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Date:
6/10/2025
U.S. Department of Education ICR on the Application Package for TRIO Training Program (Jun. 10, 2025)
The U.S. Department of Education (the Department) has proposed an extension to the currently approved Information Collection Request (ICR) on the Application Package for TRIO Training Program for Federal TRIO Programs. The goal of the ICR is provide the Department with information needed to evaluate, score and rank the quality of the projects proposed by institutions of higher education and public or private nonprofit agencies and organizations applying for a TRIO Training grant, in accordance with the Higher Education Act (HEA), which requires the collection of specific information and data necessary for applicants to receive an initial competitive grant and a non-competing grant for the second year. Comments are due by July 10, 2025.
Topics:
Contracts | Grants, Contracts, & Sponsored Research | Research
Date:
6/9/2025
Hushen v. Gonzales (Colo. Jun. 9, 2025)
Opinion Reversing and Remanding. Petitioners, several high school students and their mothers who were previously sued by respondent, a fellow classmate, for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress following a Title IX investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against respondent, bring the current “special motion to dismiss” under Colorado’s anti-SLAPP statute. Petitioners allege that the statements they made in the school’s investigations were absolutely privileged from use in a tort action because they were made during a quasi-judicial proceeding. The question before the court was “whether the doctrine of absolute privilege applies to statements made in connection with a public school district’s formal Title IX investigation.” The Court explained that a proceeding is quasi-judicial if it involves: “(1) a determination of the interests, rights, or duties of specific individuals and (2) the application of current law or policy to past and present facts.” The court further explained that procedural and “due process concerns are independent of the assessment of whether a proceeding is quasi-judicial.” In finding that the Title IX investigation against respondent was a quasi-judicial proceeding, and petitioners’ statements during the investigation were subject to absolute privilege, the court held that petitioners’ statements could not be used as the basis for any tort claims against them. The Court’s holding notably contrasts with the finding in Kahn v. Yale University, 347 Conn. 1, 295 A.3d 855 (2023), where the Connecticut Supreme Court found that a University’s Title IX process lacked the procedural rigor to qualify as quasi-judicial—thus, the defendants’ statements made during the Title IX investigation process were not absolutely privileged.
Topics:
Sexual Misconduct | Students | Title IX & Student Sexual Misconduct
Date:
6/6/2025
U.S. Department of Education to Implement New Identity Validation Processes (Jun. 6, 2025)
U.S. Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid (the Department) announced it will launch a nationwide effort to eliminate identity theft and fraud in federal student aid programs for the fall 2025 semester to protect taxpayers and reduce the administrative burden on colleges and universities. In the interim, the Department will require institutions of higher education to validate the identity of certain first-time applicants who are enrolled in the summer term to prevent identity theft fraud. The Department expects the number of students requiring identity validation during the summer to be relatively low, and will implement a permanent screening process for each FAFSA applicant. The Department shared that since investing in and focusing on fraud detection efforts, it has identified almost 150,000 suspect identities in current FAFSA forms, and those applicants will be marked for required live identity verification by schools before aid can be disbursed. Finally, as part of the fraud prevention effort, the Department will be making changes to the acceptable documentation for identity validation, noting that an applicant must present, either in person or on a live video conference, an unexpired, valid, government issued photo identification to an institutionally authorized individual and the institution must preserve a copy of the documentation. Guidance on the new required processes can be found here.
Topics:
Financial Aid, Scholarships, & Student Loans | Students
Date:
6/6/2025
In Re: College Athlete NIL Litigation (N.D. Cal. Jun. 6, 2025)
Opinion Regarding Order Granting Motion for Final Approval of Settlement Agreement. Plaintiffs, current and former Division I student-athletes who allege defendants, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and Conference defendants, including the Pac-12 Conference, Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, Southeastern Conference, and Atlantic Coast Conference violated antitrust laws, specifically the Sherman Act. Plaintiffs challenged the NCAA’s prohibition on student-athlete compensation, its restriction on the number of scholarships institutions can provide to Division I student-athletes in each sport, and sought the ability to receive compensation from third parties, institutions, and conferences for the use of their name, image, or likeness (NIL). The parties negotiated a settlement agreement (the Agreement) for more than a year. The Agreement requires defendants to pay $2.567 billion in total compensation to plaintiffs and class members who competed between 2016 and present day. It also requires the NCAA to modify its rules to eliminate existing scholarship limits and allows for adoption of Division I sports roster limitations. The Agreement requires that any endorsement deal between a booster and an athlete will be vetted to ensure it is for a “valid business purpose.” The opt-in deadline for non-defendant schools to commit to revenue sharing is June 15, 2025, while the first date for direct institutional revenue sharing payments to student-athletes will begin is July 1, 2025.
Topics:
Athletics & Sports | Athletics Compliance & NCAA Rules | Athletics Operations | Gender Equity in Athletics | Student Athlete Issues | Students
Date:
6/5/2025
Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (Jun. 5, 2025)
Vacatur and Remand. Plaintiff, a straight, white woman employed by the Ohio Department of Youth Services since 2004 filed a Title VII claim against her employer alleging she was denied a management promotion, and demoted because of her sexual orientation. Plaintiff interviewed for a new management position in 2019, but her employer hired another candidate who was lesbian. Plaintiff was later demoted from her role, and her employer then filled that role with a gay man. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed that decision. The two courts reviewed plaintiff’s claim under the McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green burden-shifting framework and concluded that plaintiff failed to meet her prima facie burden because she had not shown “background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.” Both lower courts reasoned that because plaintiff is a straight, white woman, she was required to make the showing “in addition to the usual ones for establishing the prima-facie case.” While the Sixth Circuit “background circumstances” rule required plaintiffs who are members of a majority group to bear an additional burden during the first step of the application of the framework, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the standard for proving disparate treatment under Title VII does not change based on whether the plaintiff is a member of a majority group. The Court wrote that the so-called “background circumstances” rule ignored its instruction to avoid inflexible applications of the prima facie standard. In its unanimous decision, the Court resolved the prior circuit split regarding the correct evidentiary standard to apply to majority-group plaintiffs’ claims. Therefore, the Court’s decision aligns the standard to be applied to all plaintiffs, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case for application of the proper standard.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Diversity in Employment | Enforcement of Non-Discrimination Laws | Faculty & Staff
Date:
6/5/2025
State of Maryland v. Corporation for National and Community Service, Operating as AmeriCorps (D. Md. Jun. 5, 2025)
Memorandum Opinion and Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiffs, the State of Maryland, the State of Delaware, the State of California, the State of Colorado, the State of Arizona, the State of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, the State of Hawai‘i, the State of Illinois, the Office of the Governor in his official capacity as Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the State of Maine, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, People of the State of Michigan, the State of Minnesota, the State of Nevada, the State of New Jersey, the State of New Mexico, the State of New York, the State of North Carolina, the State of Oregon, Josh Shapiro in his official capacity as Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the State of Rhode Island, the State of Vermont, the State of Washington, and the State of Wisconsin filed a complaint on April 29, 2025, against the Corporation for National and Community Service, operating as AmeriCorps, and Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi, in her official capacity as Interim Head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, alleging they have acted unlawfully by attempting to dismantle AmeriCorps, an independent agency of the federal government since 1993. The court found that defendants failed to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking before making significant changes to service delivery, which resulted in irreparable harm to the plaintiff states. Thus, it granted preliminary injunctive relief to the plaintiffs, and enjoined defendants from enforcing the April 15, 2025, removal of National Civilian Community Corps (“NCCC”) members from service; and the April 25, 2025, termination of grants, instruction to grant recipients to cease all award activities, removal of Volunteers in Service to America (“VISTA”) members from projects, and requirement that AmeriCorps members’ activities cease. Additionally, the Court required defendants to restore the affected AmeriCorps programs in the plaintiff states to the status quo that existed prior to the April 15, 2025, communication regarding NCCC, and the April 25, 2025, terminations, by reinstating terminated grants, and returning to service the AmeriCorps and VISTA members who were serving on those programs. Finally, the Court required defendants to comply with the notice-and-comment requirement in Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, before making any significant changes in service delivery. It denied the request in all other respects, reasoning that the alleged harm does not satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement for standing as an anticipated delay in adjudicating grant applications due to the loss of staff, on its own, in not a concrete harm. The preliminary injunction shall remain in effect until further order from the Court.
Topics:
Governance | Government Relations & Community Affairs
Date:
6/5/2025
Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (Jun. 5, 2025)
Opinion and Order Reversing and Remanding. Petitioners, Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc., and four of its subentities, challenged the decision by respondents, Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, to deny petitioners’ request for a statutorily defined exemption from paying unemployment compensation taxes to the state. The state statute at issue “exempts nonprofit organizations “‘operated primarily for religious purposes’ and ‘operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches’. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held in favor of respondents, “holding that petitioners were not ‘operated primarily for religious purposes’ because they neither engaged in proselytization nor limited their charitable services to Catholics.” The Court considered whether Wisconsin’s statute, as applied to petitioners, violates the First Amendment. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the law does violate the First Amendment. The Court found that “[t]he First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religions and subjects any state-sponsored denominational preference to strict scrutiny.” The Court reasoned that “an exemption that requires proselytization or exclusive service of co-religionists establishes a preference for certain religions based on the commands of their religious doctrine.” The Court found that the law’s application does not survive strict scrutiny because its theological demarcations were not narrowly tailored to further the purported compelling governmental interests of “ensuring unemployment coverage for [Wisconsin] citizens” and “avoiding entanglement with employment decisions based on religious doctrine”. The Court concluded by stating “it is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion.’”
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Religious Discrimination & Accommodation
Date:
6/4/2025
Proclamation “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” (Jun. 4, 2025)
Proclamation from the President of the United States restricting entry of foreign nationals. The Proclamation directs the Secretary of State along with the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence to identify countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is deficient and warrant a full or partial suspension of the admission of nationals from those countries pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act. It fully restricts and limits the entry of nationals of Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Additionally, partial restrictions and limits of entry have been placed on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. The Proclamation reasons that “the United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists or other threats to our national security.” It also encourages foreign governments to improve their information-sharing and identity-management protocols and practices and to regularly share their identity and threat information with the immigration screening and vetting systems of the United States. The Proclamation is effective June 9, 2025. The White House issued a Fact Sheet in addition to the Proclamation.
Topics:
Employment of Foreign Nationals | Faculty & Staff | Immigration | International Students
Date:
6/4/2025
Proclamation “Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University” (Jun. 4, 2025)
Proclamation from the President of the United States suspending the entry of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard University. The Proclamation suspends entry into the United States for foreign nationals who seek “solely or principally to participate in a course of study at Harvard University or in an exchange visitor program hosted by Harvard University.” It attributes the revocation in part to Harvard’s prior litigation pertaining to student admissions criteria, alleged refusal to provide certain foreign student records to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the pendency of “multiple Federal investigations.” It critiques Harvard’s receipt of foreign funding, citing an alleged $150 million from China, and also avers that the institution failed to adequately address anti-Semitic incidents on campus. The White House also issued a Fact Sheet in addition to the Proclamation.
Topics:
Employment of Foreign Nationals | Faculty & Staff | Immigration | International Students
Date:
6/4/2025
State of New York v. Linda McMahon (consolidated on appeal with Somerville) (1st Cir. Jun. 4, 2025)
Opinion and Order Denying Defendant-Appellants’ Motion for Stay. Plaintiffs, State of New York, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, State of Hawai’i, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Arizona, State of Delaware, State of Connecticut, District of Columbia, State of Illinois, State of Maine, State of Maryland, Attorney General for the People of Michigan, State of Minnesota, State of Nevada, State of New Jersey, State of Oregon, State of Rhode Island, State of Vermont, State of Washington, and the State of Wisconsin along with Somerville Public Schools, Easthampton Public Schools, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), AFT Massachusetts, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the American Association of University Professors, and the Service Employees International Union were granted a preliminary injunction on May 22, 2025, which enjoined the Department of Education (the Department) and the Secretary from: (1) carrying out its March 11, 2025, Reduction in Force (RIF); (2) implementing the Executive Order “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities;” (3) implementing the March 21, 2025, directive to transfer management of federal student loans and special education functions out of the Department; and also, required that defendants reinstate federal employees whose employment was terminated or eliminated on or after January 20, 2025, as part of the March 11, RIF. Following the preliminary injunction, defendants moved for a stay pending appeal to the First Circuit. In denying defendants’ motion for stay, the court found that defendants failed to cite authority in their argument that the Executive Branch would suffer irreparable harm by being required to carry out Congress’s duly enacted statutes, framing the omission as “concerning.” The Court further found that defendants failed to make a strong showing that they are likely to succeed in their appeal as to the injunctive relief at issue insofar as that relief is predicated on the plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims. The Court reasoned that in addition to being unable to meet the threshold for a motion to stay, defendants further failed to show that the plaintiffs would not be substantially injured by a stay of the preliminary injunction during the pendency of the appeal, nor did they demonstrate that the public’s interest lies in permitting a major federal department to be disabled from performing its statutorily assigned functions. Based upon the reasoning of its Opinion, the Court ordered denial of defendants’ motion for a stay.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Higher Education Act (HEA)

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