Trump Administration Wants Colleges to Reveal Foreign Donors

The Trump administration is not letting up in its determination to make American colleges and universities shape up and fly right. First, it has asked the universities to supply the administration with information on what they have been doing to record, punish, and prevent antisemitic acts on their campuses. Second, the administration has asked them to furnish the government with information on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs that are enforced at the schools, so that their observance of the law, or failure to do so — the law as set out in the 2023 Supreme Court decision that struck down Affirmative Action programs for college admissions — can be judged. And now the Trump administration wants colleges and universities to reveal what foreign money they have accepted, with particular attention to moneys coming from China and Qatar, two countries that do not share our values, and are, indeed, hostile to us.

More on this request for more information on foreign “influencers” of American universities can be found here: “Trump order will prevent Qatari, Chinese influence at schools, ed. sec. says,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, April 24, 2025:

A Wednesday executive order from US President Donald Trump will require transparency in foreign university funding, with Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon emphasizing that the order would address the problem of Chinese and Qatari influence in American academic institutions.

Trump’s order called for McMahon to take all appropriate action to enforce preexisting laws on foreign funding to universities and to demand the disclosure of more details about the donations, their sources, and purposes.

McMahon and Attorney-General Pam Bondi were ordered to hold institutions that failed to properly disclose foreign funding accountable, and to conduct audits and investigations where appropriate.

The order explained that legislation on foreign funding in higher education had not been robustly enforced, with blame leveled at former US president Joe Biden’s administration. Trump accused Biden of undermining investigations into foreign funding by moving the task out of the Education Department, and supposedly undoing his previous term’s work.

The previous Trump administration had opened 19 investigations into undisclosed foreign funds, according to the order, leading to the reporting of a further $6.5 billion in foreign funding.

Trump’s new administration suggested that as much as half of reportable foreign gifts were not being disclosed, and funds that had been reported supposedly did not detail their true sources.

A Wednesday White House Fact Sheet claimed that $60b. in foreign gifts and contracts had flowed into American academic institutions over several decades, and only 300 institutions self-reported about the matter each year….

$60 billion given by foreign donors to American colleges and universities is a staggering sum. It is rarely given out of the goodness of their hearts, but funding from certain countries is more worrisome than that from others, because this money forms part of sustained campaigns to buy up influence on campuses, by paying for faculty to teach subjects that will be in line with the donors’ desires. Foreign donors can, provide scholarships to their own nationals, judged politically reliable, to study in America, and influence their classmates, or provide scholarships to American students to study in their countries, where they will be subject to round-the-clock propaganda. The Chinese might pay an American university to take Chinese students or faculty, who will then be able both to spread propaganda, but also, if in the sciences, potentially steal secrets from American researchers. This has already been happening far too often. Qatar has poured money into Middle East Centers filled with native speakers of Arabic, where certain subjects — “contemporary Palestinian literature,” or “the literature of Palestinian resistance,” or “Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ Reconsidered” — might be the subject of courses that would please the donors in Doha.

The request had also sought a list of visiting researchers, scholars, students, and faculty, and details about foreign students who had been expelled or had their credentials cancelled.

These requests do no more than request of universities what they were already required to do under the 1965 Higher Education Act. That is, universities are required to report to the government on “foreign gifts, grants, and contracts” received, and provide information as to the individuals involved in such donations. Why should this be controversial? Doesn’t the government have a right — a duty — to make sure that malign foreign governments are not managing to plant agents in American universities, either to propagandize for those governments, or for their favorite causes, or to nurture, among the American faculty who receive funding from them, a cadre of professors who may brainwash American students? How many departments of Middle Eastern Studies have even one faculty member who is well-disposed to Israel? And what about the continuing scandal of Chinese researchers working at American universities, insufficiently vetted, who have turned out to be stealing the work of American researchers?

Qatar may be the largest foreign donor to American colleges. It is also the main supporter of the terror group Hamas, to which it has donated billions of dollars for weapons and to pay the salaries of combatants. Most of Hamas’ leaders live securely, and luxuriously, in Doha. Of course the Qataris will want to support Middle East Studies programs that can be staffed with faculty who will be well disposed not just to the Palestinians, but also to Hamas. Think of the effect of the key professors — Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi, and Hamid Dabashi — at Columbia’s Department of Middle East Studies, whose courses would not be out of place at Bir Zeit University, and who have managed to prevent the hiring of any faculty who do not share their pro-Palestinian views. The Qatar Foundation has been pouring money into Columbia, and if the federal government continues to withhold $400 million in funding for the university, Qatar could easily step in and make up the difference.

All the administration wants is to be kept fully informed of what foreign money has been, and is being, spent on American higher education, what programs or individuals are being funded, what sums are being provided, and whether there is any reason for alarm about the effects of that funding coming from countries that have very different values from ours, and do not wish us well, such as China, such as Qatar. What’s wrong with that?

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

In Defense of Properly Teaching the 3R’s

I have frequently written that the two most important objectives of our K-12 education system:

a) should be clearly spelled out, and

b) should be consistent from State to State.

So far neither of these have happened — so the continued decline of our K-12 education system should be no surprise.

What are the two most important objectives of our K-12 education system? That graduates be properly educated so that they are:

1) proficient in the 3Rs (reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic), plus

2) critical thinkers.

I have repeatedly discussed the Critical Thinking part (e.g., here and here), but not as much the 3R aspect (as it seemed obvious). That said, I came across a wonderful commentary about the reading element of the 3Rs that I’m passing on. Thanks to Willis Eschenbach and his excellent “Illiteracy and Crime: A Dangerous Connection” which is posted below. I’ll add future commentaries about the other two R’s if I find the right material…

Here are a couple of depressing statistics.

  • About 20% of Americans are functionally illiterate, meaning they lack the reading skills necessary to navigate many everyday tasks, such as reading instructions, filling out forms, or understanding basic written information
  • About 70% of prisoners in US jails are functionally illiterate.

Clearly, illiteracy paves the road to jail. And this is understandable. If you can’t read, write, add, or subtract, there aren’t a whole lot of options for staying alive that don’t involve crimes of some sort.

We desperately need to fix this.

The first step is to reform our educational system. Here’s how crazy it’s gotten. In Oregon, they had a problem with functionally illiterate and innumerate kids being prevented from graduating from high school because they couldn’t pass the required 12th-grade English and math tests.

So did they improve the schools? Did they require further education for the teachers? Did they investigate which English and Math teaching methods work better than others? Did they institute special programs to bring the slower learners up to speed?

Get real. Oregon is a very blue state filled with the finest Democrats available. Here’s their solution.

They abolished the requirement that the kids have to pass the tests. They let anyone graduate, even if they can’t read one word.

That madness is happening in schools all over the US—keeping graduation rates up by simply lowering the standards. It’s not just Oregon. For example, Detroit has the highest functional illiteracy rate among high school graduates in the United States. According to research, only 18% of Detroit public school students demonstrated reading proficiency in the 2020–2021 academic year, and just 5% of 8th-grade Detroit students scored at a “proficient” level on the 8th-grade NAEP reading test.

As a result, the overall literacy rate in Detroit is approximately 47%, meaning that more than half of the city’s population is functionally illiterate. And surprise, surprise, Detroit also has one of the highest crime rates in the US. As I said above, illiteracy paves the road to jail.

So that lunacy has to stop. The best way to stop it is to make the tax money follow the STUDENT, not the SCHOOL. That way, the schools will have to compete to attract students by improving programs, conditions, and outcomes. In addition, it will encourage homeschooling. 74% of homeschooled students go on to attend college, compared to 44% of public school students.

Next, we need to institute a program to teach reading, writing, and life skills (budgeting, balancing a checkbook, communication, time management, etc.) in every prison in the nation. Yes, it will cost money, but I suspect that a number of people would volunteer to teach those subjects in prison if their safety could be guaranteed. And to make it work, we need to offer incentives to the prisoners to engage in the program.

As an example, in Brazil, there’s a program called “Redemption through Reading” (Remição pela Leitura).

For each book they read from an approved list and report on, inmates can reduce their sentence by four days, up to a maximum of 48 days per year. This initiative aims to promote education and rehabilitation within the prison system.

It seems to me that some variant of that system could be instituted to teach not just reading but math and the other life skills that the prisoners lack. This will give them the tools that they need to be able to survive without stealing.

Anyhow, that’s where my monkey mind has been wandering this Saturday evening. My very best to everyone — Willis Eschenbach

©2025 All rights reserved.


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Ed Dept Opens Probe Into University Of California, Berkeley Over ‘Deep Involvements With Chinese Entities’

The Department of Education (ED) opened an investigation into the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) Friday over its reported ties to Chinese sources, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

ED claims the university has failed to report “hundreds of millions of dollars” it received from foreign government over a span of several years, prompting the department to initiate a records request, the DCNF was told. The foreign funding sparks concerns the school has “deep involvements with Chinese entities” and may be sharing information about research and “important technologies.”

The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2023 found “grave research security concerns” with UC Berkeley due to the school’s partnership with the CCP-controlled Tsinghua University and the Shenzhen government.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order requiring American universities to be more transparent about any foreign donations they accept. The order calls on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to seek information from universities about the source and purpose of foreign funding and make such details available to the public and also tasks the U.S. Attorney General with enforcing the disclosures and holding schools accountable.

UC Berkeley did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All The Worst Kinds of People

ALL THE WORST KINDS OF PEOPLE

We all know that Trump has frozen the assets of the most prestigious (lol) Ivy League universities over their commitment to explicitly racist admissions and administrative policies.

To drill down into that a bit: There’s a tiered system in these universities that’s based solely on race and identity. They don’t even try to hide it. And it persists from admissions to graduation.

Recently, schools like Harvard bathed in the applause of the ruling class Acela Elites when they “stood up” to Trump’s demands.

Not to digress, but just in brief, those demands include:

  • Disempowering student body organizations, faculty and administrators “more dedicated to activism than scholarship”
  • Merit-based hiring reform that “ceases all preference” for race, color, creed, sex or national origin
  • Merit-based admissions reform that does likewise
  • Conduct an on “viewpoint diversity” in each department
  • Reform departments that are most disruptive to student life and scholarship
  • Discontinue DEI
  • Also, please stop giving foreigners access to national secrets, you dolts

There are a few others, but for the most part they just scream common sense. Don’t be institutionally racist! Advance your studies! Find the best people for the job! Discipline troublemakers! And finally, in case you didn’t hear it the first time, don’t be racist!

The sheer umbrage of these demands prompted Harvard to stand up and say no. We are committed to hyper-racial neo-marxist ideology, chronic underperformance, stultifying groupthink, and extrajudicial punishments for anyone who dares buck our system of oppression.

Good for Harvard! Except … the bill is steep — $2.2 billion for Harvard and $1 billion for Yale.

But they do have those giant endowments they’ve been sitting on, right?

And thus comes the most delicious part.

Yale’s attempting to liquidate $6 billion in private equity holdings and Harvard another $1 billion. To normal people, like you and me, Dear Reader, these numbers might as well be imaginary.

I assure you, however, it’ll have an effect on the market.

Universities don’t tend to disclose which firms they do their business with, but some of the most prominent private equity firms in the business are likely to be affected.

What happens when a PE firm loses a significant percentage of its portfolio? All its holdings go down. People start to get skeptical about their decisions. Maybe more people transfer their investments to more … stable … actors.

It can cause a cascading effect.

Or … they’re going to call Trump.

Can we pause right here just to revel in the deliciousness of these people taking a shot in the groin over refusing to meet the most basic demands?

Ivy League elites and their snotty students. High-powered, private equity douches who think they’re “smart money” when in reality they’re just a flock of terrified birds. Both groups have in some parts sold themselves and Americans out to foreign buyers.

In other words, all the worst kinds of people.

It reminds me in some ways of the Gamestop squeeze a few years ago that saw retail investors nuke the bets of several prominent, multibillion-dollar funds.

This is the follow up. The Trump squeeze. Donny is back on campus. He’s got a new shillelagh. It’s got 77 million names etched into it, and I guarantee you very few of those names got into either Harvard or Yale.

Back to the call.

If these sales start to look more serious, and it’s likely, Trump could be receiving calls from these PE firms. And that, ladies and gents, is Trump’s side door.

He kicked in academia’s front door, but now he’ll be coming in through the windows.

These calls give Trump the opportunity to double down. A la, ‘Hey, guys, listen, these aren’t insane demands. Go back to your clients (Harvard, Yale) and tell them it’s in everyone’s interest to lighten up a bit.’

Weaponizing the greed of terrible financiers against the lunacy of uppity academic elitists.

That’s one little battle I look forward to seeing!

AUTHOR

Geoffrey Ingersoll

Editor at Large.

WHAT I’M READING:

Well first of all, I’m reading Amber Duke’s newsletter twice weekly.

Unfit to Print: IDENTITY CRISIS

Is Trump tough enough to take on Russia? Lol

‘You Have No Idea’: Trump Snaps At Reporter Accusing Him Of Not Putting Enough ‘Pressure’ On Russia

I told y’all they had judges in their pockets. Here’s the proof.

Federal Officials Take TDA-Harboring Judge, Wife Into Custody

©2025 . All rights reserved.


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Harvard Should Emulate Hillsdale College, Reject Federal Money

Harvard has until recently been receiving $2.2 billion in federal funding, largely for research grants for medical research. The Trump administration has now withheld that amount, and promises it will continue to withhold that sum as long as Harvard does not explain how it is now, and how it intends in the future, to protect Jewish students on campus from manifestations of antisemitism. A second request from the government is that Harvard end its DEI programs that make race and ethnicity, not merit, the bases upon which decisions as to admission and faculty hiring and promotion are made. These requests seem eminently reasonable to me, but not to the grand panjandrums in Massachusetts Hall.

The historian Victor Davis Hanson takes Harvard to task for its refusal to comply with those requests from the administration, and if Harvard continues with its refusal, he suggests that the university should at least end its reliance on $2.2 billion in federal grants when it has so much money — more than $50 billion — in its endowment, that could easily fund whatever programs the federal government’s cuts would now endanger.

More on Victor Davis Hanson’s suggestion to Harvard can be found here: “Opinion: Harvard could go full Hillsdale College and set itself free,” by Victor Davis Hanson, Tribune Content AgencyApril 20, 2025 

Harvard University has rejected various demands of a presidential commission on antisemitism.

The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its campus are no longer harassed, or else lose its federal funding.

Harvard retorts that it won’t be bullied by Washington.

Among its other requirements, the Trump administration also warned Harvard to cease using race as a criterion in its admissions, hiring and promotion, contrary to law….

Despite all of Harvard’s platitudes, its classrooms are still being disrupted. Jewish students remain fearful.

And what would Obama say if, for example, African-American students at Harvard were harassed on campus by masked disrupters?

Or Black studies classes were crashed by students wearing scarves over their faces as they vented their hatred? Would he press the Trump administration to force Harvard to honor federal civil rights protections?

Remember, Harvard is a private university with a largely untaxed endowment of over $50.2 billion. Yet again, it still receives some $2.2 billion — now suspended — in federal funds.

The administration task force is not forcing Harvard to run its university according to its version of federal dictates.

Instead, the Trump commission is simply warning Harvard that if, in addition to its huge sources of private funding, it still wishes continuance of some $2.2 billion in public money from the federal government, then it must comply with existing laws and executive orders.

Does Harvard remember the embarrassing testimony of its former president, Claudine Gay?

She failed to assure a congressional committee that Harvard had taken action against openly hostile antisemitic student protesters during its growing protest movements.

Claudine Gay also turned out to be a serial plagiarist, whose scholarly works consisted of four short articles, at least two of which contained large bits written by, but not credited to, others. Claudine Gay is black; might DEI explain her otherwise incomprehensible appointment as Harvard’s president? And why, one wonders, after she was forced to resign in disgrace, did Harvard agree to continue to pay her the presidential salary she had been receiving of $900,000 a year?

Apparently Harvard does not care enough about the wellbeing and safety of its Jewish students to assure them, and the federal government that has asked for such information, of all the ways it is now, or will in the future, be combatting antisemitism on its campus.

And Harvard cares so little for the notion — now so truly brave and even revolutionary — that merit alone should determine which students are admitted, and which faculty are hired, and then promoted. Apparently Harvard thinks it is worth the loss of $2.2 billion in federal money so as to be able to discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity. What a victory!

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Supreme Court hears oral arguments on key case involving parental authority and freedom of religion

Should public schools be allowed to force your children to sit for instruction using ‘storybooks’ featuring homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and trannies? Two federal courts have said yes! 

Last week I posted a seminal article about a Massachusetts couple being prosecuted for daring to reject, on religious grounds, their pediatrician’s attempts to forcibly vaccinate their 9-month-old baby.

When Social Services intervened and made an attempt to seize custody of all five of their children, the couple fled to Texas. They were eventually tracked down by an army of law-enforcement authorities from the local, state and federal levels. This couple are now being put on trial for kidnapping their own kids from state custody.

The case has shocked the consciences of all Americans who thought they still lived in a free country and I warned that parental authority is emerging as THE ISSUE of our time. If something this fundamental can be stripped away from us, the state will see all other freedoms as fair game. It’s just a matter of time. Total tyranny is right around the corner.

Well, today I have another case to report that’s just as outragious, showing how parental authority is indeed under attack in this once-free country of ours.

It comes to us via Amy Howe at SCOTUS Blog. Her article confirms that last week’s article is no outlier. The fact that a case like this was even litigated and that two federal courts ruled against the parents is remarkable. Now it’s awaiting a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Amy Howe

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday (April 22) in the first of two cases in April involving religion and public schools. In Mahmoud v. Taylor a coalition of parents from Montgomery County, Md., contend that requiring their children to participate in instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes violates their religious beliefs and thus their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

Montgomery County, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., is the largest school district in Maryland and one of the country’s most religiously diverse counties. The dispute before the justices on Tuesday began in 2022, when the county approved books featuring LGBTQ+ characters for inclusion in its language-arts curriculum. One book used for young children, Pride Puppy, tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during a Pride parade. Another book tells the story of a girl attending her uncle’s same-sex wedding.

When the county announced in 2023 that it would not allow parents to opt to have their children excused from instruction involving the storybooks, a group of Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox parents went to federal court. They contended that the refusal to give them the option to opt their children out violated their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion – specifically, their ability to instruct their children on issues of gender and sexuality according to their faith and to control when and how these issues are introduced to their children.

The lower courts rejected the parents’ request for an order that would temporarily require the county, while the litigation continued, to notify the parents when the storybooks would be used and give them a chance to opt out of instruction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit explained that on the “threadbare” record before it, the parents had not shown that exposure to the storybooks compelled them to violate their religion.

The parents came to the Supreme Court in September, and the justices agreed to take up their case.

In their brief in the Supreme Court, the parents point to two different Supreme Court cases. First, they say, more than 50 years ago in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the justices “recognized ‘beyond debate’ the First Amendment right of parents ‘to guide the religious future and education of their children.’” This means, they say, that under the free exercise clause, parents can opt out of instruction that would “substantially interfere with their religious development.”

In Yoder, the parents observe, the court held that Amish parents did not have to send their children to school after the eighth grade, because they believed that doing so conflicted with their religion and way of life. Here, the parents say, they are merely seeking to be able to excuse their young children from one particular subset of the public schools’ instruction that “deliberately seeks to confound their religious values.”

And under the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the parents continue, the school board’s policy is unconstitutional because it is neither neutral nor generally applicable. The board of education, the parents stress, has “long allowed notice and opt-outs for any ‘instruction related to family life and human sexuality.’” But by contrast, the parents write, they cannot opt to have their very young children sit out discussions on “sexuality and gender identity during English class.” Moreover, they add, board members have displayed “explicit religious hostility” to the parents who have objected to the curriculum, suggesting that they were aligned with “white supremacists” and “xenophobes.”

The Trump administration filed a brief supporting the parents. Sarah Harris, then the acting solicitor general, told the justices that because the county will not notify the parents before the LGBTQ-themed storybooks are used or give them an opportunity to opt out of instruction using those books, parents can only comply with their religious obligations to their children by withdrawing their children from public school altogether. “That,” Harris contends, “is textbook interference with the free exercise of religion” – even if the parents’ children do not ultimately feel pressured or coerced by the instruction using the storybooks.

The Montgomery County Board of Education (along with the superintendent of schools, Thomas Taylor, and members of the board) counter that under both the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s cases interpreting the free exercise clause, the parents must show that either they or their children are being coerced to change their religious beliefs or practice. The Supreme Court, they contend, has never held that when parents opt to send their children to public schools, their children’s exposure to material to which their parents have religious objections is the kind of coercion needed to establish a claim under the free exercise clause, and it should not do so here.

The board cautions that accepting the parents’ argument that the lack of an opt-out option imposes a burden on their religious beliefs would “leave public education in shreds” “by entitling parents to pick and choose which aspects of the curriculum will be taught to their children.”

But in any event, the board continues, the parents have not shown that in this case that there has been any coercion. They have not provided any evidence, the board stresses, “that any parent or child was penalized for his or her religious beliefs, asked to affirm any views contrary to his or her faith, or otherwise prohibited or deterred from engaging in religious practice.”

The Supreme Court, the board writes, should not consider the parents’ argument that the policy is not neutral and generally applicable, because they did not make it in the lower courts. But in any event, the board adds, the policy is in fact both of those things: “It treats comparable religious and secular activity exactly the same; no opt-outs from ELA lessons using the storybooks are permitted.” And there is no indication that the policy was based on a hostility to religion. Instead, MCPS decided to stop the opt-outs because it received too many requests that were not based on religion.

A decision in the case is expected by late June or early July.

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Can Parents Opt Out? Supreme Court Takes on School LGBT Story Hour Case


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Trump Admin Gets Serious About Collecting Defaulted Student Loans After Borrowers Got A Pass Under Biden

The Department of Education (ED) Monday announced it will begin involuntary collection efforts for student loans after a five year pause.

A senior department official told the Daily Caller News Foundation the effort is aimed at removing the burden from taxpayers since involuntary collections were put on pause during the pandemic in March 2020 and never resumed under the Biden administration. ED will begin referring defaulted student loans to collections starting May 5 through the treasury offset program.

“The federal government student loan portfolio has continued to grow and we’ve got a record amount of our borrowers that are at risk of or in delinquency and default,” a senior ED official told the DCNF. “The federal student loan portfolio is headed towards a fiscal cliff if we don’t start repayment and collections.”

Only one in four borrowers are current on their student loans and as many as 4,000,000 borrowers are in late-stage delinquency of between 91 and 180 days, a department official informed the DCNF. About 35% of the federal student loan portfolio are 60 days delinquent and 5.3% have been in default for more than seven years.

“The current administration believes that American taxpayers can no longer serve as collateral for student loans. Student loan debt must be paid back,” the official said.

After a 30-day notice, the department will begin an administrative wage garnishment for unpaid loans beginning in the summer.

The department plans on kickstarting a “significant outreach effort to make borrowers aware of the obligations they have” as well as notifying them of the programs available for repayment, such as the income-driven repayment.

“We wholly believe that Congress has a role to play in fixing the higher education system that puts students in a position where they can afford their loan payments,” the department official told the DCNF. “So we’re looking forward to working with Congress on their efforts to streamline loan repayments as well as lowering college costs.”

Student loan repayments were temporarily paused during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic during the first Trump administration but the pause was continuously extended since. Former President Joe Biden attempted several times to forgive student loan debt, though many efforts were ruled unconstitutional.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republishd with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump Admin Freezes Additional $1 Billion In NIH Grants To Harvard University

The Trump administration is pausing more than 500 grants worth an additional $1 billion from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Harvard University, senior HHS officials told the Daily Caller.

Senior Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials told the Caller that the decision to pause the funds is because the institution has been “intransigent with respect to obligations to protect students on this campus from the effects of insidious antisemitism.” The grants include those that were funding the institution’s training of its scientists and other non-clinical trial grants, the officials told the Caller. The frozen grants will not effect the care of any children, the officials added.

“Harvard needs to fully come into compliance with Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” a senior HHS official told the Caller regarding what the university needs to do to have the funds unfrozen. “They need to remedy the violations of Title IV with respect to Jewish students on campus, they need to make sure that the not violating title six with respect to their admissions practices, and they need to provide sufficient guarantees that this conduct is not going to repeat itself.”

The Trump administration previously sent a list of demands to the institution, asking for several audits on their response to anti-Israel protests on campus and their admissions process. The institution released a public letter defying the administration’s requests. From there, the Trump administration moved to freeze $2.2 billion to the university. Monday’s action, shared with the Caller by senior HHS officials, is in addition to the $2.2 billion frozen.

“[Harvard’s public letter] clearly demonstrates that the university can, when motivated, respond quickly, but we’ve seen them go 18 months without apparently being sufficiently motivated to address the rampant antisemitism on this campus,” one senior HHS official told the Caller.

Since the Trump administration’s initial opening demand of the university, officials have not received any formal outreach from the institution, the sources told the Caller.

Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Monday over the frozen funds, the New York Times reported.

As far as if there are additional funding freezes in Harvard University’s future, a senior HHS official told the Caller that “all options are on the table,” but there weren’t specific grants they were currently considering pausing next.

“This is a pause of grant funding, not a termination. So we can assuming Harvard decides to come back into compliance with his federal civil rights laws, be turned back on,” a senior HHS official told the Caller.

The Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to the Ivy League, pausing billions of dollars to several universities over their response, or lack their of, to alleged anti-semitism on campus.

In March, Trump’s Education Department warned 60 institutions, including all the Ivy league institutions with the exception of Penn and Dartmouth, that it would take action if they “do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.”

The administration followed up the letter in April, pausing $210 million to Princeton University and $510 to Brown University while federal investigations take place into the institution’s response to anti-semitism on campus are ongoing.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House corespondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter,

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘It Is Antisemitic At Its Core’: Elise Stefanik Takes On CNBC Host Who Opposes Trump’s Harvard Funding Freeze

Harvard Sues Trump Admin Over Funding Pauses

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Critically Thinking about Goal-Oriented Parenting

This is the second most important challenge of most people’s life. 

Writing this, I’m audaciously stepping into the area of expertise of my friend John Rosemond.

John has made a career out of giving parenting advice. At one point, he had a weekly column in a few hundred US newspapers. See his excellent books here. He has also given hundreds of popular parenting talks all over the country. I’m sure that he will share his wisdom in the comments below.

Triggering Life-Changing Thoughts —

Let’s say that when cleaning their attic, two parents came across a Genie.

After getting introduced, the Genie said that he ordinarily grants three wishes, but since there are two of you (and he feels generous), today he’ll grant four! His offer is that he will grant their wishes for four (4) outcomes for their six-year-old child by the time they turn 18.

What would the parents ask for?

The first parent gave this some thought and said that they wanted their child to be:

  1. Healthy
  2. Happy
  3. Straight A student, and
  4. Successful in some sport.

The second parent could see some merit in their partner’s thoughts, so decided to build on them. After some joint critical thinking and discussion, they both agreed that their final answer was for their child to be:

  1. Physically Healthy (have good dietary and exercise habits.
  2. Mentally Healthy (be a Critical Thinker).
  3. Socailly Healthy (communicative, considerate, etc. and…
  4. Spritually Healthy (have a strong Value System, e.g. sound morals.

Regarding the first parent’s original thoughts, they mutually agreed that if their child has these four things, it will also be almost guaranteed that they will be a happy, well-performing student, with success in some sport!

Note that their answer said nothing about them being best friends with their child, which is a very common major parenting mistake. The parents’ job is to see that their child turns into an adult with the above attributes — not to be their BFO. Interestingly (as explained here), being your child’s best friend and a proper parent are frequently in direct conflict.

If parenting is successful, the new adult will have a superior chance of being a happy, productive person. That is the ultimate parental reward.

What would YOU say if you had that opportunity?

The two main points of this fantasy exercise are that parents should:

  1. Have very specific goals regarding what they will call successful child rearing (ideally in writing to minimize misunderstandings), and
  2. Then decide whether their K-12 schooling is an asset or liability regarding each of their goals. (Where it is not, they need to fix that!)

To answer #1, parents need to take a major step back and resolve what their goals are for themselves!

Whether we think about it or not, there will be a day of reckoning for every one of us.

It’s up to each of us to decide what will happen at that time, and then live appropriately.

My view is that when we cash our chips in, there will be a final balancing of our account. What will be the assets and liabilities listed on that ledger? Most importantly, what will be the Net?

The Bottom Line —

My perspective is that these are the two most important life goals:

  1. Have a successful life — i.e., finish with a net asset ledger, and
  2. Assist others to end up with a net asset ledger.

These “others” can be:

  1. Members of your original family (e.g., a sibling),
  2. Spouse
  3. Child
  4. Relatives
  5. Friends or acquaintances
  6. Other associates (e.g., readers of this Substack)

Some other interesting articles about child-rearing:


Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.orgdiscusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.infocovers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.infomultiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2025 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

©2025 All rights reserved.

About Those Students Arrested by the Department of Homeland Security

According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 300 foreign students, such as Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia and Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts, who are here in the United States on student visas, have now been arrested, and are threatened with deportation by the Department of Homeland Security. These 300 have been variously charged with a variety of offenses: providing support to Hamas, a designated terrorist group, both in person and on social media; calling for the destruction of the state of Israel (“From the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free”), urging violence against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the Intifada”), participating in campus violence, including physically harassing and attacking Jewish students, trying to shut down classes taught by Jewish professors, entering and vandalizing campus buildings, attacking campus police and janitorial staff, and much more. Douglas Murray discusses it all here.

All this gets especially messy because at the same time that portions of the right want to effect outrage at things which are essentially unimportant, the left is trying to focus on a much more important free-speech battle.

They believe that if someone supports a radical terrorist group or comes to the United States and tries to cause civil unrest or vandalism that they should somehow be protected by the First Amendment.

In recent days and weeks even some esteemed conservative writers have backed up this position.

As well as the case of Mahmoud Khalil, there is now also the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. Like Khalil, this person came into the US claiming to be a student. She came in on a student visa.

The Turkish-born student has now been detained. She seems — like Khalil — to have made a fundamental misunderstanding about what it means to come to the US as a student.

First of all she — like him — is not protected by the same laws that would protect an American citizen. She was not born in this country, is not a citizen of this country and was — in fact — a guest in this country.

But the left — and some on the right — are gearing up to make her their latest “free-speech martyr.” Yet even free speech for American citizens stop at the moment that you support the harassment of American students.

It stops at the moment that you encourage and engage in acts of vandalism and violence on American college campuses — among other places. And it stops when you support foreign and domestic terrorist movements.

As Marco Rubio said yesterday, there is no reason why any country in the world should invite people into it whose intent is to cause civil strife. What country would invite people in and then reward them for trying to cause trouble in their host country?

As Rubio said of the Ozturk case: “We gave you a visa to study and earn a degree — not to become a social activist tearing up our campuses. If you use your visa to do that, we’ll take it away. And I encourage every country to do the same.”

Senator Josh Hawley managed to hold the sane eminently sensible line yesterday when he berated people claiming that assaulting campus police and smashing up buildings is “protected speech.” It isn’t.

Words are not violence. Violence is violence. The woke left never liked to remember this. But conservatives shouldn’t forget it either.

The defenders of these students who have been arrested and will have their cases heard in a court of law keep claiming that what is at stake is “their right to freedom of speech.” No, it is not. Theirs is not a free speech matter. What is at stake, among other things, is the violent part these people play in suppressing the freedom of speech of others. They shout down pro-Israel speakers, entering lecture halls to interrupt such speakers with chants — “Stop Ethnic Cleansing,” “End the Genocide,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free,” and most threatening of all, “Globalize the Intifada.” They violently invade university buildings, and vandalize them, writing pro-Hamas graffiti on walls. They attack campus police trying to regulate the tent encampments that they set up in the middle of campuses. At Columbia, the pro-Hamas brigade entered Hamilton Hall, and proceeded to break furniture and write on the walls. When members of the janitorial staff tried to stop them, they were attacked. One of the janitors was so wounded that he spent five days in the hospital.

Right now, Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk are being presented as martyrs on the altar of free speech. But it is the active participation in violence of the former, and the approval expressed for Palestinian violence by the other, that have gotten them in trouble. They were greatly privileged to have been allowed into our country for study. But they greatly abused that privilege, and if justice is done, Khalil will be back in the despotic mess that is Gaza, or possibly end up teaching at Birzeit University (ranked as the 1,946th university in the world) in Judea (or is Samaria?). As for Ms. Ozturk, she can look forward, if justice is done in her case, to returning to Turkey, to be ruled by the dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as he tightens the screws of his regime. Neither one will be able to exercise the freedom of speech they so abused in warm-hearted and welcoming America. Both will lament their paradise lost, which only when they are far away, in their respective political hellholes, will they begin to appreciate.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DHS Just Added Itself To Harvard’s List Of Trump Admin Adversaries

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday revoked its own grants from Harvard University over its alleged failure to address antisemitism.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the department is canceling two grants totaling $2.7 million to the school as part of a continued crack down against antisemitism on campus, according to a press release. Noem said the school is “unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”

“Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” said Secretary Noem. “With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory. America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”

The Secretary wrote Harvard a letter demanding details on any violent and illegal activities committed by foreign student visa holders. The letter warned that, if the records were not turned over by April 30, Harvard would lose its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification and be unable to admit foreign students altogether.

Noem claims the $800,303 Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention grant “branded conservatives as far-right dissidents in a shockingly skewed study,” while the $1,934,902 Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement grant “funded Harvard’s public health propaganda.”

“Both undermine America’s values and security,” the press release stated. “With a $53.2 billion endowment, Harvard can fund its own chaos—DHS won’t.”

The Trump administration on April 11 demanded Harvard agree to a list of reforms to the way it handles antisemitism after a September congressional investigation found “Harvard failed” to enforce meaningful punishment on nearly 70 students who were involved in a multi-day pro-Hamas encampment during the previous spring semester. The changes asked of the school included reforming and better enforcing disciplinary processes for students who participate in antisemitic protests, improving screening of international students for “hostile” views towards America and auditing “programs with egregious records of antisemitism.”

In a public statement Monday afternoon, Harvard declared it “will not surrender” and refused the proposal. The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, made up of the Department of Education (ED), Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) swiftly revoked over $2 billion in grants to the university hours later.

“Harvard is aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s letter regarding grant cancellations and scrutiny of foreign student visas, which—like the Administration’s announcement of the freeze of $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts, and reports of the revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status—follows on the heels of our statement that Harvard will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” a Harvard spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We continue to stand by that statement. We will continue to comply with the law and expect the Administration to do the same.”

“Harvard values the rule of law and expects all members of our community to comply with University policies and applicable legal standards. If federal action is taken against a member of our community, we expect it will be based on clear evidence, follow established legal procedures, and respect the constitutional rights afforded to all individuals,” the spokesman continued.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Harvard Runs To Wall Street For $750,000,000 Cash Infusion

Conference Of Islamic Clerics In Pakistan Calls For Jihad Against Israel

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Critically Thinking about K-12 Books

My response to a local example of K-12 book misinformation. 

I’ve written about the horrific corruption of K-12 library books and textbooks before (e.g., see here and here). This continues to be a very hot item as:

a) the Left has prioritized the subversion of our children’s minds,

b) major national forces (like the American Library Association*) are aggressively supporting this,

c) there is no well-coordinated, effective national response from the Right (like DOEd), and d) to date no State has passed adequate legislation to assure that K-12 libraries and classes only have age-appropriate books

Re “d”, remember that those who are calling for DOEd to be closed are saying to turn over the K-12 education to these same 50 states. This is one of many pieces of evidence that indicates that such a plan makes no sense.

Anyway, in my popular local newspaper, a citizen just wrote in complaining about supposed “book banning” in our county schools. Below is the Letter to the Editor (LTE) that I promptly sent in as a reply (and it was accepted).

Note five subtleties in my response:

  1. The person who wrote the initial LTE has an unusual name, so it’s not clear whether this is a man or a woman. Rather than use Woke pronouns, I refer to that individual as “the writer,” etc.
  2. Even though what they wrote was ignorant, I carefully called their beliefs wrong, rather than saying they were wrong. Big difference!
  3. Although this fight is about values (as Judeo-Christian values are being assaulted), I avoided using that word, as it is more likely to stir emotions. Instead, I am making the focus on the age-appropriateness of books, etc. which is less flammable.
  4. In an attempt to make the age-appropriateness more understandable, I repeatedly used a specific example: an eight-year-old child. I purposefully added the “child” part to further emphasize the age disparity.
  5. Many of those on the Right who are involved with this issue, focus on books that are sexually inappropriate. IMO this is a strategic mistake, as there are several other subject areas that make a book age-inappropriate. Broadening the issue expands our support. See my examples below.

A famous golf axiom is that almost all golf bets are won (or lost) before even teeing off. The reason is that the stipulated conditions will favor one golfer over the other.

In this day and age of rampant political misinformation, this is a favorite tactic used: to mischaracterize an issue in a way that stacks the deck in favor of the complainer. Such an example appeared in a Carteret News-Times (NC) LTE on 4-12-25. The earnest writer pleaded against “book banning” — but there was no such action being taken or considered!

The one — and only — issue regarding K-12 library books and textbooks is: is the book material age-appropriate for the children involved?

For example, it is not age-appropriate for books available to an 8-year-old child to include such content as gratuitous violence, drug promotion, profanity, self-mutilation, beastiality, etc.

Consider three facts:

  1. the American Library Association explicitly states on their website that they do not believe in age-appropriateness* [so we can see where the problem lies],
  2. for decades, movies have been labeled by age-appropriateness [and exactly who has been harmed by such labeling?], and
  3. local schools are not “banning” any books.

Regarding #3: a) just because an author writes a book, they are not entitled to have it purchased with taxpayer dollars to be in every US K-12 school, b) purchased books should be clearly marked as to which age they are appropriate for, and c) if a school does not have every book that a parent would like their child to read, parents can obtain said books on their own, for their child. So nothing is “banned.”

Lastly, regarding other opinions expressed by the writer:

  1. Not having books on depraved violence, etc. available for an 8-year-old child does not “cause them to read less.” I contend that it is exactly the opposite.
  2. Not having books on drug advocacy, etc. available for an 8-year-old child does not “hinder their critical thinking.” Eight-year-olds do not have the experience and maturity to perform critical thinking on such material.
  3. “Educators are handicapped due to a decline in available books.” There are thousands of age-appropriate books for every age group of K-12 students, so if that is an educator’s experience they should solicit their library to buy more of the many age-appropriate books that are out there.
  4. “Reading diverse books helps develop a strong sense of self and empathy for others.” Agreed, as long as they are age-appropriate.

If this writer (and others of a similar mindset) would apply Critical Thinking to this issue, they will see the overwhelming evidence that age-appropriateness is the main criterion that should be carefully applied to textbooks and library books in our K-12 schools.

{FYI, for those who are not subscribed to my free popular twice-a-month Newsletter (see below), in the last issue I posted a link to good people who are trying to identify some of the many objectionable books, by State and by school in each State. It is a work in progress. Please make a donation.}

* K-12 school librarians play a key role as to which books are purchased for the school library. Most of these librarians are also members of the American Library Association (ALA). The ALA adamantly opposes the concept of age-appropriateness! Their website makes it crystal clear what their official position is:

Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: “Library policies and procedures that effectively deny minors equal and equitable access to all library resources available to other users violate the Library Bill of Rights. The American Library Association opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users.”

The question is: is a K-12 school librarian acting in the interests of parents and school children, or are they an agent disseminating ALA ideology?

©2025   All rights reserved.


Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.orgdiscusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.infocovers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.infomultiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

‘Will Not Surrender’: Harvard Scoffs At Trump Admin’s Demands To Address Antisemitism

Harvard University announced Monday it will not agree to the Trump administration’s demands to address antisemitism on campus.

The Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to the Ivy League school April 11 demanding the school agree to a host of reforms, including adjusting and enforcing disciplinary processes, improving screening of international students for “hostile” views and auditing “programs with egregious records of antisemitism.” Harvard cited academic freedom concerns and free speech rights in its announcement rejecting ED’s demands.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” Harvard president Alan Garber wrote in the announcement. “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

ED, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the General Services Administration (GSA) initiated in late March a review of more than $8.7 billion worth of grants to Harvard after a September investigation by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that “Harvard failed” to discipline students who engaged in antisemitic campus protests. Harvard demonstrators disrupted classes, occupied a campus building and a set up a multi-day encampment.

At the time of the Committee’s investigation, none of the 68 students referred for discipline action regarding their role in the spring semester encampment were suspended.

In its letter to ED, Harvard stated it “is committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of bigotry” on campus and that it “has undertaken substantial policy and programmatic measures” to address such incidents.

Following the Trump administration’s announcement of Harvard’s grant review, the university preemptively ran to Wall Street, issuing bonds to the tune of $750 million. Harvard has an endowment of over $53 billion.

“Harvard has served as a symbol of the American Dream for generations – the pinnacle aspiration for students all over the world to work hard and earn admission to the storied institution,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in March when announcing the review of the school’s grants. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination – all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry – has put its reputation in serious jeopardy. Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus.”

ED has already revoked funding from several other Ivy League universities over their noncompliance with civil rights laws and federal directives, slashing millions from ColumbiaCornell and Princeton.

The Trump administration has been committed to rooting our antisemitism on college campuses after violent protests were allowed to go on for over a year unchecked. In February, the administration assembled the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, made up of the ED, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and HHS. The task force stated its “first priority will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses” and has since begun its review of schools’ compliance with civil rights enforcement.

The following month, ED sent letters to 60 universities warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they did not step up to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination.

A Harvard spokesman referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to the university’s announcement in response to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Calculated Plan Of Destruction’: Twelve Anti-Israel Student Protesters Charged With Felonies

Trump Admin Nabs Another Alleged Pro-Hamas Student Protester

Harvard Severs Its Partnership with Antisemitic ‘Palestinian’ Birzeit University

RELATED VIDEO: Trump GOES TO WAR With The Ivy League

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Critically Thinking About Success: Part 2

Applying the Success Equation to U.S. K-12 Education. 

This is a follow-up to Critically Thinking about Success (Part 1). I’m following the same format, but looking at how we can achieve success by relatively quickly fixing America’s totally broken K-12 education system…

I’ve always had a fascination with why certain people stood out from the crowd and were successful. As I developed my Critical Thinking skills, I researched and paid attention to what common traits these people had — and applied them to a variety of issues that I’ve dealt with.

I contend if we follow the five Traits below, that will maximize our chances of success regarding what to do with the Department of Education (DOEd)…

Trait #1: Have a specific, high, attainable vision of what they want

Successful people are often called dreamers — as they see possibilities that almost everyone else discards as pie-in-the-sky. But their dreams have at least three characteristics:

a) they are precise (not vague),

b) they are aspirational, and

c) they are within reason. These three attributes help a believer to stay focused on their vision.

The VISION is: to transform DOEd so that it facilitates a significant improvement of the US K-12 education system, within five (5) years.

As with almost all visions of successful people, the vast majority of citizens will be skeptical that this can be done. They will have an array of excuses (like the fifteen listed here), but to Critical Thinkers, there are legitimate counters to every concern regarding DOEd.

Trait #2: Don’t reinvent the wheel

One way or another, almost everything has already been done before. (In fact, many historians look at history as a collection of repetitious cycles. A related famous saying is: “If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it.”)

There are two primary ways of learning: Education or Experience. I found that those who are successful maximize the education part. In other words, a significant key to success is to learn as much as possible from the failures and accomplishments of others.

Most people are saying something like: “Get rid of DOEd because they have been a disaster.” That statement is absolutely true, but is getting rid of DOEd our best option to bring about our Vision? Unequivocally NO!

Critical Thinkers will approach this situation by saying: “Let’s identify and learn from the multitude of DOEd mistakes made in the past — and see that the transformed DOEd avoids those pitfalls.”

For example, Critical Thinkers will notice that DOEd never spelled out what the top priorities were for our K-12 education system! That is a simply stunning omission that explains a lot.

The good news is that this is easy to fix quickly. This error is compounded by the fact that when I read the Mission Statements of all fifty State Education Departments, there is zero uniformity among these!

So a powerful role that DOEd can play is leadership. The goal would be to get all States to have the same K-12 education objectives. How they achieve them will be left up to each State. See fifteen examples where DOEd leadership can be an extraordinary game changer.

Trait #3: See an exceptional opportunity when it presents itself

We ALL have been presented with (and will continue to be in the future) multiple opportunities. Unfortunately, many people don’t recognize most opportunities until they are in the rearview mirror. Successful people have developed the acuity to recognize a much greater selection of opportunities than others do.

We literally have in our grasp a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to quickly and substantially improve the American K-12 education system. Again please carefully read fifteen powerful examples of what can easily be done.

To not take full advantage of this opportunity will in the future be looked at as a watershed mistake in American history. To consciously choose to make the situation worse (by turning over K-12 education to some fifty failing bureaucracies) would be criminal.

Trait #4: Intelligently take advantage of opportunities when presented

There are talkers and doers… Recognition of opportunities is an essential matter — but it is for naught if it isn’t acted on.

As a physicist, I can tell you that one of the fundamental principles of physics is the Law of Inertia. Basically what it means is that it takes more energy (effort) to get a stopped object to move forward, than it takes to get an already moving object to continue to move forward. The same applies to organizations. If their leaders are in a moving forward mindset, they will be more open to opportunities than someone who is defensively protecting their turf, or who simply decides a priori that something can’t be done, is too much trouble, etc.

The facts are that DOEd Secretary Linda McMahon:

1) can fire anyone at DOEd,

2) can hire anyone for DOEd,

3) can establish whatever policies and procedures she wants,

4) can spend $80± BILLION of annual discretionary funds anyway she sees fit, etc., etc.

What this means is that Linda can scrap the entire DOEd and start over —with essentially full control over every important aspect of it. In other words, Linda has the power to transform DOEd into a major beneficial force regarding American K-12 education.

This needs to be fully appreciated as an unprecedented opportunity, which requires prompt, meaningful action on her part to have DOEd blossom into a fabulously powerful force for good.

Trait #5: Be persistent to overcome the inevitable roadblocks that will be in the way

Every lofty goal comes with an assortment of obstacles. If they weren’t there everyone else would be doing it, and it would no longer be a lofty goal — it would be an everyday matter. So having a positive, persistent attitude is a key attribute of successful people.

There will be obstructions and obstacles in transforming DOEd into what it should be — like a large collection of vocal naysayers who lack the vision of how to convert DOEd into a major success.

We need to keep our eye on the prize, which means staying focused on the extraordinary benefits to America from starting to annually graduate 4± million well-educated, thinking citizens (instead of what’s happening now: annually graduating 4± million non-thinking citizens who are indoctrinated with progressive ideology). Reversing those figures would be profoundly beneficial to America’s future.

The Takeaway

There are no guarantees in life. Even if you adopt the above five traits, unforeseen circumstances might derail an otherwise good plan. I have a few adages I adhere to, and the most important one is: “Work as if everything depends on you, but pray as if everything depends on God.”

The benefits from properly transforming DOEd reimburse every cost and sacrifice at least a hundred times over. All we need is the vision and an unwavering commitment to make it happen.

©2025   All rights reserved.


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Harvard, Columbia Plunge in Law School Rankings Amid Anti-Semitism Backlash

Both Ivy League schools received poor marks on the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 campus anti-Semitism report card, with Harvard earning a “C” and Columbia a “D.” 

Harvard and Columbia Law Schools both plummeted in the 2025 U.S. News ranking amid ongoing controversies over campus anti-Semitism, while Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin joined the prestigious “T14” list.

Harvard slipped to No. 6—its lowest ranking ever—while Columbia fell to No. 10.

By contrast, Vanderbilt and UT Austin—which work to combat campus anti-Semitism, according to the Anti-Defamation League—climbed 5 and 2 spots, respectively, to tie for No. 14.

The ranking marks Vanderbilt’s first-ever appearance in the “T14,” a longstanding label for the top 14 law schools in the United States, according to legal commentator David Lat.

The shake-up for Harvard and Columbia comes as the schools have faced public scrutiny over their repeated failure to protect Jewish students and rein in anti-Semitic protests on campus.

The Trump administration, which has pledged to cut funding from universities that fail to curb anti-Semitism, revoked more than $430 million in federal funds from Columbia and is reviewing nearly $9 billion in contracts and grants at Harvard.

Both Ivy League schools received poor marks on the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 campus anti-Semitism report card, with Harvard earning a “C” and Columbia a “D.”

The ADL evaluated 135 universities based on their administrative policies, responses to anti-Semitic incidents, and protections for Jewish students.

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EDITORS NOTE: This World Israel News column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.