This American Life - 867: College Disorientation

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

Things are different on college campuses this year. We see inside the drama, with students and staff. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: We go to orientation at Arizona State University and meet international students who are trying to make friends. (6 minutes)Act One: The president of the Black Student Union at the University of Utah fights to keep the B in BSU. (30 minutes)Act Two: A definition of antisemitism, canceled classes, and angry professors at Columbia University. (16 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Hey there, everybody. It's Ira with a message for our life partners and our potential life partners, which hopefully is you. We're going to make another Ask Me Anything, bonus episode where I will answer your questions about the show or really just about anything at all that you want to ask. Email your questions to life partners at thislife.org. Seriously ask anything. And like all our bonus episodes, this one is only going to be available to our life partners. If you are not a life partner yet, sign up. And what you get is add free listening, a library of greatest hits right in your podcast feed, and you get all these bonus episodes. We've made a bunch of them that we are so proud of. Try this out for a few

weeks. See what you think. You can cancel any time. Go to this Americanlife.org slash life partners. A quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm Emanuel Berry filling in for Ira Glass. Okay, school's back. Come with me now. We're going to Tempe, Arizona. Hello, guys, can I have your attention? Guys, guys, guys. Arizona State University has set up everything you can think of.

Karaoke, scavenger hunts, axe throwing a mechanical bull to help new students meet each other and make friends. This is international students. orientation. There are almost 400 new students here from India, China, and lots of other countries who arrived here alone, looking for any excuse to make a connection. Like these two uncomfortable looking guys, Nile and Saude, one wears an ASU cap, the other has stylish black glasses. They both have braces. They talked to my co-worker, Miki Mink. We just met right now. You guys just met out. Yeah, we just met right now. We clicked. What made you guys click? I was standing there alone.

So, you know, I was thinking, I'm like, should I go? Should I not? Is it hard to make yourself go up and say hi? Yeah, a bit, you know? But then I decided to, yeah. So, you know, I just went up there. I just said hi. Asked him what his major was.

Did you feel any relief when he came up and said hi? Yeah, of course. There's a thing that I really like, I don't like about myself that I don't really greet people or approach people. I need people to approach me. But at the same time, I really want to meet new people, but I don't know how to do that. Over one million students from all around the world study in the United States,

ASU has over 14,000. Standing near the Mechanical Bowl is Anushka and her newly-made friend Krisha, both from India, both computer science majors. How many friends do you think you've made today? So, like, probably my Instagram's, like, increased for, like, 100 followers or something today. How about you? How many friends have you made today, do you feel like? I believe, like, 10, 15, 20. I'm giving, like, a rough idea, bro.

you guys are saying 100. At least I'm giving a reasonable number. Anushka is having a great time, but there is someone she was hoping to meet here who is not here. Her roommate, whose visa was rejected just two weeks before school started. They made a bunch of plans. Making friends together and figuring out which clubs to join. I think that was our initial plan. Probably hiking and some sports kind of stuff. I'm a hockey player, so, yeah.

Did she know why her visa got rejected? I honestly don't know. People are not comfortable sharing why their visa got rejected because it could be like a very personal reason, something has Instagram, something foolish being found out. Because they're like screening everything. So if you have your Instagram four years back, you're just joining high school.

You must have put something foolish on it that they did not like. So it could be that. Krisha also had a friend whose visa was rejected. In fact, it was a person she went to for advice on her own student visa interview. She met him on an online ASU forum. My friend got rejected, so I was, like, kind of bummed, because I knew him, and we had talked for a very long time, so we got along, you know, so him not coming. I was kind of bummed, and his visa getting rejected was, you know, kind of a shocking thing for me. I was already in U.S., in my mind.

This is her friend, Carthick. That's not his real name. He talked to me from India. Everything was then. I had my flight booked. I had my offer letter. I had my scholarship. I had my fund sorted. I was always. in U.S., in my mind. Carthick had really planned out his life at ASU. He chose the school because they had one of the few programs specifically for fintech in the country. He'd picked out his dorm room, he knew which clubs he wanted to join,

what road trips he wanted to take, he wanted to go to L.A. He'd even researched where he was going to eat, picked out an Indian restaurant called Haba, that he decided would be his go-to. What he didn't account for was a shift in policy by the Trump administration, which wants fewer foreign students.

students coming to the United States. So this year, there are stricter screenings, more visa rejections. Estimans are 150,000 fewer student visas will be approved. When Carthick went to the U.S. Embassy for his visa interview, he saw this play out. He waited in a long line for hours, dressed in a light blue button-down shirt, suit jacket, and trousers. His research showed that you were supposed to dress up. Finally, he almost reached the interview window. I had five guys in front of me, and I can hear everyone.

I can hear them. The visa officer was a lady, and she rejected all five of them. Under two minutes. She did five minutes. Wait, under two minutes. Under two minutes, five people, she's like, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection. And, of course, when he got to the window, she rejected him. Handed him a slip of paper, sent him on his way.

Carthick had to scramble to try and enroll quickly in a school in India. He really didn't understand why he was rejected. He knew lots of kids got rejected each year, but he thought he was the perfect candidate. He had good grades. He had bank statements that show that he had money to cover his expenses for all four years. And he planned to return to India to run his dad's business. They want proof that you're likely to return home after study.

His rejection? It just didn't make sense. He's not alone. Things are different on college campuses this year. And it's not just for international students. So many things about college have been upended by a wave of executive orders and lawsuits by the Trump administration. The rules have changed.

In a matter of months, there have been grant suspensions, frozen research projects and funding, DEI bans, accreditation overhauls, hundreds of millions of dollars of settlements with Ivy League schools, and personal battles that have asked. ousted university presidents. Today in our show, we'll hear from people all trying to find their footing right now, puzzling out what's okay and what's not.

Stay with us. It's This American Life. college disorientation. But before we get started with our first act, there is one thing that I want to note. Today's episode is about college campuses, and this week there were some big news from a college campus. Charlie Kirk, a founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed. Kirk was a key voice in pushing for a lot of policies and directives rolling out at colleges and universities right now. We've been working on this episode for months. It's not about Turning Point USA, or in anything related to what happened this week.

Okay. So, for the first act of our show, we're going to follow one student into college, a girl named Nevea Parker in Utah. This story takes place at the University of Utah, not to be confused with Utah Valley University, where Charlie Kirk was shot and killed. This story predates all that. I started following Nevea a year ago. This is Act 1 of our show, Act 1, My Black President.

I want to tell you about what happened. when Navea went to college, because I think it shows what this new college landscape might look like. But first, a little bit about who she was before. From a young age, Navea's been the type of person to see a problem and say, We can fix that. Not just we can fix that, but I can fix that. I'll take that on. When she was 14 years old, she went to her first protest.

George Floyd had just been killed. And she didn't just march. She got on stage and she read a poem about senseless hate and speaking up. She's like, I, a 14-year-old black girl in Utah, have the power to combat this thing. In high school, Nevea created a black student union. She wanted to BSU because she and the 10 other black students, Utah is pretty white, were constantly dealing with racist BS from other students and teachers. She'd promote the club's meetings on the morning announcements, part of her duties as student body president.

Of course, she was student body president. I would say it with a lot of passion, like, come and join, like, you know, Like, because people, I feel like their teachers weren't really telling them about it. And so I wanted them to know. Do you have an announcer voice? Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me see. Let me see.

Good morning, Royals. Welcome back to a beautiful sunny Monday. This week is filled with lots of fun activities for all of us to be a part of. The Black Student Union is going to have a meeting up in room 302. Make sure to stop by and meet friends. And that's kind of how I started it. Nevea went to the University of Utah. She became the president of the Black Student Union, of course,

and she continued to do what she'd done in high school, eagerly try and bring in new students, create a community. Here she was talking to some freshmen while tabling outside the union. Hi, you guys. How are you? Good. What are your names? Sena. That's beautiful. And what's your name? Kiyeda? That's so beautiful. I love that.

Have you guys heard of the Black Student Union here? Yes, period. Have you been to any of our events? Okay, T, all right, so you don't need the whole spiel. But do you guys want a tote bag? The University of Utah's big school, with over 35,000 students. But only a small number of those are black students, barely over 1%. Black students at the University of Utah do seem to have one thing in common, which is they didn't want to go to the University of Utah.

I heard this from all of the black students I talked to, including Nevea. They wanted to go to Howard or somewhere more diverse. or just get out of Utah. But they came around on the university, in part because of the black student union. Nevea had met some of her best friends at the BSU. They had a real community on campus. It's hard to feel welcome on a predominantly white campus.

I know. I went from an extremely diverse high school to a small, mostly white college to play basketball. And I struggled. I remember literally scanning the teeny campus as I walked to class looking for any other black face. and often finding none. I left that school.

I never found a place where I felt like myself. When Avea and the other students at the university talk about what the black student union meant to them, I felt a little jealous. At Utah, they had bi-weekly kickbacks and movie nights, study sessions, and through big parties. And they had the Black Cultural Center, the BSU's home on campus,

a literal two-story brick house. After a day of often being the only black person in class, I could literally just walk around through the back door, and I felt like I was wanted there. I feel like having black friends at the U was really just like, okay, this is what you can hold on to. Like, I feel like everyone there wanted you to be as comfortable. You could just be a black person on college campus is kind of what you're saying. Yeah, literally. Pretty much.

Yeah. And then last year, all that changed. The state of Utah passed an anti-D-EI law, meaning no more diversity, equity, and inclusion at any state institutions. The law bans devoting any resources, money, scholarships, mentoring, to any specific identity group, like, say, a black student organization. If public universities didn't comply, they would risk losing their funding. Nevea was president of the black student union that was funded by the university.

So she has to figure out what does this mean for them? Can a black student union still exist under this law? These kinds of anti-D-EI laws are reshaping college campuses across the country. Utah was ahead of most of the country. They passed their anti-D-E-I law a year ago. So they were figuring out how this worked before it went nationwide. And what happened with Nevea and the BSU is a preview of how this could play out elsewhere. So far, 28 other states have these kind of laws on the books.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration sent an NDEI memo to all colleges and universities, saying that diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts violate civil rights laws. Specifically, it says DEI discriminates against white people and Asian people, and that, quote, educational institutions have toxicly indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon systemic and structural racism. The department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this nation's educational institutions. The new guiding principle on campuses across the country is now open to all.

That phrase, open to all. It's at the core of anti-D-EI legislation. And from that perspective, the problem with a black student union is it doesn't seem like it's open to all. The laws argue that by serving black students, it's not serving other students. It's discriminating against everyone else. So what that means for universities across the country is programs are quietly disappearing. The University of Alabama at Birmingham got rid of its scholarships for black medical students.

The University of Wyoming closed down its Black Social Justice Summer Institute. Ohio University canceled its black alumni reunion. Indiana State University dissolved its Black Cultural Center. So did Wright State and Texas Tech and Weber State in the University of Cincinnati. and many more. Appalachian State University eliminated positions in the admissions office that were dedicated to black student recruitment. Tuskegee University no longer has a program dedicated to training black women to enter the computer science field. And in Utah, last fall, Nevea started to see the new law play out on campus. The first big thing the University of Utah did was dissolve

its Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Office. Then, no more annual conference for Black high school students, no more scholarships or mentoring programs specifically for Black students. The university didn't cancel the Black Student Union, but they did start to restrict what a Black Student Union could be. And they basically just said that every single thing would have to be ran by them. And what that meant would be that if we wanted to make any Instagram post, we would have to send it into them. I was like, well, can we say that, like, We don't support this bill, like publicly, right? No, you couldn't do any of that.

You can't go against the bill at all. You can't talk about anything having to do with, like, racism. And so we were like, okay, but, like, if we can't talk about, like, racism or, like, black history, can we, like, keep our name still? Like, can we still say, like, black student union? They were like, change it to what? No, literally. That's what, like, we were like, how would you change the name? And their response was basically, like, we're going to have to run that by people.

but like, we're really going to fight for you to be able to say that. And so it's like you can maybe just do whatever you want once they just don't hear the word black. So every time Nevea wanted to host an event, she now had to run it by the university. And when the word black came up to advertise those events. And they would just be like, let's think of other ways to say this, like so that people don't get upset and so we don't get flagged by the university. Like say what? What's like an example? Oh, radical. They would like to say radical joy. Radical love?

Radical love, radical joy instead of black love, black joy. Yeah. And so they were just like, yeah, just like do that. That's the one term I can like, I can hear her saying it, one of the staff. What does radical joy even mean? I mean, like, I don't really know. Honestly, I don't even know. And like, I don't know.

Nevea kept hearing that anything they did needed to be open to all. Which was confusing for Nevea because everything the BSU did was already open to everyone. Nevea was like, this law is coming for us. She needed a way to save the BSU. So she made a choice. She thought the only way they could survive as the BSU she loved would be to become an independent organization, to separate from the university, not to be a university-sponsored club.

They were going to go it alone. This meant losing all their funding, their advisor, the status they had as the official club for black students at the University of Utah. How did it feel to finally make that choice? Terrifying, genuinely, because I was like, if I'm making the wrong decision, it felt like it would all fall on me. To run the BSU independently, they needed money. Nevea has to set up a go-fund me so the BSU can do basic things.

She has to figure out where they can meet. Before the law, one of the places they met regularly was the Black Cultural Center. But after the law, it was unstaffed and, didn't have any funding. Navea was told she'd have to make a reservation to book the space. So we couldn't really, we didn't really know how to book the space with the Black Cultural Center because for a couple months there, they were telling us, like, we're not sure if it would be free to students. So they were just basically saying we might have to pay for it. And we can't pay for it. We don't want to pay for it. That's crazy.

And that is crazy. To ask students to pay so they can gather on a campus, they are already paying thousands to go to. They have their first kickback of the year in a classroom that can use for free at the Student Union. Navea tries to organize events that are fun and will bring out students but won't cost any money. She emails a Utah Jazz to see if she can get free tickets for a BSU event. It works. They go to a game against the heat. It's a chaotic start to the semester. The club is happening. Navea's life is full of tasks, some of which she expected and some of which she really didn't. For instance, now that the club was no longer part of the university, she was fundraising to keep the BSD alive.

Random people from the Salt Lake community saw that and wanted to share their ideas for how she should run things. So now she was also a private fundraiser, taking calls before, between, and after classes. She didn't want to miss a possible opportunity. One time, she got a message from a man who said he was retired and had a background in strategic planning. So she got up early before class to get on Zoom with him.

He was in his home office, I remember. And he was this old, old white guy. guy. And he was like, I just hate to see that this is happening. And he was like, our government has, you know, gotten really off the rails and they're not understanding that DEI is a good thing. And, you know, I was like, okay. Like, you know, we were, we were jiving, right? Like, it was great to see someone like him speak the way that he was and support us in the way that he was. And so he was like, this is what you need to do. You need to rebrand. You need to talk to this person. You need to go to the LDS Church because they have a big stake in the decisions that are made within the government.

And he was like, a lot of people hated this bill. And he was like, you just need to get the LDS Church on your side because they love this, this, this and this. And he's a member as well. And he was like, you can talk to him. Like, they'll listen to you. Like, you need to go and tell him. He's like, you got to get out there and start lobbying. Yeah, no, genuinely.

He was like, march up to the gates. And he mentioned to Nevea that he had money. He was like, eventually a donation would be in the future. But we need these things to happen first so that more donation. can come. I remember calling my mom and being like, I don't really know why this white guy just, like, wanted to talk with me for an hour about BSU. Like, I'm not really sure, like, what's going on? And she was like, is he giving you money? And I was like, I think eventually if we do what he wants us to do, like, I don't know. This goes nowhere. It does not lead to any donation. Nevea and the man never talk again. Calls like these took a lot of time. Time that she didn't have. For the first time, Navea's grades, which had always been perfect, started slipping.

Navea started anxiety medication. She was making calculations like, do I do this thing for BSU or do I do this thing for school? If I skip this assignment, I'll still pass this class, so it's okay, right? Before the DEI law, the work of making the BSU exist was handled by adults with full-time jobs. Last year, that adult became 19-year-old Nevea. Of course, Nevea had the support of other BSU members. They told me they really appreciated Nevea and that the BSU wouldn't have continued without her.

But Nevea says people would also text her and say they were too busy or stressed to help out. Nevea would always respond kindly. Please let me know if I can do anything for you. I appreciate what you've been able to do. I know this has been a hard year. Like, that would be my response. And, you know, I just felt like I couldn't say anything else.

Like, I didn't really know what else to say because, like, I don't know. I wanted to beg them to stay. And I wanted to, like, tell them that we really needed help. But it just felt like, I don't know. I felt like I couldn't do that. Were there moments where you were like, I don't want to do this anymore? I can't do this anymore. Like, yeah.

This is so hard to answer because. Yes, there were many, many, many moments, like where I would just be like going to sleep at night and being like very, very overwhelmed with the week ahead or like the day, the next day, honestly. And I didn't know how to communicate like how bad I was struggling mentally. And so it was kind of just this thing where like I had to deal with it on my own. And just, like, keep pushing through, I guess, because that just felt like my only option. The University of Utah has had a BSU since the 1960s. Students created it during the fight for civil rights. This new law had wiped out so much of what the BSU had created over seven decades.

Nevea felt like it couldn't end with her. She felt like she was president of the only organization left to specifically support black students at the University of Utah. And it had to keep existing. Navey and the BSU made it to February, Black History Month, which meant Skate Night. Skate Night was always one of the biggest events of the year. This year, Navei had thrown a ton of money they'd fundraised into the event. She bought 70 tickets at the local roller rink. And that's how many people she needed to show up for it to be a success.

If they could pull this off on their own, it would feel like the BSU was still thriving on campus. So, it's a Saturday night, and the event starts at midnight. Hey guys, it's me and Nevea. We're almost at full capacity since you're coming with your friends. Come soon. Nevea and her VP Sandrine are posting on Instagram. Neon purple lights glow in the background as they talk. The two are dressed up.

College night dressed up, that is, cute tops and jeans. Nevea has straightened her usually curly hair. Sandrine's is picked out. They seem giddy. Please, please, please. Especially you of you students. We have a limited amount of tickets, but it's so much fun, so please come. Immediately, it's packed.

There's a line out the door. And now Nevea's biggest worry is that they won't have enough tickets. I was sitting out like the front whatever, and I was basically like, oh my goodness. Like, I knew the check coming back was going to be thousands of dollars. Like, I knew it. Because they were like the office too, like the people who were workers at the Classic Fund Center were being like, So you're running out of the wristbands you paid for. Like, we're going to have to, like, either you're going to have to cut people off at the door

or, like, we're going to have to, like, keep, you know, charging you for more people. And I was basically just like, well, I can't turn anyone away. Like, somehow we're going to have to just make this work, right? Like, you know, we just got to do it because people just, this is like our big thing, you know. And everyone was so excited about it too. And so, you know, I was a, people would say maybe a pushover in that sense. And I don't regret it. The night cost them thousands of dollars.

Money Nevea had to scramble to raise. But over 300 people showed up. I definitely felt like a big sense of, I guess, pride you could say. Like, this is a huge event. So many people are having a great time in enjoying themselves. And, yeah, everyone's just happy and together. And that's what we want it to be. She pulled it off.

She'd protected the thing that she cared about most, a place where black students could feel welcome. By the end of the spring semester, she tripled BSU membership. There's something insidious about the anti-DGI laws. They present themselves as civil rights laws, while eliminating so many of the things that the civil rights movement demanded on university campuses. They present themselves as laws to promote inclusion, open to all. all, while disappearing all the programs and money and support that actually made black kids

feel welcome. Nevea is constantly trying to create space for black students. The university is literally taking space away. I watched the university do this in real time one day. The black student union used to have a home on campus, the black cultural center. It'd been one of Nevea's favorite places on campus. The house was still there, but the university wouldn't tell them what was going to happen with it. They just kept saying they were working on it, and they'd try and reopen it.

It just sat there the whole year, often locked. The old Black Cultural Center staff gone. And then at the end of the school year, the university quietly renamed it. It was no longer the Black Cultural Center. It was now the Center for Community and Cultural Engagement. Nevea and I drove by. Right to the left, right here. Right here.

So you can see that sign outside of it. Oh, the doors are open. Should we go in? Let's park. It's a two-story brick house. When we pulled up, the door was actually propped open. Okay, so I guess first just tell me, oh, it still says Black Cultural Center on the door.

Yes, on the door. But I think they're in the works of redecorating and reassigning things. So on the door, you can see it's like a, what would it be, like a vinyl? Like a vinyl words on the screen door. But then outside of it, the actual sign now says Center for Community and Cultural Engagement, instead of black cultural center. And so I guess for right now, it's a good thing that the door still says it with the vinyl lettering. Okay, when did you hear that the sign was going to change, that that was going to go down?

We never heard anything about that. Yeah, like, and still no one has said that. Are they renaming it now? And that's the questions I have. Because if they're changing that sign and saying that, then, like, what does it mean for everything else inside of it? Yeah. I mean, it's just like there's no communication or transparency once again. Like, it's not like, you know, there was any, like, public notice.

Like, we're so sorry to this community. We're taking away the sign and we're replacing it. Like, we are sorry and we wish we didn't have to do this. Like, that would go a long way. Yeah. But, okay. Let's see. We open the door and walk into the house.

Nevea seems annoyed, but ready to show me around. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. There's a white woman sitting behind a desk inside. She's one of the employees of the new center. Nevea brightly says hello to her and begins my tour. There's a little seating area in a library of books, Black History Books, a signed copy of Langston Hughes.

She shows me a meeting room, a kitchen filled with snacks, a bunch of closets all over the house. Like in every room, there is a closet filled with BSU supplies, things like notebooks, pencils, postcards, tables, buckets of candy. So you can see, like, the graduation stoles right there. The graduation stoles are kind of, like, African color. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we have, like, this sign is used for tabling.

So just, like, has... Nevea was excited and proud to show me around. But I have to admit, it was also kind of eerie. So much of it is exactly as Nevea remembered it. Like, even the former director of the BCC's name is still painted above his office door. Because that's the most publicity. This feels like a tour of, like, the house you moved out.

of, or like, the house you grew up in where you kind of still know where the stuff is. Yeah, but it's also somehow not, like, in your full, it's not fully in your hands. I don't know, it's weird, but it, like, is a part of our stuff. We end the tour at a beautiful mural by the entrance. It's a big white Sankofa bird with an African tribal pattern behind it. And then, in big block letters next to it, it says, the University of Utah's Black Cultural Center. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I actually, not that I'm just pointing out to you, like, yeah, the signs are still there.

Yeah. It was because we did not know what was going to happen. The staffer at the desk interrupts Nebeas tour to explain the sign change. With all of the middles and stuff. Yeah. We're hoping that we could still keep this name, the Black Cultural Center, but we're going to have to change it. So it is confirmed. Yeah, I saw the sign outside.

Yes. And I was like, huh? So when was that decided? Like recent? Kind of, yeah. It was a few months ago, but it was decided that we do need to change it. And then we just haven't gotten around to it because there's still even more changes. And so the CCE will be taking over this building fully.

Okay. So this will be like for BSU to use a lot too and like just everything else. but we're still going to keep a lot of what's on the inside, but we do have to change the name. Like, officially, like, in, like, Google Maps and stuff. Like... I don't know how all of that's going to play out. But it'll change.

It will change. Do you know, like, about the decorations on the inside? Like, is that going to have to be covered up? Nevea points in the mural with the bird, and the words, Black Cultural Center. This might have to go. We're not quite sure about... No, that's okay.

Thank you. No, yeah. I just have, like, is it because... it says black, that's what? Okay. That's what I thought. Because we can't even use the word inclusive. Yeah. We can't say that this is just for black students. So, because, you know, we have to be inclusive without saying inclusive. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, no, it's, it's very sad. It's very sad to me. Nevea thanks the woman for her honesty, and we start to head out.

I appreciate it. You take care of her. You too. Oh man how are you feeling I'm gonna cry this is horrible This is actually like actually horrible What about that like pushed you over the edge They're officially changing the name Which like I didn't think was gonna happen Like officially like I don't know

That's crazy You're really upset are you? Yeah no I am really upset And I don't want to like take it out on her Because like clearly it's not her fault But like what is going on? Like actually what's going on? on and like wouldn't they think to like tell us like they and then she said it would be for the

black student union to use if we don't even know like your plans sorry if we don't even know your future plans for it how are we supposed to know that we're welcome there like how are we supposed to think oh yeah we're going to be fine when they don't even communicate any of that to us and it's not like they don't have my contact they do like they can ask me to do other things they can they can let us know about this and it's just very frustrating and sad to me so it's like the the sign out front, you're like, okay, it seems like they're changing it, but now it just feels like it's official official. Yeah. It does feel official now, it's that she just confirmed that they for sure are changing it. And it just comes back to the exact thing I was talking about,

like the word black being so weaponized. Like it is so incredibly weaponized and not just, it blows my mind how like, I don't know. I just wish that like maybe their team or something would have just said no. Like what if they just said no? What if they just said no? What are they just said no we're not changing the name like what would happen then like would they fire everyone like i don't know i just feel like now like what do we have to lose because now we're losing this like officially yeah it's not just like it's not just a talk it's not just a fear it's like actually happening and if they're changing this stuff on the inside too then it's like absolutely you're erasing you're absolutely you're racing the center like i don't know i'm actually in shock

kind of like is it real like is this real life right now because it just feels like Very dystopian to me. Navea is no longer the high school kid making chipper morning announcements. Nevea is only 20. She was three years old when Obama was elected president, came of age in the air of black squares and Black Lice Matter protest. In her mind, the country was shifting to a more accepting place. And where we are now, the world she's navigating,

it's so different than the one she grew up believing in. I talked with the university about the sign change. They said, black gives the impression that the center isn't open to all. So I asked, can you say the word black? They said it depends. If it's cultural, educational, yes. If it's tied to resources, no. They said they had to be careful.

They run all their events like Pride Week, Women's Week, Black, anything, by lawyers. I just want to say one more thing about the word black. It's just a word. Who cares? But it's not. It's a word that was decided on by black people. There's a long list of shitty and degrading words that white people have lodged at us, enslaved, and murdered us for. Black is the word we got to add to the list, the one that we got to choose. Capital B, black.

We are black. It's very, call us by our name. Removing black, taking that off the list of acceptable words, as a way of saying, you don't decide. We do. Nevea, though, she refuses to be erased. Even after that terrible year with the anti-Dei law, Nevea is still pushing forward, still determined to keep the black student union.

alive. She just started her junior year. On the first day of school, she's outside tabling for the BSU. A young woman approaches. She's a transfer student from Oregon. Hi, you guys. What is your name? I'm Deja. Deja, you're beautiful. It's so nice to meet you. My name is Nevea, and we're the Black Student Union here. Have you heard about us? Or have you like, no? Okay, we should totally join. This is our Instagram right here. So if you just want to join our Instagram, right now we're just working on increasing, like, our engagement and our presence on campus after some things happened last year with the legislator we got some of our funding taken away but now we have like a fully

functioning e-board and we're going to do a lot of events this year so I want in this post-Dei era I think on a lot of campuses how welcome you are as a black student the difference between feeling like you belong or don't belong will depend on if you have a nevea or not Meeky Meek reported this story with me, additional editing from Robin Simeon. You know how much I need you to have you really feel you. to change a thing no one knows

the love you bring be real black for me be real black for me be real black for me be real black for me Coming up, since he's away and I'm hosting, we're going to talk about Ira for 15 minutes.

That's after the break from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. It's This American Life. I'm Emmanuel Barry sitting in for Ira Glass. Today's show College Disorientation. In this hour, we're looking at some of the dramatic shifts in higher education. A flood of executive orders and memos from the Trump administration. Let me just run down a few of the new directives for America's colleges and universities. There was the January executive order called ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing. The Dear Colleague letter in February.

March, a new task force starts to investigate DEI and anti-Semitism. In April, the NIH starts requiring researchers to certify that their colleges do not have any DEI programs. Then, in May, the Department of Justice launches a civil rights fraud initiative. And one of the most dramatic and public interventions the Trump administration has taken on is with a few high-profile elite schools, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. And that's Act 2. Act 2, The Art of the Deal. Something we've never really seen before is a presidential administration withholding millions in federal research money from schools it claims are centers of indoctrination and anti-Semitism.

Columbia University was the first school to have one of those showdowns with the administration. It withheld 400 million in federal funding until Columbia agreed to a settlement, one that came with the number of conditions. One of those conditions, the administration wanted Columbia to more formally incorporate a controversial government-approved definition of anti-Semitism. It's known as an International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition, IHRA, or IRA, for short. The IRA definition was already one of several definitions Colombia considered when it evaluated claims of anti-Semitism. But now, IRA was officially incorporated alongside some new unprecedented government oversight. Professors at Columbia have been trying to figure out what

does the IRA definition mean for them and their classes this year. Aik-Sarish Kandaraja has been talking to ones who have worried and making plans. The definition itself is pretty straightforward. It's about the length of a tweet. Basically, anti-Semitism is a hatred of Jews. But it comes with 11 examples that expand on that definition. Most are pretty obvious, calling for the killing of Jews, denying the Holocaust.

Those are anti-Semitic. But where it gets tricky are a few examples that blur the line between anti-Semitism and criticism. of the state of Israel. Professors told me that's the part they're worried about. They have to figure out how to teach under this new rule. I heard about three different strategies. First are the professors who say they can't teach. Mariana Hirsch canceled her class.

She teaches comparative literature and gender studies at Columbia. So the course that I've taught before is called Imaging War, Imagining Peace. and it's about images of war from the Armenian genocide and World War I to the present. Are these images really contesting war, or are they still, in some ways, celebrating war and how the war of images is always part of war. One of the Ira examples on her mind when thinking about her lecture on the first day of class, example 10, comparing contemporary Israeli policies to that of the Nazis. I didn't see how I could teach this course without teaching about the present-day images of the war in Gaza.

I thought about how I would structure my first class, and it would have been about what kind of images of war become iconic. You know, little boy in the Warsaw Ghetto, the so-called Napalm girl during the Vietnam War, and putting those images of children in Gaza next to the little boy in the Warsaw Ghetto with Nazi soldiers pointing guns at him. is implicitly a comparison of IDF soldiers with Nazis. Professor Hirsch has dedicated her career to studying the effects of trauma. She's Jewish, and her parents survived the Holocaust. And she's worried about Ira, partly because in 2023, a student formally accused her of anti-Semitism. It was in a class similar to the one she just described.

She shared some recent articles related to the war in Gaza that she thought were involved. important, but a student complained saying they weren't relevant to the class and that some of the reading rationalized acts of anti-Semitism. The charge against Professor Hirsch was eventually dropped, but she came out of it feeling like she can't run her class the way she wants to. And that was before Ira. So that's the first thing Columbia professors are doing, dropping their courses. One of the best-known Palestinian scholars, Rashid Ali, withdrew his course.

course on modern Middle East history. The professor said in an open letter, quote, it is impossible to teach this course, and much else, in light of Columbia's adoption of the IRA definition of anti-Semitism. The second thing professors are doing because of IRA tweaking what they teach. Professor Najim Haider teaches courses about Islam, including Islam in the post-colonial world. He talks about scholars, like other people talk about celebs. And one of his favorites is someone he is now concerned about the signing. Hannah Arendt was very ambivalent about the state of Israel, and she was very critical of Zionism and Zionist organizations during Nazi Germany and the run-up to the Holocaust. I got to say, Hannah Arendt came up

in nearly every call. Eight times alone in my conversation with Professor Hyde, If you haven't read her, don't worry, it's still early in the semester. The Cliff Notes version is she's an influential Jewish journalist and scholar who fled Nazi Germany, she came to America, and famously coined the phrase, the banality of evil, to describe the mindset in Germany that led to the Holocaust. Like Professor Hirsch, Professor Hyder's also worried about that IRA example, the one about drawing comparisons to Nazis, which Arendt does. Now, how am I supposed to teach Hannah Arendt?

Because her critique of the state of Israel and Zionism can then be spun as anti-Semitism. So instead of me teaching Hannah Arendt, I have to find a way of getting around Hannah Arendt, but making the same points. So then I go to Fanon. And then I'm talking about Iran. And so what I end up with is a whole class on how Iranian Shiism has taken a religious tradition and made it into a political ideology. And if I make that critique of Iran, I can do that comfortably. But if I were to make a similar critique of Israel, it would be anti-Semitism. And this is what the IHRA definition does.

What it does is it creates an exception for Israel, where any critique of Israel is treated differently from a critique of any other modern state. He's already dropped Hannah-Orent from his syllabus. And Professor Haider says his untenured colleagues are going even further. out of their way to avoid controversy. I've had colleagues in Islamic studies who have said, you know, they used to teach

modern topics and now they're going to go back and only teach classical Islam because they don't think that they're able to teach modern topics anymore. And what that does is it re-inscribes Orientalism. Orientalism. Sounds like the ramen flavor, but it's a kind of racism.

And one of the premises of Orientalism was this idea that you don't teach Islam as a living tradition. You teach it as something in the past that is ossified, right? And so what happens when all your classes on Islamic Studies now go back to that? The third strategy professors are trying is to do nothing. These teachers are not canceling their classes.

They're not changing their classes. Even though they think the material they teach will be in violation of IRA. Like Professor Thaya Abu al-Hajj, she's an educational anthropologist who focuses on Palestinians in the diaspora. She's Palestinian, and she's concerned about the ambiguity of the IRA examples. She wondered if her entire class might violate the IRA example number seven, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavor. I mean, there is no Palestinian scholarship that is not questioning the settler colonial nature of the state. You know, how do I teach the 2018 nationalities law, which states that only Jews have the right to self-determination in the state of Israel?

Can I teach that? Can I teach Amnesty's apartheid report? Your answer is yes. My answer is I have, if I am to teach the things I'm. know about and I'm an expert on, I have to be able to teach those things. Her sister, Nadia Abu El-Haj, is also a professor at Columbia. She teaches an anthropology of war class and directs the Center for Palestine Studies. And she says she's not considering revising anything for Ira, not in her class, not in events at the center.

So I get the choice we have is do we dance around it or do we just take it head? on. And, you know, this is my work. And this is, there's nothing, I can, I mean, we could either close the Center of Palestine Studies, or we can just take it head on, right, and see what happens. And your thought on this is the latter. Oh, absolutely. This has been my work for over 20 years. So this is so central to what I do that I feel like you want to fire me, fire me. I mean, I'm not going to cave. She's already gamed out in her head, how the consequences will unfold. There'll be a student in class. You'll sign a book. They'll say, this is discriminatory. Now, the accumulation of those charges of discrimination, ultimately they can fire you.

It's never been used that way before. But it's going to be used. And it's going to be the same thing with public events at the center. Someone will come to an event. They will launch a complaint against the center for anti-Semitism and will be in this cycle. She's a tenured professor who theoretically they can't fire except in the most extreme circumstances Do you think you have a job

this time next year? I think it'd take a while to fire me but I don't think it's off the table I mean honestly I have no idea she has no idea and all these professors they're just guessing

because Columbia did not just agree to the IRA definition Colombia agreed to have a monitor, a person who'd watch over everything that Columbia said it would do under its settlement with the government. But what will the monitor do? What's his budget? How many people can he hire? It's unclear. Columbia says the monitor does not have oversight over academic content or curriculum. But when I read the terms of the agreement, it says the monitor will have access to, quote, all agreement-related individuals, facilities, disciplinary hearings,

and the scene of any occurrence that the monitor deems necessary. Also, quote, all documents and data related to the agreement. That seems like a lot of stuff. The monitor, Bart Schwartz, declined to answer our questions. Najim Haider, the religion professor, told me he's been asking his bosses, Is this monitor going to be reviewing what I teach? You know, when this was brought up with Columbia administration, they said, oh, don't worry about it. But they always just say, don't worry about it.

They don't tell you, well, they're not going to be able to do that. Like, if you ask them a question and you say, can this person sit in on my car? Can they just walk in? They're going to be like, we don't think that's going to happen. They're not going to say, like, no, they can't. There are no limits that have been set to the degree to which they have access to teaching at Columbia. Were there limits before? There would be no monitors before. There's no monitors before.

There's no one doing this word. I did talk to one faculty member who falls into none of these three categories when it comes to the IRA definition. She's in a category that I call, no big deal. And she comes to that conclusion based on the job that she's had on campus the last two years, as co-chair of Columbia's task force on anti-Semitism, Professor Esther Fuchs. She didn't think the school should formally use Ira. The task force had a different definition of anti-Semitism that they recommended. She doesn't like how the government is using anti-Semitism as a weapon

to bully college campuses into all sorts of changes. But unlike her colleagues, she doesn't think Ira is that big a deal. I certainly don't want to give the impression that I believe this is simple. Of course it's difficult and I understand why people are frustrated. and I understand why there's differences of opinions. But I don't believe the Trump administration is going to be coming in and monitoring this level of detail at all.

And it was very clear in the original agreement there is no involvement of the federal government in curriculum, in admissions, or in faculty hiring. The agreement does explicitly say the government won't, quote, dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech. But the agreement also gives the government broad oversight over academic departments, complaints of anti-Semitism, and admissions. And the agreement requires a review of educational

programs to ensure they are, quote, comprehensive and balanced. So you can read it, Professor Fuchsway, Or you can read it the way the other professors I talk to read it. But let me just say this. For Professor Fuchs, the conclusion is unambiguous. There's nothing to be scared of. I mean, people do your job, for God's sake. Instead of, you know, making students nervous, getting everybody upset, do your job, figure it out. That's what we're supposed to be doing.

Everybody turned themselves into martyrs here. What a bad joke. So what is going to happen this year? Which way is this going to go? I read the agreement between the government and Colombia again last night. It's sprawling. For a battle that started over anti-Semitism, the document also covers trans students in locker rooms,

and international students, and admissions, and DEI. And what the agreement does is it lets the Trump administration crack down on any of that if it decides the university is out of line. Maybe it'll choose Ira. Maybe it'll choose something else. Between the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars, IRA, the Monitor, this administration has given themselves

a new set of tools to transform higher ed. Ike Sirich Kandaraja is a producer on our show. Out in the dark under the money tree, well, there's no spark beyond belief. And there is no point definitively. Where do we stop? Where do we start out in the dark?

Our program was produced by Meeky Meek and Emmanuel Jochi. It was edited by Hannah Jaffe Walt. People who put together today's show include Fia Bennon, Zoe Chase, Michael Cometate, Suzanne Gabbar, Sophie Gill, Valerie Kipness, Catherine Raimondo, Stowe Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rumry, Francis Swanson, Christopher Swatala, Marisa Robertson-Texter, Nancy Updike, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor, Sada Abduraman, and our senior editor is David Kestimbaum. Special thanks to Melijah Garfield, Sandrine Mimpsh, Sadie Werner, Catherine Bonn Stockton, Alex Takeda,

Karen Kwan, Bilal Kuchay, Maria Karimji, Mike Gavin, Azmat Khan, Miriam Alwan, Cameron Jones, Yanni Kurtz, Ali Arziz, Melanie Story, Tennessee Watson, Madeline Beck, Kenneth Stern, Noah Letterman, Xavier Westergaard, Crystal Bell, and Maya Perkins. Special thanks as well to the Office of International Student Services and the Office of International Studies and Programs at Michigan State University, and Arno Rosenfeld, who writes a newsletter, Anti-Semitism Decoded at the Forward. Thanks also to our This American Life Partners, sign up as a life partner and you'll get ad-free listening, a greatest hits archive right in your podcast feed, plus regular exclusive bonus episodes, including dozens that we've already released. Join us at This AmericanLife.org slash life partners. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks as always to my boss Ira Glass, who is off this week doing his side hustle as a personal assistant for hair. Mary and Megan. One of his most important duties is the wake-up call. For old time's sake,

he likes to do it this way. Good morning, Royals. I'm Emmanuel Berry. Our Glass will be back next week with more stories of this American life. Next week on the podcast of This American Live, immigration judges usually don't talk to reporters, but a bunch agreed to go on the record with us to describe what it has been like to do their jobs under the current Trump administration. Pressure to decide cases in the government's favor,

firings. It was an assault. It was like an old medieval castle that was under siege. They were slowly cutting off our food supply. Now they're cutting off our air supply. That's next week in the podcast. on your local public radio station.