>> Major funding for "NJ Spotlight News" funded by the -- Briana: Massive federal cuts now hitting the department of education with the agency by more than 1000 employees, sending shockwaves throughout school districts nationwide.

>> These layoffs would impact thousands, potentially millions of families and students across the country.

Briana: Plus a changing tide.

Of 54 million dollar beach replenishment project is in serious jeopardy because local officials can't get on the same page.

Also after the house narrowly passes a funding bill, will the U.S. and approve the spending plan to avoid a Friday shutdown deadline?

And several New Jersey universities are facing severe funding cuts for their handling of pro-Palestinian's duty -- student protests.

>> There's a line between free speech and threatening the rights and well-being of others.

And I think that's what we are seeing here.

Briana: "NJ Spotlight News" begins right now.

♪ >> From NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" Briana Vannozzi with.

Briana: Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Wednesday night.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

We begin with the few of today's top headlines.

First, more than 1000 federal workers at the Department of education or out of a job.

The education secretary to tonight announce 50% of the workforce is being slashed as part of an effort to deliver services more efficiently, and a government wide move by President Trump and billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk to/spending s --lash spending and reduce what they see as waste.

Roughly 2000 employees will remain.

Those affected will be told to telework until March 1 -- starting March 1.

Education Apartment offices in Washington DC were closed today for what the administration cited as security reasons.

The shakeup has many worried about what it will mean one agency that manages article areas like federal loans for college and civil rights enforcement, to name a few.

Coomer, I'm joined by Robert Kim, executive director of the education Law Center.

Robert, good to talk to.

Based on the jobs that have been targeted within the department, what can you say about how this will impact the agency's ability to carry out its functions?

>> We know from some of the initial reporting that half of the U.S. Department of education staff is set to be cut or eliminated, and the cuts would eliminate many different areas in the department, first and foremost the civil rights department where I used to work during the Obama administration.

Hundreds of staff in many regional offices around the country are slated for elimination, which is a real devastating blow to ensure equity and nondiscrimination in school districts all around the country.

So that alone is a significant impact.

And then other specialty units that deal with educational policy and program development, concerns, offices around special education.

Briana: Let me stay with that first part, civil rights, where you worked previously.

You know what it takes to both launch and carry out investigations, I am thinking about in particular, the amount of work power that needs.

Could we see something like that affected, where investigations simply aren't carried out or aren't happening anymore?

And then of course the victims being the schoolchildren.

>> Absolutely.

That already has happened with earlier cuts that were on a smaller scale to the civil rights staff.

We know that hundreds if not thousands of investigations were on pause or effectively not moving forward, and with the upcoming cuts, that work will be absolutely decimated.

So what that means is that thousands of students and their parents will have uncertainty or a lack of resolution in their civil rights cases, and also the school districts or universities that were under investigation, they also need finality as to what is going to happen in those cases as well.

So it is a tremendous blow to civil rights and ensuring equity and nondiscrimination for students in schools all over the country.

Briana: We know the president, and conservatives, for that matter, for many years, have been targeting this department and looking to eliminate it.

But is a mass layoff like this even legal, aren't some of these offices protected by law?

>> It's a really good question.

And we know that this department was created by Congress in 1979 to carry out certain functions and part of this was because we needed to have a centralized office to deal with education matters and have these functions not be split across many different agencies of government.

So this reduction in the staffing by such a large amount I think raises questions as to whether this White House and this president has the authority to do that, or whether or not -- this goes right to the heart of the Congressional power to establish this office, and that is a power that only Congress has two sort of change the layout and the makeup of the cabinet agency to such an extent.

So there are a lot of legal questions moving forward.

Briana: Very quickly, what concerns you most?

This department and many others have been through dramatic shifts in the last several weeks.

What concerns you most about the sheer number of layoffs that have happened there?

>> These layoffs would impact thousands, potentially millions of families and students across the country.

And also the states and the districts that need the support and rely on the support and technical assistance from the federal agency.

So the real impact here is on kids and education.

And it is a sad statement that the federal government would be, instead of acting more aggressively to put education at the center of our national policy, it would be returning to an era in which education was not the priority or focus of the federal government, and that is not the right direction for our country.

In between first century we have so many needs around education to lift it up and improve it, and instead, we are signaling that we want to go in the opposite direction him and that's not good for the country, for national security and our democracy.

Briana: Robert Kim with the educational Center, good to talk to you.

Some other big headlines we are falling tonight, we may soon have an answer on whether it's legal for New Jersey to ban immigration detention center contracts.

As first reported by NJ glove, a federal appeals court on Tuesday told lawyers hearing on the case is being scheduled for the week of April 28.

Governor Murphy in 2021 signed a law barring private and public entities from entering into contracts with ice to detain immigrants.

Civic, which operates the Elizabeth detention center where detainees are housed in New Jersey, sued, alleging the law was unconstitutional.

A federal judge partially cited with them in 2023.

New Jersey appeal but a hearing had not been scheduled until now.

That 2023 decision paved the way for another private firm to plan a second immigration detention center at Delaney Hall in Newark, where plans to start housing up to 1000 migrants arrested by ice as early as this June.

Also tonight, a beach project nearly a decade in the making is at risk of being canceled, the five mile Island project, which is estimated to cost around 54 million dollars, is aimed at protecting the coasts of multiple Jersey shore towns.

That includes Wildwood, North Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, and lower Township.

All areas that have taken severe hits from erosion.

Especially in North Wildwood, which hasn't had a federal replenishment since Superstorm Sandy.

But the mayors of the towns can't seem to agree on how the NASA project should be carried out, from concerns about whether the famously wide teaches would shrink, to homeowners worries about shore access and beach views being obstructed to whether taxpayers would eventually have to foot the bill for future replenishment.

The state DEP this week's and a letter to the officials, telling them the plan is in serious jeopardy, unless they commit in writing by March 18.

The federal work by the Army Corps was slated to start in 2026, but it is contingent on the towns agreeing to the design.

The house on Tuesday approved a stopgap spending bill to prevent a partial government shutdown and find federal agencies until September, that's the end of the fiscal year.

The narrow to 17-213 vote is considered a major victory for Republicans in Congress who convince even the most hard-line conservatives to support the bill, you know it keeps spinning at the former levels President Biden signed into law.

Includes $13 billion in cuts for some domestic programs and boosts defense spending by $6 billion.

Just one GOP member split from the party, voting against the bill, while one Democrat voted to support it.

But the political calculus is different in the Senate.

Republicans will need a Democrats to cross the aisle in order to clear it from President Trump signature which is needed I midnight on Friday.

For more on what is in the bill and what is that state for New Jersey and elsewhere, I'm joined our Washington DC correspondent.

Obviously an especially busy time, good to see you.

What can you share with us about the talks happening within the Senate chambers right now?

They got a pretty impossible decision to make, vote for the bill, shut the government down.

Ben: bright, the house left yesterday afternoon after passing a Republican written bill that Democrats had no input in.

The house essentially dared the Senate to not pass the bill and then trigger a shutdown of the federal government, which would happen a little after midnight Friday Eastern time.

So the math is sort of interesting here come the Republicans have 53 seats, Cory Booker and Andy Kim art Democrats.

I will be watching to see what they do.

But Republicans to pass this need to get seven votes.

Need to overcome the filibuster and hit 60, and Rand Paul, a notorious debt halt is a likely know.

So they probably need to get eight votes all total, that is a math as we stand now.

Briana: What is in this bill?

What do we know about what is included and what is not included and what that means for folks here?

>> The basics are, this is what they call a continued resolution, but it is unusual because it is quite long.

It runs all the end of September which is when the federal budget Inn, and the elements I would point out that are most interesting to folks back in New Jersey or what is not in the bill, is things call community project funds or Earmarks were stripped out.

These are projects, lots of money that Police Department, libraries, nonprofits, health organizations petition Congress for and got in many cases, and at the 11th hour were stripped out after Republicans unveiled their new bill which the house passed yesterday.

There is another element that binds the hands of Congress if it wants to challenge the Trump Administration on trade policy.

The measure I'm talking about would limit what Congress can do to block Trump's tariffs and that also snuck in.

Those are two elements I'm paying attention to.

Briana: I know that is a big sticking point for Democrats of course.

It's also kind of unique, because we are already operating under a stopgap bill, are we not?

I can't recall a time that the government has been funded this long through ACR.

-- through a CR.

The budget wonks know that Congress hasn't actually passed a budget the way it is supposed to since the Clinton administration in the 1990's.

This is unusual-ish, a CR setting up another CR.

Trump and his advisor Elon Musk essentially torpedoed a bill that Democrats and Republicans have been working on for months, and I've written about that for the website before.

On the Republican side, they have a speaker in particular who is between two fierce forces.

One is the sinner flank who want to keep the government running and generally are OK with spending levels as they are, and then the hard right, which says no, we have to shut down the government at all costs.

And of course the president himself was calling members yesterday on the Republican side to urge them on that right flank to vote for the spending bill.

So we are stuck between those forces.

Briana: Midnight Friday is the deadline.

What happens otherwise?

>> Essential services would remain if there's a shutdown, things like the military, TSA, but Parks service would run out of money and fundamentally makes it very hard to manage and budget plan across federal agencies that are already reeling from deep cuts that the administration has made.

Briana: They sure are.

You can follow all of ben's reporting, NJ Spotlight.org.

Thanks so much.

With all the ships in Washington, many constituents are reporting their desire to meet with elected representatives in person and find out what the federal government is doing to address their concerns.

But last week, the chair of the national congressional Republican committee directed members to avoid in person town halls for now out of fear they would be heckled by protesters or interrupted by activists.

A look into the schedules of New Jersey's congressional members show democratic representatives are continuing to hold in person town hall meetings within their districts at the same rate, but Republicans are not.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz has more.

>> How are you going to vote on the CR?

Are you in favor of mass deportations in New Jersey?

>> This went viral last year and served to highlight the Republicans lack of public interaction with voters.

A strategy that has irked his opponents and activists, but has actually served him well, as evidenced by his defeat of his last two challengers.

It is a strategy that House speaker Mike Johnson said last week Republicans are employing across the country.

>> George Soros funded groups and others literally pay protesters, and assault my friend Hakeem Jeffries decrying that I said that, but we know that is a fact.

Democrat activists will show up to these town hall events and go in an hour early and fill all the seats, so the constituents and people from the community that are actually represented don't even get a seat.

I'm not saying all the Democrats in these town halls that you see on television were not from the local area, but there are people who do this as a profession.

They are professional protesters.

So why would we give them a form to do that right now?

>> The three Republicans in New Jersey's delegation appear to have gotten the memo.

Kane, Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew rarely hold any public forums.

They also rarely speak to the nonpartisan press, as evidenced by their lack of participation in this story.

But the congressmen have said date meet with constituents in smaller groups almost every day and that the telephone town halls they have are actually more productive when they are not being interrupted by demonstrators.

>> You're not doing your job.

You are disrespecting the needs and the expectations of your constituents.

>> Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman says hundreds of thousands of residents in the district that the new -- New Jersey Republicans represent are going to be directly impacted by proposed budget cuts to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, not to mention education and veterans health programs.

Press releases, tightly controlled telephone forums are insufficient, she says.

>> So what the speaker basically said is a lie down until the heat is off and maybe y'all can come out.

>> She says a congressperson's calendar may be full of opinions, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is meeting a lot of people.

>> They have public calendars of these events they're doing but they are often doing a lot of constituent meetings, meetings with leaders in the district that we actually never know about.

So I think there is often a lot of communication that they are doing outside of a town hall, so if he doesn't hold one of those, he's probably doing x, y, z, other things.

But oftentimes those opportunities are not soliciting the sort of broad participation that you might get from a town hall.

David: Watson Coleman said today that she and her Democratic colleagues are preparing to hold town hall meetings in Republican districts in order to give residents their a fuller picture of what is happening in Congress and how it will impact them.

All there waiting for, she says, is an invitation.

Debbie Cruz, "NJ Spotlight News" .

Briana: Make sure you turn into -- tune into Chat Box tomorrow night with David Cruise.

He talks with Senator Andy Kim about the chaos and confusion in Washington including cuts to Medicaid and the federal Department of education.

That's Thursday streaming on the "NJ Spotlight News" channel.

400 movie dollars in federal funding was pulled over last year's Palestinian federal protest, the U.S. Department of education this week sent letters to 60 other universities, warning they could face similar cuts.

The list includes three schools in New Jersey, Princeton University, Rutgers New Brunswick and Rutgers Newark.

All of which are under investigation by the Education Department for what it said or violations related to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports on the escalating situation and the implications for the future of free speech on college campuses.

Joanna: Three New Jersey universities have been given notice they can be next in line for funding cut from the U.S. Department of education over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests other campuses last year.

Rutgers New Brunswick, Rutgers Newark, and Princeton University could see cuts, accused of protecting -- failing to protect Jewish students from harassment.

>> There's no reason that any United States educational institution should be unsafe for any student, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, race, whatever.

Joanna: The Republican assembly been said he heard several complaints from parents of Rutgers students last year, claiming harassment other students while on campus and protests were being held on the campuses.

>> Some had yarmulkes hitting knocked off, jostled and things like that, so this is very serious.

>> Ryan stack is president of the adjunct faculty unit, he saw nothing of that sort.

>> I saw students engaging in protected speech in peaceful protest.

Nothing obscene at any protest at Rutgers has posed any threat to any person, Jewish or otherwise here.

Joanna: David is a Jewish professor who engage in the protest and disputes the claim of anti-Semitism then or more broadly on campus, even though earlier this year, Rutgers did reach a settlement with the Biden administration's U.S. Department of education after several student groups accuse the school of fostering a hostile environment on campus for Jewish Omma Palestinian, and other groups.

>> I find this accusation not only inaccurate but insulting and dangerous because it doesn't mention the fact that Jews were not threatened, they were welcome there.

I know because I went every single day.

Joanna: The Trump Administration has referenced title VI that prohibits discrimination for any entity receiving federal funding, but he and stack believe the funding cuts since -- signal a much more sinister motive by the Trump Administration.

>> I think is very worrying and concerning.

I think is part of a broader effort that the Trump Administration would like to see become successful to discipline universities and to control the kinds of offerings they can provide to students.

>> I don't think that is what title VI is about.

If you feel uncomfortable because you hear ideas that are challenging to your sense of self, that is different than being threatened.

The idea that the Trump Administration is acting in defense out of good conscience and solidarity with Jewish people and U.S. safety is laughable.

It is insulting.

It is disgusting.

Elon Musk, his best friend, gives nazi salutes.

One of Trump's first actions was to pardon violent anti-Semites.

The thing about Columbia is obviously meant to stop all of us from viewpoint said he disagrees with.

>> It would be a terrible outcome.

But I do think it is the outcome that the Trump administration wants, and unfortunately, far too many democratically elected officials are pushing for it as well.

To me, it is really urgent that Rutgers administration push back against this effort.

Joanna: Should Rutgers push back even at the risk of losing millions of dollars?

>> I understand and that is what the dilemma will be for them.

But as a public university, your first obligation, in my view, is the maintenance of academic freedom.

Joanna: You are a professor yourself.

Critics of this move say it is criminalizing criticism of another state, and they see that as going down a very dangerous road.

Do you agree with that?

>> No, because I don't believe it is just a free-speech issue.

I think it is threatening safety and there is a line between free speech and threatening the rights and well-being of others.

Joanna: He says the very act of setting up encampments made it criminal in the schools fail by capitulating to the demands of the protesters.

He says the cuts should be a wake-up call.

>> Certainly is going to get their attention.

Hopefully they will make the necessary changes to be able to justify reading stating whether the funding is threatened.

Joanna: For now, no direct threats, just uncertainty about what comes next.

For "NJ Spotlight News", I'm Joanna Gagis.

Briana: That will do it for us tonight.

As a reminder, you can download our pod tech -- podcasts or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

I'm Briana Vannozzi, for the entire team at "NJ Spotlight News" thanks for being with us.

Have a great night.

We will see you right back here tomorrow.

>> New Jersey education Association, making public schools great for every child.

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