Education Dept. considering cuts for California universities while making ‘progress’ with Harvard and Columbia, McMahon says

The Trump administration is turning its ire from the Ivies in the East to public universities in California as it continues its crusade to remake higher education in the United States. Education Secretary Linda McMahon affirmed the administration is considering significant slashes to federal funding for universities in the Golden State, which CNN previously reported, during a Tuesday conversation with Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardner. “In California, I think we saw pretty flagrant violations of Title IX, and that is why this focus that was put on them,” McMahon told CNN during the question-and-answer session Tuesday. “We have men participating in women’s sports, which is clearly against Title IX, and the president has made it very clear that he is definitely going to uphold Title IX.” The administration’s focus on the West Coast marks a new phase in its effort to put America’s elite universities on notice over political ideology, outside of concerns over antisemitism on campuses following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas. Last month, President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from the state over a transgender athlete’s participation in a sporting event. A.B. Hernandez, a public high school junior in Southern California, reached the podium in all three of her events at the state track and field championships. Her participation had prompted criticism and protests from some in the community who said it prevented lower-ranked competitors from advancing. Some critics of transgender athletes claim they have an unfair advantage in sports, but while existing research hints at how hormone therapy may affect a person’s physical abilities, some experts say far more data is needed to make confident conclusions about whether trans people in general hold advantages in their respective sports. Earlier this month, the California Department of Education advised schools in the Golden State to resist barring trans athletes from competing in sports at the urging of the US Department of Justice. On Monday, the state filed suit against the DOJ for making the ask. “California state law protects all students’ access to participate in athletics in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity,” State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said in a statement following the pressure from the DOJ. “We will continue to follow the law and ensure the safety of all our athletes.” A day after Trump’s threat to withhold federal funding from California over Hernandez’s participation in the event, the Justice Department announced it was investigating whether the state’s School Success and Opportunity Act – which in part prohibits public schools from blocking transgender students from participating in school sports – violates the federal Title IX law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that receive federal money. California has “blatantly (refused) to be in compliance with the Title IX regulations,” McMahon said Tuesday. Trump signed an executive order in February titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports, leaning in part on Title IX compliance. Ahead of the signing, a White House official said the action would take the opposite position on Title IX from the Biden administration, which established a rule that schools are violating Title IX when they ban transgender students from participating on sports teams. The Trump administration’s position on Title IX, the official said, is “if you’re going to have women’s sports, if you’re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that you’re going to preserve women’s sports for women.” White House feud with California Singling out one state for massive cuts would be an unusual move, but Trump has long feuded with Democratic-led California – most recently in a legal battle after the president deployed the National Guard to respond to protests in Los Angeles despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections. Newsom broke with the position of most Democrats on the topic in March when he told a podcast the participation of transgender athletes playing in women’s sports is “an issue of fairness” and that he “can hold in my hand” both sides of the debate. Newsom has a long record of supporting LGBTQ rights. He ordered the city and county of San Francisco to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004 after being elected mayor of San Francisco. Senate Democrats in March blocked a GOP-led bill that would have banned transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools and educational institutions. Federal agencies have now been told to start identifying grants that the administration can withhold from California, CNN reported Friday. Sources said the administration is specifically considering a full termination of federal grant funding for the University of California and California State University systems. The UC system is the state’s third-largest employer, and both systems are major engines of research in the biotechnology and medical fields, among others. McMahon indicated formula funding could be on the chopping block for the California schools. Formula funds are federal grants that are set based on a predetermined formula determined by Congress, according to the Department of Education. “That is one of the tools and the opportunities that we have with California and I think it’s right that we make them aware that that is a risk that they run,” McMahon said, confirming reporting from Politico. Praise for Harvard and Columbia Months of tumult for higher education institutions have followed Trump’s January inauguration, with the administration threatening Columbia University’s accreditation and Harvard’s new international students just last week. But Tuesday, McMahon appeared to commend the schools’ administrators and “progress” at the institutions. The education secretary suggested the Trump administration believes Harvard has taken steps to combat antisemitism on campus, even though it remains embroiled in a number of lawsuits with the Ivy League school. “We are, I think, making progress in some of the discussion, where even though they have taken a hard line, they have, for instance, replaced their head of Middle East Studies,” McMahon said. Her comments also come after Trump told reporters Harvard is “starting to behave,” declining to elaborate further. McMahon continued, “They have already put in place some of the things that we talked about in our negotiations with Columbia. For instance, none of us is suggesting that on college campuses there shouldn’t be, you know, there shouldn’t be discussion. There could be orderly and nonviolent protests. I mean, college ought to be about the exchange of ideas and debate and all of that. It has to be done peacefully.” And asked whether Harvard should expect additional actions from the administration, she said, “At this particular time, we’re continuing with the things we’ve already talked about.” McMahon also noted “really good, open, honest discussions” with Columbia University. She said she has met once in person with the school’s acting president, Claire Shipman, and they have spoken by phone twice. “I think we’ve made great progress,” she said. Though the discussions began on the issue of antisemitism, McMahon said, “We wanted to look at other aspects of, you know, the programs that they had on campus, how they were vetting their students. Did they believe that a lot of the uprisings on campus came from outside agitators or students that were on campus. What were some of the ways that they were managing those activities on campus?” McMahon said a consent decree – an agreement approved by a federal judge used as a monitoring system – was also on the table. “We’ve discussed the consent decree and so our negotiations have gone, you know, back and forth. That’s a good part of the negotiations,” she said. She expressed openness to some universities eventually getting federal funding back – and said it was a “goal.” “That’s part of the negotiations, of course, that we have that are ongoing. It would be my goal that if universities – colleges and universities – are abiding by the laws of the United States and doing what we’re expecting of them, that they could expect to have taxpayer-funded programs,” McMahon said.