WASHINGTON — First the nation’s top law firms. Then its premier universities. Now, President Donald Trump is leaning on the advocacy groups that underpin U.S. civil society.

Trump said Thursday that the administration is looking at the tax-exempt status not just of Harvard, but environmental groups and specifically the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. It could be a devastating financial blow to the nonprofit organizations — and his perceived political foes.

The president’s remarks, during an event at the White House, began to confirm what advocacy groups have been quietly warning: Trump’s campaign of retribution is coming next for them.

“It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said about CREW, in particular. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.”

Trump and his team have been working their way through the nation’s institutions, threatening to chisel away at the independence and autonomy of the law firms, college campuses and now advocacy groups — or putting them at risk of losing their federal funds or professional livelihood.

It’s all coming quickly, not yet 100 days into the new administration, and in ways historically unheard of in this country for their speed and scope. And it’s sending shock waves reverberating throughout the American system.

“It’s a sad day in this country when organizations that provide critical services to their communities are under attack from their government,” said Cole Leiter, executive director of the advocacy group Americans Against Government Censorship. “No administration, Republican or Democratic, should be able to weaponize the weight of the government against their political enemies.”

On their own, Trump’s actions are an almost daily list of executive pronouncements from the White House. The Trump administration has issued orders against the law firms that had cases or attorneys perceived to be against him, and it has made demands of the universities over their rules around campus activism.

Thursday brought potentially more to the stack: Trump singled out CREW, the watchdog group whose founder, Norm Eisen, played a pivotal role in Trump’s first impeachment, and the environmental groups that largely stand at odds with his “drill baby drill” agenda.

“Tax exempt status — I mean, it’s a privilege. It’s really a privilege, and it’s been abused by a lot more than Harvard,” Trump said. “We’ll be making some statements. It’s a big deal.”

But taken together, the executive orders and actions and memos are making one thing clear: The Trump administration is eager to test new ways to flex executive power, and dare the courts and Congress to intervene. And there’s more expected to come.

Environmental, immigration and civil society advocacy groups have been bracing for potential threats to their tax-exempt status, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. The person said some expect Trump might start taking action against the environmental groups on Earth Day, which is Tuesday.

These are the largely nonprofit organizations and groups, many based in Washington, advocating for various communities, constituencies and causes.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said environmental groups have heard that the Trump administration is preparing executive orders targeting the tax status of environmental groups that work on climate change, as well as that of any foundations that fund their work.

“Trump is marshaling all the power of government to punish his perceived enemies,” Suckling said. “We’ve got a crack legal team and will have him in court within 24 hours. We’re ready and waiting for him to come at us.”

CREW has been a leading ethics group in Washington, with Trump long the subject of its probes.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the group was part of the legal effort to disqualify Trump from regaining the White House under the 14th Amendment, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. More recently, CREW sued over the firing of federal workers by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.

“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” said Jordan Libowitz, the organization’s vice president.

Trump’s attacks on civil society have created a climate that is potentially chilling for the organizations in question — but they have had mixed results.

Five of the major law firms and Trump reached a deal in which they agreed to provide a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono counsel to causes the administration says it supports. The firms are trying to avoid various sanctions, including terminated federal contracts, federal employment investigations over diversity hiring and others.

While Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul its rules for public protests rather than risk billions of dollars in lost federal funds, Harvard rebuffed the administration and now faces a $2 billion federal funding freeze and the threat to its tax-exempt status.

The tax-exempt status allows nonprofit organizations to receive donations that are crucial to their financial bottom line. Changing that could, in some situations, lead to calamity.

“Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy,” Libowitz said. “We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

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Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — At first, the bar association for immigration attorneys began receiving inquiries from a couple students a day. These were foreigners studying in the U.S., and they’d discovered in early April their legal status had been terminated with little notice. To their knowledge, none of the students had committed a deportable offense.

In recent days, the calls have begun flooding in. Hundreds of students have been calling to say they have lost legal status, seeking advice on what to do next.

“We thought it was going to be something that was unusual,” said Matthew Maiona, a Boston-based immigration attorney who is getting about six calls a day from panicked international students. “But it seems now like it’s coming pretty fast and furious.”

The speed and scope of the federal government’s efforts to terminate the legal status of international students have stunned colleges across the country. Few corners of higher education have been untouched, as schools ranging from prestigious private universities, large public research institutions and tiny liberal arts colleges discover status terminations one after another among their students.

At least 600 students at more than 90 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press review of university statements and correspondence with school officials. Advocacy groups collecting reports from colleges say hundreds more students could be caught up in the crackdown.

Around 1.1 million international students were in the United States last year — a source of essential revenue for tuition-driven colleges. International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, and their ability to pay tuition often factors into whether they will be admitted to American schools. Often, they pay full price.

Many of the students losing their legal status are from India and China, which together account for more than half the international students at American colleges. But the terminations have not been limited to those from any one part of the world, lawyers said.

Four students from two Michigan universities are suing Trump administration officials after their F-1 student status was terminated last week. Their attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, Ramis Wadood, said the students never received a clear reason why.

“We don’t know, and that’s the scary part,” he said.

The students were informed of the terminations by their universities via email, which came as a shock, Wadood said. The reason given was that there was a “criminal records check and/or that their visa was revoked,” Wadood said, but none of them were charged or convicted of crimes. Some had either speeding or parking tickets, but one didn’t have any, he said. Only one of the students had known their entry visa was revoked, Wadood said.

Students have filed similar lawsuits in several other states, arguing they were denied due process.

In New Hampshire, a federal judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to restore the status of a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth College, Xiaotian Liu, while he challenges the revocation of his visa.

At many colleges, officials learned the legal immigration status of some international students had been terminated when staff checked a database managed by the Department of Homeland Security. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school.

The system to track enrollment and movements of international students came under the control of Immigration and Customs Enforcement after 9/11, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators. She said recent developments have left students fearful of how quickly they can be on the wrong side of enforcement.

“You don’t need more than a small number to create fear,” Aw said. “There’s no clarity of what are the reasons and how far the reach of this is.”

Her group says as many as 1,300 students have lost visas or had their status terminated, based on reports from colleges.

The Department of Homeland Security and State Department did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Foreigners who are subject to removal proceedings are usually sent a notice to appear in immigration court on a certain date, but lawyers say affected students have not received any notices, leaving them unsure of next steps to take.

Some schools have told students to leave the country to avoid the risk of being detained or deported. But some students have appealed the terminations and stayed in the United States while those are processed.

Still others caught in legal limbo aren’t students at all. They had remained in the U.S. post-graduation on “optional practical training,” a one-year period — or up to three for science and technology graduates — that allows employment in the U.S. after completing an academic degree. During that time, a graduate works in their field and waits to receive their H-1B or other employment visas if they wish to keep working in the U.S.

Around 242,000 foreigners in the U.S. are employed through this “optional practical training.” About 500,000 are pursuing graduate degrees, and another 342,000 are undergraduate students.

Among the students who have filed lawsuits is a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student who is supposed to graduate on May 5, with a job offer to join the faculty. His attorney Charles Kuck said the student was likely targeted for termination because of an unpaid traffic fine from when the student lent his car to a friend. Ultimately, the violation was dismissed.

“We have case after case after case exactly like that, where there is no underlying crime,” said Kuck, who is representing 17 students in the federal lawsuit. He said his law firm has heard from hundreds of students.

“These are kids who now, under the Trump administration, realize their position is fragile,” he said. “They’ve preyed on a very vulnerable population. These kids aren’t hiding. They’re in school.”

Some international students have been adapting their daily routines.

A Ph.D. student from China at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said she has begun carrying around her passport and immigration paperwork at the advice of the university’s international student office. The student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by authorities, said she has been distressed to see the terminations even for students like her without criminal records.

“That is the most scary part because you don’t know whether you’re going to be the next person,” she said. ___

Seminera reported from Raleigh, N.C., and Keller reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators who were arrested at Stanford University last year after they occupied and allegedly caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to a campus building are now facing charges.

The twelve people, current and former Stanford students, have been charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday in a news release.

Those charged range in age from 19 to 32, the DA’s office said. They will be arraigned later this month at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.

A student journalist, who was arrested with the protesters but was not accused of participating in the vandalism, was not charged.

The Stanford takeover began around dawn on June 5, 2024, the last day of spring classes at the university in California’s Silicon Valley. Some protesters barricaded themselves inside the building, which houses the university president’s office. Others linked arms outside, The Stanford Daily reported at the time. The group chanted “Palestine will be free, we will free Palestine.”

The takeover ended three hours later.

Prosecutors accuse the demonstrators of spray-painting on the building, breaking windows and furniture, disabling security cameras and splattering a red liquid described as fake blood on items throughout the building. Damages were estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to prosecutors.

Cellphones belonging to those arrested showed communications about the planning of the operation, including a “do-it-yourself occupation guide,” prosecutors said.

The AP recorded at least 86 incidents last spring in which arrests were made at college or university campus protests against the war in Gaza across the U.S.

WASHINGTON — More than $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University have been frozen while the government investigates alleged civil rights violations at both schools, the White House says.

It’s part of a broader push to use government funding to get major academic institutions to comply with President Donald Trump ’s political agenda. The White House confirmed the funding pauses late Tuesday night, but offered no further details on what it entails, or what grants to the schools are being affected.

The moves come as the Trump administration has increasingly begun using governmental grant funding as a spigot to try and influence campus policy — previously cutting off money to schools including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.

That has left universities across the country struggling to navigate cuts to grants for research institutions.

In a statement, Cornell said it had received more than 75 stop work orders earlier Tuesday from the Defense Department related to research “profoundly significant to American national defense, cybersecurity, and health” but that it had not otherwise received any information confirming $1 billion in frozen grants.

“We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions,” said the statement from Michael I. Kotlikoff, the university president, and other top school officials.

In an email to the Northwestern community, university president Michael Schill said it had not been notified by the federal government of the cuts, according to The Daily Northwestern, the campus newspaper.

Last month, the Education Department sent letters to more than 60 universities — including Cornell and Northwestern — warning of “potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations” under federal law to “protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities.”

The Trump administration has threatened to cut off federal funding for universities allowing alleged antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year against Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza — accusations the universities have denied.

Officials have already singled out Columbia University, making an example of it with threats to withhold $400 million in federal funds.

The administration repeatedly accused Columbia of failing to stop antisemitism during protests against Israel that began at the New York City university last spring and quickly spread to other campuses — a characterization disputed by those involved in the demonstrations.

As a precondition for restoring that money — along with billions more in future grants — the Republican administration demanded unprecedented changes in university policy.

Columbia’s decision to bow to those demands, in part to salvage ongoing research projects at its labs and medical center, has been criticized by some faculty and free speech groups as capitulating to an intrusion on academic freedom.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to halt more than half a billion dollars in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, adding to a list of Ivy League colleges that have had their federal money threatened as a result of their responses to antisemitism, a White House official said.

Nearly $510 million in federal contracts and grants are on the line, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plan and spoke on condition of anonymity.

In an email Thursday to campus leaders, Brown Provost Frank Doyle said the university was aware of “troubling rumors” about government action on its research money. “At this moment, we have no information to substantiate any of these rumors,” Doyle said.

It comes two days after President Donald Trump’s administration halted research grants at Princeton University. Dozens of universities are facing federal investigations into antisemitism following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests last year, but the administration has focused special attention on elite colleges.

Columbia University was the first one targeted, losing $400 million in federal money with threats to terminate more if it didn’t make the campus safer for Jewish students. The school agreed to several demands from the government last month, including an overhaul of student discipline rules and a review of the school’s Middle East studies department.

Trump’s administration has promised a more aggressive approach against campus antisemitism, accusing former President Joe Biden of letting schools off the hook. It has opened new investigations at colleges and detained and deported several foreign students with ties to pro-Palestinian protests.

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AP Education Writer Collin Binkley contributed. Mumphrey reported from Phoenix.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers are giving up on creating a statewide database to collect information on students who might commit violence, even as they push forward other parts of a school safety bill aimed at preventing a school shooting like the one in September at Apalachee High School.

House and Senate lawmakers unveiled a compromise version of House Bill 268 on Thursday, which then passed the Senate Judiciary committee unanimously. That sets it up for final passage in the closing days of Georgia’s 2025 legislative session.

The push to share information was driven by the belief among many that the Barrow County school system didn’t have a full picture of the warning signs displayed by the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shootings of two students and two teachers. But there was loud opposition from both Democratic and Republican constituencies that the database would create a permanent blacklist with no due process that could treat racial and religious minorities unfairly.

“The reason it wasn’t going to fly was pushback from all points of the political spectrum that worried about their child being stigmatized just for an accusation or an uncorroborated complaint,” said Sen. Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican representing parts of Barrow County.

The compromise version also removed a requirement that all school systems set up formal threat management teams to evaluate whether students may commit violence. That approach is strongly recommended by many national experts, and the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency already offers training. House Education Committee Chairman Chris Erwin, a Republican from Homer, said he was hopeful schools would voluntarily adopt the model.

“I think there is a knowledge out there of the importance of planning and preparing already in schools,” Erwin said. “So having a full model structure for the state isn’t as important as maybe we once thought it was.”

The measure would still require police agencies to report to schools when officers learn that a child has threatened death or injury to someone at a school. But those reports aren’t mandated to become part of a student’s educational record and wouldn’t travel with a student if they transfer to another district.

That raises questions about whether the bill addresses one of the key criticisms that followed the Apalachee shooting. School officials never became aware that a sheriff’s deputy in Jackson County had interviewed Colt Gray in May 2023 after the FBI passed along a tip that Gray might have posted a shooting threat online. That report would have been forwarded to middle school officials in Jackson County under the bill, but wouldn’t have followed Gray when he enrolled as a freshman in nearby Barrow County after skipping eighth grade entirely.

The bill also mandates quicker transfers of records when a student enters a new school, creates at least one new position to help coordinate mental health treatment for students in each of Georgia’s 180 school districts and sets up an anonymous reporting system statewide.

Lawmakers on Thursday added in features of separate Senate bills that had passed. They would mandate that all Georgia public schools provide wearable panic buttons to employees. Public schools would also be required to submit electronic maps of their campuses to local, state and federal agencies once a year.

The amended bill would also make adult prosecution the default when children aged 13 to 16 are charged with terroristic acts at school, any aggravated assault with a gun, or attempted murder. The Senate had originally proposed a broader range of crimes when adult prosecution would be the default. House leaders had said they didn’t want to submit any more juveniles to adult prosecution.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will hear arguments Wednesday in a legal dispute that pits a suburban Ohio school district’s policy requiring use of students’ preferred pronouns against the free speech rights of classmates who believe there are only two genders.

The lawsuit brought by Parents Defending Education, a national Christian organization, against the Olentangy Local School District in 2023 has captured broad national attention from groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the conservative Manhattan Institute. Ohio’s solicitor general has asked to participate in oral arguments on behalf of 22 U.S. states that have interests in the case.

A lower court rejected the group’s arguments that the policies violated students’ First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit affirmed that decision in July.

The full court will reconsider that decision in a rare en banc hearing Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know:

The lawsuit takes issue with overlapping district policies that prohibit the use of gender-related language that other students might deem insulting, dehumanizing, unwanted or offensive and call for the use of peers’ “preferred pronouns.”

The district’s electronic devices policy — which applies both on and off school time — prohibits transmitting “disruptive” material or material that could be seen as harassing or disparaging other students based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, among other categories.

A separate antidiscrimination policy prohibits students from engaging in “discriminatory language” during times when they’re under the school’s authority. That is defined as “verbal or written comments, jokes, and slurs that are derogatory towards an individual or group based on one or more of the following characteristics: race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and transgender identity), disability, age, religion, ancestry, or genetic information.”

The district’s code of conduct echoes many of the same themes a third time.

Parents Defending Education, founded in 2021 amid the culture wars over schools’ teachings on race, diversity and sexuality, argues that the policies compel students and parents who belong to their group to “affirm an idea that gender is fluid” in contradiction of their religious beliefs.

“These students have views that the District disfavors,” the group wrote in a court filing. “Specifically, they believe that people are either male or female, that biological sex is immutable, and that sex does not change based on someone’s internal feelings. Accordingly, they ‘d(o) not want to be forced to ‘affirm’ that a biologically female classmate is actually a male — or vice versa — or that a classmate is ’nonbinary’ and neither male nor female.”

The group argues that the policies unconstitutionally compel “viewpoint-based” speech by forcing students who believe in only two genders to use pronouns that suggest otherwise. They say that violates the First Amendment’s guarantees to free speech and similar protections contained in the 14th Amendment, particularly since students are subject to punishment for violating the policies.

Parents Defending Education further challenges the electronic devices policy for applying outside school hours and off school property. The ACLU has sided with the parents’ group on this point, arguing the district’s policies are overbroad.

Olentangy Local School District outside Columbus, one of the state’s largest districts, maintains the policies protect students against abuse and harassment and asserts that Parents Defending Education represents “Christian, cisgender” students “seeking dispensation under the free speech clause of the First Amendment to harass other students based on their gender identity.”

“They are not illegal immigrants subject to deportation. They are not gay soldiers under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. They’re not African Americans in the Jim Crow south. They’ve not been systematically oppressed,” the district’s lawyers told the lower court. “They’re members of the majority who want to — under the guise of the First Amendment — openly voice their opposition to an historically maligned minority group, transgendered people.”

Olentangy argues that Parents Defending Education has failed to provide evidence of injury — as the lawsuit was filed before disciplinary action had been brought against any student. The district also says that its policies leave open other options for students who don’t wish to use someone’s preferred pronouns. That includes calling the person by their first name, using a gender-neutral pronoun or simply not referring to them at all.

The availability of such options, an argument against the policies unconstitutionally compelling students to say certain things, played a role in the three-judge panel’s 2-1 ruling in favor of the district last summer.

WASHINGTON — Schools and colleges across the U.S. face a Friday deadline to end diversity programs or risk having their federal money pulled by the Trump administration, yet few are openly rushing to make changes. Many believe they’re on solid legal ground, and they know it would be all but unprecedented — and extremely time-consuming — for the government to cut off funding.

State officials in Washington and California urged schools not to make changes, saying it doesn’t change federal law and doesn’t require any action. New York City schools have taken the same approach and said district policies and curriculum have not changed.

Leaders of some colleges shrugged the memo off entirely. Antioch University ’s chief said “most of higher education” won’t comply with the memo unless federal law is changed. Western Michigan University’s president told his campus to “please proceed as usual.”

A memo issued Feb. 14 by President Donald Trump’s administration, formally known as a Dear Colleague Letter, gave schools two weeks to halt any practice that treats people differently because of their race.

Opponents say it’s an overreach meant to have a chilling effect. The guidance appears to forbid everything from classroom lessons on racism to colleges’ efforts to recruit in diverse areas, and even voluntary student groups like Black student unions.

Education organizations have been urging a measured approach, warning institutions not to make any hasty cuts that would be difficult to undo. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, is telling colleges that if they were in compliance with federal law before the memo, they still are.

“There’s nothing to act on until we see the administration or its agencies try to stop something,” Mitchell said. “And then we’ll have the argument.”

A loss of federal money would be devastating for schools and colleges, but imposing that penalty would not be quick or simple.

The Education Department office that conducts civil rights investigations had fewer than 600 employees last year — before the Trump administration began cutting staff — while the U.S. has more than 18,000 school districts and 6,000 colleges.

Even when a school or state faces an investigation, it can take years to terminate funding. Under former President Joe Biden, the Education Department tried to pull federal money from Michigan’s education agency after finding it violated the rights of students with disabilities. The investigation began in 2022 and is still tied up in federal court.

“I hope very much that schools charged with providing inclusive, equal education to every student in their school community will stand for that principle,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led the department’s Office for Civil Rights under Biden.

Still, some education leaders say resistance is too risky. At the University of Cincinnati, President Neville G. Pinto said officials are evaluating jobs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and removing DEI references from school websites.

“Given this new landscape, Ohio public and federally supported institutions like ours have little choice but to follow the laws that govern us,” Pinto wrote.

Tony Frank, chancellor of the Colorado State University system, wrote in a campus letter that he weighed taking a stand against the department. But he advised the system’s campuses to comply, saying there’s too much at stake for students and staff. “If we gamble here and are wrong, someone else will pay the price,” he wrote.

In many Republican-led states, education chiefs applauded the memo.

“We never felt it was appropriate to use race in making these types of decisions in the first case, so I do not foresee any interruptions in our day-to-day business,” Alabama’s state superintendent, Eric G. Mackey, said in a statement released by the Trump administration.

The memo said schools have promoted DEI efforts often at the expense of white and Asian American students.

It doesn’t carry the weight of law but explains how the new administration will interpret nondiscrimination laws. It dramatically expands a 2023 Supreme Court decision barring the use of race in college admissions to all aspects of education — including, hiring, promotion, scholarships, housing, graduation ceremonies and campus life.

The guidance is being challenged in court by the American Federation of Teachers, which said the memo violates free speech laws.

While some schools are keeping quiet out of fear of being targeted, many leaders also are still struggling to grasp the implications.

“We are looking to our attorney general for guidance because it’s very confusing,” said Christine Tucci Osorio, superintendent of the North St. Paul School District in Minnesota. When a teacher asked if their school could still mark African American History Month, she assured them they could.

Despite concerns that schools would rush to comply, it appears “cooler heads are largely prevailing,” said Liz King, senior director for the education equity program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“Once a school sends the message that they are not going to stand up for a member, a community within their school, that is broken trust, that is a lost relationship,” King said.

Trump has vowed to use education funding as political leverage on several fronts, threatening cuts for schools that do not get in line with his agenda on topics including transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports and instruction related to race.

Usually, civil rights investigations by the Education Department take at least six months and often much longer. If a school is found in violation of federal law, department policy offers a chance to come into compliance and sign a resolution — typically a 90-day process.

Only if a school refuses to comply can the department move to revoke federal money. That can be done in the Education Department through a court-like process decided by an administrative law judge. If the judge decides the penalty is justified, the school can appeal it to the education secretary and, after that, challenge it in court.

Instead of handling it internally, the department can also refer cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. That route is no faster.

The last time the Education Department was granted approval to cut federal funding was in 1992, against the Capistrano Unified School District in California, which was found to have retaliated against a teacher for filing sex discrimination complaints.

Before the penalty was carried out, the district reinstated the teacher and effectively ended the case. It never lost any money.

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Gecker reported from San Francisco, and Mumphrey from Phoenix.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee voted Thursday to advance Linda McMahon’s nomination to serve as President Donald Trump’s education secretary, bringing her closer to leading an agency the Republican president wants to shut down.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted 12-11 along party lines to send her nomination to be considered by the full Senate.

At her confirmation hearing, McMahon said she wants to “reorient” the Education Department. Since his campaign, Trump has called for the department to be abolished, but McMahon acknowledged that only Congress could shut it down completely.

“We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with,” she said.

Pressed on the fate of the agency’s core initiatives, McMahon said Trump wants them to be more efficient but isn’t out to defund them. She suggested certain roles could be moved to other agencies, saying the department’s civil rights arm could go to the Justice Department.

She pledged to preserve federal Title I money for low-income schools, Pell grants for low-income college students and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, all of which were created by Congress.

At the same time, McMahon promised to cut off federal money from schools that defy Trump’s orders against transgender athletes in women’s sports, campus antisemitism and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the country.

Democrats were alarmed by McMahon’s response to questions about Trump’s order to ban DEI programs in schools. Asked if African American history classes could trigger a loss of federal money, McMahon said she wasn’t certain and needed to look into it.

McMahon, a billionaire Trump ally and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, brings less experience in education than many others in the role. She was a member of the Connecticut board of education for about a year in 2009, and she’s a longtime trustee at Sacred Heart University. She left the WWE in 2009 and led two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut.

Republicans were mostly unified behind McMahon at the hearing, though Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska raised concerns that Trump would ask McMahon to overstep her authority and interfere with local control of schools.

The White House is considering an order that would direct the education secretary to dismantle the Education Department while urging Congress to fully abolish it.

Even without the order, the Trump administration has fired or suspended more than 100 Education Department employees. Dozens of contracts have been canceled by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Ronald Donat’s longtime dream of becoming a police officer was in jeopardy.

The 41-year-old struggled to stand after completing a flurry of pushups, sprints and pullups in the notoriously grueling start of physical training that recruits call “Hell Day.”

“You are dead!” classmates recall a sergeant berating Donat, ordering him to sit on concrete at the suburban Atlanta police academy.

Donat, a Haitian immigrant on his third attempt to land a law enforcement job, assured instructors he wasn’t giving up. He managed to get off the ground and rejoin recruits in a bear crawl exercise. But he soon went limp.

One hundred minutes after training began that October 2021 morning, he was dead, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Donat is among at least 29 recruits who died during basic training at law enforcement academies around the country in the last decade, an AP investigation found. Most died of exertion, dehydration, heat stroke and other conditions tied to intense exercise — often on the first day of training, like Donat. Others died several weeks in, sometimes after suffering trauma during boxing or use-of-force drills or collapsing during high-stakes timed runs on hot days.

Experts and police advocates were surprised by AP’s findings — based on an extensive review of lists of law enforcement deaths in every state, workplace safety records and news reports — and said many of the deaths were preventable. No federal agency or outside organization comprehensively tracks recruit deaths, unlike officers who die in the line of duty.

“Training shouldn’t have one death, much less 29,” said David Jude, a retired Kentucky State Police academy commander and instructor. “To hear that number, it is shocking.”

Black recruits represented nearly 60% of those who died, a striking disparity given that federal data show Black officers make up 12% of local police forces. Many carried sickle cell trait, a condition most prevalent among Black Americans that increases the risk of serious injury following extreme exertion.

Overall, the deaths amount to a tiny percentage of the nation’s 800,000 sworn officers but highlight another hazard in a profession where shootings, car accidents and other dangers are part of the job.

AP’s tally shows the deaths have grown at a time when departments are tapping an older and more diverse pool of applicants to address officer shortages. More than two-thirds of the deaths occurred since 2020.

A Texas recruit collapsed minutes after instructors denied his request for water, saying: “You can’t get water in a fight,” video obtained by AP shows.

An Arkansas cadet died after he was forced to run wearing long pants in the scorching midday sun. A North Carolina trainee’s temperature was 106 degrees an hour after his death, when he had no water breaks during an hourlong obstacle course.

Citing similar cases, one expert warned in a medical journal in mid-2023 of a “troubling spate of exertional collapse and death” of police trainees.

“This sad tragedy is preventable, but will not become so until our police chiefs begin to heed the message,” wrote Dr. Randy Eichner, a retired University of Oklahoma professor who has long studied exertion-related deaths.

But deaths have only continued to mount. At least five were recorded in 2024, including a New York City recruit who died of heat stroke, a Kentucky man who exerted himself during water-based survival training and a Massachusetts cadet who became unresponsive during defensive tactics training.

Police leaders say some deaths can be prevented through improved awareness and practices, acknowledging that the field needs to better screen for and accommodate health conditions that put recruits at risk and to rein in unnecessarily harsh drills.

“Not only are we potentially putting students in danger, but we’re also putting instructors in precarious situations where they may not know about the risks,” said Jude, an expert witness in the 2022 death of 38-year-old Jonesboro, Arkansas, recruit Vincent Parks.

Jude cited a law passed in Arkansas, amid outrage over video showing Parks collapsing while training on a hot afternoon, as a positive step. It requires trainers be educated on heat exhaustion, dehydration and symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest, and mandates that instructors remove cadets from physical activities if they faint or lose consciousness.

AP’s investigation found instances in which recruits who were in serious medical distress were pushed to continue training before they died. In addition to calling off drills in such cases, academy leaders must ensure adequate hydration and breaks and limit training when heat makes it unsafe, experts said.

Bill Alexander, CEO of the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, said the number of deaths could be reduced but probably not eliminated given the nature of policing, which can require chasing and arresting combative suspects.

“If you’re training people physically and if you’re training them hard, you’re going to have these very rare medical events,” said Alexander, who previously led an academy in Maryland.

Still, some leaders say the field needs urgent action to better protect recruits.

“It was just heartbreaking. I’ll never forget it. And I’ll do anything at all to get this message out,” said Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey of Hamilton County, Ohio, who witnessed the 2023 death of 36-year-old Marcus Zeigler after he collapsed during a training run. “We’re talking about life or death.”

When Ronald Donat arrived at the Gwinnett County Police Department Academy in Lawrenceville, Georgia, he thought he’d finally found his place in law enforcement.

He always wanted to become an officer, but his wife, Sharline Volcy, said she initially discouraged him due to safety concerns when their children were young. Both immigrated from Haiti in the 1990s to New Jersey, where they met at church.

Donat earned a college degree and worked various jobs, including installing satellites and cable, but longed for the responsibility and community service that policing would bring.

He finally applied but was initially passed over. When Gwinnett County recruited applicants from New Jersey, Donat applied because he already had a sister living in Georgia, Volcy said.

Georgia’s second-largest police agency, Gwinnett County has held hiring events around the country as it struggles to fill hundreds of vacancies. It’s offered bonuses to combat the officer shortage, which grew during the coronavirus pandemic and 2020 protests against police brutality.

A physician who evaluated Donat for the department concluded he was healthy, with no concerning conditions, according to a form the doctor submitted to the state’s police standards agency. Following the normal process for the county and most U.S. police departments, the doctor didn’t screen Donat for sickle cell trait.

Donat began working out with other recruits, passed a state-mandated physical fitness test and was given badge 2423. He smiled for a selfie in a squad car. He shared advice with a classmate: “Never give up.”

Up to 3 million Black citizens in the U.S. have sickle cell trait, yet many adults with the genetic condition don’t know their status, researchers say. Unlike people with sickle cell disease, they carry only one gene for sickle cell, and one normal gene.

The condition, which is diagnosed through a blood test, doesn’t usually affect their daily lives. But it can cause decreased blood flow and muscle breakdown after intense exertion, dehydration or high body temperatures. In very rare cases, that can result in collapse and death.

The NCAA and U.S. military now screen recruits for the condition, which has contributed to some deaths during football practices and boot camps. Researchers say exertional deaths among college athletes plummeted after NCAA-mandated testing and precautions went into effect in 2010, while the impact of the military programs is under review. Slowly building intensity, resting between drills, remaining hydrated during workouts and responding quickly to signs of distress are recommended.

Most police departments have no such screening programs. Many longtime law enforcement trainers say they’ve never heard of the condition, which AP found was cited as a contributing factor in several deaths and serious injuries of recruits.

McGuffey, the Ohio sheriff, said the cause of Marcus Zeigler’s death was initially a mystery. Before his collapse in May 2023, Zeigler was in peak condition and a top recruit, she said.

The sheriff said she learned about sickle cell trait afterward from another employee, who himself had been seriously injured during academy training. She asked the coroner to investigate whether Zeigler had the condition. After ruling that Zeigler died of exertional heatstroke, the coroner’s office added sickle cell trait as a contributing factor.

Since the death, Hamilton County has started screening recruits for the condition, which costs $75 per test.

For Donat and his 27 classmates, academy staffers planned an intense hourlong workout — a first-day ritual designed to test physical and mental fitness.

Pushups. Flutter kicks. More pushups. Hill sprints. Burpees. Pullups. Bear crawls.

Trainers say the exercises set the tone for the monthslong academy, which seeks to instill a never-quit mindset and prepare recruits for the most dangerous aspects of policing. But the military-style drills have long led to allegations of harsh treatment that cross the line into hazing.

The risks were so well-known that an ambulance usually sat nearby on the first day at the Gwinnett County academy. But that year, a major declined the staff’s request, saying an ambulance would create the perception of danger, according to statements in an internal investigation report.

Donat kept up with classmates for 45 minutes but became exhausted during a set of pullups and couldn’t complete the next exercise, air squats.

An instructor ordered Donat to sit: “You are dead!” six recruits recalled him screaming, according to the investigation.

The instructor insisted that he told Donat “You are done!” Either way, it was intended as a reminder, the investigation found, that giving up on police work could lead to death.

Donat didn’t want to quit. Three minutes later, he got up with the help of another recruit and got in formation for a 25-foot bear crawl. “Everything is all right, Donat,” a recruit assured him. But Donat collapsed and stopped breathing.

A paramedic on scene quickly treated Donat with oxygen and chest compressions. An ambulance arrived 10 minutes later.

After Donat was pronounced dead at a hospital, instructors wondered whether his life could have been saved with an ambulance on site.

Hours after Donat died, Gwinnett County released a statement saying Donat had been “instructed by supervising staff to rest” after becoming lethargic.

A fellow recruit who saw that statement on the news questioned the claim, texting classmates, “as far as I know I never heard that or saw that.” One responded that Donat was last seen in the planking position before his collapse.

A county medical examiner ruled Donat died of natural causes, saying he had an enlarged heart prone to abnormal rhythms. That shocked his wife, Volcy, who said her husband was a fit soccer player with no known heart issues.

The autopsy report didn’t mention sickle cell trait. Volcy believes her husband had it – she’s learned their daughters do, she said, and she has tested negative. Today, Gwinnett County still doesn’t screen recruits for the condition, spokesperson Sgt. Collin Flynn said.

The department’s investigation, completed weeks after Donat’s death, found no policy violations and resulted in no disciplinary action. A major who led the investigation concluded, “I cannot imagine a scenario, had different actions been taken, that would have changed the tragic death of Recruit Donat.”

Still, the department now requires an ambulance with emergency responders on scene during the first day of physical training, Flynn said. Changes to the workout allow instructors to keep a closer eye on those who are struggling, he said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration didn’t investigate because local government agencies aren’t under its jurisdiction. That’s the case in many states, which have not extended workplace safety protections to municipal employees such as police officers.

Because most of the recruits in AP’s investigation hadn’t been sworn in as officers before they died, their names don’t appear on the national memorial for deceased officers or some state memorials. And many of their families can’t qualify for death benefits.

Aware of those stakes last year, the police chief in Knoxville, Tennessee, summoned a judge to the hospital room of unconscious recruit Wisbens Antoine.

On that February night, a fellow recruit took the oath on behalf of Antoine, who’d collapsed during training a week before graduation.

Hours later, Officer Antoine, 32, died.

Like Donat, he was a Haitian immigrant who left behind a wife and two daughters.

In Gwinnett County, officials honored Donat by adding his name to its Fallen Heroes Memorial in 2022. But his name isn’t on federal or state memorials. Donat’s family was ineligible for state death benefits because he hadn’t graduated.

Congress in 2021 passed a law allowing trainees’ relatives to be eligible for the same federal death benefits as those of sworn officers. The program includes a payment of nearly $450,000, plus college assistance.

But three years later, Volcy said, she’s still awaiting a ruling from the Department of Justice on her application for benefits, which she said she desperately needs to afford college tuition and other expenses.

Volcy was unaware of the investigation into her husband’s death until AP gave her the report last year. She said the department put recruits like Donat – and their families – at risk.

“It is disappointing to know that excessive strain and physical activities brought an end to his life,” Volcy said. “What was supposed to be a new beginning, a lifetime achievement, a dream come true turned children into orphans, a wife into a widow and a lifetime of grief.”