Roundtable #30: Constitutional Challenges and Rights in U.S. Higher Education
Section I: Administrative Constitutionalism and Title VI Compliance at Barnard and Columbia
Debates over campus discrimination increasingly turn on questions of who bears responsibility for enforcing federal civil-rights norms and how those obligations should be integrated into university governance. Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin, sits at the center of this problem. As federal expectations expand and institutional compliance structures become more complex, universities must navigate a landscape in which regulatory pressure, expressive freedom, and internal administrative authority are in continual tension. The result is a system where the contours of enforcement are shaped less by systematized doctrine than by the bureaucratic arrangements that interpret it. Against this backdrop, New York’s recently enacted Senate Bill S4559B, requiring institutions to appoint Title VI coordinators, invites evolution through the Barnard-Columbia settlement, which provides an early example of how such officers operationalize federal mandates and structure campus-level enforcement.
When Barnard College settled Students Against Antisemitism v. Trustees of Columbia University in July 2025, the mandated reforms—including appointing a Title VI coordinator, expanding discrimination-response training, and issuing annual public reports—appeared administratively modest. Viewed alongside S4559B, however, the settlement reflects the broader structural shift the statute formalizes: the relocation of Title VI enforcement into the internal machinery of university governance. By requiring institutions to develop internal investigatory infrastructure, both the settlement and the statute position campus civil-rights regulation at the juncture of expanding federal expectations and complex institutional compliance bureaucracies.
This tension is particularly evident at Columbia, where reliance on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism delegates threshold interpretive questions to compliance administrators. Because the IHRA definition may encompass certain Israel-related political expression, officials must decide when speech that would ordinarily receive First Amendment protection—or its campus analogue—constitutes actionable harassment under Title VI. These administrators exercise quasi-adjudicatory authority, issuing determinations with disciplinary consequences, yet they do so without the procedural safeguards of appellate mechanisms characteristic of formal judicial proceedings.
The Barnard-Columbia suit thus provides a lens through which to assess S4559B’s viability as regulatory trajectories, expanded federal oversight, and increased institutional bureaucratization present constitutional and practical risk: the former risks undue intrusion into academic governance, the latter inconsistent and subjective enforcement. How these competing pressures are balanced will determine whether internal Title VI enforcement can deter discrimination while preserving expressive freedom central to the university’s mission.
In a post-Alexander v. Sandoval landscape where the Court’s rejection of a private right of action for disparate-impact claims narrowed Title VI’s remedial reach, S4559B can be understood as a state-level response to that doctrinal contraction. By holding that Title VI §602 regulations do not create privately enforceable rights, the Court consolidated interpretive authority within administrative structures. S4559B’s requirement that institutions designate Title VI officers with investigative responsibility can be read as a substitute for the remedial gap Sandoval produced: an attempt to provide institutional grievances that may never reach, or be processed by, federal authorities. In this respect, the bill’s fact-finding and documentation mandates align with Sandoval’s implicit expectation of systematic notice and administrative response.
Recent federal enforcement actions against Columbia, however, complicate this picture. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) “Resolving a Hostile Environment Under Title VI,” directs institutions to take "prompt and effective steps” once on actual or constructive notice of race- and shared-ancestry-based harassment. However, the subsequent “Joint Notice of Violation” issued to Columbia found the University's response potentially “deliberately indifferent,” indicating that the mere existence of compliance capacity does not guarantee substantive protection. Under S4559B, Title VI coordinators would serve as the first-order interpreters of whether contested conduct is “severe or pervasive” enough to impair access.
This internalization assumes heightened significance amid threats to federal enforcement infrastructure, including proposals to eliminate or substantially restructure the Department of Education and the OCR. The recent federal shutdown, which suspended civil-rights monitoring and delayed Title VI complaint processing, reflects the contingency of federal administrative capacity and how quickly enforcement can be rendered inert. In such conditions, S4559B would not merely supplement federal oversight, but would make campus-level coordinators the primary, and potentially only, site for investigation and remediation, materially raising the state’s constitutional and institutional stakes.
In this regard, any assessment of S4559B’s viability must account for the expressive environment in which Title VI coordinators would operate. In the 2026 FIRE College Free Speech Rankings, Columbia and Barnard placed 256th and 257th of 257 institutions, scoring extremely poorly on comfort expressing ideas, self-censorship, and perceived administrative support. These results align with documented interventions: student suspensions following demonstrations, restrictions on expressive materials in residence halls, and disciplinary inquiries involving student journalists covering protests. Faculty have likewise faced adverse employment consequences for controversial or politically motivated classroom speech, indicating that expressive constraint extends beyond student activity.
Within this milieu, S4559B’s mandate that universities appoint a Title VI coordinator could yield salutary effects. When properly structured, such offices could standardize notice-and-response procedures by articulating intake protocols, evidentiary thresholds for “severe or pervasive” hostile-environment claims, and timelines for resolution. Annual reporting requirements could likewise facilitate pattern recognition, identifying whether particular forms of expression (e.g., student media or classroom discussion) are disproportionately classified as harassment and hereby informing prospective policy reform. These changes would align with federal expectations and may reduce the systemic inconsistency that prompted the OCR’s Notice of Violation.
However, on campuses already marked by expressive constraint, the same authority can generate suppression if liability-avoidance becomes the logic of enforcement. When coordinators apply expansive definitions of discriminatory conduct, they may over-classify contested political expression to mitigate perceived federal exposure, particularly absent separation between investigative and disciplinary functions or meaningful avenues of internal appeal.
For peer institutions, S4559B’s viability depends on embedding coordinator or authority within procedural guardrails that advance non-discrimination without converting compliance offices into de facto speech-screening bodies. The broader contest between expanding federal supervision and unconstrained internal compliance suggests that the next stage of Title VI enforcement depends less on the substantive redefinition of discrimination than on the institutional allocation of quasi-adjudicatory authority.
By Ava DiGiuseppe
Edited by Eve Bertrand
Section II: First or Fourteenth?: Free Exercise and Protected Classes in Education
Education has been in conflict with religion since public education became a widely adopted institution in the United States. The institution often contradicts the principle of separation of church and state, particularly given the mandatory nature of education. Parents are required to provide their children with some level of education from ages six to sixteen, as specified by local law. The schools children attend, whether public or private, are overseen by wildly variable state regulations. This is an intrusion: the secular state is monitoring non-secular schooling, which can lead to overregulation of religious activity. Since parents are required to place their children in schooling of some sort, they are unable to fully control their child’s religious education without homeschooling. And in university, the problem doubles. Private collegiate institutions are, in theory, separated from the government. Yet they still seek accreditation and may have their own interests that can repress religiously affiliated students. Nevertheless, courts must continue to uphold education’s position as secular and therefore removed from religious influence.
Religion's effects on education are pressing. Religion has been used to legitimize the segregation of schools, to suppress literary materials, and to justify discriminatory admissions practices. In each case, the courts found that religion could not be used to suppress protected classes in education, ruling that the Free Exercise Clause did not supersede the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in the classroom.
Now this once firm ruling stands in question. In 2024, the Supreme Court took on Mamhoud v. Taylor, a case originating from the Montgomery County School District in Maryland. Parents sued the district, angered by recently approved queer storybooks in elementary school curricula, for which they were not provided religious opt-out forms. In answering the question, “Do public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out?” The Court determined in a 6-3 split that schools had to allow for opt-out, no matter the effect on classroom learning, as not allowing parents to do so posed a threat of undermining religion. This shift is concerning: it is a change that slides back nearly eighty-five years of precedent. It permits the de facto banning of books from the classroom based on religious objection, which was previously deemed an infringement on academic freedom.
Although only affirmed by the Supreme Court, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond (2024) addresses a similar line as Taylor. The equally divided Court reflects its increasing leniency toward questions addressing religion’s effects on education. The case asked whether a state-funded religious school could exist. Additionally, it directly placed the First and Fourteenth Amendments in opposition with its second constitutional question: “Does the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause prohibit, or the Establishment Clause require, a state to exclude religious schools from its charter-school program?” Although the lower court’s decision that religious charter schools are prohibited stood, the 4-4 split showed hesitancy to definitively rule on religious private schools receiving public school funding, further indicating a shift toward prioritizing religious expression over freedom from religion.
Universities have also been privately addressing the issue of religion. Columbia University has allegedly regulated the behaviors of students based on protected characteristics like religion as justification to suppress student protests. Why? To preserve funding amid governmental claims that demonstration suppression is necessary to halt antisemitism in education. In a deal with the Trump administration signed in July of 2025, Columbia agreed to permit governmental regulation and monitoring of admissions, hiring, and speech. This is alarming for multiple reasons. Firstly, this is representative of the backslide shown in both Drummond and Taylor through the state regulation of speech based on perceived religious persecution. This is a reversal that is paving the way for state-endorsed religious action in schooling. Secondly, this violates the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the students to equal protection. The aforementioned deal heavily focuses on race and ethnic metrics to ensure “fair admissions.” Here, the federal government may be outside of its scope, as Bob Jones v. United States prohibited race-based discrimination in admissions. Yet the agreement between Columbia and the federal government may instead help spur bias through overcorrecting for “racial inequities.”
Ultimately, the courts need to check this backslide in freedom from religion and return to a doctrine that places Fourteenth Amendment rights over freedom of expression, specifically in cases where to do otherwise would “violate a government interest.” Without such a doctrine, educational institutions, both religious and otherwise, can impose undue restrictions on individuals and their rights. Although freedom to express one’s religion is an important part of a person’s freedoms, so is the freedom from religion. These cases must be considered on a broader scale, to ensure the equality of treatment based on creed, class, and other protected characteristics.
By Shay Baer
Edited by Eve Bertrand
Section III: Private Universities and the Right to Free Speech: Monitoring Guest Speakers?
Under the First Amendment in the Constitution stands the right to free speech, an essential aspect of American universities. This liberty has formed the basis for academic inquiry and spotlighted voices from diverse perspectives. Yet, the right to free speech on campus has been increasingly questioned by students, educational institutions, and policymakers, especially after many universities faced reprimand for student demonstrations following conflict in Gaza. This spotlight on the First Amendment created curiosity about other acts of free speech, such as guest speakers coming onto campus to present on potentially controversial ideas. Opinions range from vetoing unsavory speakers in hopes of sheltering students from potentially hateful views, to hosting speakers regardless of their platform, and thus promoting a wide range of perspectives on campus. Regardless of any majority opinion, the question still holds: what responsibility, if any, do private institutions have to supervise and regulate these speakers from speaking on campus grounds? A balance can be found when private universities consider the potential ramifications of hosting controversial speakers, but ultimately welcoming diverse ideas onto campus.
Although private universities operate under different obligations to uphold freedom of speech than public universities, the responsibility to invite and facilitate open conversations on campus remains embedded through academic policy and institutional commitments to free expression. In 1969, Tinker v. Des Moines ruled that students have a constitutional right to their freedom of speech and expression, setting a foundational precedent and relationship for the First Amendment and academic institutions. Three years later, in Healy v. James, the Supreme Court ruled that public universities could not deny recognition to a student organization based on political beliefs, setting the precedent that campuses are a “marketplace of ideas.” While these decisions speak directly to public universities, they underline the broad principle that all universities thrive when open inquiry is protected and encouraged.
At the same time, the Supreme Court recognizes boundaries to student expression. In 1986, Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser upheld an important distinction: schools and institutions have the ability to regulate speech when it interferes with the educational environment. This nuance serves crucially when evaluating which campus speakers should be invited onto campus. Tinker, Healy, and Bethel are all fundamental to understanding how public institutions navigate free speech and guest speakers and raise a critical question: should private universities voluntarily operate under the precedents set by the Supreme Court, even though they are not constitutionally obliged to? Or should they rely solely on their own institutional values when determining how to approach campus speakers?
Many private universities have embraced principles that reflect First Amendment protections in recognition of the values that diverse perspectives bring, despite not being required to do so. Fostering an environment where students can hear from a broad range of perspectives is essential to a university, and infringing on that ability comes at the detriment of freedom of speech and an overall commitment that educational institutions should adhere to. Hearing from speakers across political and ideological spectrums allows students to challenge their own assumptions and, importantly, engage meaningfully with viewpoints they may not otherwise encounter.
The University of Chicago set a standard for private universities through the Chicago Principles in 2015. This series of guidelines holds a promise that “debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” Concurrently, the University upholds the right to “reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University.” After publishing the Chicago Principles, over one hundred private institutions adopted the same commitment, establishing a framework that allows private universities to preserve their autonomy while upholding a spirit of free inquiry.
Many private universities have since developed a structure that hosts controversial speakers while balancing safety and an educational environment. In 2022, a student organization at Boston University, Young Americans for Freedom, hosted Michael Knowles, a conservative political commentator. While many students felt harmed by the speaker’s presence on campus and staged a walkout, a right given to them, BU and the Young Americans for Freedom chapter held strong in their ability to invite that contentious speaker to campus. As stated in Boston University’s free speech and expression acknowledgment, “the University embraces the guiding principle that the remedy for speech that some may find hurtful, offensive, or even hateful is not suppression of speech, but more speech.” This balance, where both agreers and disagreers are forwarding their respective opinions, demonstrates how private universities can allow controversial speakers while protecting the rights of students who wish to oppose them. Using guidelines like the Chicago Principles, private institutions are given the opportunity to develop their own values and use them to make a commitment that welcomes contentious campus speakers. As polarization rises across the nation, both public and private universities have the opportunity to embrace diverse ideas and promote coexistence. The path to bipartisanship starts on campus, by reaffirming that a university is a place where one can hear from those they would not naturally turn towards.
By Anusha Sharma
Edited by Eve Bertrand
Section IV: ICE, Universities, and the Protection of Non-Citizens’ Rights
On January 20, 2025, as President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term in office, he signed a flurry of executive orders. Within these laws was the repeal of the Biden-era sensitive locations policy, which granted certain spaces like schools, hospitals, and churches immunity from immigration enforcement. This ensured respect for the rights of all people to education, health, and faith. President Trump was sending the message that there would be a severe expansion of the operations of the DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would, to an extent, disregard people’s rights to access these institutions and services safely. The escalation of these operations and the lack of legal guardrails has brought on Fourth Amendment violations, as ICE faces quotas and increased pressure from the Trump administration to show ‘results’.
The increasing chaos around these deportation efforts allowed for places such as universities—historically places of diversity—to become targets of government forces as a way to control and silence dissent. Increased efforts from the Trump administration to deport irregular migrants has made it possible for DHS and ICE forces to be weaponized against dissenting voices in universities, at times violating freedom of speech and due process protections.
Many recent cases concerning free speech at universities involve international students, most of whom are in the country with an F-1 visa. This type of visa covers full-time students in educational institutions recognized by the government and who maintain a residence abroad. According to US Homeland Security, individuals with a visa “should not take any action that detracts from that purpose,” for which the visa was first issued. The Trump administration has continuously proclaimed that they are willing to cancel visas regardless of the students’ compliance with the terms of their temporary visa, instead cancelling them on the basis of students’ political perspectives. By August 18 of this year, the US State Department had revoked more than six thousand student visas since Trump took office, as the administration was looking for any “hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, (...) and other threats to our national security.” Evidently, this appears to lay a very broad definition of what can be considered to be hostile, and what specifically those principles are. This criteria undeniably puts significant scrutiny on international students’ forms of expression, as their immigration status now hinges on their ability to evaluate and self-censor to avoid triggering any government backlash.
Historically, the Supreme Court has a complicated track record in weighing the extent to which the First Amendment applies to non-citizens. Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding (1953) found that “once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders.” However, Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) later established that the protection of non-citizens’ First Amendment is subject to exceptions, which allows it to fluctuate significantly depending on the executive branch’s interest. Currently, President Trump has made it clear that his motivations are to control the narrative around foreign policy by applying pressure to non-citizen/resident students, not to enhance national security, saying, “they’re going to behave.” A recent district court case directly addressed the issue of political deportations, specifically regarding Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by ICE in 2025 because of his on-campus activism. In Judge William G. Young's decision regarding American Association of University Professors v. Rubio (2025), he claimed that “non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.” The decision concluded that President Trump’s mass campaign of deportation has been unconstitutionally weaponized towards students who rightfully voice their opinions. It reasserted the importance of protecting non-citizens’ freedom of speech, as broadening the amount of non-citizens that are not subject to said constitutional act weakens its intended effect as a whole.
Beyond violations of freedom of speech and expression, the Trump administration's utilization of ICE to curtail dissent has generated a series of due process violations. These violations help expedite the government’s process in deporting non-citizen students at the cost of fundamental constitutional rights. In March 2025, doctoral student at Tufts University, Rümeysa Öztürk, was detained by ICE after authoring a piece critical of the university’s response to student protests. After six weeks of detainment, a district court judge ruled that “the court finds that Ms. Öztürk has raised a substantial claim of a constitutional violation,” as the Trump administration failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove that Öztürk was a substantial risk. In her testimony, Öztürk claimed that she was told that she was being arrested, “but they didn't say why,” and she was transferred from Boston to Louisiana without officials “notifying the court or either counsel.”
The Trump administration's attempt to deport this student as a way of infringing on her freedom of speech also violated her rights to due process and habeas corpus. These rights have a lengthy history of being upheld by the Supreme Court regardless of the documentation status of the person. Another notable case of a violation of due process concerns Dartmouth College student Xiaotian Liu, whose F-1 visa was revoked without warning or explanation. Liu went on to sue the Department of Homeland Security, where the Federal Court of New Hampshire found that the termination of his status was “unlawfully and abruptly terminated,” and blocked the visa termination. Since the introduction of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) immigration reformation of 2003, the responsibility to inform the government of students’ status has fallen to universities. This makes it extraordinary for the government to assume this responsibility and terminate student visas without notifying the University.
Universities have unwillingly found themselves at the forefront of the battle for the constitutional rights of non-citizens. Whether it is in their intended priorities or not, they must play a role in mitigating these threats and defending their student body’s right to express their opinion. International students are not only essential for a well-cultivated academic culture, but also significant in their economic contributions that allow for universities to continue executing their missions. There must be an educational effort for international and non-citizen students to learn their rights, the legal resources available in case of a violation of student rights, and collaboration with legal experts and scholars to actively engage in the battle against President Trump and his administration's transgressions through their increased deportation efforts.
By Sarah Arrazola
Edited by Eve Bertrand
This piece was reviewed and finalized by Qizhen (Kiara) Ba, Ananya Bhatia, and Lukas Roybal.