The Village Square believes in the power of dialogue and disagreement. We spearhead a variety of programming centered around civility and community-building (especially among political opposites). Locally, we work with a variety of community partners, offering more than 30 programs a year. Nationally, we assist other communities with their civility efforts and provide support as needed. Events and programs are created with the intent of building community, fostering dialogue, encouraging disagreement, and ultimately, increasing empathy.
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Just the Facts: Trump Administration Pauses International Student Visas
May 29, 2025
The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, we remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.
Has the Trump administration put a hold on issuing student visas for this coming fall?
The Trump administration has paused new student visa interviews as part of an effort to expand social media screening for applicants. The State Department has instructed U.S. embassies and consulates to stop scheduling new student and exchange visitor visa appointments until further guidance is issued. However, previously scheduled interviews will still proceed.
Additionally the Trump Administration has temporarily halted new student and exchange visitor visa interviews at U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide while it expands social media screening for applicants. The pause applies to F, M, and J visa categories, but already scheduled interviews will proceed as planned
This move is part of a broader effort to increase vetting of international students, with concerns about national security and antisemitism cited as reasons for the expanded screening. Some universities, including Harvard, have already faced restrictions on enrolling international students. Critics argue that this policy could disrupt higher education and deter students from choosing the U.S. as a study destination
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What are the specifics of the State Department directive?
The directive was widely circulated to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts abroad and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The State Department said it would issue further guidance to consulates and embassies in the coming days. “Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor visa appointment capacity," the cable said.
The memo also warned of “potentially significant implications for consular section operations, processes, and resource allocations” in a clear indication of the delay likely for student visa applications.
“Consular sections will need to take into consideration the workload and resource requirements of each case prior to scheduling them going forward,” the cable said, adding the priority should be on “services for U.S. citizens, immigrant visas, and fraud prevention.”
Has the Trump Administration provided any information on how long the temporary pause will last and what the new rules will be?
The State Department has not specified an end date for the pause, stating that further guidance will be issued in the coming days. The expanded vetting process aims to scrutinize applicants' social media activity, particularly posts perceived as hostile to U.S. interests.
What Impact will the pause have on international students?
- Delays and Uncertainty: Many students may miss enrollment deadlines due to visa processing delays, which forces them to defer admission or seek alternative options.
- Financial Losses: Students who have already paid non-refundable deposits for tuition, housing, and flights could lose money if they can’t secure a visa in time.
- Limited Travel: Some universities arewarning students against traveling abroad this summer, fearing they may not be allowed to return.
- Social Media Scrutiny: The expanded social media screening could lead to visa denials based on online activity, raising concerns about privacy and free speech.
What additional actions did the Trump Administration take against China?
On May 28, the Trump administration announced that it would aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, particularly those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to enforce these revocations and revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong.
China has strongly opposed these measures, calling them harmful to students' legitimate rights and interests. The decision could have a significant impact on U.S. universities, which rely on international students for revenue and research contributions.
How Many Chinese Students attend United States Universities?
As of the 2023-2024 academic year, there were approximately 277,398 Chinese students enrolled in U.S. universities, making China the second-largest source of international students in the country. India recently overtook China as the top sender, with over 331,602 students.
Despite a slight decline in numbers, Chinese students continue to make up a significant portion of the international student population, particularly in fields such as engineering, business, and computer science. Their presence contributes to both academic research and university funding.
What Impact will the reduction in the number of international students have on Universities?
- Enrollment Decline: Universities that rely on international students—who make up a significant portion of their student body—could see a drop in enrollment.
- Financial Strain: International students often pay full tuition without federal aid, contributing billions to the U.S. economy. A decline in their numbers could hurt university budgets.
- Reputation Damage: The U.S. has long been a top destination for international students. If visa policies become too restrictive, students may opt for other countries, such as Canada, Australia, or the UK, instead.
How are Universities responding
- Some are taking a wait-and-see policy.
- Higher education groups, including the Association of International Educators, are lobbying lawmakers to reverse the policy, arguing that international students pose no security threat and contribute significantly to the U.S. economy.
- Harvard University has been at the center of legal action against the Trump administration regarding student visa restrictions. Additionally, a University of Cincinnati international student filed a lawsuit, resulting in a federal judge blocking the administration from revoking the student's visa.
- University leaders from MIT, Stanford, and the University of California system have issued joint statements condemning the policy.
- Some universities are offering remote learning options to help students who are affected continue their studies.
How many international students are there in the United States, and which University will be most impacted
As of the 2023/2024 academic year, the U.S. hosted over 1.1 million international students, marking a 7% increase from the previous year. These students make significant contributions to the economy and academic diversity.
Some universities have a high percentage of international students, which means they may be heavily affected by visa restrictions. The top institutions with the highest proportion of international students:
1. Illinois Institute of Technology – 51% of students are international.
2. Carnegie Mellon University – 44% international students.
3. Stevens Institute of Technology – 42% international students.
4. Northeastern University – 40% international students.
5. Columbia University – 40% international students.
6. New York University (NYU) – 37% international students.
Additionally, universities like Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California system have reported visa cancellations affecting their international students. Harvard alone has 27% international students, making it one of the most impacted institutions.
David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
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Defining the Democracy Movement: Connie Razza
May 29, 2025
The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.
The latest interview in this series took place with Connie Razza, the Executive Director of Future Currents. This organization creates spaces for movement organizations to build resilient relationships, tackle pressing challenges, and prepare for possible conditions. Connie is an organizer at heart and by training, having worked on economic justice issues for most of her career.
Most of the interviews in this series to date have featured practitioners in the more traditional democracy ecosystem: election administrators, bridge-builders, structural reformists, and local practitioners. I appreciated the opportunity to speak with Connie to gain a perspective from someone embedded in the movement-building space —those on the front line. Often, there appears to be a perceived— and at times real —divide between organizers and pro-democracy advocates. It was refreshing to explore that dynamic with Connie.
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One of the key topics we discussed, which has gained traction and importance in the wake of the 2024 election, was whether the pro-democracy movement should more explicitly connect with economic justice. Many Americans, understandably, are primarily concerned with day-to-day survival, including the cost of living, economic opportunities, and basic needs. Preserving democratic norms, such as the rule of law and self-governance, can justifiably feel like a secondary concern.
Connie addressed the challenge and opportunity of bringing the pro-democracy and economic justice movements into closer alignment. She also explored how the pro-democracy tent can expand its reach, perhaps by rethinking its language and metaphors, as well as its behavior.
Her main reflections included:
- Democracy and economic justice must be linked: Too often, nonprofits and advocates separate democracy from economic issues, perhaps a natural byproduct of a fragmented and siloed nonprofit and policy landscape. The division is counterproductive. It is also not new. Having the right to participate in a free society and having the economic means to live freely and securely are deeply interconnected.
As Connie shared, “In my career in nonprofits. I feel like they've been really bifurcated. There's..folks who work on the economy and folks who work on democracy.
But when you think about it, the 1964 march on Washington was about economic justice. It was also about democracy and civil rights. And when you go back even further- abolition was economic democracy. It was all of the things. And so, I think that really this is like an approach that is very much repairing an artificial sort of separation that has happened before.”
- The movement needs to be more fun and more imaginative: Pro-democracy work can feel like a grind right now, with new daily threats and increasingly high stakes. But perhaps ironically, there are lessons to learn from the far-right. Despite a sometimes-destructive vision, it offers its followers a sense of belonging, imagination, possibility, and purpose. Those fighting for democracy can and should tap into joy, creativity, and hope to build a movement equally compelling.
As Connie notes, “I think we struggle because I think that we really do deeply believe in each other. I think that we are seeing (from the other side) what a radical imagination of exclusion, of consolidation, of power, of destruction. That imagination is inconceivable in our minds- because I think that we believe in our democratic norms and practices….
But I do think that it means that there is an opportunity in front of us, to imagine, not rebuilding what existed, but rebuilding what we need for the future.” - Maybe it’s not a pro-democracy tent. It’s a democracy music festival: We often talk about the “big tent” of the pro-democracy movement- a metaphor for a broad, inclusive coalition. We need as many people as possible in the tent to be successful, and so the argument becomes how to build a broad-based coalition.
But in practice, litmus tests emerge. If someone believes in core democratic principles but holds other contested policy views, can they still be part of the tent?
In response, Connie offers the idea of a music festival:
“I know that we always talk about the big tent, and it suggests that we literally all have to be in there together. (But) I don't want to be actually in a tent with certain people. I mean, I know that we're not supposed to say this, but like there are people that we don't want to be in the tent with, and they really don't want to be in the tent with us.
I've really been thinking about a music festival rather than a tent. It's like we all came to the same event. We can all be enjoying (different music), and we'll run into each other in the beer line, and we'll run into each other in the bathroom line, and it'll be fine. We'll navigate that, and maybe we'll even be like, hey? Oh, my God! I love that shirt that you got.
We can share a core belief that we can make decisions together, and we can get to a place, and I think that this is where the headwinds are, where we believe that we share an interest in our families thriving.”
I’m grateful to Connie for offering such thoughtful reflections on how we can build a more joyful, purpose-driven, and expansive pro-democracy movement—one that connects economic justice and democratic values, and that welcomes many into a shared future.
Scott Warren is a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-leading a trans-partisan effort to protect the basic parameters, rules, and institutions of the American republic. He is the co-founder of Generation Citizen, a national civics education organization.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Coalition of Nonprofits, Research Institutions Fight Against Proposed Cuts at CDC Injury Center
May 29, 2025
WASHINGTON–Shayna Raphael started promoting infant safety 10 years ago after her daughter Claire passed away due to an unsafe sleeping environment at her daycare.
The Claire Bear Foundation, which Raphael created with her husband, teaches parents about unsafe products. But first, they need the data about which products endanger babies. They rely on a little-known agency at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Injury Center. The center collects most of the data used to keep people safe from injuries and death.
For instance, over the last several years, the Injury Center compiled data that led to a CDC recommendation against swaddling babies in blankets that are weighted.
A study referenced by the CDC found that soft bedding, including weighted products, increased the chances of suffocation 16-fold.
“When there are products that have been part of an injury or death that are reported, either through public health reports or autopsies, that goes into the CDC system,” Raphael said.
Despite the Injury Center’s importance, the Trump administration has targeted the agency in the recent wave of federal cuts.
In early April, the Trump Administration cut about a third of the Injury Center’s staff. A couple of weeks later, a leaked budget proposal for the Health and Human Services Department—first reported by the Washington Post and leaked by Inside Medicine—called for nearly 30% budget cuts at the Injury Center. According to the proposal, funding for programs ranging from firearm death and drowning prevention to traumatic brain injury research would be discontinued.
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“In essence, what we're doing right now is taking off our seatbelt before we crash,” said Sharon Gilmartin, the executive director of Safe States Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works to strengthen practices of injury and violence prevention.
Over the last couple of weeks, local, state, and federal supporters of the Injury Center pushed back.
The Keep America Safe Coalition, a coalition of over 40 health organizations across the country, came together to advocate for the Injury Center's survival.
Under the leaked draft proposal, the Injury Center would be transferred to a newly created agency, the Administration for a Healthy America, which was announced in March. According to the draft, the Injury Center’s proposed budget for 2026 would be around $550 million, a decrease from around $760 million in 2024. A Health and Human Services spokesperson said the leaked document is pre-decisional and that no final decisions have been made.
Programs relating to suicide prevention, opioid overdose prevention, domestic violence and rape prevention, and the National Violent Death Reporting System would remain at the Injury Center.
According to the Safe States Alliance, 52 congressional representatives and 12 senators had signed letters expressing support for the Injury Center as of May 15. None were Republicans.
One of the Injury Center’s congressional supporters, Rep. Gwen Moore, D-WI, said, “Any ‘restructuring plan’ that leaves state and local authorities without support to reduce preventable deaths and survivors of abuse without the resources they need must be abandoned,” in an email to the Medill News Service.
At congressional hearings on May 14, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy indicated that any proposed cuts would eliminate waste and consolidate programs and centers to improve efficiency.
When asked about the Injury Center specifically, a Health and Human Services spokesperson redirected Medill News Service to President Donald Trump’s “skinny” budget proposal.
Although President Trump's administration has yet to release the full budget proposal, a redacted “skinny” budget was released in late April. In the “skinny” budget, every single agency within the Department of Health and Human Services would see some sort of budget cut, with the CDC losing $3.5 billion less than it is currently allocated.
The “skinny” budget failed to specify which programs within the agencies would be cut or defunded.
The proposed budget and staffing cuts were not the only signs of an unstable future for the Injury Center. In last year’s budget appropriations process, House Republicans targeted the center for elimination.
“That was kind of our first indication that there was an effort afoot by some lawmakers, by some policymakers, to target the Injury Center,” said Paul Bonta, the director of Government Relations at the Safe States Alliance.
The Injury Center has played a crucial role in funding for injury prevention at the local level on acute health risks, ranging from firearms to falls by the elderly. These programs would be cut under the leaked budget proposal.
“All of the things that the Injury Center works on, most of them are preventable,” said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition. Juliano said, “So, we should be thinking about how can we best prevent those things and making changes where needed, but not breaking it all and then figuring out later how to rebuild it.”
There were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in 2022, according to the CDC.
The Big Cities Health Coalition, a member of the Keep America Safe Coalition, includes health officials from 35 of the country’s largest cities.
The Claire Bear Foundation, which is also part of the coalition, values the Injury Center’s data collection and research on adverse childhood experiences.
Research into adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, violence, and unstable home situations, looks at reducing and researching traumatic events occurring in minors from birth to 17 years of age.
Under the leaked proposal, research on adverse childhood experiences would be cut from the Injury Center. Raphael said any cuts to research could have consequences for infant safety.
“These cuts, along with what’s already happened to [the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] and other federally supported programs, make it even harder to identify and address risk factors, leaving families with fewer resources to help keep their babies safe,” Raphael said.
Ismael M. Belkoura is a graduate journalism student with the Medill News Service at Northwestern University. He specializes in health, business and legal reporting.
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A classroom with children raising their hands.
Getty Images, Kawee Srital-on
Is Civics the New STEM?
May 29, 2025
In 1957, the United States had its “Sputnik moment.”
As the Soviet Sputnik satellite orbited the Earth, Americans became fearful that we were falling behind technologically. The response was a massive prioritization of science, technology, engineering, and math—or what became known as “STEM” education.
Today, America needs another Sputnik moment.
It is time for civics to become the new STEM.
There was a great deal of hand-wringing when the 2022 report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed only 22% of eighth-graders were proficient in civics.
As alarming as that figure may be, it does not tell the full story of how civic learning loss is affecting America’s young people.
Civics classes teach students more than how to vote or how a bill becomes a law. In the best civics classes, students grapple with complex ideas and arguments about our principles, our governance, current events, and more.
They learn to think critically, work through disagreements, engage civilly, and apply knowledge to solve problems. These are known in the workplace as “soft” skills, and they are in high demand among employers.
A survey from the American Association of Colleges and Universities asked nearly 500 executives and hiring managers what matters most to them. More than 80% said soft skills like critical thinking, civic engagement skills, ethical judgment and reasoning, and the ability to communicate with people from different backgrounds were important.
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Civics classes are like laboratories for helping young people develop these soft skills. As one North Carolina teacher told us, civics is “a course in critical thinking and analysis, understanding various perspectives, and expanding beyond one’s own thoughts.”
These are soft skills employers covet, but for decades American schools have deprioritized civics. Only eight states require a full year of civics, and many states simply wedge a small amount of civics into other classes.
When we deprioritize civics, we prevent young people from fully developing the soft skills they need to thrive in their communities and in the workplace.
And employers have noticed.
In a 2024 Harris Poll survey conducted for Fortune magazine, 82% of managers said their new Generation Z employees’ soft skills needed improvement.
And our young people know they need help. In that same Harris Poll survey, 59% of Generation Z employees said they did not know who to turn to for help with soft skills.
These young people are not failing us. We all failed them.
At the Bill of Rights Institute, we work with more than 80,000 civics and history teachers, who support more than eight million students per year. We have seen firsthand the frustration among teachers as civics has been deprioritized in schools, depriving students of essential knowledge and skills.
While schools have touted the importance of “career readiness,” many have not placed enough emphasis on classes like civics that provide students with skills they need in literally any career.
We must change not only how we prioritize civics but how we communicate about it to students. If we want students to be passionate about civics, they need to understand what is in it for them.
Civics provides students an opportunity to learn about our country, our founding principles, and their rights and responsibilities as citizens. But it can also be viewed through a career readiness framework, and students should understand civic education helps them develop soft skills that employers value.
The revitalization of civics in schools can and should be America’s new Sputnik moment. This is going to require collaboration among educators, administrators, parents, and concerned community members at the local level, where most funding and curricular decisions are made.
That work must begin now because we are already leaving too many young people behind.
David J. Bobb, Ph.D. is president and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to advance civic and history education.
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