Betsy DeVos again

DeVos Gets Another Chance on Obama Loan Rule
(Inside Higher Ed)
Andrew Kreighbaum

     The Department of Education has until Oct. 12 to offer a stronger justification for delaying an Obama-era student loan rule issued to help defrauded borrowers [i.e., graduates of unscrupulous for-profit institutions]. If it can't do so, the rule will take effect, a federal judge said Monday.
     U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss ruled earlier this month that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos unlawfully delayed the rule, known as borrower defense, because the decision did not include an adequate rationale. After the delay, consumer groups and Democratic attorneys general sued the department.
     DeVos in July issued an overhaul of the rule with tougher standards for defrauded borrowers to get loan forgiveness. Moss's ruling could mean the department must carry out requirements of the much more generous Obama borrower-defense regulations until the expected effective date of the DeVos rule next year.

Alexander: Congress Shouldn’t Pass Campus Free Speech Law 
(Inside Higher Ed)
Andrew Kreighbaum

   Senator Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate education committee, said Monday that Congress shouldn’t attempt to attach federal funding to a college’s protection of free speech rights on campus.
     Higher ed leaders should instead promote campus speech themselves by taking steps like refusing the heckler’s veto and adopting the Chicago principles of freedom of expression, Alexander said.
     “It doesn’t work,” he said of a potential federal mandate.
. . .
     President Trump himself warned last year that the federal government could withdraw federal funds from the University of California, Berkeley, after leftist and antifascist protesters blocked right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking on campus amid sometimes violent protests.
     Alexander, like many fellow conservatives, claimed both that college students today are too coddled and that college administrators have caved too easily to the heckler’s veto, where students use protests or other tactics to block appearances by controversial speakers. And he argued that promoting underrepresented points of view -- especially conservative opinions -- should be as important to colleges as promoting a diversity of student backgrounds on campus….

 

AAUP Condemns Trump's Tweet on Hurricane Study
(Inside Higher Ed)
Colleen Flaherty

 The American Association of University Professors on Tuesday condemned what it called President Trump’s “disregard for and assault on science,” this time in relation to Trump’s comments about the credibility of a study by George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. AAUP’s statement says that Trump has "falsely claimed that the study, which found some 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria" in 2017, was politically motivated. It cites a recent tweet by Trump saying, "This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!" 

 
     While the AAUP takes no position on the accuracy or inaccuracy of this or any other study, reads its statement, “such research can be properly evaluated only by qualified experts through open channels of review and debate. Studies of this sort must not become political footballs. For the president of the U.S. to accuse scholars of political bias, without a shred of evidence, is an unacceptable assault on independent research and the academic freedom of scientists.”…