What is Open Educational Resources (OER)? UNESCO defines OERs as “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” The Education Commission of the States provides a quick overview of OER, and a deceptively named A Brief History of Open Educational Resources delivers more in-depth coverage. Although the topic gained popularity since 2002 when UNESCO fi ..read more

Over the last few years, threats to college students who are not citizens of the United States (U.S.) has been typically focused on students who have made it here without going through the “proper” legal channels. However, undocumented students have long been threatened. In 1975, Texas revised its education laws to withhold funding from schools that enrolled undocumented children. This revision was found to violate the Fourteenth Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Plyler v. Doe decision in 1982. Unfortunately, that decision did not extend to college students. However, ov ..read more

On June 15, 2020 in Bostock v. Clayton County (n.d.), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does offer protection to gay, lesbian, and transgender workers. On its face, the decision may appear to have little to say about sorority membership. However, the potential expansion of protections based on gender identity, rather than being limited to biological sex, may signal an important shift in the legal landscape. In a 2017 report from the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), the umbrella organization for twenty-six women’s greek groups, offered findings from a ..read more

On June 18, 2020, The Washington Post reported that the United States Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s two year effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This was a major feat for DACA recipients for the reason that this policy provides a sense of security from deportation and employment eligibility, in particular, for many undocumented college students. Although, undocumented college students benefit from the DACA program, they continue to encounter challenges with policies at the Federal, State and institutional lev ..read more

On March 27, 2020, the United States Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Securty (CARES) Act, a $2 trillion economic relief bill designed to help many sectors of the economy survive during the shuttering of the American economy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately $14 billion of these funds were earmarked for postsecondary institutions, termed the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). This allocation recognized the financial strain of responding safely to COVID-19 for postsecondary institutions, such as refunding housing p ..read more

The world of international higher education is normally a changing canvas but throw a worldwide pandemic on top of it and you have a mosaic of concerns. Internationalization has been interrupted on many U.S. campuses in the form of study abroad program cancellations and international students needing to consider returning home and forfeiting internships or Optional Practical Training opportunities. While this crisis has caused many shifts in thinking (and stress), it also promotes a whole new range of opportunities for higher education leaders.  Regulatory Changes The execu ..read more

One year ago, in a piece titled “Federal Laws Banning Familial Donations to Universities Gut the Heart of Giving,” I wrote about how the Varsity Blues admission scandal had prompted many administrators and legislators to take a closer look at donor giving at higher education institutions. While the initial bill prompting this analysis, the College Admissions Fairness Act, was introduced and then quickly referred to the Committee on Finance, many other legislators began the process of introducing their own bills to expose donor and institutional misconduct. In October 2019, the State of Ca ..read more

Following the tragedies of campus shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, Okis University in 2012, Santa Monica College in 2013, Umpqua Community College in 2015, and UCLA in 2016, Texas A&M University in 2020, and many more in between, threat assessment law enforcement officials called for an increase in campus security and secured the role of police on college campuses throughout the nation. However, following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the increased exposure of police violence against people o ..read more

On July 6, 2020, after the long Independence Day holiday weekend, international student administrators opened up their email inboxes panicked over reading the newly issued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guidelinesrelated to Fall term 2020. International students who are on F1 or M1 visas need to follow regulations set up by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which is part of the ICE. Currently, many U.S. universities have two groups of international students enrolled at their institutions due to the pandemic: students who are physically located in the U.S. an ..read more

The following is a guest post from Samantha K. Harris, Esq., and Michael Thad Allen, Esq. Samantha Harris is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For more than 15 years, she has advised students, faculty, administrators, and attorneys on issues of free speech and due process on campus. She lectures regularly about students' rights at campuses and conferences around the country and has been published in Inside Higher Ed, the New York Daily News, Reason, The Washington Post, Vox, and other publications. She is of counsel at Mudrick & Zucker, where ..read more