by Matthew Holloway | Dec 16, 2025 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
The U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Linda McMahon has formally restored Grand Canyon University’s nonprofit status, a reversal of a years-long dispute that had kept recognition of the Phoenix-based university’s tax-exempt classification in limbo.
The Department of Education’s (USDOE) action means it will now consider Grand Canyon University (GCU) a nonprofit institution for federal purposes, aligning its treatment under federal student-aid rules with the university’s longstanding recognition as a nonprofit by the Internal Revenue Service.
“We are appreciative that officials within the current Department of Education adhered to the recent Ninth Circuit decision in our favor and conducted an objective and thorough review of GCU’s operations in determining GCU’s nonprofit status under the correct legal standard,” GCU President Brian Mueller said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Department in a cooperative manner moving forward and being part of the conversation to address the many challenges facing higher education.”
The move follows a May decision by the USDOE to reverse a $37 million fine against GCU, imposed under the Biden administration with prejudice. The fine was the largest ever levied by the agency against a university.
In November 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Department of Education had unlawfully denied GCU nonprofit status and remanded the matter to the department for reconsideration under the correct legal standard. In 2018, the IRS reaffirmed GCU’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status after a multi-year audit, concluding that the university met all requirements of a nonprofit educational institution.
The restoration of nonprofit recognition comes as several Arizona members of Congress and other lawmakers have publicly advocated for the university’s status.
U.S. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ02) took to X on Monday to highlight the Education Department’s decision, calling the reinstatement of nonprofit status a significant development for the institution.
U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ05) also posted on X following the department’s announcement, noting the change in federal recognition and urging continuation of support for aligned legislative efforts.
In previous years, Arizona Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Gosar and Biggs had criticized the Department of Education’s handling of the university’s nonprofit status and its regulatory actions. They characterized earlier denials and fines as misplaced or excessive and called for greater alignment between federal treatment and GCU’s IRS-recognized status, per the Arizona Sun Times.
Gosar told the outlet at the time, “GCU is being targeted for its religious views and for being the largest Christian university in the country. The Department of Education should recognize GCU’s lawful nonprofit status and stop the harassment.”
With the Education Department’s updated decision, the agency will now consider GCU’s application as a nonprofit institution in future federal evaluations, including eligibility for Title IV federal student financial aid programs.
“This decision removes the cloud of confusion over our nonprofit status and allows us to put our complete focus and resources on our mission to provide affordable, Christian higher education to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds,” Mueller added. “We are excited to move forward with clarity and purpose.”
According to the university, nonprofit recognition is also expected to expand access to private scholarships restricted to nonprofit institutions, increase eligibility for nonprofit-specific grants and partnerships, restore eligibility for future government relief programs, reduce legal expenses associated with defending its status, and solidify GCU’s standing as a voting member of NCAA athletics.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Jonathan Eberle | Dec 14, 2025 | Education, News
By Jonathan Eberle |
Hours after State Representative Matt Gress urged the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board to postpone its decision on whether to close two schools, the Board voted to permanently shutter Pima Elementary and Echo Canyon K-8—fueling frustration among families and intensifying scrutiny of the district’s financial review process.
Gress, who chairs the House Education Committee and co-chairs the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, had asked the Board to wait until February 1 before taking action. In a letter sent Monday, he warned that the district had not provided the public with a complete fiscal analysis or a thorough exploration of alternatives.
“Closing schools has lasting consequences. Before the board takes any action, the public should see a full explanation of the fiscal impact, the alternatives that were considered, and how the district plans to support the students who would be uprooted,” Gress wrote. “Based on what I have seen so far, that work is incomplete.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, the Governing Board voted 3–2 to permanently close both Pima Elementary and Echo Canyon K-8 beginning next school year. The decision comes as SUSD faces declining enrollment, rising operating costs, and a projected budget deficit that could reach $9 million by 2026.
Superintendent Dr. Scott Menzel told families that the district can no longer sustain all of its campuses under current conditions. “These realities make it increasingly difficult to sustain all of our schools in their current form while continuing to provide the world-class, future-focused education our community expects and deserves,” he said.
District data presented Tuesday showed that 12% of Pima families and 17% of Echo Canyon families have already enrolled in alternate district schools for next year—figures officials say reflect the difficult choices families are already making.
While the Board cited urgency, Gress countered that SUSD still has financial alternatives that would allow more time for a complete public review before making irreversible decisions. He emphasized that families deserve clarity before the district proceeds with closures that will significantly disrupt school communities.
“This decision can wait,” he said. “Taking the time to do this right will help the board make a more informed and beneficial choice.”
With the vote now final, the repurposing process for both campuses is scheduled to begin in the 2026–2027 school year—while families, lawmakers, and district officials continue to debate whether the closures were necessary, inevitable, or simply premature.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Dec 12, 2025 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona Rep. Eli Crane is highlighting a significant win for rural communities after the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025 on Dec. 9. The bill restores lapsed payments and guarantees new funding through 2026 for counties across Crane’s largely rural Second Congressional District; many of which rely heavily on federal forest-land payments to support schools, roads, and public safety services.
The House approved the legislation by a bipartisan vote of 399–5, marking the first standalone reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program in recent years. The bill, passed by the Senate in June, now heads to President Trump’s desk for signature. It would restore missed 2024 payments while authorizing full funding for fiscal years 2025 and 2026, following a lapse that forced many rural counties nationwide to absorb steep budget shortfalls.
Created by Congress in 2000, the SRS program was designed to stabilize funding for counties with large shares of federally managed forest land as traditional timber receipts declined. Under the Act of May 23, 1908, 25 percent of national forest revenues were directed to states for public schools and roads in affected counties. As logging revenues fell over time, Congress established SRS to ensure more predictable funding for education and infrastructure in rural communities.
The U.S. Forest Service manages approximately 196 million acres of national forest land nationwide. SRS payments are distributed under three funding categories: Title I for county roads and schools, Title II for collaborative projects on federal lands, and Title III for additional county projects. Participating counties may elect between SRS payments or traditional 1908 Act payments and determine how funds are allocated among the three titles.
Crane, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, supported the reauthorization, which directly benefits rural counties across Arizona’s Second Congressional District, including Apache, Coconino, Gila, Navajo, and Yavapai counties, along with portions of Graham, Mohave, Maricopa, and Pinal counties.
“I’m proud to join my colleagues in reauthorizing the Secure Rural Schools program to provide vital support for schools in rural Arizona,” Crane said in a statement. “This extension secures much-needed stability and funding. This is a positive outcome, and I will always fight for those I represent.”
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), who introduced the legislation and serves as chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, led the effort in the House alongside Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. LaMalfa emphasized that SRS payments are often the difference between maintaining basic services and making deep cuts in rural communities.
“For rural counties, Secure Rural Schools funding is essential,” LaMalfa said. “These payments help keep schools open, keep roads maintained, and help ensure sheriff, fire, and emergency services remain in place when federal timber revenues fall short. When the program lapsed, rural schools and counties were cut short of the funding they rely on to provide basic services. This bill restores that funding and keeps future payments on schedule.”
The reauthorization follows a 2023 lapse that forced many counties to revert to traditional 1908 Act revenue-sharing, resulting in funding reductions of up to 80 percent in some areas. Counties reported teacher layoffs, school program cuts, and deferred road maintenance as a result. The restored 2024 payments under the amended 1908 Act were distributed in April 2025 with a 5.7 percent sequestration reduction.
Since its creation, the program has delivered roughly $7 billion to more than 700 counties and 4,400 school districts nationwide. With the House vote now complete, rural Arizona counties are preparing to factor restored SRS funding into upcoming budget planning as they await final action from the White House.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Staff Reporter | Dec 11, 2025 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
The Arizona Board of Education (ASBE) removed language relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from state teaching standards and English language learning courses.
This follows a delay in their decision on the matter several months ago.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne published a press release approving ASBE’s decision to go forward with removing DEI language from Arizona education.
Arizona’s federal funding for 2026 amounts to about $870 million; should Arizona schools not purge DEI, that federal funding may be refused, per the Trump administration.
Horne said the DEI divestment not only counted as compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order conditioning federal funding on the absence of DEI, but as a philosophical good for students.
“All people should be judged based on their character and ability, not their race or ethnicity. DEI language and programs promote the exact opposite, and they have no place in the classroom,” said Horne. “These terms do not belong in teaching standards, which are meant to direct educators on the most effective ways to teach students’ core academics. Every instructional minute is precious, and DEI efforts distract from that essential mission.”
Multiple federal courts issued nationwide preliminary injunctions against the DEI ban earlier this year. However, the proceedings of those cases were impacted by the Supreme Court ruling in June through Trump v. CASA that declared these and other nationwide injunctions improperly exceed the authority of federal courts. The Supreme Court determined that lower courts must offer specific relief to the involved parties, and generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions to non-plaintiffs.
Following this decision by ASBE, a dedicated working group launching in February will draft materials purging DEI from the Arizona Professional Teaching Standards and Structured English Immersion (SEI) Endorsement Course Frameworks.
These materials will define DEI-related language in order to determine which language to remove or revise.
All 15 counties will have representation in this working group. There will be special considerations to include teacher representatives from General Education, Special Education, and the various teacher subgroups such as English Language Learning, Gifted, and Talented programs.
Stakeholder input will be collected from the three public universities, county education superintendents, school administrators, Arizona Rural Education Association, Arizona Educators Association, and current Structured English Immersion course providers.
ASBE is scheduled to consider these materials next September.
While the state’s top education authority supports these modifications, other stakeholder groups oppose them.
The Arizona Education Association (AEA) submitted a letter to ASBE urging rejection of the proposed changes. AEA leadership claimed over 22,000 educators statewide signed onto the letter in their press release. That’s roughly one-third of the teacher workforce in the state. However, the letter clarified that AEA counted mere membership with their organization as equivalent to all members signing on to their letter.
AEA President Marisol Garcia said without DEI Arizona education would cause a “race to the bottom” — vulnerable to constant changes and little of the continuity required for imparting a strong education — as well as a purging of history.
The other major teachers unions at the national level — the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, as well as the civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — sued the Trump administration to stop the DEI ban.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Dec 10, 2025 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
The University of Arizona’s (UA) newly implemented civics requirement, adopted under an Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) mandate, is intended to ensure every graduate receives instruction in American government and constitutional principles. But critics warn the university’s rushed structure may undermine the very purpose of the reform.
Under the proposed plan, UA students will fulfill the entire ABOR civics mandate through a single three-credit general education course. As mandated by the ABOR policy, the curriculum requires instruction in seven areas “at a minimum,” including U.S. history’s impact on the present, core principles of constitutional democracy, our major founding documents, landmark Supreme Court cases, practical civic participation, and basic economic literacy, material that peer institutions typically divide across multiple courses.
Mark Stegeman, an associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona and longtime member of the university-wide General Education Committee (UWGEC), recently described the policy proposal as “a car crash in the making” in an op-ed for the Tucson Sentinel. Stegeman cited both academic and procedural concerns with the program’s development and execution.
Stegeman noted that a former UWGEC chair admitted the committee was “just throwing stuff against the wall” during a previous breakneck approval process. He added that at the last meeting of the committee, no one present could answer his questions about seat capacity and course availability by spring 2027. He asked whether UA can reliably offer enough sections of the new civics course to accommodate all graduating students without creating scheduling bottlenecks that delay completion.
He warned that “thousands of students arriving in nine months will face a graduation requirement” built on courses that do not yet exist, with no completed development, approval process, or clear seat-capacity plan.
Those logistical concerns amplify the academic ones. Should the course become oversubscribed or rushed through, the civics requirement could devolve into a mere procedural hurdle rather than a meaningful educational foundation.
The Board of Regents’ directive was designed to restore structured instruction in American institutions across Arizona’s public universities. Other state universities interpreted the requirement differently. Arizona State University requires students to complete both an American institutions course and a civic engagement-focused course. Northern Arizona University has also implemented a two-course model.
As Stegeman summarized: “ABOR’s Civics mandate spans history, economics, landmark Supreme Cases and constitutional debates, information literacy, opportunities to practice civil disagreement and civic engagement, etc. Neither ASU nor NAU attempt to squeeze it all into a single 3-unit course, which would be nearly impossible to do well. UA’s proposal simply omits most of it.”
Beyond the academic criticism, Stegeman raised concerns about how the program was developed internally. According to his analysis, key committees lacked clear structure and broad representation, with significant influence coming from administrative offices rather than a balanced cross-section of departments.
At a time when national surveys consistently show declining civic knowledge among younger Americans, fewer than a third can name most of the First Amendment rights, and only 7% can name all five, according to Annenberg’s 2024 survey.
Many critics among the media and online have argued that universities should expand, not compress, serious instruction in American government.
In March, Fox News’ Jesse Watters shared a segment in which beachgoers in Fort Myers, Florida, failed basic American civics questions alarmingly, including naming the first President of the United States, the three branches of government, and the number of Supreme Court Justices.
In an August 2024 report on youth civics, News21 and the Associated Press noted that in the 2022 midterm elections, only about 1 in 10 voters nationwide was between 18 and 29, according to the Pew Research Center. A June Marist survey found that about 67% of registered Gen Z and Millennial voters said they intended to vote in 2024—compared with 94% of Baby Boomers. After the election, Tufts University’s CIRCLE program estimated that roughly 47% of young people ages 18–29 actually cast ballots in 2024, based on aggregated voter-file data from 40 states. Together, those numbers suggest a generation that is sizable, but still underrepresented and underprepared in the electorate.
When civic education is treated as a matter of efficiency rather than formation, the result can be accurately termed credentialed ignorance: students who pass a requirement but leave without the depth of understanding it was designed—and indeed legally mandated—to provide. The Board of Regents’ civics mandate was supposed to rebuild civic education with rigor and seriousness. Critics like Stegeman argue that UA’s one-course model risks missing that opportunity by prioritizing speed and administrative simplicity over depth.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Matthew Holloway | Dec 8, 2025 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
University of Arizona (UA) English professor Dr. Matthew Abraham has filed a federal lawsuit alleging he was blacklisted from key faculty-governance committees after raising concerns about DEI-driven hiring practices within his department. The complaint, filed Nov. 25 in the U.S. District Court for Arizona, names the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) as the sole defendant and alleges retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Abraham, a tenured faculty member, argues that the university systematically excluded him from participation in faculty oversight bodies, including the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT) and the English Department’s Academic Program Review Committee (APR), after he questioned policies, which he believed to be rooted in racial preferences, through legally protected internal and administrative channels.
According to filings and documentation released by the Liberty Justice Center, Abraham’s concerns date back several years, culminating in multiple internal grievances, public records requests, and a 2022 complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC initially dismissed the complaint but later issued a right-to-sue letter in August 2025, clearing the way for the federal lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, Dr. Abraham alleges that UA administrators and faculty leaders applied “confidential” criteria when selecting committee members, criteria he argues were influenced by DEI ideology and were used to sideline dissenting faculty.
Slides and internal correspondence referenced in the lawsuit reportedly categorized certain faculty members as “problematic,” “not appropriate,” or otherwise unfavored for committee roles. Abraham says those labels stemmed directly from his vocal opposition to using race as a factor in hiring or governance.
“University officials cannot blacklist a professor because he dared to question race-based hiring practices,” said Ángel J. Valencia, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, in a press release. “Retaliation for speaking out about unlawful discrimination is itself illegal. We seek to restore lawful, transparent standards for committee service, to remove the stigma the University has placed on Dr. Abraham, and to hold the University accountable for their unlawful actions.”
Abraham’s lawsuit seeks several remedies, according to the Liberty Justice Center, including:
- Removal of “stigmatizing” labels placed in faculty records
- Clear, viewpoint-neutral criteria for determining eligibility for governance committees
- An injunction barring ABOR and UA from using race-based or DEI-based selection practices in committee assignments
- Restoration of Abraham’s participation rights within faculty governance
The University of Arizona declined comment, citing “what is an active legal matter,” according to The Center Square.
Dr. Abraham’s lawsuit comes as public universities nationwide face increasing scrutiny over the role of DEI in hiring, admissions, and internal governance. Arizona’s public higher-education system has been under heightened legal and political pressure in the past year, as previously reported by AZ Free News.
If Abraham prevails, even just by forcing broader disclosure of committee-selection records, the case could become a significant test of how DEI principles intersect with federal civil rights protections and the speech rights of public employees.
The Board of Regents has not yet filed a response in federal court as of this report.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
