Colleges and Universities

I Didn’t Know I Was a First-Generation College Student Until After I Crossed the Stage

I didn’t know I was a first-generation college graduate until after I shouldered my way across the stage with my degree. Six years, three schools, multiple majors and one abortion later, I’d done what only 27.4 percent of students like me manage to do: finish. I didn’t get there because the system worked. I got there in spite of it.

Fewer than one in three first-generation students graduate in four years. Without DEI programs and support, too many are left to navigate impossible odds alone—without the guidance, resources or safety nets they deserve.

Keeping Score: Trump Threatens Students and Universities; Texas Midwife Arrested for Abortion Care; Americans Criticize Federal Worker Firings, ‘It’s Time to Fire Elon Musk’

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week: Trump pulled university funding and arrested student leaders over pro-Palestine protests; a Texas midwife faces felony charges for providing abortion care; Congress members avoid town halls after Department of Education and other federal agencies were decimated; abortion bans threaten the lives of Black mothers; and more.

A Dangerous Rollback: The Trump Administration’s Attack on Student Civil Rights

Betrayal would be the simplest way to describe the Trump administration’s open disregard for the Department of Education and its Office for Civil Rights.

A betrayal of the department’s initial mission to advance education equity, a betrayal of the vital oversight the department was built to provide, and—perhaps worst of all—a betrayal of the countless students, families, and communities who continue to entrust the department to respect and protect students’ rights and well-being.

Our collective work remains anchored in the powerful vision and strategies we’ve been building for decades. Communities across the country are simultaneously defending vital protections while implementing transformative approaches to schooling that center belonging, equity and student well-being.

Amid Right-Wing Attacks on Education, the American Association of University Professors Organizes for Academic Freedom

When the right-wing Heritage Foundation released its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise—better known as Project 2025—in 2023, its authors laid out a comprehensive framework for undercutting democratic governance. Moreover, its authors made no secret of their antipathy to both public education and trade unions, putting the National Labor Relations Act and Fair Labor Standards Act in their crosshairs. They also made it clear that they support the elimination of the Department of Labor Women’s Bureau which works to ensure workplace safety and increase opportunities for female job advancement. 

And then there’s education, pre-K through college. The Heritage authors put forward an agenda that includes broadscale book bans and curricular limitations on classes in African American, Latinx, LGBTQIA+, Feminist, Ethnic, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. In addition, they support the cancellation of the federal student loan program; the revocation of Title IX policies meant to protect students from sex-based harassment, discrimination and violence; and an end to faculty tenure.

Trump’s Detention of Pro-Palestinian Protester Marks Dark Turning Point in U.S. Jewish History

Days before Purim, the Jewish “festival of the lots,” the Trump administration arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. green card holder whose spouse is a U.S. citizen, because of his role in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protest activity at Columbia University.

This is a terrible breach of civil libertarian principles and university cultures of critique and dissent. Immigration and naturalization are being pulled back, it seems, into an early-20th-century mode in which ambiguous standards of what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable political speech become grounds for admission or deportation from the U.S.

War on Women Report: ‘Fetal Personhood’ Bill Introduced in Congress; Trump’s Antiabortion and Pro-Project 2025 Cabinet

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MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—A judge in Indiana has temporarily ruled to protect doctors from being forced to share abortion records with the government.
—Idaho became the sixth state to consider murder charges for abortion patients.
—U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson temporarily halted the Trump administration’s termination of DEI programs.

… and more.

What My All-Male Students Could Teach the President About Sex and Empathy

I teach gender studies at Wabash, an all-male college. Our elective introductory course is always waitlisted. The students, mostly from the Midwest where sex ed is virtually nonexistent in public schools, are eager to study the biology and sociology of sex.

Most of my students know nothing about sex ed when they enter my class. But too many men like them—without knowledge about chromosomal sex, hormonal sex, gonadal sex, or intersex conditions—go on to legislate human bodies, define what is “natural,” and punish doctors who professionally advise patients on the best healthcare options for their well-being.

Beyond Affirmative Action: Why Gender Bias in College Admissions Still Favors Men

The recent Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action in college admissions was heralded as a victory for “merit-based” selection. The ruling has, however, left an implicit discriminatory practice intact: Male applicants continue to be prioritized over female applicants when needed to balance out the student population. This is no coincidence. It’s the result of a deeply ingrained, albeit often unacknowledged, bias in the admissions process that dates back decades.