The Trump administration directive seeking to pause federal financial assistance seeded widespread chaos and concern across the educational landscape on Tuesday, from early childhood programs to university research efforts. At least one university leader urged professors to pause spending on research projects. The cash flow for Head Start, the early childhood education program that serves 800,000 children, was cut off in some places before the federal government clarified that the program was not included in the directive. And there was widespread uncertainty over which other programs might face scrutiny or be dismantled. The directive would pause funding at least until mid-February while the government investigates whether programs align with President Trump’s policy priorities, including ending “D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.” By Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., had blocked it in response to a lawsuit. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT But the day unfolded in a kind of whiplash, as educators and students frantic about federal programs scrambled to understand how the directive might affect them. The Trump administration clarified that some programs, like Pell grants and funding for low-income schools and disabled children, would be exempt and sought to push back on early fears of funding being cut for children.Some Head Start providers were blocked when attempting to access a federal online payment portal on Tuesday, setting off a panic for program directors who worried that they would not be able to make payroll in the next pay period. A few moved to lay off staff because of the uncertainty, before a clarification was issued by the administration. Katherine Baicker, provost of the University of Chicago, asked university researchers not to make additional spending commitments, purchase new supplies or equipment, start new experiments or embark on funded travel. “This is not a request that I make lightly,” she said in an email obtained by The New York Times. “The research enterprise is at the core of our university’s mission and is of profound importance to the daily work of our faculty, researchers, staff and students.” She said in the email that the university was struggling to understand the full effect of the directive and she wished she had more information. “But we must for now proceed under the assumption that grant expenditures incurred after today while this memorandum is in effect may not be covered by federal funding,” she wrote. Daniel W. Jones, a former chancellor of the University of Mississippi who also led the medical school there, said universities would have to decide whether to tap their own money to sustain projects if the pause resumed. Wealthier flagship institutions would have the funds to continue their research, but would have to worry about the legal risk of defying the directive, he said. But more financially precarious institutions may find their research in jeopardy. The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities put out a statement calling the pause “overly broad” and “unnecessary and damaging.” “While we understand the Trump administration wants to review programs to ensure consistency with its priorities, it is imperative that the reviews not interfere with American innovation and competitiveness,” the association’s president, Mark Becker, said. He called for the Trump administration to rescind the directive. The association said the directive could disrupt researchers working on projects ranging from cures for cancer to supporting American farmers. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities, said in an interview that the organization’s priority was “to make sure that Pell grant funds will continue to flow,” referring to financial aid for low-income students. “We’re not going to exclude students from our campuses,” he said. “That’s not what we do.” But later in the day, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, Madi Biedermann, said that the pause did not apply to Pell grants. The Department of Education clarified that the directive only applied to discretionary grants, and not to formula grants, like Title 1, which provides aid to high-poverty schools, or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which supports children with disabilities. Some 3,000 people joined a hastily convened webinar by the American Council on Education on Tuesday afternoon to try to decode the directive. In a statement, AASA, the school superintendents association, said the fate of other federal funding streams used to pay for school meals, aid to Native American students and specific educational programs was uncertain. “Yesterday’s announcement includes a lot of information without a lot of specifics,” AASA said. “Given the very unique approach of the proposal, we can’t, with the information the president has released, have any certainty on what it will mean.” Other education officials said they were trying not to overreact. Public school leaders in Clark County, Nev., which includes Las Vegas, told employees in a letter that they “do not anticipate an immediate interruption to district programs and students’ services.” Most researchers “are willing to take a deep breath,” said Karl Scholz, president of the University of Oregon. And Jim Henderson, the president of Louisiana Tech University, said school officials did not believe the directive, which was issued Monday night, was so sweeping as to cut off support for existing projects there. “I couldn’t be less in freakout mode on this communication,” he said. “It doesn’t appear to be targeted toward anything we pursue at this university.” But Dr. Henderson said that if future orders threatened work at Louisiana Tech, school officials would appeal to the state’s congressional delegation for help. Some researchers were scratching their heads over how a directive seemingly concerned with “woke” education might be applied to them. Universities were not sure how far, exactly, the directive reached. “There is certainly concern and fear, but we are still trying to wrap out arms around the scope of the impact,” said Charles L. Welch, the president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which includes many regional schools and historically Black institutions. Bruce Fuller, an education researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, predicted that a pause could backfire. “Research on top administration priorities, like parent vouchers or charter schools, will go undone if the department insists on censoring scientific findings,” he said. Dr. Fuller is conducting research to determine how Covid-19 pandemic recovery funding has affected the performance of California students. On Tuesday, he said, the Department of Education informed researchers on the project that they must not post any new material about their research on the web, or on social media, without written approval from Ms. Biedermann. At least one university researcher said her project had already been shut down under a different order issued last week. Meredith Dank, a professor at the N.Y.U. Marron Institute of Urban Management, had grants from the U.S. State Department for five projects — in Thailand, India, Tanzania, Kenya and Costa Rica — meant to combat human trafficking. On Friday evening, she got an email from the State Department stating that all foreign aid was being paused for 90 days while the agency reviewed how each program aligned with national priorities and agenda. That put all of those grants on hold. Then, on Saturday evening, she heard that the grant in Thailand had been terminated. That grant was the only one specifically “focused on L.G.B.T.Q. individuals who were at risk or had been sex trafficked,” she said. For the $4 million, five-year program to be terminated was “heartbreaking,” Dr. Dank said. The local staff members involved still “can’t believe that it’s true.”

A special session of the Tennessee General Assembly that began on Monday reflects the way President Trump’s aggressive conservative agenda is already emboldening Republicans to pursue his priorities at the state level. Gov. Bill Lee has proposed new measures to toughen immigration enforcement, including the creation of a position in state government that would directly coordinate with the Trump administration’s enforcement policies. And he has called on lawmakers to revisit his plans to expand the use of public funds for private schools across the state. What happens next in Tennessee may signal the extent to which conservative-led states will carry out Mr. Trump’s broader policy agenda. Many states’ regular legislative sessions are just getting underway. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Republican supermajorities, particularly in the South, have spent years rallying behind a litany of conservative policies. The Biden administration often condemned their decisions or challenged them in court, but the Trump administration is far more likely to be on the same page with them. “During the Biden administration, red state legislatures were frustrated with what they saw the Biden administration doing or not doing,” said David Shonerd, senior director of state operations at MultiState, a state and local government relations firm. “Now they have a willing and excited partner.” He added, “They’ll be able to push the envelope if needed.”Mr. Lee has also asked the Tennessee legislature to take up a third issue in the special session: disaster aid for communities in the eastern corner of the state, which were devastated late last year by floods caused by the rainy remnants of Hurricane Helene. Supporters say using a special session to tackle the three issues is a way to fast-track high priority legislation by limiting what can be debated. “People are going to complain about anything, whether it’s optics or whatever it may be, so that’s just part of it,” said Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican. He added, “it allows us to focus on a few issues in a very short period of time and to really dive in and explore those topics.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Trump has called on other governors to follow suit on targeting immigration policy. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has already called state lawmakers into a special session that begins Monday. He asked them to consider legislation that would expand local officials’ power to detain and deport people who are in the country illegally. Legislative leaders said they would consider only some of the governor’s proposals. Individual state lawmakers have put forward their own proposals to advance Mr. Trump’s crackdown against undocumented immigrants. In South Carolina, state lawmakers are pushing requirements for certain hospitals to report data on the immigration status of their patients. Lawmakers in both Georgia and Tennessee have called for more penalties for cities and local governments that defy state prohibitions on being a “sanctuary” jurisdiction.A bill introduced in Mississippi last week would create a bounty hunter program with a $1,000 reward. In Tennessee, a bill would charge undocumented students tuition to attend public schools. It is too early to say which of the bills will stand a chance of becoming law. In Tennessee, Mr. Lee has backed the creation of what he described as a new chief immigration enforcement officer for the state. He has also backed bills that would further penalize cities and local officials that did not wholeheartedly cooperate with immigration enforcement. Legislators may introduce other bills on the issue as well. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We are seeing the governor falling in line with Trump’s shortsighted and narrow vision of what it means to belong in this country,” said Judith Clerjeune, the advocacy director for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. She added, “It’s absurd that we would use local funding to go after immigrant families.”Democrats, who broadly oppose such policies, have accused Mr. Lee of playing politics with hurricane aid by pairing it in the same special session with the more divisive proposals on immigration and school vouchers. Though they are covered in separate bills in the Tennessee session, some lawmakers in other states and in Congress have increasingly been trying to tie crucial emergency aid to obtain partisan policy changes. “Providing overdue and much-needed financial aid and relief for the Tennessee families and communities devastated by flooding in September should be our focus and singular priority during this special session,” said State Representative John Ray Clemmons, the chairman of the Democratic caucus. But with Republicans in control of a supermajority, there is usually little need for Democratic support to pass legislation. On Monday, hundreds of students rallied outside the State Capitol in favor of tougher gun laws after a female student was killed in a shooting at a Nashville high school. They condemned the limited scope of the special session, chanting “cowards” as Republican lawmakers walked past them. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Approval of Mr. Lee’s long-held ambitions for a statewide school voucher program is perhaps the most tenuous of the three policy items. Mr. Lee’s office has highlighted support from several eastern Tennessee mayors, but some school boards in the state have voted to publicly oppose the plan. Conservative activists have worked to fund voucher programs and elevate elected officials who support them. Republicans pushed through a pilot version for Tennessee’s largest counties in 2019, despite concerns about undermining public education. But a heavily funded push to spend millions of dollars on a statewide plan has so far failed to overcome objections from rural conservatives who are protective of their local public school districts. After falling short last year, Mr. Lee signaled that he would push lawmakers to take up the issue again. His proposal’s prospects for passage this year have been boosted in part by Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly said he favored creation of a federal school choice program. Mr. Trump recently tapped Penny Schwinn, a former Tennessee state education commissioner who oversaw the initial stages of the state voucher program, to serve in the U.S. Department of Education. In the days leading up to the special session, Republicans circulated glowing endorsements for the voucher plan, including one from the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing group deeply involved in drafting the Trump administration’s policy agenda. It remains unclear, though, whether that support will be enough to pass the legislation. “President Trump being in favor of school choice has really helped us,” Mr. Sexton said. The proposal would initially allocate about $7,000 in scholarship money a year to each of 20,000 students, about half of whom would be students with disabilities or students from families far below the income threshold to qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. Thousands more students would be added in the following years. It would also provide a one-time $2,000 bonus for public-school teachers who are teaching this school year.

The test questions from a class at Florida International University enraged Randy Fine, a state lawmaker endorsed by President Trump. One of the questions, uploaded onto social media by a student, said that Palestine was a country before Israel was created. Another seemed to suggest that Zionists invented terrorism. To Mr. Fine, they were proof that college textbooks and the test materials that accompany them were awash in antisemitism. Mr. Fine said it made him wonder, “How many other Muslim terror textbooks are being used in our university system?” The sprawling State University System of Florida, which educates more than 430,000 students, has been trying to find out. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Ray Rodrigues, the system’s chancellor, removed the textbook, “Terrorism and Homeland Security,” from use in the system, pending a review. Then in August, he announced a remarkable effort that has worried some professors and advocates of academic freedom: All 12 universities he oversees were to set up faculty panels to vet course materials, including textbooks, for antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. To Mr. Rodrigues, the test questions Mr. Fine objected to were not only biased or antisemitic, they were also illegal under a 2024 Florida statute that defines some criticism of Israel as antisemitic. The subject of the class that sparked the statewide effort might seem unexpected. It was not in one of the disciplines, like sociology, that right-leaning lawmakers have targeted in recent years, arguing that they were bastions of left-leaning ideology. Rather, the course was on terrorism and homeland security, taught by an instructor who had served in the Marines. And the primary author of the textbook is a longtime security researcher who oversaw local antiterrorism training efforts in a Republican administration. “This is such a random, inappropriate choice,” said Martha Schoolman, an English professor who has spoken out against the textbook screening effort. “But it also doesn’t matter. Because once you’ve decided it’s your job to vet everything for antisemitism, nothing’s going to pass.”She added, “This is a policy being made based on screenshot.” The statewide vetting effort is unfolding at a time when academia is still reeling from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and the military response from Israel. Campuses that were roiled last spring by demonstrations protesting Israel’s bombing of Gaza have quieted. But under pressure from lawmakers, many colleges and universities have tightened their rules governing protests, expelled students for conduct violations and scrutinized classes. The Florida effort stands out. At the K-12 level, conservatives have long pushed school districts to ban books and publishers to examine curriculum for inappropriate material. In higher education, though, such scrutiny had been relatively rare. The vetting of course materials has been squarely in the domain of professors and their departments. Mr. Fine, who is Jewish and calls himself “the Hebrew Hammer,” is a rising star in the Republican Party. Mr. Trump endorsed him in November for the seat in Congress that Mike Waltz resigned to become Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. To Mr. Fine, the test questions posted on social media in June were examples of anti-Israel bias. One question read: “In which country did the Zionists purchase land to create their new homeland?” The answer was Palestine. But Palestine was Ottoman territory before the First World War and administered by Britain after that; it was not a country. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Another test question appeared to imply that extremist Zionist organizations invented terrorism. But terrorism existed long before the Middle East conflictMr. Fine began searching for accountability. At first he looked to the course instructor, Mario Reyes, an adjunct professor. Mr. Fine wrote on social media that Mr. Reyes “shouldn’t buy green bananas for his office,” suggesting that his days in the job were limited. But after learning that Mr. Reyes, a Marine veteran who works for the Department of Defense, did not write the test questions, he turned his attention instead to the textbook and its authors. The primary author of the book, Jonathan R. White, has credentials hardly seem associated with a pro-Palestinian bias. He served in the George W. Bush administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and taught about terrorism and homeland security for decades at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. He conducted counterterrorism training for police and military forces, according to his biography. Dr. White, who recently retired and became a pastor, did not respond to requests for comment. In an interview, Mr. Fine acknowledged that he had not read the textbook that he described as “pro-Muslim terror.” But he said he was assured by university officials that the book was problematic. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Rodrigues, who said in an interview that he had reviewed the book, was more tempered. He said the book contained “anti-Israel bias,” though he did not cite specific examples. A review of the textbook by The New York Times found that it was more nuanced than the three test questions. The textbook does not say or imply that Palestine has been an independent country in modern times, nor that Zionists invented terrorism. In a book passage that appears to be the basis of one of the test questions under scrutiny, the author provided an Israeli perspective that terrorism in the region was associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. It also included a Palestinian perspective that Israelis had used terrorist tactics until they developed a conventional military force. But it appears that the textbook author was not behind the test questions, either. Cengage Group, the book’s publisher, said in a statement that it had used a third-party vendor to write questions intended to quiz students on the material contained in the book. The company said that the questions “did not live up to our standards” and that it had halted digital and print sales of the book while it conducts a “full academic review” to ensure the content is free of bias. Brian Connolly, a history professor at the University of South Florida, said the questions were poorly constructed, but flowed from the textbook’s more nuanced writing.“If we’re going to focus on poorly written multiple-choice questions,” Dr. Connolly said, “then it’s going to take the state university system the rest of their lives to address that.” The book remains under review by the state university system. In August, Mr. Rodrigues gave marching orders to the college presidents to look for other examples of textbooks and teaching materials that contained antisemitism or anti-Israel bias. He said that the materials to be reviewed would be identified by keyword searches of course descriptions and syllabuses. The search words included “Israel,” “Israeli,” “Palestinian,” “Middle East,” “Zionism,” “Judaism” and “Jews.” Mr. Rodrigues said that antisemitism would be identified using a definition put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Under that definition, calling the creation of Israel a “racist endeavor” or holding Israel to a “double standard” would qualify as antisemitic. The definition has been criticized on college campuses by some who argue that it protects Israel from legitimate criticism. Academic freedom groups like the American Association of University Professors have blasted the state textbook-vetting effort, calling it “thought policing” that “deepens Florida’s increasingly authoritarian approach to higher education.” Faculty members have said that it may violate their collective-bargaining agreement, which grants professors the right to “determine pedagogy.” And the Association of Jewish Studies said the effort disproportionately singles out for scrutiny instructors who teach Jewish Studies and related fields. Laura Leibman, the president of the group, said the effort represented good intentions gone awry. She said she worried about having people without subject-matter expertise vetting course materials based on murky criteria. “That struck at the heart of academic freedom,” she said. Professor Schoolman, who is Jewish, said the entire exercise might seem like a farce. “The whole system has to be turned upside down to find antisemitic needles in a haystack,” she said. But she also worried that it may signal more political battles to come over what professors can say and teach. In the interview, Mr. Rodrigues said that faculty members would conduct the reviews and send their findings to the university system’s Board of Governors before the board meets this week. If bias is identified, he said, experts would be brought in to examine the materials further. “We need to identify whether this was an anomaly,” Mr. Rodrigues said about the homeland security test questions, “or whether it’s part of a broader problem.”

All they could grab were stuffed animals, toothbrushes, Barbie dolls and blankets. Their bunk beds, cleats and clothes burned with their houses. The New York Times interviewed 10 children and their parents about what it was like to flee the fires in Los Angeles. They talked about what they are worried about, and what is helping them feel better. Ivy and Ruby Van Kline are twin sisters who just turned 6 this week. They are in kindergarten at Aveson School of Leaders, a charter school in Altadena, Calif. Their house and school both burned down, so the family moved in with their grandparents. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Jet Crawford, 6, was also in kindergarten at Aveson. He is living in a new house with his mom and his sister, Ilana, 3, after their house in Altadena burned. Their new town is about 20 minutes away from home.Kurtis Odom, 9, is in fourth grade at McKinley School of the Arts in Pasadena, Calif. His sister, Kayla Odom, is 12 and in middle school. They are living in a vacation rental after their house burned down, and doing school online. Phoebe Hanelin, 10, is also in fourth grade. Her school, Marquez Charter Elementary, burned down in the Palisades fire. Her home, which was just across the street, is gone. Phoebe’s older sister, Abigail Hanelin, is a sophomore at Palisades Charter High School. Part of her school burned, and now all their classes are online. Lily Yadegar, Alessandra Santini and Yasmine Santini are friends who also go to Pali High. Lily is 14. Alessandra and Yasmine, both 17, are twins. Their homes survived, but they spent more than a week evacuated, staying in hotels and rented houses. The three girls wanted to do something for their friends and neighbors, so they started a GoFundMe to help rebuild their school and a donation drive to help their classmates. What was it like leaving home? Ivy said it was “very, very scary” when the fire came. The power went out. Then the cats started meowing. “My dad said that our house wouldn’t burn on fire,” Ivy said. “But I just knew right before our house would go on fire, because it looked like the fire was, like, right next to our backyard.” Kurtis left his house in Altadena in the middle of the night with his mom, older brother and older sister. He could see the fire getting bigger and bigger. Later, they learned that their house was gone.“I went back to sleep. I woke up. My whole life broke,” Kurtis said. “I thought we were going to be OK.” Though Yasmine and Alessandra are twins, the teens responded differently the night of the Palisades fire. Alessandra cried. She packed baby photos and her perfume collection. She also got the clothes. “We share our clothes majority of the time, even though she doesn’t ask me, and sometimes I don’t ask her,” Alessandra said. Yasmine brought stuff she thought everyone else would forget about, like medicine and food. “And then I brought my baby blanket and my baby stuffed elephant that I’ve always had,” she said. What are your days like right now? Ivy, Ruby and their parents are staying with their grandparents in West Los Angeles. They like that the house is big and has stairs. “You can go down them and up them, and I could even do splits down them,” Ruby said. Kurtis and Kayla are doing school online. Their mom decided to keep them home while she figures out where they are going to live. When Kurtis isn’t doing school work, he plays cards with his family and talks to his friends on his tablet.Jet is staying in a new house with donated furniture. His school remains closed, and his mom is worried. He has autism and had been doing well with the help of his teachers. Phoebe and her sisters have moved twice since their house burned down. And they know they’re going to have to move again. Abigail is worried about where they’ll go next. How are you feeling? Kurtis worries about everything his family lost. “Everything is burned down,” he said. He wonders how his mom can afford to replace his soccer cleats and other sports equipment. His sister, Kayla, says she is shy and worries that she might have to go to a new school. “It’s just going to be awkward for me,” she said. Ivy and Ruby were excited about their 6th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese this weekend, where they hoped to see friends from their old school. And Ruby is looking ahead to a milestone at her new school: “Going outside in the big kid area when I’m a big kid and going on the monkey bars.”Jet’s mom says he has been really upset. When she asked him about the fire, he buried his head in the cushions of their new couch. “It’s broken,” he said. “Mommy’s house.” Lily misses driving to school with Alessandra and Yasmine, and stopping at Starbucks along the way. “Our whole lives, we’ve been looking forward to going to high school together,” Lily said. “It’s just sad.” Remote learning reminds Abigail of the pandemic, when she was in middle school. This time, it feels worse. Back then, middle schoolers all across the country were in the same boat. “It was fine in Covid because it was everybody. But now it’s just one school,” she said. What was special about your home and your school? Kurtis will miss the house where he got to know his grandma. His grandparents bought it about 50 years ago after moving to California from Haiti. Phoebe used to walk to school by herself sometimes. Now she can’t. She likes her new school, but it’s not the same. “Their yard is so small, our yard was giant, so big,” she said.At Pali High, Lily says everyone knew each other. “I’ve only been there for a semester, and it already feels like a second home to me,” she said. Ivy and Ruby’s school had a “ginormous playground,” a garden, chickens named Sunshine and Marshmallow and a rabbit named Mr. Fluff. “I don’t know if they brought the chickens or the bunny,” Ivy said. Ivy and Ruby’s house was 99 years old. Their dad told them that it had magic from all the people who had lived there and could even grant their wishes. “But it died, so we have to celebrate it,” Ruby said. Did you bring anything with you? Phoebe and Abigail didn’t have time to grab much. Abigail, who loves to read, took only two books and has already finished them. But they were able to get all their pets: a dog, two cats, a beta fish, a dwarf hamster and Turbo the tortoise.“I only brought two stuffies,” Ivy said. “And we brought our toothpaste and toothbrushes and we got our blankets, and we got some of our pillows, and that’s all I brought.” Ruby brought Barbie dolls. But she is sad because “my bunk bed slide that was ours burned down.” Kurtis brought his school Chromebook and a tablet he can use to talk to his friends. “The crazy part is that the trampoline was still standing,” Kurtis said. “And you know what, if the trampoline is standing, I don’t know why the house ain’t standing.”

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to consider a high-profile case that could open the door to allowing public dollars to directly fund religious schools. The widely watched case out of Oklahoma could transform the line between church and state in education, and it will come before a court whose conservative majority has broadly embraced the role of religion in public life. The case centers on a proposal for the nation’s first religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The school would be online, and its curriculum would embed religious teachings throughout lessons, including in math and reading classes. As a charter school, it would be run independently from traditional public schools. But public taxpayer dollars would pay for the school, and it would be free for students to attend. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The question of whether the government can fully finance a religious school has proved especially divisive within the school choice movement and across Oklahoma. Some conservative Christian leaders, including Gov. Kevin Stitt and Ryan Walters, the firebrand state superintendent who has sought to require teaching from the Bible in public schools, have backed St. Isidore’s creation. They urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, believing the conservative-leaning court would decide in the school’s favor. A coalition of religious leaders, advocates of public schools and some other state Republicans say the proposal is unconstitutional. Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, argued it would “open the floodgates and force taxpayers to fund all manner of religious indoctrination, including radical Islam or even the Church of Satan.” After St. Isidore was approved by a state board in June 2023 in a narrow 3-to-2 vote, the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked its creation. The justices wrote in a majority opinion that the school would “create a slippery slope” that could lead to “the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention.” Still, as more Republican state legislatures move to support school vouchers and other options for parents to use public money to educate their children in private schools, including religious schools, some legal experts believe that charter schools would become another major arena in the debate. Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School, said that a Supreme Court decision that allows religious charter schools “would represent nothing less than a sea change in constitutional law.” “It is difficult to overstate the significance of this opinion for our constitutional order and the larger American society,” Mr. Driver said. The case will present new education questions for the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 conservative majority, which has shown an openness to religion in the public sphere. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a member of the conservative bloc, recused herself from the case. She did not explain why, but Justice Barrett is close friends with a Notre Dame law professor who has helped advise the St. Isidore team. In a 2022 ruling, the court ruled that a high school football coach had the right to pray on the field after his team’s games. Other recent cases have barred Maine and Montana from excluding religious schools from state tuition programs or scholarships to students in private schools. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in both cases that states are not required to support religious education, but that those that opt to subsidize private schools cannot discriminate against religious ones. Supporters of St. Isidore argue that blocking a religious charter school from receiving funding violates the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom. Jim Campbell, the chief legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal group representing the Oklahoma state charter board, praised the court’s decision to hear the case. “Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” Mr. Campbell said in a statement. “There’s great irony in state officials who claim to be in favor of religious liberty discriminating against St. Isidore because of its Catholic beliefs.” The school was initially set to open in August and would be managed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. Leaders of the school say it would accept students of all faiths. But opponents say that it would run into conflict with the constitutional prohibition on government establishment of religion, infringing on religious freedom. “Converting public schools into Sunday schools would be a dangerous sea change for our democracy,” several organizations, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a joint statement on Friday. For decades, the hybrid nature of charter schools — sharing features of both public schools and private institutions — has made it difficult for courts to determine how different education issues should apply to them, according to Preston Green, a professor at the University of Connecticut who studies educational law. Still, Mr. Green said he believes St. Isidore’s argument “could be very attractive” to the conservative justices — and that if the court ultimately sides with the charter school, “the implications are potentially huge.” In the movement to remove barriers to funding religious education, “charter schools are really the next frontier,” Mr. Green said. “And it doesn’t end here.”

The Education Department said on Friday that it would no longer investigate schools that remove books from their libraries, emphasizing its new stance by dismissing 11 pending civil rights complaints related to book bans in public schools. The move, immediately hailed by conservative groups, represents a significant whittling-down of the department’s traditional authority as President Trump’s incoming administration makes rapid strides toward its goal of relinquishing oversight of education to the states. Reacting to an aggressive wave of book challenges in public schools, particularly to books about sexual and racial identity, the Biden administration in 2023 created a book ban coordinator role intended to monitor what experts called an alarming trend. That coordinator also had oversight of the department’s response to the challenges, as the Education Department is generally legally required to pursue investigations into complaints that allege civil rights violations. Under the new Trump administration, that role no longer exists, the Office for Civil Rights announced, and said that it “has rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws.” “By dismissing these complaints and eliminating the position and authorities of a so-called ‘book ban coordinator,’ the department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement accompanying the announcement. Under Mr. Biden, the department got involved in cases that were tossed out on Friday after receiving civil rights complaints that schools had removed books that covered topics such as teenage pregnancy, L.G.B.T.Q. relationships or sexual violence. In one prominent case in Forsyth County, Ga., the department found that the school district had “created a racially and sexually hostile environment” for its students when it removed a number of titles, including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue.” According to the announcement, incoming officials reviewed all pending complaints immediately after Mr. Trump took office on Jan. 20 and then moved to dismiss them. PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to free expression by journalists and authors, has documented more than 10,000 instances of individual book bans across the country since the 2023-24 school year. In many cases, books singled out for removal have shared common themes such as featuring L.G.B.T.Q. characters or delving into discussions of race and racism in American history. Conservative groups that have fought for more localized control over schools applauded the decision. “For years, parents have said they deserve to know if sexually explicit materials were available to young children, and they were maligned by the media and the Biden Administration for it,” Nicole Neily, the president of Parents Defending Education, said in a statement. “This debate has always been about the age appropriateness of available materials and transparency, two things parents have demanded.” By proclaiming that the department would not intervene in cases where students or parents felt they were harmed by the removal of certain titles, the announcement appeared to clear the way for states to enact more restrictive policies. “The department adheres to the deeply rooted American principle that local control over public education best allows parents and teachers alike to assess the educational needs of their children and communities. Parents and school boards have broad discretion to fulfill that important responsibility,” Mr. Trainor said in the statement. “These decisions will no longer be second-guessed by the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.”

When two men bearing federal badges showed up at the entrance of a Chicago public school on Friday morning, school employees did what they had been trained to do. Believing that the men were U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the employees refused to allow them into the school, John H. Hamline Elementary, which enrolls children in kindergarten through eighth grade in a mostly-Latino neighborhood on the city’s southwest side. The school immediately notified officials at Chicago Public Schools, which quickly released a statement. “The ICE agents were not allowed into the school and were not permitted to speak to any students or staff,” the statement said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT But the school was mistaken: The agents were actually from the Secret Service, not ICE. They were investigating a threat against someone their agency had been assigned to protect, relating to the TikTok ban, a Secret Service spokesman said hours later. The spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, declined to name the person who was threatened. The agents had gone to a nearby home to try to speak to a minor, and then had tried the school, unsuccessfully. But the correction came too late to stem the panic and fear that had already set in around Chicago over rumored immigration raids. All week, many residents had been on edge over the Trump administration’s vows to deport unauthorized immigrants, worried that ICE agents might at any moment arrive at workplaces, churches, even schools. “It seems that this was a very large miscommunication,” Mr. Guglielmi said in an interview.Mr. Guglielmi said that the agents had identified themselves as being from the Secret Service, and that their badges had been stamped with the words “Department of Homeland Security.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “I just want to make it clear — the Secret Service will never investigate immigration matters,” he said. He noted that the agency had a consistent presence in Chicago, where former President Barack Obama still owns a home. A spokeswoman for ICE said that there had been no immigration enforcement action at or near the school. Some school systems in states like New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois reached out to parents on Friday to try to reassure them that federal agents would not be allowed on school grounds without a judicial warrant. In Chicago, as in other jurisdictions that limit how much local officials can cooperate with federal efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, schools do not ask parents about their children’s immigration status. Outside of John H. Hamline Elementary in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, several parents arrived to pull their children out of class early, as erroneous reports spread in texts and on Facebook that immigration agents were at the school. Even Gov. JB Pritzker chimed in on social media, referring to reports of “raids” at an elementary school. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Within an hour of what was happening, the community got together,” said Berto Aguayo, a community organizer who rushed to the school as soon as he heard that ICE agents had been there. Mr. Aguayo handed out leaflets in English and Spanish advising people of their rights, which immigration advocates have been doing all week. “We want to make sure parents feel safe sending their kids to school,” he said.

More Los Angeles-area schools reopened on Thursday for the first time since wildfires swept the region this month and forced officials to shutter buildings in the areas hit by fires. In the Pasadena Unified School District, six campuses reopened, out of more than two dozen that had been closed since the fire. Roughly two-thirds of the district’s 14,000 students and about half of its roughly 3,000 staff members live in areas that were under evacuation or warnings. One of the schools was Willard Elementary School in Pasadena, where multiple students and staff members lost their homes, said the principal, Maricela Brambila. Gabriela De La Torre, 44, made sure to get her daughter, 7, and son, 9, to school on time, even though they are staying with relatives an hour away after losing their home. “It gives us at least something where my kids feel safe,” she said. “At least something is somewhat back to normal.” And in many ways, it did look like a normal school day. One little boy’s backpack bounced as he ran toward the blue doorway of his school. The crossing guard, wearing a neon cap, directed traffic. Parents congregated outside after drop-off to chat. But there were also signs that things were different. It was, as Ms. Brambila put it, a day just to reconnect. The parents who usually disperse by 8:15 a.m. lingered until nearly 9, catching up. Inside the kindergarten classroom of Cherie Wood, students painted at easels, played with blocks on the rug and rocked a baby in a cradle. “We’re starting with play because this is how children best process,” Ms. Wood said. One girl asked Ms. Wood how to write, “I love you, Ms. Nicole.” She wanted to make a card for the classroom’s teacher-in-training, who lost her house in the fire and had not yet returned to school. Even as more schools reopen, not everyone is feeling relief. While many parents and teachers said they were grateful for the return to normal routines, others worried dangers still linger in schools near burned areas. Officials have kept areas of Pacific Palisades closed off, in part because of toxic ash and chemicals, and parents are concerned not enough is being done to make sure the air is safe for children coming back. Some felt it was too soon to ask students who had lost everything to focus on math class. In areas hit by the Palisades fire, nine Los Angeles Unified district schools were temporarily relocated. Five returned to their campuses and two were still closed on Thursday. Alisa Rodman’s two daughters — Delancey, 10, and Reese, 7 — go to a school, Canyon Charter Elementary, that survived the fire but is near the perimeter of the burn zone. Classes have been held virtually, an unwelcome reminder of the Covid pandemic, when Delancey’s kindergarten switched to remote learning. Still, Ms. Rodman, 40, is not sure if she wants her daughters to go back to a school so close to the fire’s ruins. For her, the situation conjures memories of 9/11 and the toxic waste that sickened residents in Lower Manhattan. “I would love nothing more than to be able to send them to their sweet little school and see their teachers and their friends and know that for six hours a day they’re in caring hands and learning,” Ms. Rodman said. But, she added, “Do I think L.A.U.S.D. is rushing to open school before it’s possibly safe? Absolutely.” Parents have still not been told for certain when Canyon will reopen. At a virtual meeting with Canyon parents, staff and district administrators on Tuesday night, officials attempted to reassure parents that the school buildings would be safe and free of ash, noting they had hired an industrial hygienist and outside consultants. “We feel like they’re ready to go,” said Carlos A. Torres, the director of the district’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety. Wildfires can harm children’s health long after the blaze is extinguished. Young people are more vulnerable to air pollution, and can suffer lingering trauma after experiencing destruction and deaths in their communities. Some families would prefer that the school relocate students to other campuses, farther from the burn zone. And some are considering leaving. Andrew Ferrone, a Canyon parent who lives in Venice, is weighing whether to enroll his two daughters, 7 and 4, in another school. “Educating your child is about your most important priority — after their safety,” Mr. Ferrone said. “And to have that up in the air really throws everything up in the air.” The Pasadena district has not yet announced a specific timeline to open the rest of its schools but has said it will all be open by the end of the month. Dayonna Patterson, a math teacher at John Muir High School, which does not have a reopening date, said the uncertainty was the least of her concerns. Ms. Patterson was grappling with her own grief at what her community had lost. She was trying to think about how to be open with her students, to share their pain, without breaking down herself. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’m lost.”

After anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza upended college campuses last year, many universities set up task forces to examine whether antisemitism was on the rise. The answer was yes. But one of the factors they identified was perhaps surprising: diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Reports from Stanford University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania found that Jewish students sometimes felt excluded by D.E.I. programs, rather than protected by them. The task force reports reflected a growing tension on college campuses: How do Jews fit into diversity and inclusion programs on campuses? Many Jewish campus leaders and students say they do not, but should. Some have argued that the programs have focused on Black, Hispanic and other student groups, and not on Jewish students who face antisemitic slurs, threats and occasional violence. D.E.I. offices have been under a withering ideological attack recently over concerns that they pit different groups against one another. More than 200 colleges over the last two years have pared back diversity efforts, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, which tracks the backlash. Many have closed offices altogether, and 14 states have passed legislation banning or restricting D.E.I. Colleges are now bracing for further crackdowns under a second Trump administration. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle federal programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. On his second day, he ordered federal agencies to look for “illegal discrimination and preferences, including D.E.I.,” in the private sector, including colleges and universities. Conservatives for decades have criticized identity-based programming in higher education and American society. Their attacks have been especially potent as they have found new allies among some members of the Jewish community, who say D.E.I. offices have been inattentive, or even hostile, to their needs, especially during anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza. Others have defended the programs as essential to making campuses safer and welcoming to all, including Jewish students. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Several episodes in recent months have highlighted a tension between diversity efforts and some Jewish students and faculty. At the University of Michigan, a diversity administrator was fired last month after she was accused of making antisemitic statements. Two Jewish professors from other universities said they asked her if the D.E.I. office worked with Jewish students. They said that she responded by saying the university is “controlled by wealthy Jews.” Through a lawyer, the administrator denied making the comments. At a diversity and inclusion conference for private schools in Colorado, some speakers characterized the war in Gaza as a genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel as racist. Leaders of several Jewish organizations said the comments were antisemitic, and the private schools group apologized. One speaker argued that the critics who complained of antisemitism were “watering down its meaning.” At the University of Pittsburgh, the diversity office held a training to explore antisemitic tropes and support Jewish students. It was the kind of event that some Jewish critics of diversity programs have often requested. But pro-Palestinian activists showed up, passing out fliers criticizing the group holding the training. An associate professor in attendance, Andrea Beth Goldschmidt, said members of the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion office did not acknowledge the interruption. She later wrote an essay titled, “DEI: Deflect, excuse, ignore?” Who Is D.E.I. For? Campuses have set up all manner of programs to achieve their diversity goals. They include trainings on racism and sexism, efforts to hire a more diverse faculty, identity-based affinity groups and mentorships. Usually, the aim is to improve graduation rates and other measures of success, though it is hard to gauge the effectiveness of these efforts because of their variety. Programs focus on groups that have been less represented, including Black and Hispanic students. Some D.E.I. offices have authority over civil rights and bias complaints. But the campus conflicts unleashed by the war in the Middle East have often dwarfed the scope of what the offices are set up to handle. Many lack the expertise or authority to handle legally sensitive complaints. On a more basic level, many Jewish students and faculty say diversity and inclusion efforts simply exclude them, even as reports of antisemitism become more pervasive on and off campuses.During his freshman year, Asher Goodwin, a student at the University of Pittsburgh, was walking to a Shabbat dinner wearing a kipa when he heard a student in a group say, “Look, a Jew!” while others laughed. Mr. Goodwin said he confronted the group, then sought help from the D.E.I. office, which informed him that he should file a complaint but that there wasn’t anything it could do. “Other students who attend the university made another student feel excluded and ostracized,” Mr. Goodwin said, adding that the university “should potentially have a conversation with them.” Later, when Mr. Goodwin was called a slur, he said he didn’t bother reporting it. “We don’t have any expectation that this office will provide for us,” he said. The university said in a statement that it has zero tolerance for antisemitism and takes concerns from students seriously. Muslim students and faculty have also criticized D.E.I. offices for not being responsive. At several campuses where conservative groups posted the names and faces of pro-Palestinian students on social media and on billboard trucks, the students said they felt universities did little to protect them. Revamping D.E.I. Some Jewish leaders would like to eliminate D.E.I. programs altogether. They say the programs too often reinforce the idea that Palestinians are oppressed and pro-Israeli Jews are oppressors. This ignores the complicated and painful history of antisemitism that preceded Israel’s founding in the first place, they argue, and that Jews, too, can be the victim of slurs and harassment. But many others support D.E.I. They just would like it to be more sensitive to Jewish students. The Stanford University antisemitism committee report recently concluded that schools should, in the short term, find ways to embrace Jews in D.E.I. programming, before ultimately moving toward more “pluralistic” efforts that include everyone. Still others view the attacks on D.E.I. as baseless. They say without D.E.I. programming — training students about discrimination, for example — Jewish students would be worse off. Jonathan Feingold, an associate professor of law at Boston University who studies affirmative action, has argued D.E.I. can be the remedy to antisemitism on campuses. The types of programming that antisemitism task forces have recommended would be barred if colleges didn’t consider identity, he noted. So might the task forces themselves. “If a G.O.P.-controlled federal government bans D.E.I. nationwide,” he said, “that will cripple universities’ ability to meaningfully counter and remedy antisemitism on campus.”At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Goldschmidt said in an email that she believed the disrupted antisemitism training was a missed opportunity. She wrote that diversity officers should have shown “that they apply the same standards and expectations to the Jewish community as they do to other marginalized groups — namely that we be allowed to define what constitutes discrimination against our community.” A university official who was in the room said that the disruption lasted less than a minute and involved no more than five people silently handing out fliers criticizing the American Jewish Committee, the group that led the training, for supporting Israel. The official said the presenter continued speaking and that a D.E.I. official acknowledging the incident would have interrupted the speaker. Some schools have started new programming for Jewish students. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a bill that effectively requires all California State University institutions and community colleges to include recognizing discrimination against Jews in trainings. The same month, the University of Pennsylvania became the first university to create an office for civil rights complaints related to shared ancestry, ethnicity or religion. (The school’s president resigned in 2023 after testifying before Congressional leaders who accused her of not doing enough to stop antisemitism on campus.) One word that emerged in several antisemitism reports to describe what D.E.I. programs should strive for was “pluralism.” Nicholas Lemann, a Columbia professor and co-chairman of the university’s antisemitism task force, said they “would like it to be made clearer to Jewish students that the D.E.I. offices’ doors are wide open to them.” And Paul Brest, a professor emeritus at Stanford and a member of the university’s antisemitism committee, said D.E.I. programs “shouldn’t be based on identity.” Rather, he said, “they should be aimed at including everyone.” But some supporters of D.E.I. wonder whether making it for “everyone” ignores a key purpose of its creation: steering limited resources to where they are most needed. Jerry Kang, who was the founding vice chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of California, Los Angeles, likened his role to that of a gardener. Making sure all his plants flourish doesn’t mean watering them all equally, he said. Groups like first-generation students facing culture shock, women experiencing bias in engineering programs, or Jewish students worried about antisemitism each require unique approaches, he said. “Identity actually does matter,” Professor Kang said, “whether we like it or not.”

Harvard University will adopt a definition of antisemitism when investigating discipline cases as part of several moves meant to protect Jewish students after Gaza war protests, the university said in an agreement on Tuesday. The definition includes some criticisms of Israel as examples of antisemitism, including calling Israel’s existence a “racist endeavor.” It was part of a settlement in two lawsuits filed by Jewish groups that accused the school of not doing enough to prevent and punish antisemitism on campus. Last year, a federal judge in Boston allowed the cases to go forward. The move by Harvard was unusual. Many universities have shied away from adopting any definition of antisemitism, even as pressure on them to do so has increased in response to campus conflicts related to the war in Gaza. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The definition Harvard is using has been criticized as blurring the line between antisemitism and arguments against Israel and Zionism. Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish civil rights group, said that he hoped other universities would adopt the definition. “Zionist is often a code word for Jews,” he said, adding, “Harvard is making clear that rules against Zionists are as objectionable as rules against Jews.” But Kenneth Stern, who helped draft the definition while he was at the American Jewish Committee, has since become a critic of the definition’s use in academic settings, saying it could stifle open debate on the Middle East, an issue that has divided campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel. “I would much rather universities make clear that nobody is going to be harassed for any reason and avoid these types of issues on speech,” said Mr. Stern, now the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. Previously, Harvard’s policies prevented discrimination based on religion, national origin and ancestry, among other categories, which covered antisemitism. What is new is that the university will now consider a definition of antisemitism that was put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance when investigating complaints. The definition from the group is uncontroversial. It defines antisemitism as a “certain perception of Jews that may be expressed as hatred” toward them. But it also lists examples that include holding Israel to a “double standard” or describing the creation of Israel as a “racist endeavor.” Harvard, Mr. Stern said, was “opening a can of worms,” giving a tool for students to file complaints about professors, for example. “If you’re a faculty member, you know people are hunting for things,” he said. Harvard has been under an intense public spotlight since the war broke out in Gaza. On the night of the Hamas attack, more than 30 student groups posted an open letter that held Israel “entirely responsible.” The university’s former president, Claudine Gay, eventually resigned, in part because of her testimony during a Congressional hearing in which she was accused of not doing enough to combat antisemitism. Students Against Antisemitism, a group at Harvard, filed a lawsuit in January saying that Harvard had not addressed “severe and pervasive antisemitism on campus.” In May, the Brandeis Center also sued, saying the university ignored antisemitism. The agreement released on Tuesday settles both cases. One former student in the earlier case declined to join the settlement, which also includes an unspecified amount of money, and will continue to pursue his claim against Harvard, according to the university. The former student, Shabbos Kestenbaum, who graduated in June, said “the fight is only beginning.” He said he was working closely with the White House and that “Harvard can expect to be penalized in the weeks ahead.” Harvard’s move comes a day after the inauguration of President Trump, who has said that colleges “must end the antisemitism propaganda” or lose federal support. According to a 2019 executive order from Mr. Trump, the Education Department and other federal agencies must “consider” the I.H.R.A. definition in civil rights complaints that claim antisemitism. The executive order has caused confusion among university administrators about what is expected from them, however, and several dozen schools are currently under investigation. Critics of using the definition in academia say policies already exist that bar harassment of Jewish students, and that the I.H.R.A. definition is more about cracking down on speech related to Israel. Jeffrey S. Flier, the former dean of the Harvard Medical School, said on social media that the I.H.R.A. definition does not “by itself prohibit or punish speech.” “Once adopted by Harvard,” he wrote, “the definition must be used in a manner consistent with other applicable legal principles, and principles of academic freedom and free speech.” Under the lawsuit agreement, Harvard also must establish a partnership with an Israeli university, hire someone who will be consulted on all antisemitism complaints, and allow the Brandeis Center “to host a variety of events on campus,” Harvard said in a statement. The Kennedy School, Harvard’s public policy school, must allow three alumni to host an event “on the substantive issues of Israeli Jewish democracy.” The university also must post on its website the following statement: “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Conduct that would violate the Non-Discrimination Policy if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the policy if directed toward Zionists.” A Harvard spokesman said in a statement that the university “will continue to implement robust steps to maintain a welcoming, open and safe campus environment where every student feels a sense of belonging.”