The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday announced civil rights investigations into 15 additional medical schools over alleged racial discrimination in admissions, expanding on its recent probes into medical schools accused of race-conscious admissions practices. The department’s Civil Rights Division said it will examine whether the schools, which each receive millions in federal funding, are… Source link
More than 600 University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at UC Berkeley, are calling on the system to reinstate standardized testing requirements for science, technology, engineering and mathematics applicants, saying that six years of test-free admissions has not reliably assessed readiness and professors are often teaching middle school math to incoming students. Without standardized testing in admissions, professors said they don’t know whether incoming students can handle college-level math. The open letter, addressed to top UC leaders, asks for SAT or ACT exams to be required beginning in fall 2027 and for STEM faculty to be given formal oversight of readiness standards in their majors. “We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” they warned. Over three years — from fall 2021 to fall 2023 — the letter said, at least 20% of Berkeley first-semester calculus students who took a diagnostic exam showed deficits. “Basic mathematical fluency is analogous to literacy; without …
The UK Government’s new ‘missions’ to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged children need to be matched by a commitment to tackle unfair religious selection by faith schools, Humanists UK has said. The Education Secretary has announced new ‘missions’ in the North East and coastal communities which are aimed at improving the outcomes of children in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the country. While welcoming the focus on disadvantaged children, Humanists UK says the plan ignores one of the ways inequality is built into the school system: through the ability of state-funded faith schools to select pupils on religious grounds. Areas with more faith schools have higher levels of socio-economic segregation Research by the Sutton Trust in 2024 found that areas with more faith schools, particularly those areas with Catholic schools, have higher levels of socio-economic segregation than those areas with fewer schools with a religious character. An example in the North East is St Cuthbert’s High School, a Catholic secondary school in Newcastle that has a faith-based admissions criteria for applicants. Current government …
Schools have received “limited” government support to manage the risks of falling rolls to educational performance and value for money, the spending watchdog has warned. The National Audit Office estimated a forecast drop of 56,300 primary pupils in the system in 2027 “could mean that schools receive £288 million less in per-pupil funding”. Julia Harnden, deputy director of policy at the ASCL leaders’ union, warned there had been “no government strategy to mitigate that risk and there’s a real danger that more communities will lose schools which have been a feature of those communities for decades”. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP who chairs the Parliamentary public accounts committee, said: “It is deeply concerning that, despite pupil numbers declining since 2018, DfE has been slow to respond to the challenge and has not assessed the implications for education quality, particularly for the most disadvantaged pupils. “As pupil numbers are expected to continue to fall, DfE must make better use of its information and insights across the sector to support schools, clarify what a resilient and effective …
President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool) Alex Brandon/AP Pool hide caption toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP Pool BOSTON — A federal judge has halted efforts by the Trump administration to collect data that proves higher education institutions aren’t considering race in admissions. The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston on Friday granting the preliminary injunction follows a lawsuit filed earlier this month by a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general. It will only apply to public universities in plaintiffs The federal judge said the federal government likely has the authority to collect the data, but the demand was rolled out to universities in a “rushed and chaotic” manner. “The 120-day deadline imposed by the President led directly to the failure of NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) to engage meaningfully with the institutions during the notice-and-comment process to address the multitude of problems presented by the …
A pledge from the Conservative Party to end the use of ‘protected characteristics’ in admissions should mean schools can no longer select pupils based on religion, the National Secular Society has said. In a speech on British integration this week, Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch MP said protected characteristics “will not be used as criteria for hiring, promotion, admissions or procurement”. Most types of state-funded faith schools can have admissions policies which prioritise children based on their family’s religion when oversubscribed. Religion or belief is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010. The NSS, which campaigns to end religious discrimination in state schools, said ensuring school admissions treat families of all religions and beliefs equally “would be a welcome move towards greater social cohesion and integration.” Faith-based school admissions fostering religious, ethnic and socio-economic segregation, campaigners say Although discrimination based on religion or belief is generally illegal, exemptions in the Equality Act allow faith schools to give their highest priority admissions criteria to children whose families can demonstrate sufficient religiosity – for example, …
The Schools Admissions Code is to be reviewed to ‘to promote fairness for all families, particularly the most disadvantaged and children with additional needs’. This includes clearer in-year admissions decisions, stronger support for children who can’t get a place, and tightening rules so that class intakes better reflect local communities. The Department for Education’s (DfE) new white paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, says it will take these proposals to consultation later this year. Welcoming the announcement Humanists UK, which campaigns to end religiously selective admissions policies on the basis that they segregate children by faith, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and prior attainment, said that admissions can only be genuinely fair if every publicly funded school is in one clear, consistent system with effective local oversight. The impact of faith-based school admissions has been under scrutiny over recent years. In 2024, the Sutton Trust found that areas with more faith schools have higher levels of socio-economic segregation than those areas with fewer schools with a religious character. Also in 2024, the Education Policy Institute reported that …
Harvard University graduates attend the university’s 374th commencement ceremony on May 29, 2025 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images The Trump administration sued Harvard University on Friday, accusing it of failing to comply with a federal investigation and seeking documents to determine whether the university had illegally considered race in its admissions process. The move comes less than two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump said his administration was seeking $1 billion from Harvard to settle probes into school policies, after a news report that said Trump had dropped his demand for a payment from the Ivy League school. Harvard representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s administration has been threatening to withhold federal funds from Harvard and several other universities over issues including pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, campus diversity and transgender policies. The Justice Department said on Friday in a press release that Harvard had “repeatedly slow-walked the pace of production and refused to produce pertinent data and documents,” including admissions policies …
The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Harvard University on Friday, accusing it of withholding data the Trump administration wants to determine if the school is complying with the Supreme Court decision to ban affirmative action in higher education admissions. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, says Harvard has dodged giving the documents for more than 10 months. “Under President… Source link
Children are missing out on local school places because they are of the ‘wrong’ or no religion, and the Government does not even collect the data needed to understand the scale of the problem, members of the House of Lords were told during a Report Stage debate on the Children’s Wellbeing and School Bill. Amendment 201 – which would make sure faith-based admissions data was collected by the Department of Education – was proposed by All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG) member Baroness Lorely Burt. Speaking to her amendment, Baroness Burt highlighted how the Department for Education currently does not collect data on how admissions policies are applied in schools, and ‘therefore does not know how many parents are missing out on a place at their preferred school because of their religion or because they do not have a religion.’ In 2021, the then Conservative Government admitted that it had no idea how many children in England are locked out of their local schools because of faith-based admissions policies. Baroness Burt told peers that: ‘Collecting data …
