Rebuilding After Dept. of Education Drops Appeal on Jan. 21, 2026

On January 21, 2026, the Department of Education rescinded its appeal to a court order blocking unlawful guidance the Department of Education provided in a Dear Colleague Letter dated February 14, 2025. In essence this nullifies the Dept. of Education’s erroneous claims that the higher education sector was engaged in violations of civil rights laws because it attended to the realities of race.

Since 2016, courts have largely sided with higher education plaintiffs in cases challenging gag orders, attempts to withhold research funding, and efforts to dismantle state and federal educational offices. These findings illustrate both vulnerabilities and leverage points that require deep thought about and within institutional norms and vision. Specifically, nearly every administrative and policy-driven attempt to control institutions of higher education use the sector’s financial dependence on state or federal government to control freedoms fundamental to individuals.  

At the intersection of nearly all major attacks on higher education are fundamental freedoms in teaching and research; self-governance; and opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to thrive. Now that the false claims and subsequent threats made in the Dear Colleague Letter have been proven invalid, our sector must move forward and rebuild.  

This moment, as Amy Reid recently noted at the launch of PEN America’s Censored Campuses, “is a tipping point.” Despite the relatively quiet reception of this development, we in the sector must use this moment and the research from PEN America and organizations across the sector as a means to reshape higher education so that it becomes a site where the freedom to teach, learn, and research is treasured, knowledge cannot be criminalized, all communities are represented and thrive, and institutions are self-governed and student-focused.

Democracy Forward developed an excellent explainer for educators on this topic, which highlights that for educators and schools, this development means:

• Acknowledging and discussing race in a school setting continues to be lawful.
• Teaching about race, racism, inequality, and related issues continues to be lawful.
• Supporting students in a way that acknowledges racial or ethnic identities (such as an Asian American student association that is open to all students) continues to be lawful.
• Schools may continue operating programs that encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion in accordance with existing law.
• The DCL and the Certification Requirement cannot be enforced against educators or schools.
• That said, this administration likely will try to curb programs that support diversity, equity, and inclusion in other ways.
• If a school has instituted policies to comply with this DCL and Certification Requirement, their leadership may want to be aware of this decision, assess their policies, and consult with counsel.

No matter the type of institution one works in, no matter how atrophied the imagination or morale, both can be reignited for a better democracy if we begin to take ownership of our own autonomy and agency.    

1. Use the Alliance’s Framework to have administrative discussions about what the institution has learned about policies, civil rights, risk, in terms of risk, and its relationship to state regulations. Let that tool guide how to build, not react and tear down, for a future aligned with democratic ideals and your mission.
2. Make your supervisors aware of this document so they may consider using it for the institution. 
3. Once clear on institutional direction, situate higher education’s role is a vehicle for democracy and build your culture towards ensuring alignment in institutional self-governance, the ability to exchange ideas, and opportunity and success.
4. Provide time and space for students and employees to imagine a better future—one where systems improve for employees and students; where pedagogy, teaching, research from all disciplines are valued; and students have more opportunity for a better life and a better nation because of their learning. 
5. Intentionally highlight the value of public-supported, but not government-controlled, higher education sector to audiences beyond our field. 
6. Consider rebuilding what was lost. In that vein, bring the students, staff, and faculty most impacted, targeted, or chilled in the past years for meaningful conversations about higher education’s role in democracy, opportunity, and research for the public good. Even as other threats continue, leadership can provide the necessary inertia to get over a tipping point.
7. Promote deep conversations about language and its importance; encourage change only when it strengthens the sector and institution rather than serving the agendas that misunderstand our mission and work.
8. Reflect on leadership at all levels. Have the leaders at your institution immersed themselves in theoretical underpinnings for systems change, democracy, and the higher education sector’s practices? If not, the Alliance can provide that.
9. Build internal governance systems that are more nimble than typical and that can take accountability for student outcomes, and the outcomes of the public good.
10. Avoid platitudes and imaginary thinking that higher education is facing a moment rather than a movement. And subsequently work to make institutions nimbler.
11. Get clear-eyed about the way in which institutional and sector autonomy have been so easy to dismantle. Narratives that pit identities against one another have moved the public. Our charge is to unite ourselves for that same public.  

And in the process, we can begin a movement to a brighter future.