The for-profit sector's primary trade group on Thursday filed suit in federal court to block gainful employment regulations, which the U.S. Department of Education unveiled last week. A federal judge in 2012 halted a previous attempt by the Obama administration to enact rules for vocational programs at for-profits, community colleges and other institutions. Read more...

The English department at Wilfrid Laurier University, in Ontario, has announced that all syllabuses will note that the university is built on land that belonged to Native Canadian groups. The statement will say: “We acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of ‎ the Neutral, Anishnawbe and Haudenosaunee peoples.” A statement from the department chair, Ute Lischke, said, “In many of our classes at Laurier we critique power dynamics and including this acknowledgement on our course outlines certainly helps to raise students’ awareness about the continuing nature of colonialism. Read more...

The Association of American Universities, a group of the nation’s leading research institutions, on Monday criticized an inquiry by the U.S. House science committee into specific National Science Foundation grants. The panel, led by Republican Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, has been requesting information from the NSF about specific grants the agency awarded through its peer review process. Smith has long criticized some NSF research grants as an example of unnecessary or wasteful government spending. Earlier this year, he led efforts in the House to pass new restrictions on how the NSF could fund social science research, a singling out of that discipline that was widely criticized among academic researchers.  It also drew a rare critique by the National Science Board. Read more...

Faculty members at Dartmouth College voted, 116-13, Monday to ban the college's fraternities and sororities and to abolish the Greek system.
Similar votes have taken place before and had no effect, but the past year has been marked by increasing anti-Greek sentiment on campus. Responding to a poll in August, hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and alumni said they would like to see the college's Greek system abolished. Read more...