A student walks on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City in April. Utah has enacted a new law that prohibits schools from using diversity, equity and inclusion statements, bars state institutions from relying on specific individual characteristics in employment and education decisions, and eliminates central offices dedicated to DEI. Erika Bolstad/Statelin

SALT LAKE CITY — Shortly after taking office in 2023, Republican state Rep. Katy Hall heard from constituents complaining about how their adult children were required to write diversity, equity and inclusion statements while applying for medical and dental schools and other graduate programs in Utah.

“It doesn’t seem right,” Hall said. “It doesn’t seem like it belongs in an application.”

It took two legislative sessions, but Hall successfully sponsored a new law that not only prohibits the use of such DEI statements but also bars state institutions from relying on specific individual characteristics in employment and education decisions. Additionally, it eliminates central offices dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion.

In Utah and beyond, lawmakers are enjoying growing success in their pushback against DEI programs at public universities, many of which have hired administrators and established departments dedicated to creating more diverse faculties and student bodies. Some schools’ requirement that job and student applicants explain in writing how they’d bring DEI initiatives to their work or schooling have aroused especially strong opposition. Some states have dismantled DEI departments and programs, as well as ended race- and gender-based programs and scholarships.

Many in Utah describe their approach as more measured than that of other states. The law, which goes into effect July 1, includes a carve-out that allows DEI to be discussed in classroom instruction as well as in research and for accreditation purposes.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, who signed Hall’s legislation into law in January, said it “offers a balanced solution” even as it prohibits the type of training sessions he required of his staff when he first took office in 2021.

The intent of the legislation, Hall said, is to shift higher education away from a focus on identity.

“This is what we felt was a more nuanced way to say: ‘We want diversity, we want equality of opportunity, we want inclusion, but we want diversity of opinion and a diversity of thought and diversity of religion and diversity of everything.’ Not just external, personal identity characteristics,” Hall said.

“We used to be able to have discussions about politics without it coming to a judgment of someone’s moral character,” she added. “My hope is that there will be a little more political neutrality where you can have discussions and feel safe to have those discussions without it being so divisive.”

But the bill passed along party lines, pointed out state Rep. Angela Romero, a Democrat who serves as the House minority leader in Utah. She described what’s happening in her state as part of a broader culture war aimed at painting higher education as elite and out of touch.

“This is a national agenda,” Romero said in an interview. “It’s a machine and it’s been going for a while and it’s picking up momentum.”

Utah’s rollback is among dozens of simultaneous efforts to scale back DEI programs — to varying degrees — in state capitals and on higher education oversight boards in other Republican-led states. In at least 22 states, the legislature has enacted legislation, or public universities have set policies prohibiting or modifying DEI measures at state university systems, according to a running tally in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Among the earliest passed was 2023 legislation in North Dakota that prohibits asking students and prospective university employees about their commitment to DEI. Florida followed last year with a law that does away with diversity statements and DEI offices. Alabama in 2024 enacted a law restricting public employees from being forced to agree with so-called divisive concepts, including the idea that “by virtue of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, the individual is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

In South Dakota, the Board of Regents recently enacted a policy that bars employees at its six public universities from putting their preferred gender pronouns or tribal affiliations in email signatures, according to Inside Higher Ed. Most recently, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted last month to shift $2.3 million of DEI spending toward public safety and policing on campus. Then, the entire UNC System Board of Governors voted to abolish DEI policies in place since 2019 at all 17 of its campuses.

A chilling effect

Many of the efforts to roll back DEI initiatives in states have the same roots as a campaign against critical race theory spearheaded by Seattle documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo, who in 2020 elevated a once-obscure theory about the pervasiveness of racism in American law and institutions to a household term.

Often, efforts to undo DEI initiatives argue that students — especially white students — are harmed by learning about the history of racism in the United States because it may leave them feeling guilty or ashamed of their identity. Multiple states, including North Dakota, have adopted near-identical language in anti-DEI legislation that bans instruction that might prompt a person to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.”

In April, polling by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist found that 77% of Republicans say they believe that “discrimination against white people is as problematic as discrimination against Black Americans.”

Anti-DEI laws have had a chilling effect on higher education wherever they’ve been enacted, said Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals.

“The laws are deliberately vague so that professors have to be constantly thinking, ‘If I say this, will I be breaking the law? Will I lose my job or be arrested by the government if I say this in my classroom?’“ Mulvey said. “I mean, that’s where we are in America in 2024. These are the worries faculty have in an authoritarian society, and they have no place in a democracy.”

At the University of Texas, anti-DEI legislation led the system to eliminate 300 positions recently and to cut diversity training programs at multiple campuses.

The situation is similar in Florida, said Paul Ortiz, a professor of history and a union leader at the University of Florida. He’s leaving the school after 15 years for a position at Cornell University in New York. The fallout from the state’s DEI policies wasn’t the only reason he’s leaving — he got a great job offer — but it contributed to his decision, Ortiz said.

“To pretend that it’s not having an effect on the cultural and intellectual life of the state is the worst thing of all,” Ortiz said. “I’m hoping the pendulum is going to swing back.”

Students are the real losers, Mulvey said. At the University of Oklahoma, for example, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt’s executive order ending DEI programs in state offices and agencies effectively shuttered the National Education for Women’s Leadership program. The program encourages undergraduate women to engage in politics and public policy. Since its founding in 2002, more than 650 students have attended.

Stitt told the Oklahoma Voice that his executive order was about race, not the women’s leadership program, and called the backlash against his policy “political criticism.”

“What we’re seeing now is nobody’s helped when these offices are closed or programs are shut down, no one’s better off,” Mulvey said. “We’re having watered-down discussions and anodyne classes because faculty without tenure are afraid of losing their job if they say the wrong thing or if someone takes it out of context or tapes them and puts it online.”

DEI statements

DEI statements in university hiring have been one of the easiest targets nationwide, in part because there’s less support for them even among more progressive educators who support wider DEI initiatives.

Editorial boards and columnists at outlets as varied as The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Post have railed against diversity statements, saying they too often result in “self-censorship and ideological policing” on college campuses. Many elite universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, have reconsidered DEI statements as a requirement of employment applications. At best, critics argue, they’re boilerplate that echoes what employers want to hear, rendering them useless. At their worst, they serve as ideological litmus tests.

“We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a statement to WBUR in May, confirming the university’s new approach.

But DEI statements have their defenders. Suzanne Penuel, an associate professor who teaches first-year literature and writing at the University of South Carolina Lancaster, said she witnessed how high-quality DEI statements set job candidates apart when she served on the hiring committee for a position teaching American history. Nearly all academic applicants have polished curriculum vitae, impeccable recommendations and pitch-perfect cover letters, she wrote in an op-ed in The State.

Their DEI statements gave them personality, Penuel said in an interview. It was easier to tell which applicants would take a student-centered approach to their work; one applicant wrote that the textbooks used in the school’s history courses ought to be free, an interpretation that the hiring committee viewed as an inclusive approach to education.

She worries that the assault on already slim DEI initiatives in South Carolina is a continuation of a trend that began with a 2021 legislative requirement that all college students be taught certain aspects of American history, and a proposed state-level ban on some books in elementary schools.

“I hope I never see the day when there is this prescribed list of texts from a narrow list of publishers, and only some topics can be discussed,” Penuel said.

In Utah, where Democrats hold just 14 of the 75 seats in the state House of Representatives, Romero fought unsuccessfully to keep the anti-DEI legislation from passing.

Her reasons for opposing the legislation were partly personal. As a first-generation college student at the University of Utah, she took advantage of what was then called the Center for Ethnic Student Affairs, an academic advising center that could now be considered a DEI initiative. It was a safe place in a state where the dominant religion and culture often excludes people of color, Romero said.

Because of her association with the center, Romero landed an internship at the state legislature in 1994, leading to a career working in municipal government in Salt Lake City. And now, she serves as president of the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.

“Because of that, I’m here now,” Romero said on the House floor when the bill was up for debate. “What it did is it addressed the disparities. … There’s unintentional consequences when we just try to sweep things and say we’re all the same, because we’re not. There’s still a lot of things that have to change in this country for us all to be on a level playing field.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

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Governor Phil Murphy holds an educational roundtable discussion on the Educational Opportunity Fund and Tuition Aid Grant awards at New Jersey City University on Wednesday, April 18, 2018. OIT/Governor's Office.

New Jersey City University’s financial situation is so dire that its state-appointed fiscal monitor compares it to a patient who has undergone surgery. 

“A year and a half ago, I would say that their circumstances are very, very serious, and they ought to be getting their house in order,” the monitor, Henry Amoroso, told lawmakers Monday. “The patient is still suffering, but recovering, but now it needs the type of intervention to make the recovery a full realization.” 

Sen. Joe Cryan asked if the university would be able to survive as a stand-alone institution. 

“Without significant financial intervention, I do not think so,” Amoroso replied. 

During the three-hour hearing in front of the Legislature’s two higher education committees, Amoroso joined New Jersey City University interim president Andrés Acebo and state Higher Education Secretary Brian Bridges to lay out the school’s difficult financial landscape and how it’s taking on recommendations Amoroso made in a fiscal report released in March.

The Jersey City-based university is facing nearly $300 million in debt and capital needs, a number that had lawmakers asking how it took so long for school officials to realize the extent of their problem.

Its board declared a financial emergency in June 2022 and laid off top staff, including administrators. A state comptroller report later revealed former university president Sue Henderson and other administrators mismanaged $14 million in pandemic relief funds before Henderson was allowed to resign with a $288,000 severance payment, car, and housing subsidy. 

Bridges pointed to the university’s prior administrations that “overextended itself significantly.” New regulations have been put in place that allow state higher education officials to monitor schools so they don’t find themselves in the same position, he said. 

Amoroso was the first fiscal monitor appointed to oversee a state-run college under a law mandating monitors when higher education institutions face financial issues. The law requires public colleges to submit regular audits and fiscal reports to state officials.

In an effort to eliminate some expenses, the university slashed 48 undergraduate programs, Acebo said. This impacted less than 10% of the student body — some of the programs had just three students pursuing them, Acebo added. 

He said the university began to focus on taking finite resources and reallocating them “where they would be more meaningful and core to our academic expertise.” 

New Jersey City University faces a “unique mission” in helping its population of diverse students get their degrees, Amoroso said. Some funding goes to ensuring students aren’t unhoused between semesters, which means keeping the dorms open year-round and ensuring students have access to food even when classes are on recess.

The school boasts a student body where more than 60% are from Hudson County and more than half are first-generation college students. The undergraduate population is about 45% Latino and 21% Black, and many students come from low-income households. 

“Life disproportionately happens to our students,” he said. “The academic rigor is not what keeps them from persisting. It’s trauma and tragedy.”

Amoroso’s report urged the university to find a larger educational institution to partner with to survive. Acebo said the university also has made “significant progress in identifying partners” to acquire real estate but was reluctant to discuss them because of ongoing negotiations.

Ultimately, the partnership may lead to it merging with a larger school, but New Jersey City University has an “obligation to study each and every opportunity and option, including looking at whether or not the university could sustain itself independently,” Amoroso said.

The officials all differed on how much money the university needs to stay afloat but agreed it’s in the hundreds of millions. Amoroso said the university expects to spend around $30 million in capital projects this fiscal year and about $7 million in operations. The cost of long-term capital needs, like new roofs and heating systems, likely exceed $80 million to create an “enhanced learning environment that our students rightfully deserve,” Amoroso added.

He also said ending a lease to rent space in Monmouth County — another suggestion from his report — would significantly reduce debt.

The school is also working on revamping its board, which still includes people who were there while the school was facing the worst of its financial crisis, a fact criticized by Sen. Bob Singer (R-Ocean).

“There are people sitting there that went all through this that didn’t run to the guns and didn’t say, ‘Wait a second, there’s a problem here. We have to stop here.’ They kind of flowed with everything,” Singer said. “I just am bothered when there’s no true accountability.”

Some people on the board have been there for more than 20 years, Amoroso said. He agreed the board must see turnover to implement change, but believes the current board understands the school’s current difficulties.

Amoroso will continue monitoring the school’s finances through at least Sept. 14, 2025.

An earlier version of this story misquoted a comment from Henry Amoroso. 

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(Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)

Senate lawmakers will weigh two measures Monday that would extend new tax breaks to college students and their parents.

One of the bills before the Senate Higher Education Committee would allow taxpayers to deduct tuition payments made for their education or that of a dependent partner or child from their state income tax bills.

Residents would be able to claim the deduction if their income does not exceed $85,000 in the relevant tax year.

Tuition paid through student loans is considered tuition paid by the student or parent, said a Treasury spokesperson who spoke generally, so such payments would qualify for the deduction.

A separate bill would create tax credits for community college students or their parents.

Parents who paid at least half of their dependent child’s tuition and other expenses at a community college would be eligible for a tax credit equal to the amount they paid or $750, whichever is lower, if the child is a full-time student and under the age of 22.

Parents of part-time students would receive halved awards, to a cap of $375, and the credits created by the bill are exclusive with an existing $1,000 tax deduction for parents who pay at least half of their child’s college expenses.

Only parents of full-time college students are eligible for the existing deduction.

Students who pay their own way through community college would be eligible for the same state income tax credits under the bill, though only a student or their parents could receive the credit, not both.

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(Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)

An Assembly panel advanced a bill that would create a new, more uniform process for the removal of library books in a near-unanimous vote following nearly four hours of testimony Thursday.

The bill, which the Assembly Education Committee approved in a 7-1 vote with the no vote from Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Sussex) and an abstention from Assemblyman Erik Simonsen (R-Cape May), would require local districts to adopt discrete policies on library curation and removing books from school libraries while barring districts from granting requests that seek to remove books a filer believed were offensive but not age-inappropriate.

“Parents will continue to have the right to decide what their own child reads, but one parent should not have the ability to solely determine what another parent’s child reads,” said bill sponsor Assemblywoman Mitchelle Drulis (D-Hunterdon).

The bill’s authors have dubbed it the “Freedom to Read Act.”

The bill would require local districts to create written policies on library curation that bar book removals made on the basis of its authors’ backgrounds, origins, or views and require librarians to periodically review their collections for relevance and recency, among other things.

It would require local school boards to reject book removal requests filed by those without a connection to the district — someone other than a teacher, parent, or student there — and mandate district superintendents to convene boards to adjudicate requests for removal.

“Out-of-state individuals and organizations will no longer be able to ride into New Jersey with a political agenda and target our public libraries,” Drulis said.

Those committees must include the superintendent, school principal, a board representative, a grade-appropriate teacher, a parent or guardian of a child enrolled in the district, and a student, in some cases.

Individuals who filed the request for removal cannot sit on such a committee, and the superintendent may appoint additional members if they see fit.

The bill is a response to recent pushes by religious and anti-LGBT groups to remove books with themes or content related to sex and gender, among others.

“During the school day, parents are not present to give their consent and support their children who may view this material,” said Hilary Jersey, a co-leader with NJStandsUp, an anti-vaccine group. “Age-inappropriate content isn’t just in the school libraries. My seventh grader just shared that she read a school-supplied book about a 13-year-old who was pregnant.”

The final decision on book removals would remain with school boards under the bill, and the committees it requires must make their non-binding recommendations within 60 days of their next meeting.

The bill would require school boards to explain their decision when either removing a book or going against the recommendations of a committee, and books that survive a challenge would be immune from further challenges for one year.

The Department of Education would be required to draft a model policy on library curation, and the state librarian must draft a model policy on the adjudication of book removal requests.

The bill advanced Thursday was narrower than past versions of the legislation. It would no longer amend the state’s obscenity statute to add protections for librarians and teachers; instead it would immunize librarians who make good-faith efforts to comply with the bill’s provisions on curation and book removal.

Separate language that would have allowed librarians to lodge civil suits for protective orders against harassers was also removed by amendments, as was language that would have amended the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination to bar employers from considering a librarian’s actions on a given book removal request in hiring decisions.

Those changes softened some opposition but did little to turn its opponents into supporters.

“I’m grateful for that the freedom to read is more now like the freedom to remove, and I’m sure many school boards are going to remove many of these books that parents have been challenging for months and for years,” said Shawn Hyland, director of advocacy for the New Jersey Family Policy Center, which previously opposed the bill but was neutral Thursday.

The measure has yet to move in the Senate and must be approved by the Assembly Appropriations Committee before it sees a full vote on the chamber’s floor.

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Yellow electric school bus plugged in at a charging station.

WASHINGTON — As part of its ongoing effort to replace diesel-fueled school buses, the Biden administration on Wednesday said it will provide approximately 530 school districts across nearly all states with almost $1 billion to help them purchase clean school buses.

The initiative, part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program rebate competition, will give funds to school districts in 47 states and the District of Columbia to help them buy over 3,400 clean school buses. Alaska, Hawaii and Nevada are not part of this round of funding.

Nearly all of the clean school buses purchased will be electric, at 92%, according to the administration.

“This announcement is not just about clean school buses, it’s about the bigger picture,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said during a call with reporters on Tuesday, prior to the announcement. “We are improving air quality for our children, reducing greenhouse gas pollution and expanding our nation’s leadership in developing the clean vehicles of the future.”

Low-income, rural and tribal communities — accounting for approximately 45% of the selected projects —  are slated to receive roughly 67% of the total funding, per the administration.

Regan noted how “low-income communities and communities of color have long felt the disproportionate impacts of air pollution leading to severe health outcomes that continue to impact these populations.”

As for business and economic opportunities, Regan pointed to the development of new, well-paying manufacturing jobs and investment in local businesses stemming from the increasing demand for these clean school buses.

“As more and more schools make the switch to electric buses, there will be a need for American-made batteries, charging stations and service providers to maintain the buses supercharging and reinvigorating local economies,” he added.

The Clean School Bus Program has now collectively awarded nearly $3 billion to fund approximately 8,500 electric and alternative fuel buses for over 1,000 communities across the United States, according to the administration.

The program started through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, which includes $5 billion over five years to transform the country’s existing school buses with “zero-emission and low-emission models,” per the EPA.

Among many negative health and environmental effects, especially for communities of color, diesel exhaust exposure can lead to major health conditions such as asthma and respiratory illnesses, according to the EPA.

Exposure to diesel exhaust can also “worsen existing heart and lung disease, especially in children and the elderly,” the agency said.

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 23: Dr. Jonathan Holloway, President, of Rutgers University testifies at a hearing called "Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos" before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Capitol Hill on May 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. University leaders are being asked to testify by House Republicans about how colleges have responded to pro-Palestinian protests and allegations of antisemitism on their campuses. (Photo by Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

Three weeks after protestors at Rutgers University in North Brunswick peacefully dismantled their short-lived Gaza solidarity encampment, the university’s president faced intense questioning from Republicans in Washington, D.C., demanding to know why college officials aren’t doing more to combat antisemitism. 

Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway on Thursday again defended the university’s decision to end the protest by negotiating with protestors rather than sending police to break up the encampments. Holloway stressed to lawmakers the importance of building trust with students and promoting curiosity and education. 

“We made a choice. That choice was to engage our students through dialogue as our first option instead of police actions,” he said. “We saw what transpired on other universities and sought a different way.” 

Holloway’s testimony in front of the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce — where he was joined by Northwestern University President Michael Schill and University of California at Los Angeles Chancellor Gene Block — came as GOP lawmakers continue to grill university presidents over the Gaza encampments that have become flashpoints for growing unease with the war in Gaza.

It was the third time lawmakers have invited university leaders to testify on the Hill about the campus protests. And it was the second time this month Holloway has taken the hot seat to face questioning from lawmakers. Members of the Legislature’s budget committees interrogated him about the encampments on May 9.

The university leaders on Thursday said they agree that attacks on Jewish people are increasing on college campuses and across the country, but they disputed that their colleges are hotbeds for antisemitism. Holloway said every instance of discrimination on campus is investigated and involves law enforcement, from campus police to the FBI when necessary.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chairwoman of the committee, scolded the college officials for their agreements with protestors and for not taking enough disciplinary action against faculty and students involved. Four Rutgers have been suspended, and 19 others are under investigation, Holloway said.

“Each of you should be ashamed of your decisions that allowed antisemitic encampments to endanger Jewish students,” Foxx said. “Mr. Schill and Dr. Holloway, you should be double ashamed for capitulating to the antisemitic rule breakers.”

University leaders, including Holloway, have expressed concerns over balancing students’ free speech rights and public safety. Holloway said when he learned via an Instagram post that student protestors planned a 7 a.m. protest to disrupt finals — which he called a “wild violation” of the agreement they made earlier that week to keep the encampment quiet — he decided to order the encampment to disperse.

Some schools responded to their protests by calling in police to break them up. Holloway stressed the importance of building trust with students.

Rutgers officials gave in to some of the protestors’ 10 demands in exchange for them dismantling their encampment, like accepting 10 displaced Palestinian students to finish their education, creating an Arab cultural center, and reviewing the school’s relationship with Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Much of Thursday’s questioning of Holloway came from Rep. Donald Norcross (D-01), New Jersey’s only representative on the panel. He and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-05) have criticized Holloway for not doing enough to ensure Jewish students feel safe on campus, and for leaving Jewish students out of negotiations with the protestors.

“There are rules in all types of protests on college campuses, no matter what the reason is. I’ve participated in protests over my lifetime, and when I crossed the line, I paid the consequences. So what I want to dig into today is what are those lines, when were they crossed, and how you reacted,” Norcross said.

Over the summer, Rutgers will partner with the Anti-Defamation League to implement new training for students and staff and address concerns from a Jewish faculty and staff group that asked the university in December to share information on antisemitism on campus and beef up security around Jewish organizations on campus. Holloway said those requests are “being acted on post haste.”

Holloway also took heat from Republicans who targeted the Center for Security, Race, and Rights, which is based out of Rutgers’ Newark campus. The center has hosted controversial figures, including a speaker who was convicted on federal charges for conspiring to provide material to terrorist organizations and was invited to speak on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Holloway said he often doesn’t agree with the center and thinks some of their ideas are “wildly offensive.” But on a campus of 100,000 faculty and students, there are events he’s not always aware of, he admitted. He said he has no plans to close the center.

“If you’re not willing to close and defund this cesspool of hate, the state of New Jersey should,” Foxx said.

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(Courtesy of the New Jersey Governor's Office)

A bill that would bar state education officials from requiring teaching candidates to complete basic skills tests to obtain teaching certificates cleared the Senate after an overwhelming vote Monday.

The bill, which cleared the chamber in a 34-2 vote, is meant to address New Jersey’s longstanding teacher shortage by removing barriers to would-be educators seeking to enter the field.

“We need more teachers. This is the best way to get them,” said bill sponsor Sen. Jim Beach (D-Camden)

The bill’s movement comes only months after Gov. Phil Murphy signed a different measure creating an alternate pathway to certification that allows candidates to eschew the basic skills tests.

That law allows teachers to obtain an alternate teaching certificate without sitting for a Praxis core test — the basic skills exam — and that certificate could be converted into a standard certificate after four years at the same school.

The legislation approved Monday would strike those alternate certification provisions from law, and it would leave some testing requirements in place for teaching candidates in specific subject areas.

A would-be math teacher, for example, would still be required to earn a passing grade on a Praxis subject matter exam on mathematics,while a biology teacher must still complete general science and biology subject matter tests.

Basic skills tests would still be required for those seeking limited certificates of eligibility. The Assembly previously passed the measure but must concur with amendments made in the Senate last week before it reaches Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.

A separate measure that advanced through the Senate Monday would waive the state’s residency requirement for teachers for three years in a bid to draw more educators to the Garden State. New Jersey broadly requires its public workers to live in the state, with few exceptions.

Under the bill, school districts would have to advertise positions to in-state residents for at least three months before they could hire someone who lives in another state, provided the out-of-state applicant was not employed by a New Jersey school in the prior year.

Out-of-state educators hired under the bill would be required to move to New Jersey within three years of their hiring, and the bill would require the Department of Education to draft a report weighing the elimination of the residency requirement after the end of the three-year waiver period created by the bill.

“This bill prioritizes New Jersey residents for teaching positions and only extends eligibility to out-of-state applicants if a role remains vacant,” said bill sponsor Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), the chamber’s majority leader. “By temporarily removing the residency requirement we can see how it helps to mitigate shortages and determine how best to move forward.”

The measure has yet to advance in the Assembly since its introduction in January.

An earlier version of this story should have said the basic skills test bill needs a vote by the Assembly before heading to the governor’s desk.

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 16: Plaintiffs and family members of plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case Cheryl Brown Henderson (2nd R), John Stokes (2nd L) and Nathaniel Briggs (R) speaks outside the White House with NAACP President Derrick Johnson (L) after meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on May 16, 2024 in Washington, DC. This week marks the 70th anniversary of the landmark case that ended the segregation of students based on race in the United States. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is commemorating the 70th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education this week while recognizing that the full potential of the decision “remains unfulfilled.”

Friday marks 70 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional in a case that originated with a challenge to the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education. Since the 1954 decision, racial segregation has not only persisted, but increased, in school districts across the U.S., according to a recent report.

“There is still so much work to do to ensure that every student has equal access to a quality education and that our school systems fully benefit from the diversity and talent of our students — because diversity has always been one of our Nation’s greatest strengths,” Biden wrote in a proclamation on the 70th anniversary of the decision. The president has committed to advancing racial equity during his administration.

Biden on Thursday met with multiple plaintiffs and family members from Brown v. Board and the cases combined under it, including John Stokes, a plaintiff in a Virginia case consolidated with Brown; Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of lead plaintiff Oliver Brown; Nathaniel Briggs, son of plaintiff Harry Briggs Jr.; and NAACP president Derrick Johnson. The meeting was closed to the press.

Cases consolidated with Brown include Briggs v. Elliott, from South Carolina; Bolling v. Sharpe, from Washington, D.C.; Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward, from Virginia; and Gebhart v. Belton, from Delaware.

Cabinet members mark anniversary

The White House meeting came after the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice’s celebration of the 70th anniversary on Tuesday, part of which featured a conversation with Leona Tate and Gail Etienne. They were among the four students who helped desegregate New Orleans schools in 1960.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged the significance of the Supreme Court ruling while highlighting the persistence of segregation in schools.

The work of Brown v. Board is “not just part of our history” but “ongoing,” Garland said Tuesday, pointing to the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s enforcement of desegregation orders as the agency monitors more than 130 school districts comprising nearly 900,000 students in more than 1,500 schools.

“Brown v. Board and its legacy remind us of who we want to be as a nation: a place that upholds values of justice and equity as its highest ideals,” Cardona said, adding that “over the course of the last 70 years, we’ve often struggled to live up to those ideals.”

“Black students may no longer need to be escorted to school by U.S. marshals and they may no longer face angry mobs on their way to school or eat at separate lunch tables, but today, we have a system where we have normalized underinvesting in schools that serve a majority of Black communities,” he said.

Segregation on the rise

Large school districts have witnessed a rise in school segregation over the past three decades, researchers at Stanford University and the University of Southern California found. In the 100 largest school districts in the country, segregation between white and Black students has increased by 64% since 1988.

Brown v. Board also put much of the responsibility on Black students, who had to be bused to predominantly white schools, according to Chantelle Grace, assistant clinical professor in social science education at Florida State University’s College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences.

Grace said there was no consideration in the ruling of “other laws that might need to go with it to protect Black students in having to go about this process.”

The Supreme Court decision also left negative consequences for Black teachers and the Black teacher pipeline, according to Grace.

“We saw a big loss of the Black teaching population at the time, too, to the point where we’re still trying to, I think, recover that Black teacher pipeline in getting more Black teachers in the classroom,” Grace said.

“We acknowledge the progress it was signifying with the ruling to say that ‘separate but equal’ is unconstitutional, but we also have to be mindful and aware of the reverberating legacy it left as well on Black communities, the Black teacher pipeline, as well as the ways in which schools are now kind of resegregating themselves due to policies that are not holding up the promise that Brown v. Board of Education initially ruled,” she added.

Biden will make remarks Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. On Sunday, he will deliver the commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, a historically Black men’s college.

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(Photo by Edwin J. Torres/Governor’s Office)

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill extending $44.7 million in grants to school districts and allowing them to seek property tax increases above the state’s 2% cap on such hikes, a bid to offset school aid cuts in the 2024-2025 school year.

Under the new law, 140 schools facing nearly $106 million in combined cuts can seek grants through the Department of Education to cover up to 45% of the formulaic school aid they’re losing.

“We are giving local school districts critical support during trying times, as difficult financial realities muddy the already complex process of adopting a balanced budget,” Murphy said in a statement.

The schools affected by the cuts are set to lose varying levels of aid in the coming school year, ranging from a $989 reduction in West Wildwood to a $10.4 million cut in Long Branch.

Other provisions of the bill allow any district that is receiving less state school aid than it did during the 2020-2021 school year to raise property taxes above the state’s 2% cap on levy hikes without taking the matter to voters. 

Such districts could raise taxes to entirely offset aid reductions they’ve seen since the 2020-2021 school year or up to 9.9%, whichever is less. They can only do so for the upcoming school year.

“We have heard testimony from teachers, students, and parents of these cuts’ devastating impact on their districts for months,” said Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth), a sponsor and the Senate education chairman. “This move will give additional support and sustain our standard of delivering high-quality public education.”

The legislation is meant to help districts meet funding needs as the state completes the final year of a school-funding phase-in launched by a 2018 bill that was meant to shift aid from historically overfunded districts to underfunded ones.

But the pandemic, inflation, and a hot housing market have pushed up property values in some districts, leading to outsized and unexpected cuts.

Acting Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer last month said steep swings in school aid should abate after the coming school year, though lawmakers have expressed skepticism and are exploring broader changes to the state’s school funding formula.

“Our public schools are the best in the nation. We cannot let them fall into disarray by asking districts to scale back spending year after year,” said bill sponsor Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex). “This program is a stopgap that will provide relief to districts for the upcoming school year as we continue to work to find a stable long-term school funding solution.”

A second bill signed Thursday allows districts facing budget cuts that outstrip their ability to raise taxes to submit their budgets up to five days after the state budget is signed.

School officials have told legislators the regular school budget timeline — school districts adopt their budgets in the spring, while the state finalizes its budget at the end of June — leaves too little time to account for outsized aid cuts.

“This measure will give tools to districts that are struggling with funding, helping them to retain critical teachers and staff,” said bill sponsor Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt (D-Camden), the chamber’s education chair.

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Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway testifies in front of the Senate Budget Committee Thursday. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Rutgers University President Jonathon Holloway took heat from lawmakers in both chambers Thursday over the student-organized anti-war encampments that were dismantled peacefully last week after university officials ordered them to clear.

Lawmakers pressed Holloway for explanations on why Jewish students weren’t included in negotiations over protestors’ demands, how university officials would deal with future protests, and whether Rutgers is a safe and respectful environment for all of its students.

“As the father of a Rutgers graduate and the father-in-law of a Rutgers graduate, I don’t know if I could answer to my children whether their children would be safe at Rutgers right now,” said Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), who is Jewish.

Holloway said it’s a precarious time on college campuses since protests have erupted over the war in Gaza. Rutgers is home to both the nation’s second-largest Jewish student population and second-largest Palestinian student population, he said, adding that, as the president of a public university, he has a duty to protect students’ right to free speech while also ensuring their safety and education.

Holloway stood by the university’s move to speak with four student protestors and come to an agreement to avoid the protest devolving into violence. He said around 125 police officers from the university, the city of New Brunswick, and the State Police were on standby in case the encampment wasn’t cleared out in time, or if matters escalated.

“Our strategy was so that protests continued strictly within the bounds of the First Amendment, but to make clear that crossing the lines such as disrupting university business, interfering with exams, and impeding student progress would result in swift and sure action,” Holloway said.

In contrast to the University of California, Los Angeles, and Columbia University — where protests turned violent, hundreds were arrested, and graduation ceremonies were canceled — Rutgers students completed their final exams, and the university-wide commencement will take place Sunday, he said.

Holloway’s appearance at the Statehouse Thursday was ostensibly for budget hearings before committees in the Senate and Assembly. But lawmakers on both panels peppered him largely with questions about the encampments.

Rutgers students launched their Gaza solidarity encampment April 29 on Voorhees Mall, drawing varying numbers of students and people not affiliated with Rutgers. It was one of dozens that have popped up on college campuses across the country. The students made a list of 10 demands, including one that calls for Rutgers to divest financial holdings linked to Israel and cut its partnership with Tel Aviv University.

After an early morning protest that disrupted hundreds of final exams, university administrators held a meeting with four student protestors and agreed to some demands, but none that included divesting. Rutgers officials said they would enroll 10 displaced Palestinian students to finish their education at Rutgers and start plans for an Arab Cultural Center on campus.

When Schaer asked why the university didn’t include “people with various ideologies” in these discussions, Holloway said administrators were focused on the “emerging and increasingly unstable situation.”

“In a perfect world, we would do exactly that, but in a very rapidly shifting, and I think declining and divisive environment, we did not have the luxury of time on our hands,” he said.

Sen. Declan O’Scanlon asked Holloway why university officials didn’t make counterdemands to the protestors, a comment that garnered applause from people in the audience wearing “Rutgers: no to antisemitism” shirts. Holloway repeated that the situation was changing so quickly, university officials didn’t want to escalate it.

O’Scanlon said he believes Princeton University handled the encampments on its campus better by not negotiating with protestors and sending in police to deal with the disruption, sending a clear message that they wouldn’t give in to protestors’ demands. There, 13 protestors were arrested, and university officials relocated the protest to a smaller courtyard.

“I think this situation is happening because you missed the decision early on to nip in the bud. But we’re humans, we make mistakes, we learned from this,” O’Scanlon said.

Trenton lawmakers are not the only ones interested in grilling Holloway. He’ll face questioning in front of a congressional committee later this month along with other college presidents on their handling of the protests on campus. And U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Donald Norcross said they sent a letter to Holloway to address the concerns of Jewish students who felt threatened and targeted even before the encampment. They want to know what steps the university is taking to include Jewish students in its decisions.

“Members of Rutgers’ Jewish community have made urgent requests of the administration, as far back as December, pleading with them to take several reasonable steps that would ensure their safety and welcomeness on campus. As far as we can tell, these requests have been largely ignored. As a Jewish faculty member said, ‘We played nice and got little; SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] broke every rule in the book and got rewarded with amnesty,’” the two congressmen said in the letter.

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