I wrote yesterday that progressive groups were urging President-Elect Joe Biden to seek policies that would make higher education more equitable and less financially burdensome. Higher education associations, led by the American Council on Education (ACE), are also seeking higher education policy change in the form of undoing much of what Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has done over the past four years.
From Inside Higher Education: "Among a long list of other actions they are hoping Biden will take, the groups would like the administration to halt additional requirements for institutions on reporting foreign gifts and to 'review and, when appropriate, terminate a number of investigations initiated and being conducted by political appointees in ED that are broadly understood to be politically motivated.' An example, the groups said, is the Education Department’s investigation of Princeton University after its president, in discussing its efforts to deal with inequity, acknowledged the existence of systemic racism in the institution’s history."
The higher education groups also seek a reversal of the Trump/DeVos-era Title IX policy, a reinstatement of Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and a reinstatement of Obama-era guidance that higher education institutions may use race-conscious admissions policies.
Read the full ACE letter here.