an investment is X, Y, or Z.

But I think we have to be really careful about what that means, uh, for if that return doesn't exist and, and what are we doing? What, what are we saying about things that don't have that exact type of return. Um, and so just going back to like. Faculty and the way universities publicly message what they do and for whom they looking at this heightened push to make sure universities are preparing students for the job market.

That has been such a narrow focus on ex like job skills that are very tangible, very easy to name, and that you will see very easily listed in job listing. And when we've framed it that way, I think what we've done is like just kind of thrown the humanities under the bus, [00:12:00] even though you and I know that, you know, you can read a job description and see exactly where the humanities course would've trained you for the thing that you're reading in that description.

But we haven't made that clear. To the public, like it's the age old, probably very American cultural issue of proving to students and people why this thing that you're doing is important either for your life or for your families or your communities. 

Vineeta: I. And we get these narrow rubrics from the employers.

And the university's job then becomes to put our students into those molds instead of asking our students to think about different futures and the ones that the, the employers are imagining for them. What kind of world do I actually want to live in? What do I want my contribution to society to be?

Right. Um, speaking of students, um, Stephanie, I, I do wanna talk a little bit about, I know. You recently had that wonderful piece in Teen Vogue where you were talking about what will happen to your student loans if Trump closes the Department of Education, [00:13:00] and it really was. I mean, a way of talking about the Department of Education to young people, to students that I've, 

Stephanie: I don't think I've ever seen 

Vineeta: before.

Right. 

Stephanie: Yeah. And that is something that I know has been on the minds of, of everyone trying to respond to the executive orders and different, um. Sets of guidance coming from different agencies over the past few weeks, regardless of what the agency's called, where it lives. The functions that the Department of Ed currently does are so important for students to be able to access K 12 schooling on a fair, you know, equal ground.

We've got all those protections for students with special needs or learning disabilities. You know, the Department of Ed is there to make sure that things are a certain baseline of fair. For those students, but then for college students, like they, the department facilitates access through funding, you know?

Mm-hmm. For better or worse, we still make people pay user fees to attend schools, and [00:14:00] they come by way of a voucher through the Department of Ed. Either Pell Grants for the lowest income folks, or student loans for everyone else who can't afford to pay out of pocket. So, yeah, I think it's, you've got me thinking about students thinking more creatively about what, what would they do if they actually had leeway or freedom to think creatively about what they wanna do, rather than some rubric from a potential employer.

Um, I think we need to be thinking creatively about. How the government serves us and what would that look like if we let our imagination actually do its thing. And we weren't constrained by funding coming from Congress, you know? But if we weren't constrained by that, what would that agency do and how would it serve students?

I think there's a lot of beautiful ways to answer that, and so it then makes it a thing that I think is worth defending. The other thing I mentioned in that Teen Vogue piece, uh, I was very focused on student loan borrowers, but there's also, you know, an entire civil rights arm of the [00:15:00] department. And the staffing levels of that office have just been cut and cut and cut over the years and when they haven't been cut, it has been a cut by, it's a defacto cut because the number of complaints and things that they are reviewing and processing has increased, um, so dramatically compared to their capacity.

So I think you know the importance of that office in making sure that schools have fair and equitable. Learning environments, they really provide, like they don't just review complaints, but they also work with the institutions to get them into compliance. Mm-hmm. And that is, that's the best case scenario.

That's what we want. We, we don't want it so that a student has to leave a school because the school is failing to protect its student's civil rights. We need the school to be supported in creating that environment where no one is experiencing discrimination. 

Vineeta: In hearing that response, I realized perhaps a better way to frame the question of why does the Department of Education matter, is actually to [00:16:00] think about why do they want to get rid of the Department of Education?

Right. 

Stephanie: Yeah. I can tell you my read on it is exactly, you know, the civil rights functions. I am reading the executive orders and the, the guidance that the department put out last Friday as clear attacks on civil rights, on children's and students' civil rights. If you want to go after civil rights, then you go after the places where those rights are being investigated and protected.

Um, and if you look at the history of that agency, you know, it was set up. Post Brown V Board by President Carter, and we have a real focus on students with disabilities not being given equal access or an equal playing field to participate in school. And that federal oversight to make sure that happens with a little bit of federal money, uh, as a, you know, as an incentive was life changing for a whole lot of students.

Vineeta: I really appreciate that. You framed this as a question of civil rights. [00:17:00] One thing that the executive orders repeatedly do when they're talking about DEI. It feels like a Leigh of hand to not talk about civil rights, which is the actual thing that's under attack and being dismantled, 

Stephanie: right? Yeah. I think this administration's hostility to quote DEI, what they call DEI, seems to be based on presumptions of inferiority of women and other minoritized groups.

I mean, it's literally a dog whistle. I, if we go back and look at the executive order from January 21st, mm-hmm. If I read it correctly, it does not apply to academic programs or, um, classroom teaching. The executive order and the Dear Colleague letter itself, if I'm reading them correctly, also state that DEI is not inherently illegal.

Like everything they've done is just so full of all of these contradictions that it, it makes it seem very obvious that that dear colleague letter is saber rattling. Like they're just trying to scare institutions into complying with something [00:18:00] vague. Uh, so that they can maybe stay off the radar of a hostile administration.

So it was really, really heartened to see. I know some institutions have, uh, their own, you know, internal counsel looking at it. And, uh, I have heard whisperings from different, uh, large institutions who are very, um, res responsibly, not. Reacting to it immediately, and instead giving guidance to their own institutions about what their legal read of it is, what is and is not legal in this environment, and what they could or could not face, uh, depending on the actions they take.

I, I, I think that's good that what we have is institutions analyzing this rather than just jumping to like obey in advance a CE the American Council on Education, this is, this is the higher ed lobby. Like they even came out pretty firm last week at, at, uh, they had a huge event. Where Ted Mitchell talked openly about, um, do not comply with this yet, this does not look like something you need to be acting on.[00:19:00] 

Mm-hmm. 

Stephanie: Um, and certainly not complying before we have details. So I will say I'm pleasantly surprised to see institutions and their lobbyists come out. Um, I think that is the right reaction right now and the right response instead of advice to give to folks, I think it's really gonna come down to individual institutions.

Holding the line, knowing the actual ins and outs of federal funding being held over your head could potentially take the temperature down a bit too. So hopefully, you know, institutional leaders are in conversation about that and they know that this isn't. In theory, this isn't something the institution has the power to do.

They can't just look at your website and say, oh, you mentioned inclusion. We're cutting off all your Title four funds. That is not how it works, and schools should operate with that knowledge. Um, the ER case I've been looking into, so this is supposedly about [00:20:00] state autonomy, and it came about in response to a Biden era.

Revision of section 5 0 4 under the Individuals with Disabilities Act and they, Biden administration was clarifying that gender dysphoria. Can and should be qualified as a disability under section 5 0 4. Section 5 0 4 is just the, the, the place in federal law where we basically say, you should be given, you should be giving accommodations to people who need them so that they can equitably and fairly participate in a learning environment or in a workplace or in a housing environment.

So these are things like access to medical care at school, or extended test time on the use of assisted technology. Like those things are section 5 0 4 accommodations. The lawsuit is an attack on that rule with including gender, gender dysphoria. Right. Which, um. You know, whether folks think of it as a disability or not.

It is in the DSM. And the idea behind here, I believe, is [00:21:00] if students need accommodations or medical care during school mm-hmm. For anything related to that, that they have access to it. Uh, the plaintiffs in this case though, have gone even further, and this is the part that I, I don't think enough people are aware of.

They are claiming that the entirety of section 5 0 4 is unconstitutional. Although they started with the problem, well, we please don't include gender dysphoria in section 5 0 4. Now they're saying, let's throw out all of section 5 0 4. So they're quite literally trying to throw children and students and adults with disabilities completely to the wayside, just to wow.

Uh, erase trans children, uh, not let them live with dignity in a school, school environment. So it remains to be seen what the ruling will be. I don't really have any predictions matter which way they decide on section 5 0 4 in its entirety. I think it could have huge ramifications for folks with disabilities just trying to live in society.

'cause even if. This doesn't impact the way schools operate. This is just another [00:22:00] instance of like an attack on trans rights being a vehicle for a, a bigger attempt at rolling back civil rights protections. 

Vineeta: Okay, so this is, I think where my questions about,  good leadership, but also, uh, shared governance, institutional autonomy really come into right.

When I think about something like Section 5 0 4 going away, my, as an employee, my first thought is that it's very possible that the people that I work for are not only going to. Do some anticipatory compliance. I could see malicious and opportunistic compliance. That's really scary. This is not a question that's really scary.

You're correct.

Barrett: It's unclear to me that that's a response that meets the moment, right? Mm-hmm. I understand that almost every college and university in the country, not the ones that get the most attention, but almost all of us. [00:23:00] Do face real budgetary constraints, right? We do have rising costs, right? We have variable revenues.

I understand the need to have a, a, a system for strategizing and responding to those things. I think where, and this hearkens back to a point that Stephanie made earlier, where we get into trouble is when we think that if we can just manage our finances a little better. Then these political attacks will stop.

Then the partisan politicians will re entrust us with autonomy and self-governance, and they'll, we'll be back in charge of the curriculum. We'll be back in charge of administrative practices again, and that, I think there's no evidence to support that, right? Because it's an in commensurate response. The political attack on higher education is fundamentally about core values, who we think we should serve, and how we think we should serve them.

It's about our mission, our goals, and our purpose. That's what marks the end of one sort of governance, settlement and the emergence of a new one, saying, we're doing the thing from the old way of o of business [00:24:00] that you don't want us to do anymore, but we're doing it really efficiently now. Doesn't actually.

Stop the political attacks, but it does weaken our on-campus human capacity. It re weakens our trust. It weakens the bonds of community that hold us together that might allow us to actually form a response to these attacks that we're facing. 

Stephanie: Yeah, I think that's right. It's a self perpetuating problem that I don't think you can dig out of once you're in it, like anytime something has been privatized, there's.

It, it is very difficult to re-grant it to the public, you know? Um, without that strong leadership, there's no managing your way out of, out of political interference from folks who are hell bent on taking control of the institution because of the power that, that it represents. 

Vineeta: Yeah, and I think we've also had a lot of time at a lot of different types of institutions for the return on investment model that we've sold to students also become a core [00:25:00] value of leadership, right?

I think a lot of the leaders in position now have really internalized that framework for understanding the value of higher education. I think about how, you know, in the nineties when we conceded that diversity is good because it gives universities a market advantage, right? Like you should be allowed to have diverse student bodies because that makes your.

School like that increases the value of the goods and services that your school is offering at, at that point, we let go of the principal, right? That actually diversity is a higher good than the market, right? That was an opportunity for us to stake that claim and we didn't. We let that go and like the market isn't going 

Stephanie: to, uh, save us.

You can either be defeatist and say, we aren't coming back from this, or it could be a call to action. To, to really, I need, I think folks need to dig their heels in. They need to be sure not to comply in advance. I think really [00:26:00] importantly, even just on the institutional level, the administration is talking with faculty, like making it clear to the faculty that they are supported to continue teaching in the way they've always been teaching.

If, if they are in fact supported to do that. So making that clear so that we don't have, even at the individual level, a lot of uneven over compliance. And to your point, Vineeta malicious compliance. I think there probably are some folks who are excited about the. The, you know, the idea of using this opportunity to, to hoard their own resources and opportunities.

Barrett: It's a classic higher ed governance problem, right? Where you have multiple sort of constituents making multiple demands and, and folks, understandably, I get it, when you're not sure of where the line is mm-hmm. And you're in institutional leadership, you're reluctant to draw that line because when you draw the line, you as the institutional leadership are taking responsibility for saying, I think this is where the line is.

But when leaders don't draw that line, they. Outsource all the risk onto the people who make up the community. [00:27:00] Right, Stephanie? Right. And that is a real missed opportunity. 

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely.

Vineeta: Stephanie, you've already started sharing with us a little bit about what we could and should be doing right now. I wonder if I could just. I put that question to you more explicitly. What should we be paying attention to right now? What should we be doubling down on right now? 

Stephanie: Yeah. Um, well, first it's hard to pay attention to everything because there is so much.

So, um, I'm really grateful for actually the work of the center. Uh, I think I saw this week or last week, you're, y'all are fully tracking, um, developments and orders. I mean, right. Knowing that some groups are doing that and others are tracking these other things like that. Um, as that has come together over the past week or so, that has been a bit of a relief.

So that. We don't all have to be reading every executive order or [00:28:00] every piece of guidance, but I think it is important to be aware, like we, a lot of the attacks are coming concurrent and parallel, but very much related, coordinated attacks. I. Moving through courts like this Texas Becerra case, and those folks leading those charges are the same people with the same goals.

So keeping an eye on things that you think are obscure. 

Mm-hmm. 

Stephanie: Uh, like a random case about some language in disability law, you might think it doesn't apply to you, but it does. This is actually, you know, a lot of these things are just like Trojan horses being wheeled in to fully take down. The entire structure of our civil rights protections, and you asked me what we should be doing.

I do think that the faculty, you know, if we're thinking just about campuses right now, um, I think faculty, students and alumni all have an interest here. I think they all stand to be impacted. And so activating those folks, getting them involved, showing your [00:29:00] colleagues and your peers and your students, how these things impact them.

When they didn't know that to begin with, I think is, is also smart strategically because I do think one of the biggest pieces of defense we have here, or that we need to build in order to have stronger defense in the future is, you know, building up the ability of the faculty to weigh in on changes like this, especially when there are curricular or they have to do with student life.

Really, really getting, getting higher numbers involved in the actual governance of the institution. Even when that governance is coming down from the federal government. I think that's the call to action right now. 

Vineeta: I really hear you. Kind of returning to the earlier point around the importance of communication coming from faculty, students, alumni, stakeholders who have direct access to the benefits of higher education that aren't necessarily contained in that return on investment model.

Would it be putting words in your mouth to [00:30:00] say that? There's also something around expertise that we need to claim instead 

Stephanie: of being afraid of. If you mean about higher ed generally and about our institutions, or even about the concept of higher ed. I, I do think so. There the perception issue that we have here, that distancing of college.

From everyday middle class life how that had kind of set us up to to see the campus or the institution as something that is completely different and on a different level and operates in a different universe. Than everybody else who's working. Um, I think we do need to, to break that down.

It's institutional knowledge that hasn't been passed down to younger faculty. I think even passing that down 

 Would be  helpful. I think the labor struggles in higher ed taking back ownership of 

Stephanie: This industry that you are an expert in. And should therefore have something to say about how it's run should be your right.

Actually it is an [00:31:00] actual common sense governance issue. 

Vineeta: I love that. Um, Alana Gerran talks about, you know, academic freedom is a worker's, right? Right. All workers should have intellectual freedom in their workplace, and that's just what it looks like for this particular industry. 

Stephanie: That's right. I love that.

Vineeta: Yay. Um, I think one thing that I've thought about a couple of times during this conversation is how, for example, Stephanie, when you were talking about the Board of Education mattering, not just as what it has been, but. Also what it can make possible. Right. Um, at C daf we talk about academic freedom, not just as a set of like rights that individuals hold, but as a condition of possibility for things that haven't been thought yet.

Right. And I see that a lot in this conversation too, that a lot of the things that we are fighting to protect our conditions of possibility for other [00:32:00] things that we want to make room for. Okay. 

Stephanie: I mean, that's what they're foreclosing on. Like, right. If you, you tell us we can't talk about certain things in class, then that's something we won't be talking about about our future.

Vineeta: Thank you to Dr. Stephanie Hall and bear Taylor for this conversation. In the show notes for today's episode, you'll find the Dear Colleague letter, an overview of the Texas v Besera case, a C DAF fact sheet on the Antisemitism Executive order, and two publications by Dr. Stephanie Hall, including what will happen to your student loans if Trump closes the Department of Education.

I am Vineeta Singh, and this has been Academic Freedom on the Line, a special series of AAUP presents.