Students at Rudsdale Continuation High School in Oakland, California.
Credit: Anne Wernikoff for Edsource
Magaly Lavadenz was excited about what she felt could be a game-changer for students who are learning English as a second language.
The Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL) at Loyola Marymount University, which Lavadenz directs, had just won a grant in October 2024 for $5.7 million from the U.S. Department of Education to establish a National Comprehensive Center on English Learners and Multilingualism.
The center would provide resources, training and materials to state education agencies and tribal education agencies so they could, in turn, help districts provide the best support to English learners.
“There was so much excitement about this work,” Lavadenz said.
Then, four months later, in February, Lavadenz received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education terminating the grant and claiming that it violated President Donald Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.
It was a chilling foreshadowing of what would come.
The Trump administration later cut the vast majority of the staff of the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), which is charged with administering federal funding for English learners, providing resources and training to schools, and making sure states provide the instruction and services they are required to provide to English learners.
Then, in Trump’s budget request released May 2, he proposed eliminating the federal funding earmarked for English learners and immigrant students under Title III of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal education law.
“To end overreach from Washington and restore the rightful role of State oversight in education, the Budget proposes to eliminate the misnamed English Language Acquisition program which actually deemphasizes English primacy by funding NGOs and States to encourage bilingualism,” reads the budget proposal. “The historically low reading scores for all students mean States and communities need to unite—not divide—classrooms using evidence-based literacy instruction materials to improve outcomes for all students.”
Researchers, advocates, and school district administrators say the termination of grants and proposed cuts to funding for schools are misinformed and violate federal law.
“There are civil rights laws that protect English learners,” Lavadenz said. “We believe that the U.S. Department of Education is in violation of those.”
Both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 require public schools to ensure that English learners can participate fully in school at the same level as their English-speaking peers. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the Lau v. Nichols case in 1974 that schools must provide additional instruction to students who do not speak English fluently to make sure they can understand the content of their classes.
Education leaders in California said the cuts to Title III would be devastating. Title III funds are sent to state education agencies, like the California Department of Education, to distribute to schools based on the number of immigrant and English learner students they have. They are to be used to help students understand academic content in their classes and to help them learn English.
Debra Duardo, the Los Angeles County superintendent of schools, said she was “deeply concerned” by the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate Title III. In the 2023-24 school year, schools in L.A. County received approximately $30 million in Title III funding for English learners, she said, which was used for tutoring, support staff, instructional coaching, and high-quality supplemental materials. In addition, they received $2.5 million for immigrant students, which were used to help support family literacy and outreach, school personnel, tutorials, mentoring, and academic and career counseling.
“This decision would have devastating impacts on Los Angeles County schools, where we serve one of the nation’s largest populations of English learners and children from migrant families,” Duardo said.
Lavadenz said if the funds are cut, districts may stop providing services to English learners, or they may remove funding from other areas to keep providing services.
“There’s going to be potential not just for the elimination of services, but we’re going to be pitting student groups against each other,” Lavadenz said.
Nicole Knight, executive director of English Language Learner and Multilingual Achievement at Oakland Unified School District, agreed.
“Ultimately, cutting support for English learners jeopardizes the quality of education for all students, as districts would be forced to divert resources from other critical priorities in order to meet their legal obligations to provide language services,” Knight said.
In addition, a loss of funds would likely mean no federal monitoring, collection of data on English learners, or oversight to make sure states or school districts are actually providing the services they are required to under the law.
“I am devastated to see that work dismantled at the federal level,” said Knight. “It feels like years of progress and good work are being erased.”
Efraín Tovar, who teaches recent immigrant students at Abraham Lincoln Middle School in Selma Unified School District in the Central Valley and is also the founder of the California Newcomer Network, said his district has used Title III funds to buy supplemental curriculum and computer software for newcomer students. He said some districts have used the funds to create innovative Saturday programs for recent immigrant students to help them learn.
“Here in Selma, those funds have helped me directly impact my students’ educational journey,” Tovar said. Every single dollar in public education helps. If those funds are not given by the federal government, the question we have at the local level is, will the state then make it a priority to fund those special programs?”
Many California leaders disagreed with the administration’s arguments that bilingual education or encouraging bilingualism makes students less likely to speak English.
“Decades of research clearly support dual-language and multilingual programs as the most effective models for helping students acquire English and achieve long-term academic success,” Knight said. “I can only hold on to hope that our lawmakers will attend to the evidence, the research, and their conscience to make the right decision for our young people.”
Lavadenz is not convinced, however, that Congress will end up cutting all that funding, especially given that some Republican states like Texas have a long history of encouraging, or even requiring, bilingual education for English learners.
“This is an evolving story,” she said. “The states that have a lot more to lose are not necessarily progressive states like California.”
Students march in support of a Muslim valedictorian whose planned commencement speech was canceled by the University of Southern California on April 18, 2024.
Credit: Delilah Brumer / EdSource
Holding Palestinian flags and signs calling for “Justice for Asna,” hundreds of University of Southern California students gathered Thursday to march in support of a Muslim valedictorian whose planned commencement speech was canceled by the university.
The students, many of them wearing hoodies and masks, which they said symbolized the silencing of the valedictorian, first gathered by the Tommy Trojan statue near the center of campus. They then marched across campus, often chanting “let her speak” and holding signs with the same message in the Palestinian colors of red, green and black.
The march was the latest protest of the university’s decision to cancel the May 10 speech. The valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, is a biomedical engineering major with an interdisciplinary minor in resistance to genocide. USC officials said they canceled the speech because of security risks, telling EdSource in a statement Thursday that university leadership made the decision in consultation with campus law enforcement. They did not disclose the specific security risks facing the university.
“While the decision was difficult, it was necessary to maintain and prioritize the security of the USC community during the coming weeks, and to allow those attending commencement to focus on the celebration our graduates deserve,” the university said. “Nothing can take precedence over the safety of our community.”
Students march near the Tommy Trojan statue in support of a Muslim valedictorian whose planned commencement speech was canceled by the University of Southern California on Thursday, citing unspecified safety concerns.Credit: Delilah Brumer / EdSource
Pro-Palestinian student groups and other supporters, meanwhile, say the university is perpetuating Islamophobia with its decision.
“It’s very disappointing that USC is very proactive in theory, for students, but then (the university does) not deliver,” USC student Aisha Patel said. “It’s a slap in the face that they won’t let her speak.”
Patel said that as a fellow Muslim woman, she feels represented and supported by Tabassum — and that the university’s decision to cancel her speech “silences the voices of people who visibly look like me.”
An international student at USC from Syria who did not want to be named, said the decision to cancel Tabassum’s speech “devastated and shocked me to my core.”
“When I came to the U.S., I thought this was a freedom of speech country and I thought I could express myself,” the student said. “It’s so upsetting that this is happening. If you can’t express yourself in America, then where can you do that?”
No pro-Israel demonstrators were seen near Thursday’s march.
The tensions between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students at USC and on other college campuses have heightened dramatically since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, after which Israel responded with a bombardment of Gaza. The Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and another 240 were taken hostage. More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza — mostly women and children — since Israel launched its military response.
The conflict has rattled universities across the country with administrators challenged to uphold freedom of speech amid charges that some speech is hateful antisemitism or Islamophobic.
USC officials have said the decision to cancel Tabassum’s speech has nothing to do with freedom of speech, since no individual student is entitled to speak at commencement. Some free speech experts have still criticized the decision, arguing that selecting her as valedictorian only to cancel the speech raises red flags about the speech climate on campus. The decision also has given Tabassum a platform beyond what she would have had at the graduation. She has been widely interviewed in national and international media. “When you silence us,” she told the Los Angeles Times, “you make us louder.”
USC students rally in support of a Muslim valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, after her planned commencement speech was canceled .Credit: Delilah Brumer / EdSource
After USC initially announced Tabassum as a commencement speaker, a number of pro-Israel groups, both on and off the campus, criticized the decision, with some attacking Tabassum over a link in her Instagram bio. The link leads to a webpage that says “learn about what’s happening in Palestine, and how to help.” Pro-Israel groups took issue with another part of the website that says Zionism is a “racist settler-colonial ideology.”
Rabbi Dov Wagner, who runs the Chabad Jewish Center at USC, said in a statement on Instagram this weekthat while he has nothing against Tabassum, the initial selection of her as valedictorian “has caused great distress” to Jewish students at USC. He said the speech featured on Tabassum’s social media “is antisemitic and hate speech.”
USC officials previously said that discussion related to the selection of Tabassum had taken on an “alarming tenor,” including from voices outside of the university.
Tabassum said in her own statement issued this week that she isn’t aware of any specific threats made against herself or the university and that she requested “details underlying the university’s threat assessment” but that the request was denied.
“There remain serious doubts about whether USC’s decision to revoke my invitation to speak is made solely on the basis of safety,” she added.
She also said that while she wasn’t surprised “by those who attempt to propagate hatred,” she was surprised that USC “abandoned me.”
USC student Hafeez Mir said he attended the march because “it’s outrageous to see the university succumb to external pressures and strip this honor away from her.”
Students protest USC’s cancellation of a planned commencement speech by a Muslim valedictorian, Asna Tabassum.Credit: Delilah Brumer / EdSource
“She earned this honor and she is far and beyond deserving of it,” Mir said.
Tabassum also has the support of 66 student and local groups who signed an open letter calling on USC to reverse its decision and allow Tabassum to speak at commencement.
In the letter, authored by Trojans for Palestine and 65 co-signer groups, the students wrote that USC “perpetuates and engages in Islamophobia and xenophobia by bowing” to outside groups that called for Tabassum to be disinvited.
“We demand that the University recognize its grave error and allow Tabassum to give her speech at graduation, provide her with whatever safety measures she requests — as has been provided for former presidents and governors, royalty, artists, musicians, professional athletes and others — and publicly apologize to her for acquiescing to a campaign of intimidation and harassment,” they added.
Meanwhile, some free speech advocates have criticized USC for canceling the speech. Alex Morey, the director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), wrote in a blog post that “with no sense that USC actually received any threats or took any steps to secure the event short of canceling it,” the decision appears to be “a calculated move to quiet the critics.”
USC Provost Andrew Guzman said in a statement this week that there is “no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement” and that the decision to cancel the speech “has nothing to do with freedom of speech.”
Morey wrote that while she agrees that no student is entitled to speak, her organization disagrees with Guzman’s assertion that the decision has nothing to do with free speech.
“But once USC has selected a student for this honor, canceling her speech based on criticism of her viewpoint definitely implicates the campus speech climate in important ways,” Morey wrote. She added that administrators should have done “everything in their power to provide adequate security” and that canceling the speech should have been a last resort.
Delilah Brumer is a sophomore at Los Angeles Pierce College majoring in journalism and political science and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
Hundreds of San Diego State students protest in support of Palestinians on April 30, 2024.
Credit: Jazlyn Dieguez / EdSource
California State University and the University of California are welcoming student activists back to campus this fall with revamped protest rules that signal a harder line on encampments, barriers and, under certain circumstances, the wearing of face masks.
Cal State, the nation’s largest public university system, was first to issue its policy Thursday, a bundle of restrictions that govern public assemblies on university campuses. UC President Michael Drake followed Monday with a letter outlining his expectations for campus chancellors to impose restrictions on how students could engage in protests this fall.
The two systems join a wave of colleges that have revisited rules about how and where people can demonstrate on their campuses in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests last spring. Critics say some strengthened restrictions could limit free speech rights.
The Cal State policy bars tent encampments and overnight demonstrations, a signature of the spring’s protest movements both within CSU and across higher education institutions. Erecting unauthorized barricades, fencing and furniture is also prohibited.
“Encampments are prohibited by the policy, and those who attempt to start an encampment may be disciplined or sanctioned,” CSU spokesperson Hazel Kelly said in a written statement to EdSource. “Campus presidents and their designated officials will enforce this prohibition and take appropriate steps to stop encampments, including giving clear notice to those in violation that they must discontinue their encampment activities immediately.”
Kelly said the encampments “are disruptive and can cause a hostile environment for some community members. We have an obligation to ensure that all community members can access University Property and University programs.”
UC campuses similarly will ban encampments or other “unauthorized structures,” Drake said in a letter to campus chancellors Monday morning directing them to enforce those rules. He also said they must prohibit anything that restricts movement on campus, which could include protests that block walkways and roadways or deny access by anyone on campus to UC facilities.
“I hope that the direction provided in this letter will help you achieve an inclusive and welcoming environment at our campuses that protects and enables free expression while ensuring the safety of all community members by providing greater clarity and consistency in our policies and policy application,” Drake added.
UC faces Oct. 1 deadline
As part of this year’s state budget agreement, lawmakers directed Drake’s office to create a “systemwide framework” for consistently enforcing protest rules across UC’s campuses. Lawmakers are withholding $25 million from UC until Drake submits a report to the Legislature by Oct. 1 detailing those plans.
A variety of higher education institutions have bolstered policies that constrain demonstrations and similar gatherings in reaction to protests over the Israel-Hamas war last school year.
The University of Pennsylvania’s “temporary guidelines” include a ban on bullhorns and speakers after 5 p.m. on school days as well as a two-week limit on the display of posters and banners, according to The Associated Press. Indiana University’s policy allows “expressive activities” like protests from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. only and requires prior approval to hang or place signs on university property. The University of South Florida rules stipulate that no protests are allowed in the final two weeks of a semester, AP reported, among other restrictions.
Tyler Valeska,an assistant professor of law at Loyola University Chicago, said that even if a university has not seemed keen to enforce protest rules strictly in the past, many are now telegraphing a more forceful approach in the future.
“For years, maybe even decades, it did seem to be the case that university officials had a policy on paper and then another policy in their actual approach to enforcement,” he said. “And we saw a major change from that status quo in the spring, where universities around the country started suddenly enforcing policies that had been on the books for years or decades, but had never really been enforced against relatively nondisruptive student speech.”
“It may be the case that the universities are hyping up their policies with no actual intent to enforce them stringently, but based on what we saw in the spring, that would surprise me,” he added.
Applies to all Cal State campuses
The interim policy at Cal State applies to all 23 of the system’s campuses, replacing rules at each school. University leaders still have discretion on specifics, such as determining which buildings and spaces on campus are considered to be public areas and which hours of the day those spaces can be accessed, which they will spell out in addition to the systemwide policy.
Drake’s letter to the campus chancellors is not a systemwide policy. Instead, his letter directs each campus to come up with its own policies. Those policies must meet certain requirements, including the banning of encampments.
Some campuses likely already have the necessary policies, Drake said in his letter. If they don’t, they should develop or amend existing policies as soon as possible, he added. In either case, each campus must provide a document or webpage that describes those policies.
Both of California’s four-year university systems have come under fire for how they responded to protests in solidarity with Palestine this spring. Some campus leaders approached student activists with a light touch, allowing students to camp overnight in quads peacefully and negotiating with representatives until they voluntarily disassembled encampments. But as conflicts between protesters, counterprotesters and administrators flared on some campuses, university leaders called in law enforcement agencies to break up encampments and arrest students who did not comply with orders to disperse.
Highlights for both systems
The new protest guidance suggests that Cal State and UC are now headed in roughly the same direction, taking a stronger stance against practices that featured frequently in spring protests.
Highlights of the policies include:
Camping: Cal State’s policy bans “encampments of any kind, overnight demonstrations … and overnight loitering.” It outlaws the use of camping paraphernalia, including recreational vehicles and tents. Bringing “copious amounts of personal belongings” to campus without permission is also a no-go, except as allowed in student housing and university work spaces. Drake’s letter instructs UC chancellors to clarify their policies to make clear that setting up a camp, tent or temporary housing structure is not allowed without prior approval.
Barricades and other structures: Drake requests campuses make sure their policies prohibit building unauthorized structures on campus. Cal State’s interim policy additionally lists a range of temporary and permanent structures — “tent, platform, booth, bench, building, building materials (such as bricks, pallets, etc.), wall, barrier, barricade, fencing, structure, sculpture, bicycle rack or furniture” — that aren’t allowed without permission.
Masking and refusing to self-identify: Cal State and Drake’s letter invoke the same policy on face coverings almost to the word. Both warn that masks and other attempts to conceal one’s identity are not allowed “with the intent of intimidating and harassing any person or group, or for the purpose of evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification in the commission of violations” of relevant laws or policies. Cal State’s language, additionally, notes that face masks are “permissible for all persons who are complying with University policies and applicable laws.” Similarly, both systems bar people from refusing to identify themselves to a university official acting in their official capacity on campus.
Restricting free movement: Drake’s letter emphasizes that campus policies should prohibit restricting another person’s movement by, for example, blocking walkways, windows or doors in a way that denies people access to the university’s facilities. The guidance comes days after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that barred UCLA from “knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students” on its campus. Cal State’s interim policy includes blanket advisories against actions that “impede or restrict the free movement of any person” and block streets, walkways, parking lots or other pedestrian and vehicle paths.
Kelly, the CSU spokesperson, said sections of the policy about encampments, the use of barricades and face coverings “are not new and are already in place for the most part at each university and at the Chancellor’s Office.”
In the spring, students built encampments at UC campuses including UCLA and UC San Diego as well as Cal State campuses including Sacramento State and San Francisco State. Bobby King, a spokesperson for San Francisco State, said the school granted students last spring an exception to the campus time, place and manner policy.
Pro-Palestinian student encampment in front of Royce Hall at UCLA on April 30, 2024.Credit: Delilah Brumer / EdSource
“The new CSU policy will create greater urgency in resolving a situation like the one we had last spring,” he said. “Obviously, with the new policy in place, campus leaders who engage with the students would need to convey that urgency.”
The interim policy at Cal State takes a comprehensive approach to defining what is and is not allowed during demonstrations, outlawing items like firearms, explosives and body armor as well as actions like shooting arrows, climbing light poles and public urination. The policy outlaws demonstrations in university housing, including the homes of employees living on university property when “no public events are taking place.”
Drake’s directive describes a tiered system for how campuses should police individuals if they violate any rules. They would first be informed of the violation and asked to stop. If they don’t, the next step would be to warn them of potential consequences.
After that, UC police or the local campus fire marshal could issue orders that could include an unlawful assembly announcement, an order to disperse or an order to identify oneself. If the conduct doesn’t change at that point, the individuals involved could be cited for violation of university policy and, if they are breaking a law, they could also be detained and arrested. Police could order them to stay away from campuses for repeat offenses or what they deem more severe violations.
That response system, however, “is not a rigid prescription that will capture all situations,” the guidance states.
Cal State’s interim policy is effective immediately for students and nonunion employees, Kelly said. Unionized employees will work under the previously-negotiated campus policies until a meet-and-confer process for the new policy is complete.
Each Cal State campus asked to elaborate
Cal State Dominguez Hills and Stanislaus State were the first two campuses to publish addenda for their schools as of press time.
The Dominguez Hills addendum, for example, lists areas where protests are permitted without pre-scheduling, including the north lawn in front of the Loker Student Union and a sculpture garden adjacent to the University Theater. But the document limits events in those places to the hoursbetween 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. and allows only “non-amplified speech and expression.”
The campus-specific policy will also describe any restrictions on signs, banners and chalking. The Dominguez Hills addendum prohibits the use of sticks or poles to support handheld signs, does not allow signs “to be taped to any campus buildings, directory signs, fences, railings, or exterior light poles” and by default limits signs to a two-week posting period. It also includes a list of “designated posting places” on the campus.
Margaret Russell, an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said Cal State’s policy is clearly motivated by a desire to minimize disruptions from protests. Russell said that though many of the restrictions target students’ conduct rather than their speech, she is troubled by broad language seeming to require written permission for posters, signs, banners and chalking.
Russell said such language could create “a chilling effect” because it “is so potentially broad and far-reaching that people don’t know ahead of time what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.”
“The overall message is, ‘Be careful. Be careful where you express your opinion aloud.’” And so to me, it seems suppressive of freedom of speech, which is probably what they want,” she said.
Kelly, the Cal State spokesperson, said that the policy overall is meant to describe how the universities’ property can be used without inhibiting free expression.
“Generally, separate individual written permission is not required for signage unless the person is trying to post on a facility where it is not permitted,” she said. “This rule does not apply to signs and posters people carry or use personally.”
An Aug. 14 statement from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) did not name any universities but broadly criticized school administrations for policies it said “severely undermine the academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression that are fundamental to higher education.”
“Many of the latest expressive activity policies strictly limit the locations where demonstrations may take place, whether amplified sound can be used, and types of postings permitted,” the statement said. “With harsh sanctions for violations, the policies broadly chill students and faculty from engaging in protests and demonstrations.”
The AAUP statement said some institutions have gone so far as to require protest groups to register in advance. AAUP argued that such provisions effectively block spontaneous protests and may discourage protesters wishing to avoid surveillance.
The AAUP statement came a day after the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) released a “guide to preventing encampments and occupations on campus.” The guide encourages universities to ban encampments and to act decisively to punish students who violate those policies.
“Once an encampment has occupied the campus, the institution has very few options to avoid an ugly spectacle that at best will make the administration look ineffectual and even make the board appear derelict,” the guide says. “Negotiating and making concessions are invitations to more and increasing demands. They embolden others to employ similar coercive tactics in the future and further undermine the university’s mission.”
Cal State’s interim policy says the university embraces its obligation to support the free exchange of information and ideas, but that such freedom of expression “is allowed and supported as long as it does not violate other laws or University policies and procedures.”
Cal State spokesperson Kelly said the university system “places the highest value on fostering healthy discourse and exchange of ideas in a safe and peaceful manner, by sustaining a learning and working environment that supports the free and orderly exchange of ideas, values, and opinions, recognizing that individuals grow and learn when confronted with differing views, alternative ways of thinking, and conflicting values.”
