GW Weekly Federal Update (October 23)

National Guard Presence on Campus

• We understand that there have been limited instances in which National Guard members entered a campus building. GW has not requested the Guard’s presence on campus. The university maintains communication with National Guard leadership and has discussed the distinction between public and private property. In those instances where National Guard members have entered campus private property, they have left immediately upon the direction of university officials. National Guard leadership has confirmed they understand Guard members are not to enter private property.  
  
  We are also aware that National Guard members have been more generally visible on campus in recent days, and we recognize the concerns some members of our community have raised about the impact of these developments on their sense of personal safety.

  It is important to keep in mind that the public streets and sidewalks that run through GW’s campus fall under local and federal authority whereas only authorized university community members are allowed to access campus buildings that require GWorld access. To support the safety of our entire community, we encourage individuals to ensure that building doors close behind them when entering and exiting. Please know that when we become aware of external law enforcement or National Guard in our facilities, we immediately follow up with the appropriate command. 
  
  In the case of a recent report of possible Guard members on the Vex, GW NROTC students were erroneously identified as members of the Guard. As the university has shared previously, NROTC members are full-time students of the university and should not be mistaken for active-duty service members, law enforcement, or members of the National Guard. GW’s NROTC is a leadership development program that allows students to earn their degree while simultaneously pursuing a commission as an officer in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps upon graduation.

  The safety of our GW community is our highest priority. We encourage those with concerns or questions about safety to review our resources page or federal [dot] updategwu [dot] edu (contact us) for additional guidance. 

Higher Education Compact

• As the university shared in the Weekly Federal Update on October 17, we are aware of recent news reports about the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We would like to clarify that GW has not been invited to adopt or comment on the Compact, and we are not considering adopting it. What we are doing is actively discussing GW’s values, principles and priorities, and how they relate to the important issues and the broader challenges faced by all of higher education, including some that are addressed by the Compact.
  
  In the October 17 edition of the GW Weekly Federal Update, we reported that MIT, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, and USC—four of the nine universities that were invited by the Trump Administration to sign the Compact—announced that they would not sign the Compact. Since then, the University of Virginia, Dartmouth College, and the University of Arizona announced that they too would not sign the Compact. According to media reports, on October 17, White House officials held discussions about the Compact with representatives of eight universities, including Dartmouth, UVa, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis, and asked the universities to “propose meaningful reforms” as they consider the Compact.  

Recent Federal Actions

Government Shutdown

• The federal government has entered its fourth week of a shutdown with no resolution in sight. As the shutdown prolongs, agencies continue to scale back operations and furlough additional workers, and federal courts are operating on a limited basis. The Trump Administration also has attempted to use the shutdown to further reduce the federal workforce, including at the Department of Education, where nearly 500 employees were laid off last week before a court order temporarily paused the staff reductions. 
  
  The administration additionally announced plans to pay military personnel during the shutdown by repurposing $8 billion in unobligated research, development, testing, and evaluation funds from FY25. On Thursday, the Senate is expected to vote on a proposal from Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) that would guarantee pay for military service members and “excepted” federal employees required to work during the shutdown. Democrats have said they will block the measure, arguing it benefits the administration while excluding furloughed workers, and plan to offer an alternative extending pay protections to all affected employees. As of October 24, federal workers will have missed a full paycheck. The university continues to provide guidance and support to the research community.

Actions Related to Other Universities

• University of Virginia: On October 22, the University of Virginia reached an agreement with the Trump Administration that will pause all current federal investigations into UVa’s DEI practices and programs. According to a press release issued by the Justice Department, UVa agreed to be bound by the Department of Justice’s “Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination,” with respect to its use of race in university programming, admissions, hiring, or other activities, “so long as that Guidance remains in force and to the extent consistent with relevant judicial decisions.” Further, UVa must provide certain information and data to DOJ on a quarterly basis through 2028, and UVa’s President “will personally certify each quarter that UVa is in compliance with the agreement.” The agreement underscores the “importance of and support for academic freedom,” and DOJ affirms that it “does not aim to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula.”

Department of Education

• In the September 26 edition of the GW Weekly Federal Update, we reported that the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights was withholding $24 million to public school systems in Fairfax County, VA, New York City, and Chicago after the school systems missed a deadline to agree to stop giving students access to locker rooms and restrooms corresponding with their gender identity or risk losing funding for specialty magnet schools. On October 15, New York City filed a lawsuit against ED in U.S. District Court in New York, alleging among other things that the withholding of funds violated the Administrative Procedure Act and was arbitrary and capricious. 
   
• As reported in the October 10 edition of the Weekly Federal Update, ED resumed loan forgiveness earlier this month for borrowers enrolled in Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plans after a months-long pause due to legal challenges. On October 17, the administration reached a new agreement with the American Federation of Teachers to expand that resumption to include several other income-driven repayment plans, including Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE). The agreement, which is pending court approval, would allow ED to process loan cancellations for borrowers who have made the required 20 or 25 years of qualifying payments. The agreement further commits ED to process approximately 75,000 pending “buyback” requests from public servants seeking to count past periods of forbearance toward loan forgiveness. While most discharges under the IBR plan are expected to occur within two weeks after October 21, ongoing legal and operational challenges, combined with the government shutdown, may continue to slow implementation.

Higher Education Advocacy

• As the House and Senate prepare to reconcile their versions of the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), higher education associations are pushing back against the inclusion of the “Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation (SAFE) Research Act” in the House-passed bill. The legislation would prohibit all federal agencies—not just the Department of Defense—from awarding research funding to individuals or institutions that have collaborated with entities linked to foreign adversaries within the past five years. In a joint letter to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) urged lawmakers to remove the provision from the final NDAA, arguing that its overly broad definitions of “hostile foreign entity” and “affiliation” would force U.S. universities to terminate legitimate international collaborations and weaken the nation’s research competitiveness. 

Resources and Reminders

About this Newsletter

GW publishes this weekly Federal Update to inform students, faculty and staff about how developments in the federal government affect higher education generally and the University. This newsletter includes timely information, answers to questions from GW community members, and resources for support.