Anna B. Mitchell , The Post and Courier; Ex-Spartanburg prof took leave to help his ailing, 93-year-old dad. Then he was fired.
"A federal jury on April 23 awarded $309,000 to a former Spartanburg Community College professor who was fired after taking two days off to care for his ailing father."
Alice Berry , UVAToday; Q&A: In the age of AI, what is a library for?
"Q. Where do you fall on the AI enthusiast to AI detractor spectrum?
A. A faculty member at another university asked me recently whether it was defensible to ban AI in her course. I said yes.
That probably isn’t what people expect from someone who spent the last three years building a framework for AI literacy. But it was the honest answer for now. She believed her students needed to develop a specific skill that AI use would short-circuit, and banning it was the right call for that course.
What I would ask of faculty who choose that path is to stay open, keep up with how the technology is developing, and be willing to try approaches others have tested. That is part of what the lab is for: to produce case studies that give faculty something real to work from when they are ready to revisit the question.
I’m wary of the two confident positions on AI in higher education right now: the people certain it will transform teaching, and the people certain it will destroy it. Both are getting ahead of what we actually know about what’s happening in our classrooms.
Q. What is the function of a library in this AI age?
A. A research library has always done two things: help people find information, and help them judge it. AI changes the tools, not the mission. If anything, the mission gets sharper. The library is also one of the few places in a university built to convene across disciplines, and AI literacy requires exactly that: technical knowledge, ethics, critical thinking, practical skill, and societal impact all at once. No single department owns that combination.
A library can hold it together. That is why we are launching the AI Literacy and Action Lab here. Dean Acampora and I share the conviction that AI is an opportunity for the liberal arts, not a threat to them. The lab is built on that shared premise: AI literacy is a liberal arts problem as much as a technical one, and a university that treats it only as technical will get the answer wrong."
LEXI LONAS COCHRAN , The Hill; As AI pushes students to reconsider majors, universities struggle to adapt
"A recent poll shows AI’s increasing role in how students decide on college majors, creating a rapidly developing situation for universities that are still struggling to determine how the technology will shape higher education.
The Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2026 State of Higher Education survey found 47 percent of currently enrolled college students have thought about switching majors “a great deal” or a “fair amount” over AI concerns."
STARR ROCQUE , Ebony Magazine; Grambling State Secures Trademark for its "G" Logo After Almost 30 Years
"Grambling State University secured a major win in court this month. The HBCU secured its iconic “G” logo under a US trademark. The historic logo has represented the school’s athletic excellence and pride since the 1970s. However, the process of securing the trademark, led by the Division of Administration and Business Affairs and counsel Kean Miller, had been ongoing since 1998.
This new milestone follows a coordinated effort to address prior court refusals to grant the trademark while considering other nationally recognized “G” marks, such as those associated with the University of Georgia and the Green Bay Packers."
Eric Niiler, The New York Times; Forest Service Will Close Research Stations That Study Wildfire Risk
Scientists say their work on fires and climate change could be lost as the agency moves its headquarters to Utah from Washington and shuts 57 research stations.
"The U.S. Forest Service is closing 57 of its 77 research facilities in 31 states under a reorganization plan announced this week, threatening science that looked at how wildfires, drought, pests and global warming are putting pressure on forests.
The agency plans to consolidate its research division into a centralized office in Fort Collins, Colo., and move field researchers to locations in nearby states. But employees said they feared the move would lead many scientists to leave instead. The reorganization will also move the agency’s headquarters to Salt Lake City from Washington, affecting 260 employees.
Many of the research facilities are at universities where Forest Service scientists have access to laboratories and computers or at experimental forests where scientists can monitor the effects of environmental changes over long periods of time. They also investigate logging techniques, endangered plant and animal species, and how forests grow back after devastating fires.
The agency is closing six research and development facilities in California, five in Mississippi, four in Michigan and three in Utah, among others...
The Forest Service oversees 193 million acres of forest and grasslands in 43 states and territories, including forests managed for commercial logging and pristine wilderness areas. The agency lost 5,860 of its 35,550 employees during the first half of 2025 to cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and early retirement programs, according to an inspector general’s report issued in December...
Mr. Trump has long denied the science and effects of climate change, and his administration has cut funding for climate-related research across the federal government. Conservation groups say that eliminating climate-related science will result in forests that are less healthy, and less resilient to future environmental changes, which also means fewer trees for the wood products industry."
, CT Insider; Waterbury's Post University awarded $75.3M in copyright infringement lawsuit
"A federal jury composed of Connecticut residents has ordered the education software company Learneo to pay Post University more than $75.3 million in damages for distributing school-owned documents on its Course Hero platform.
The Hartford jury found the San Francisco-based company violated U.S. copyright law by hosting the documents without permission and altered the files to conceal the infringement, according to court records."
Devlin Barrett, The New York Times ; D.C. Bar Begins Disciplinary Proceedings Against Ed Martin
A new legal filing accused Mr. Martin, a senior Justice Department official, of an unethical pressure campaign against Georgetown University.
"The disciplinary body for lawyers in the District of Columbia has filed ethics charges against Ed Martin, a senior Justice Department official in the Trump administration, accusing him of misconduct in seeking to punish Georgetown University’s law school, according to a filing.
Mr. Martin, who has spearheaded efforts by President Trump to use the Justice Department to punish the president’s perceived enemies, faces two counts of misconduct. The filing, submitted on Friday before the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility, is comparable to a civil lawsuit complaint in court and was signed by Hamilton P. Fox III, the disciplinary counsel for the D.C. bar.
Mr. Martin, who was forced to step down as the U.S. attorney in Washington because he did not have the Senate votes for confirmation, instead became the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. In that role, he has had far more access and influence in the White House than many of his predecessors.
The complaint is a significant escalation in the efforts to use state and local bars to punish lawyers in the Trump administration for purported violations of ethics rules in pursuit of the president’s aims. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi proposed a new rule to try to stall or delay bar associations from conducting such investigations into lawyers at the department."
Alice Speri , The Guardian; ‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI
"As pushback grows, so does an emphasis on those intrinsically human qualities that differentiate people from machines – the very qualities a humanistic education seeks to nurture.
“There’s kind of defeatism, this idea that there’s no stopping technology and resistance is futile, everything will be crushed in its path,” said Clune, the Ohio State professor. “That needs to change … We can decide that we want to be human.”
That idea has also been key to Pao’s approach to teaching in the age of AI.
“You plant seeds and you hope,” Pao said, of efforts that at times feel like fighting windmills. “You hope that in the long term you’re helping them become happy human beings, who are able to take a walk, and experience things, and describe things for themselves.”"
JOSEPH ZULOAGA AND DORA GAO, Columbia Spectator; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth orders cancellation of DOD ties with Columbia beginning in 2026-27 academic year
"Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the cancellation of the Department of Defense’s ties with Columbia beginning in the 2026-27 academic year, arguing that Columbia and other universities are “woke breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination” in a Friday video posted on X.
In the video, Hegseth announced the “complete and immediate cancellation” of the DOD’s “attendance” at Columbia and other universities, marking the administration’s latest escalation against higher education. Friday’s announcement will also affect Columbia’s Ivy League peer institutions—Brown University, Princeton University, and Yale University—and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others."
Clifford H. Taubes, The Harvard Crimson; The Unpleasant Ethics of Capping Grades
"I am adamantly opposed to the recently proposed faculty rule that mandates a maximum number of A’s in any given course. My opposition is primarily based on three ethical issues."
Natalie Hausmann, Democracy Docket; Amid new GOP-led restrictions, North Carolina students lead a fight to vote during the midterm primary
"Olu Rouse clearly remembers the first time he voted.
He was a freshman at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T), and he meticulously researched candidates before he cast his ballot at his on-campus voting site in the 2024 presidential primary election.
Today, that voting site doesn’t exist.
Rouse, now a third-year student, is just one of the thousands of students in North Carolina who lack easy access to early voting sites on their college campuses — even as early voting for North Carolina’s primary election is underway.
That’s because the GOP-controlled North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) last month rejected early voting sites at NC A&T, the nation’s largest historically Black college, and three other college campuses across the state: Western Carolina University (WCU), the University of North Carolina-Greensboro (UNC-G) and Elon University.
Student advocates and voting rights experts have warned that the board’s decision represents a major assault on student voting rights in the state. But it has since also catalyzed student advocacy efforts to get out the vote.
Brian Kennedy, a senior policy analyst for the nonpartisan advocacy organization Democracy North Carolina, told Democracy Docket that this newest blow is just one of several efforts to suppress the Black vote across the state and narrow student voting access in general across the country.
“I think we’ve seen the blueprint for what voter suppression across the nation can look like here in North Carolina,” he said.
The legal battle
Rouse was one of dozens of students present at the Jan. 13 NCSBE meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, during which Republican state officials refused early voting sites at the four colleges, which together serve around 47,000 students.
Despite the objections of students who sent a letter to the board and showed up in person to protest the decision, the board denied two new midterm primary sites at UNC-G and NC A&T and rejected two existing sites at Elon University and WCU.
Several students from NC A&T, WCU and UNC-G, as well as the College Democrats of North Carolina, raised their concerns in a lawsuit* against the board."
Matthew Connelly, The New York Time; A.I. Companies Are Eating Higher Education
"Young people are quickly becoming so dependent on A.I. that they are losing the ability to think for themselves. And rather than rallying resistance, academic administrators are aiding and abetting a hostile takeover of higher education...
It is still too early to know how A.I. usage affects young people’s ability to learn. But research suggests that students using A.I. do not read as carefully when doing research and that they write with diminished accuracy and originality. Students do not even realize what they are missing. But educators and employers know. Reading closely, thinking critically and writing with logic and evidence are precisely the skills people need to realize the bona fide potential of A.I. to support lifelong learning."
PittWire ; Pitt climbed in the National Academy of Inventors’ global patent ranking
"The University of Pittsburgh climbed two spots on the list of the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents, according to the most recent list issued by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
Pitt innovators were issued 107 U.S. patents in 2025 for a No. 26 ranking, up from No. 28 in 2024, when they were issued 102 patents.
Released annually by the NAI since 2013, the Top 100 Worldwide Universities List spotlights the universities holding U.S. utility patents to showcase the important research and innovation taking place within academic institutions.
Nine institutions outside the U.S. and several multicampus statewide university systems were among those ranked ahead of Pitt.
“Pitt’s climb in the NAI patent ranking underscores the determination of our faculty and student innovators to turn research into real-world impact,” said Evan Facher, vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship and associate dean for commercial translation at the School of Medicine. “Our innovators are submitting discoveries to the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at a record pace, and securing intellectual property is a crucial step in translating those breakthroughs into technologies that improve lives.”
In the last fiscal year, Pitt innovators had their intellectual property licensed or optioned 137 times, including the formation of 15 startup companies, with technologies ranging from AI platforms for diagnosing macular degeneration, aortic aneurysms and ear infections, to a gene therapy to treat hearing loss, and more."
Vimal Patel , The New York Times; Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’
Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain.
"College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves."
Michael C. Bender, Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard
Hours after The Times reported that President Trump had lowered the bar for a deal, he denied backtracking and made new threats against Harvard.
"President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university, according to four people briefed on the matter.
Harvard has been the top target in Mr. Trump’s sweeping campaign to exert more control over higher education. Hard-liners in his administration had wanted Harvard to write a check to the U.S. Treasury as part of a deal to address claims that university officials mishandled antisemitism, The New York Times previously reported. But Harvard, wary of backlash from liberal students and faculty, has rejected the idea.
Trump administration officials have indicated in recent days that the president no longer expects such a payment, according to the Harvard and Trump officials briefed on the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
But shortly before midnight, six hours after The Times reported that Mr. Trump had backtracked, he claimed the story was wrong and attacked The Times and Harvard. He said he was now seeking $1 billion “in damages” from Harvard and that the administration’s investigations of Harvard should now be criminal."
Vimal Patel, The New York Times; Florida Universities Have Partnered With ICE, Stoking Anxiety Among Students
"An unusual agreement between many Florida universities and federal immigration officials has caused a new wave of anxiety among students, as immigration raids around the country have swept up thousands and ignited protests.
The agreements give university police departments, after training from ICE, authority to conduct immigration enforcement and access to databases to check immigration status. It remains unclear to what extent university police departments have worked with ICE in practice."
JESSICA PRIEST , The Texas Tribune; Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy
"Texas A&M University canceled a graduate ethics course three days after the semester began, saying Professor Leonard Bright did not provide enough information to let administrators determine if the course meets new standards for discussing race and gender.
Bright disputes that characterization.
The decision is distinct from earlier course changes at Texas A&M as the class had already met once before administrators canceled it."
Noelle E. C. Evans, WXXI; University of Rochester's incoming head librarian looks to adapt to AI
"A new head librarian at the University of Rochester is preparing to take on a growing challenge — adapting to generative artificial intelligence.
Tim McGeary takes on the position of university librarian and dean of libraries on March 1. He is currently associate librarian for digital strategies and technology at Duke University, where he’s witnessed AI challenges firsthand...
“(The university’s digital repository) was dealing with an unforeseen consequence of its own success: By making (university) research freely available to anyone, it had actually made it less accessible to everyone,” Jamie Washington wrote for the campus online news source, UDaily.
That balance between open access and protecting students, researchers and publishers from potential harms from AI is a space of major disruption, McGeary said.
"If they're doing this to us, we have open systems, what are they possibly doing to those partners we have in the publishing space?" McGeary asked. "We've already seen some of the larger AI companies have to be in court because they have acquired content in ways that are not legal.”
In the past 25 years, he said he’s seen how university libraries have evolved with changing technology; they've had to reinvent how they serve research and scholarship. So in a way, this is another iteration of those challenges, he said."
Devin Fry, Valley News Live; Grand Forks man files trademark for “Fighting Sioux” nickname
"A Grand Forks man has applied to trademark the former nickname for the University of North Dakota.
According to public documents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Tyler Wilson filed the application for the “Fighting Sioux” nickname back in May...
The university says it strongly disputes the trademark claim and is working to resolve the issue with Wilson...
The “Fighting Sioux” nickname, which UND had used as its identity since 1930, was retired in 2012 following years of pressure from the NCAA. They have been the Fighting Hawks since 2015."
Ronald Mann, SCOTUSblog; Court seems dubious of billion-dollar judgment for copyright infringement
"My basic reaction to the argument is that the justices would be uncomfortable with accepting the broadest version of the arguments that Cox has presented to it (that the ISP is protected absent an affirmative act of malfeasance), but Sony’s position seems so unpalatable to them that a majority is most unlikely to coalesce around anything that is not a firm rejection of the lower court’s ruling against Cox. I wouldn’t expect that ruling to come soon, but I don’t think there is much doubt about what it will say."
