Compiled by SUSAN JONES

The Justice Department accused the Yale School of Medicine on May 14 of violating anti-discrimination laws, according to the New York Times.

The allegations are related to admissions policies the government said illegally favored Black and Hispanic applicants over more qualified white and Asian students.

Last week, the Justice Department issued similar findings for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In March, the department also opened investigations into admissions policies for medical schools at Stanford, Ohio State and the University of California, San Diego.

In the UCLA case, the DOJ alleges the medical school “intentionally selected applicants based on their race” in its admission process, violating civil rights law and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning race-conscious admissions.

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, alleged in her findings letter that UCLA’s medical school illegally preferenced Black and Hispanic applicants, discriminating against prospective students of all other races. A spokesperson for the medical school said that its admissions process is merit-based and “grounded in a rigorous, comprehensive review of each applicant.”

MAY 13

Washington University in St. Louis has received its largest donation to date: $200 million, which will go toward the university’s newly established Bursky School of Public Health. Launched in January 2025, the school — WashU’s first new one in 100 years — will now be named after the donors, Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky, both graduates of the university. 

MAY 12

The Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research 2026 Survey of Campus Chief Technology/Information Officers, found that although many colleges and universities are spending big on artificial intelligence tools, half of chief technology officers say the return on investment is either unclear or fell below their expectations. Just 29 percent say investments in AI have met or exceeded their ROI expectations.

MAY 11

• The University of Michigan's endowment appears to be in for a windfall, according to the Detroit News. The university made a $20-million investment in the early days of Open AI that is estimated to be worth $2 billion when the company goes to the public market in a likely initial public offering, according to reports citing court documents in Elon Musk's federal lawsuit against Sam Altman.

• Moody’s Ratings lowered Columbia University’s financial outlook from stable to negative this month, citing a loss of institutional financial flexibility compared to similarly situated colleges, Higher Ed Dive reported. Columbia’s cash and investments-to-expenses ratio is threatened by the upcoming caps on federal graduate lending, uncertain federal research funding, and a shrinking international student pipeline, Moody’s said.

• A federal court judge ruled that Idris Robinson — a philosophy professor at Texas State University who was fired for an unaffiliated, out-of-state talk he gave about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a year prior — must be reinstated with pay, Daily Nous reported. The reinstatement must last for one year or until the end of his trial, whichever comes first, according to a news release from the Texas State Employees Union. 

• Kentucky State University students and alumni are asking a federal court to block a massive state-mandated overhaul of the historically Black university. The restructuring, codified in April through state legislation, requires the public institution to transform from a liberal arts university to a polytechnic institution, shedding programs and employees in the process. 

MAY 8

Princeton will not have to pay any net investment income tax on returns from its $36.4 billion endowment, a University investment official said at a private event in January, after a recent expansion of its undergraduate financial aid program left the University below a 3,000 tuition-paying student threshold to qualify for taxation, the Daily Princetonian reported. Experts had projected that the new tax on wealthy university endowments — enacted under H.R. 1, the omnibus tax and spending bill passed by congressional Republicans in July 2025 — would have cost Princeton roughly $180 million annually.

MAY 7

• U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon found that the mass termination of more than 1,400 grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities was unconstitutional. In April 2025, NEH officials and staff from the Department of Government Efficiency canceled grants representing over $100 million in congressionally appropriated funds. Several groups sued to reverse the terminations. In documents revealed during discovery of the summary judgment, DOGE officials admitted that they used ChatGPT to identify which grants were in violation of the president’s anti-DEI executive orders. Grants containing words such as “history,” “culture” and “identity” were flagged by AI as relating to DEI. 

• The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School has received a $50 million gift from the W. P. Carey Foundation to provide start-up funding for full-time MBA students pursuing entrepreneurship, as well as support faculty professorships and foster their connection with industry partners. It also aims to help the school increase its visibility as a leader in the business of health, the announcement said.

• An Indiana University biology professor who has condemned the U.S. government’s prosecution of Chinese scientists now finds himself locked out of his lab amid a federal investigation, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The closure of the lab and other research space at the Bloomington campus marks the latest step in months of scrutiny of Chinese researchers and, by extension, American colleagues who have come to their defense. Neither federal authorities nor the university, whose police department closed the labs on Thursday night, have offered a reason for the lockout, the chair of Indiana’s biology department said. But it came weeks after one of the professor’s postdoctoral students was ordered deported to China for allegedly smuggling biological materials into the United States, a move criticized by the professor, Roger W. Innes.

• The Colorado State University System’s board approved a fiscal 2027 budget that trims tens of millions of dollars in spending at its two physical campuses. CSU’s main campus in Fort Collins will see $35.8 million in “strategic cuts” — including staff layoffs representing 0.5% of the workforce — and another $3 million saved by eliminating vacant positions, according to a news release from the board.  

MAY 5

• Maryland’s Bowie State University plans to eliminate 79 jobs through layoffs, eliminating vacant roles and structural reorganizations, senior leaders said. The cuts come as the public, historically Black institution projects an $18 million budget deficit in fiscal 2027 amid declining enrollment, rising costs, and cuts to state and federal funding. 

• University of Chicago leaders said a yearslong effort to close a $288 million structural deficit is on track, with the gap expected to shrink to about $140 million by June, the Hyde Park Herald reported. The goal for fiscal year 2027 is to bring the deficit below $100 million, Provost Katherine Baicker said. The university is sending budget targets to academic and support units with instructions to find roughly $50 million in additional savings and revenue gains. Early deficit reductions came heavily from restricting spending growth, including early retirement incentives for faculty, hundreds of layoffs and a pause on doctoral admissions for many graduate programs. 

MAY 4

• The Trump administration opened a Title IX investigation into Smith College, a private women’s institution, over its policy of admitting transgender women. The Massachusetts college has considered applications from any prospective students who self-identify as women since 2015. That includes transgender and nonbinary students. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, however, framed the long-standing policy — specifically Smith’s decision to allow transgender women “access to women-only spaces” — as a potential violation of Title IX.

• The University of Wisconsin system will give more than 2,300 faculty in high-demand fields a pay raise this summer, The Cap Times reported. The state legislature appropriated $27 million annually for the increases, which will be doled out with the “goal of focusing on market competitiveness of those faculty in high demand fields of study,” which include biomedical sciences, education, graphic design and veterinary medicine, the distribution plan states.

MAY 1

Leon Botstein, who has served as president of Bard College in New York since 1975, will retire at the end of June, he announced in a letter to students, faculty and staff. The announcement follows a two-month investigation into Botstein’s connections to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which found that the president “minimized and was not fully accurate in describing his relationship with Epstein” to the Bard community, according to Inside Higher Ed.

APRIL 30

• The Trump administration is suing the state of New Jersey, seeking to overturn state laws that financially help undocumented immigrants attend public colleges in the state, according to Politico. The Department of Justice lawsuit specifically targets two laws. One, signed by former Republican Gov. Chris Christie in 2013 allows some undocumented immigrants in the state to receive in-state tuition for public colleges. Democratic former Gov. Phil Murphy took it a step further in 2018, allowing immigrants to also receive state-funded financial assistance.

• Cornell University president Michael Kotlikoff struck a student and recent graduate with his car in what he described as an incident of harassment and intimidation against him. The low-speed incident, which did not yield any serious injuries, according to The Cornell Sun, happened after an Israel-Palestine debate on campus where Kotlikoff offered introductory remarks. As Kotlikoff left the event, he was followed by protesters. Videos obtained by the student newspaper show several people following Kotlikoff to his car and asking him about speech and disciplinary policies. After Kotlikoff entered his car, he backed into the individuals behind it. Although he accused protesters of banging on his car, that is not seen in videos published by the newspaper. Cornell University’s trustees announced on May 7 that they would investigate the incident.

• Thirteen former leaders of the National Science Foundation are asking the Senate and the Trump administration to install leaders for the agency, after its director resigned more than a year ago and the White House ousted the entire National Science Board last month. The board oversees the research funding agency, which has a nearly $9 billion annual budget.

• The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Supporting Foundation have made a a $125 million commitment to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. It is the largest gift in the foundations’ 73-year history and believed to be the biggest gift ever to higher education in the state of Ohio. The funds will support four different initiatives at Case Western: establishing a new humanities building, increasing student scholarships, creating a presidential fund for discretionary spending and expanding investment in the “experimental humanities.”

• Kent State University has announced layoffs will be part of a bid to offset a projected $18 million budget shortfall during its next fiscal year beginning July 1, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. President Todd Diacon announced during his “Talking with Todd” video feature that projected cuts from the university's $720 million budget will include eliminating as many as 45 “currently occupied positions” out of the university's 3,408 employees across its campuses.

APRIL 29

Georgetown University will restore three-percent raises for faculty and staff after it managed to shrink a projected budget deficit through reduced expenses. The Hoya reported that the interim president, Robert M. Groves, said in a town hall that, like other campuses, the university had suffered from losses in graduate enrollment and research funding, but the budget reality didn't turn out to be as dire as it could have been. 

APRIL

After a 67-year run, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will no longer publish the MIT Sloan Management Review, officials announced in late April, citing broad changes to communications practices. MIT Sloan School of Management Dean Richard Locke wrote in a letter to faculty that the change follows a realignment of the school’s communications team.

Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.

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