GW Weekly Federal Update (May 8)

GW Updates

• The GW International Services Office has posted guidance to help GW’s international community understand their rights and risks around protest and activism. The content aims to help the community make informed decisions about free expression while prioritizing personal safety.
   
• On May 6, the American Jewish Committee, the American Council on Education, and the Association of American Universities (of which GW is a member), released a joint statement, affirming the seriousness of antisemitism on campus and a pledge from these organizations to “continuing consequential reform and transparent action.” The joint statement asks the Administration “to pursue this important goal in ways that preserve academic freedom, respect due process, and strengthen the government-campus scientific partnership that has made America stronger, healthier, and safer.”
   
• In the May 1 edition of the GW Weekly Federal Update, we reported that the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s mass termination of SEVIS records, alleging that the agency’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Thereafter, the Administration reinstated the SEVIS status of impacted students, pending the development of a “policy framework for terminating SEVIS records.” On May 2, the Alliance amended the lawsuit to challenge ICE’s subsequent “policy framework” that allows ICE to “vastly expand [ICE’s] power to terminate students’ legal status and begin deportation proceedings—including based solely on a visa revocation, which normally would not lead to a change in a student’s residency status.”

Recent Federal Actions

• In the May 1 edition of the GW Weekly Federal Update, we reported that the National Science Foundation (NSF) would be terminating grant awards that are not aligned with NSF priorities, including those on DEI and misinformation/disinformation, and that NSF had terminated 1,100 grants since April 29. According to subsequent media reports, NSF has terminated an additional 344 grants and as of April 30 NSF has stopped all funding actions until further notice. In addition, on May 2, NSF announced that it is capping indirect cost rates for grants awarded on or after May 5 at 15%. In response to the announcement of the reduction in indirect cost rates, the AAU and several of its member institutions, and several other organizations, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts seeking to halt the reduction.
   
• On May 2, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a motion for preliminary injunction challenging two Trump Administration executive orders targeting DEI (“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”) and gender ideology (“Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth To the Federal Government”). The Court held that the plaintiff nonprofit organizations lacked standing to challenge several of the provisions in both executive orders and had not demonstrated a likelihood of success that they would succeed on the merits of the other claims. Court challenges against both EOs remain pending in federal courts in Maryland, Illinois, and California.
   
• In the Administration’s latest actions against Harvard, on May 5 the Department of Education sent a letter to Harvard stating that it was no longer eligible for new federal grants as a result of its “consistent violations of its own legal duties,” as well as its failure to abide by “its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor.” In a social media post, President Trump again threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status. In a show of support for Harvard, almost 100 senior Harvard faculty pledged to take a 10% pay cut for up to one year to support Harvard’s legal defense.
   
• On April 28, several non-profit organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration in the U.S. District Court in Oregon challenging the Administration’s recission of a Biden Administration policy limiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in “sensitive locations” such as community organizations, schools, hospitals, and places of worship.
   
• In response to a protest occurring on May 5 on the campus of the University of Washington that resulted in the arrest of 31 individuals who occupied a university building, the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism issued a press release announcing its “review of recent incidents of anti-Semitic violence at the University and its affiliates,” stating that while it “applauds the quick action by law enforcement officers to remove the violent criminals from the university campus” and the university’s “good first steps” in its response to the protest, “the university must do more to deter future violence and guarantee that Jewish students have a safe and productive learning environment.”
   
• On May 7, the House Committee on Education and Workforce held a hearing titled "Beyond the Ivy League: Stopping the Spread of Antisemitism on American Campuses." Witnesses included the presidents of Haverford College, DePaul University, and California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, as well as a professor from Georgetown University Law Center. Republican committee members focused their questions primarily on universities’ steps to discipline students for alleged antisemitic conduct. Democratic committee members focused their questions primarily on Republicans’ seriousness in combating antisemitism in light of the Trump Administration’s closure of multiple regional offices of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
   
• On May 5, President Trump issued an Executive Order, “Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research,” and related Fact Sheet with a stated purpose “to improve the safety and security of biological research in the United States and around the world” by ending federal funding in “foreign nations deemed to have insufficient research oversight” such as China and Iran and ending federal funding “that could pose a threat to American public health, public safety, or national security. The EO also “[p]rohibits Federal funding from contributing to foreign research likely to cause another pandemic” and “reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research.”
   
• On May 2, the fiscal 2026 “skinny” Presidential budget request was released. Significant cuts to educational and research priorities were proposed including a 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health, 57% to the NSF, and 24% to NASA, among others. The blueprint also proposes eliminating, among others, the National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts. A complete budget request is expected later this month.
   
• We have previously reported on the Trump Administration’s freeze on hundreds of millions in federal grants to Columbia University, despite Columbia agreeing to make a number of policy changes demanded by the Administration. In a May 6 letter to the Columbia community, its President announced that while it continues to negotiate a resolution with the Administration, as a result of “increased budget constraints” relating to the cut in federal funding, it terminated the employment of 20% of Columbia employees who had been working in whole or in part on impacted federal grants. Further, on May 7, police arrested dozens of protesters who occupied the Columbia library during final exams. In a letter to the community, its President stated that police were called in after protesters refused to show identification.
   
• In a press release issued on May 2, the Department of Transportation announced that DOT terminated $54 million in university grants at seven universities that DOT characterized as grants “to advance a radical DEI and green agenda that were both wasteful and ran counter to the transportation priorities of the American people.”
   
• On May 5, the Department of Education issued a "Dear Colleague Letter" and related press release, outlining the ED's views regarding universities' obligations to student loan borrowers under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965. This comes on the heels of ED's restart of collections on student loans and urges universities to "reach out to all former students to remind them of their obligation to repay any federal student loan that is not in deferment or forbearance ... before June 30, 2025."
   
• In the April 17 edition of the GW Weekly Federal Update, we reported on a lawsuit filed by 21 state attorneys general in the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, against various federal agencies and officials challenging an Executive Order that directed the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services and four other federal agencies to eliminate every one of their programs and components not mandated by statute and to reduce their statutorily mandated functions and associated staff to the minimum required by law. On May 6, the Court granted a preliminary injunction, holding that the EOs are likely arbitrary and capricious because the agencies weren’t able to provide more than “vague” justifications for the sweeping cuts, and “disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government.”
   
• On May 2, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia permanently enjoined enforcement of an Executive Order that among other things suspended the security clearances for employees of the law firm Perkins Coie, terminated  government contracts with the firm, required the review the government contracts of Firm clients, and directed the EEOC to investigate the DEI practices of a number of law firms. The Court observed that, “[n]o American president has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue,” adding, “In purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ . . . Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.”
   
• On May 7, the State of Maine reached a settlement of the lawsuit it brought against the Department of Agriculture in response to the Department freezing or terminating $3 million in federal funds over alleged Title IX violation relating to the state’s transgender policies in public schools. Under the terms of the settlement, the Trump Administration agreed to refrain from freezing or terminating those funds in exchange for the state dismissing the lawsuit.
   
• On May 1, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization Of Biased Media” (Fact Sheet here), which directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease direct funding to NPR and PBS… to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage.”  The EO also instructs the CPB to cease indirect funding to NPR and PBS by, among other things, revising “the 2025 Television Community Service Grants General Provisions and Eligibility Criteria and the 2025 Radio Community Service Grants General Provisions and Eligibility Criteria to prohibit direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS.”

Resources and Reminders

About this Newsletter

To ensure that students, faculty and staff feel supported and informed about how federal developments affect higher education and GW, the university launched a weekly Federal Update. This newsletter shares timely information, addresses questions and provides resources.