▶ 0:00:00LGBTQ issues. In the 2018 cohort, not a single Republican or conservative winner could be found among the biographies. Most recently, for the class of 2025, we found 43 of the 54 winners have worked for Democratic politicians, advocated progressive causes, or identify as left-leaning. Only three scholars openly supported conservative causes.
▶ 0:00:26The college fix also reviewed the jobs and careers of the 2015 to 202022 cohorts to determine what the Truman beneficiaries are doing. Now, our research revealed that the scholarship spawns 35 Democratic careers for every one Republican career. At least 226 of these scholarship recipients have obtained jobs and careers directly tied to or advancing left-wing beliefs or the Democratic platform.
▶ 0:00:56In contrast, only four Truman alumni could be found to have worked in GOP politics or conservative causes. The Truman Scholarship also seeks regional diversity in its selections and tries to award its scholarships to students from winners in every state.
▶ 0:01:14We looked at the 125 Truman scholars from 2015 to 2024 from states like Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and Utah. Of those, 60 of the scholars, or 48% went to have at least one job working for left-wing progressive or Democratic causes after winning the scholarship. In contrast, only three winners could be found to have gone on to work for a conservative or Republican cause.
▶ 0:01:44The imbalance shows that those nominating and selecting the winners of this taxpayer-f funed scholarship favor left-wing, Democratic, and progressive causes. This structural bias persists across many years, and it contradicts the program's public purpose.
▶ 0:02:02The decade-long data reveals a taxpayer funded funded program that in practice functions as a talent pipeline for the Democratic Party and liberal activist Thank you. I look forward to our discussion today.
▶ 0:02:18Thank you. I now [clears throat] recognize Miss Harrington for your
▶ 0:02:25Good morning, Chairman Owens, Ranking Member Adams, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Ashley Harrington. I serve as a senior policy counsel at the legal defense and educational fund. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Founded by our nation's first black US Supreme Court justice, Thood Marshall, LDF is America's premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. For 85 years, LDF has advocated for equal opportunity for all.
▶ 0:02:51We work to dismantle barriers that hold people back because of their race, their zip code, or the wealth they were born into. Since the historic US Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education, which LDF litigated and won, we have continued to fight for the rights of black students to receive highquality, equitable educational opportunities as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
▶ 0:03:12Our constitutional principle of equal protection under the law mandates that school districts, post-secondary institutions, states, and the federal government provide equal educational opportunities for all students, including black students and other students of color, LGBTQIA students, students with disabilities, immigrant students, and other historically marginalized populations. Today's hearing is about the Truman Scholarship, which was created by Congress 50 years ago to invest in future public servants.
▶ 0:03:41The bipartisan board of trustees that oversees the Truman scholarship and the individuals involved in selecting scholars have recognized potential for impactful public service in roughly 3,500 talented individuals over the past half century. These scholars are selected without regard to partisan identity and pursue varied fields of study ranging from law and policy to public health and Attempts to label broad categories of public service as inherently partisan are harmful. But we know what this is.
▶ 0:04:12This is just the latest action in the continuous effort of the Trump administration and its congressional allies to infringe upon the first amendment rights of individuals by attempting to punish those who disagree with the ad administration's ideologies. But public service has no ideology, and public service certainly cannot be cabined only to those views and issues that the administration favors.
▶ 0:04:36Regardless, the Truman Scholarship represents an appropriation of $3 million a year and directly impacts just 50 to 60 students annually. The cuts to the higher education safety net made in the one big beautiful bill are of far greater consequence to the millions of Americans who have never even heard of the Truman Scholarship. They are the students who are already struggling with student debt, the parents unsure how they will pay for their ch children's education, and the working adults trying to return to school to improve their lives.
▶ 0:05:07Every year, millions of students enroll in college, and millions more pursue graduate and professional degrees. They do so because they understand the earnings premium and opportunities that come with education. But they also do so with growing anxiety about affordability, debt, and whether our systems are truly designed to support them.
▶ 0:05:26They include students of color, first generation students, veterans, adult learners, and low-income Americans, current and future students who are counting on this committee to care about their economic mobility and their access to opportunity, not just talking points. The Truman Scholarship's $3 million is a drop in the bucket compared to what our nation spends on higher education each year.
▶ 0:05:49Across programs and departments, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on higher education with about 120 billion allocated to students in federal grants and loans alone. There are 43 million Americans shouldering $1.6 trillion in student debt. That is why I hope today's conversation can shift towards making our entire higher education system more affordable and accessible for all students.
▶ 0:06:15Instead of having a narrow partisan dialogue about the very few who receive this elite Instead of removing barriers, the OBBA constructs new ones, pitting everyday Americans against the wealthy few and making it even harder for people to pursue education as a pathway to a better life. But there is another way. Congress can increase the PEL grant, invest in historically black colleges and universities, and minority serving institutions such as predominantly black institutions.
▶ 0:06:43They can ensure that grad students and dependent students have access to the aid needed to pursue higher education. Ensure that there are truly affordable repayment options for student borrowers that include pathways to debt relief. They can strengthen pro protections against predatory institutions. and they can protect the Department of Education because none of this is possible unless it is fully resourced to enforce civil rights, administer aid, and oversee institutions. The pursuit of racial justice and equal opportunity for all should be a shared value and not exclusive to a single party.
▶ 0:07:14Students and families deserve more from their policy makers. They deserve a higher education system that opens doors rather than closes them. And a Congress committed to ensuring that opportunity is not reserved for the privileged, but available to all. Thank you.
▶ 0:07:30Thank you so much. Um I last like to recognize Miss Kell for your testimony.
▶ 0:07:34Thank you, Chairman Owens, uh Ranking Member Adams, and members of the committee. My name is Adam Kle. I'm a visiting fellow for higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation. The views I expressed today are my own and should not be construed as representing Heritage. I also was deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs at the education department in the first Trump administration. Thank you for this opportunity to outline some ideological biases in the structure and rhetoric of the Truman program. And I'll offer two ideas for addressing them.
▶ 0:08:05First, the program steers applications to the left and discourages applications from the right. Just look at the website. The sample application responses have several examples. No example of a successful response is rightcoded, while many are clearly leftcoded.
▶ 0:08:23Topics for the successful essays included environmental racism and community organizing while unsuccessful ones included students who wanted to study military history, students who are Christians, students who express Second, the website directs advisers of applicants to focus on quote change agents. This term is commonly used on the progressive left due to its ideology of radically changing American institutions.
▶ 0:08:51Likewise, the program privileges quote advocacy over other kinds of public service. You can see this for yourself on the website. This rhetoric discourages conservatives from applying because we often more more often speak of preserving American traditions and values. For us, public service often means supporting what is good in the current order against efforts to change it. Third, the program's regulatory definition of public service. Getting into some details here, uh it's not in the statute.
▶ 0:09:20This definition is also somewhat left coded. The definition emphasizes environmentalism but not for example protection of unborn children. Imagine who would apply if the program instead gave examples of constitutionalists or promoters of strong families or federalism. Fourth, the program excludes MBAs almost entirely from the competition.
▶ 0:09:43The positive role of American business in society might be something we'll have to debate another day, but even the left today recognizes how profitmaking businesses engage in public service in many ways. This MBA prohibition again is not in the statute or regulations. It's just in the operation of the program. And finally, higher education is skewed deeply to the left. So the applicant pool itself is skewed deeply to the left. So, no one should be surprised that right-leaning colleges seldom see the point of sending applicants.
▶ 0:10:14Pepperdine, Liberty, Grand Canyon Universities, they've had zero Truman scholars across the program's entire history. Hillsdale has had just one. So, I have two policy ideas or recommendations to consider. Easy one, as Mr. Hess said, is revise the program's regulations and website to remove their biases, including the definition of public service, so that it's as neutral as it can be. not discouraging conservatives or or any ideology.
▶ 0:10:41And second, an idea to consider is to harmonize the Truman program with a program called the Graduate Assistance in areas of national need program, GAN. In that program, the Secretary of Education consults with other agencies and nonprofits, say the National Science Foundation, Department of War, to determine the national need in graduate education.
▶ 0:11:01And this process results in priorities that genuinely serve the nation such as cyber security, artificial intelligence, and this is under both Republican and Democratic administrations for the GAN program. These changes would better honor President Truman's legacy. So, thank you again for the opportunity to provide this testimony.
▶ 0:11:21Thank you. Thank you so much. Under committee rule nine, I will now question witnesses under the five-minute rule. I'll recognize myself for five minutes. Uh Dr. has uh you mentioned the students interested in the four prominent um left-leaning issues outnumbered those interested in the four prominent right-leaning issues better uh by better than 12 to1. Uh that's truly unbelievable. By the way, if Hillary tables were turned and liberal students were being discriminated against, the left would be at rape.
▶ 0:11:49Are you aware of any federal education programs where conservatives win 12 times as much as
▶ 0:11:56Uh no, I am not. Um, and I think it's important to understand here that this is not just about partisan balance. Uh, the point of the Truman is to recruit young Americans who are interested in public service so that they might advance the so they might serve the needs of the nation. This is about Americans who bring different values and different ideas to the table.
▶ 0:12:21Thank you. Um I think we we all can agree and I'm going to ask Miss Harrison a quick question that u any taxpayer funding should be opportunity should not be discriminary. Correct. Right. Anything that taxpayers are paying for should not be discriminary.
▶ 0:12:44That's easy. Yes or no?
▶ 0:12:45Okay. Thank you. there are millions and millions of black conservatives like myself. How many black conservatives have ever been um selected as Truman scholar?
▶ 0:12:59Sorry, is that to me, sir?
▶ 0:13:01I don't think any of us know, right? Even the research that we're talking about today has only looked at a limited number of bios and they're doing it based on their own research of social media and um and not have
▶ 0:13:12there's no way to find out if if this if this in other words we're trying to make sure that it is very open uh very inclusive and there's no way to see if any black conservatives ever have been selected as Truman that should be a big deal. I would think that would be a really highlight of the Truman scholarship program to say we service everyone including black conservatives. I think the bigger deal is does our higher education system as a whole service everyone. And what we're worried about are the millions of Americans, not the 50 or 60 a year.
▶ 0:13:41There are millions of Americans struggling in our higher
▶ 0:13:43and we're we're losing our battle by the way uh because of liberal policy. So just All right. Thank you so much. Um uh Miss Kabani, you mentioned the college fix has been investigating Truman Foundation for nearly 10 years. Uh one thing that struck out to me is how consistent your finding are each year. Liberal winners uh massively outnumber conservatives every single year regardless of which party is in power who's running office. Um what do you think this says about the program
▶ 0:14:15Well, what it says is that this program is essentially a talent pipeline and taxpayer funded scholarship program uh for the Democratic party and the liberal activist network. It also shows that the the system is is inherently broken. There's a systemic bias that starts at the campus level all the way up to the final decisions that needs to be
▶ 0:14:37Thank you, Miss Kell. Mr. Kessle, uh, you mentioned the program structure assumes that for-profit corporations in the private sector can never serve the public and conversely nonprofits, the cons the government sector always act uh in the public interest. Personally, I don't think either of this is true. Uh can you say more about why sub uh some types of for-profit uh work perhaps could count towards Truman public service requirements?
▶ 0:15:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh whenever there's a voluntary transaction, uh both sides are better off. That's econ 101. When a any public company uh or or for-profit company is uh contributing to the public by selling goods and services that people want, they're engaging in a kind of public service. But uh maybe more to the point uh lots of companies have a public service component to what they do. They'll have a philanthropy arm. They'll have a community outreach arm.
▶ 0:15:33And if you are in a field where you're helping the public, it shouldn't matter whether the structure of your organization is for-profit or nonprofit.
▶ 0:15:42Thank you. Okay. I'm going to yield back my time now to ranking member recognized uh u for the purpose of questions or Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, when when students dream about college, they they they shouldn't be left wondering whether the federal government will still be there when they when when they arrive, wondering if the Department of Education will be open or wondering if the programs they rely on, PEL grants, campus support programs, H.B.CU funding will still exist by the time they graduate.
▶ 0:16:13I spent more than 40 years in a classroom as a professor and I know that uncertainty by itself can derail a student. When programs disappear overnight, students lose their footing. And when an entire federal program is put on the chopping block, the consequences are felt in in every classroom, every campus, and every community. So, let's put the numbers in perspective. The Truman Foundation uh is receiving a lot of attention today, but students aren't struggling because of the Truman Scholarship.
▶ 0:16:43They're struggling because Congress passed a law that gutted PEL/ student aid and weakened the support systems that help low-income and first generation students stay enrolled. While we debate a scholarship program that has supported public service for nearly 50 years, we're watching in real time the federal government dismantled the US Department of Education. The Trump administration has laid off nearly half of the department's workforce.
▶ 0:17:10It's canceled and withheld billions in grants and it's uh signed inter agency agreements to to move critical functions including the entire office of postsecary [clears throat] education out of the department altogether. Well, that's not reform. Uh that is a retreat from our responsibility to students. So, let me turn to our witnesses.
▶ 0:17:32Harrian, uh, the Truman Foundation could receive roughly $30 million in federal support over 10 years, but HR1, which my colleague supported, cut 284 billion from education over that same period. So, can you speak to the relative importance of that $30 million compared to the scale of the 284 billion in cuts and and what does that difference mean for students, for institutions, for the future of federal support for higher education?
▶ 0:18:03Absolutely. It's a drop in the bucket. The billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars that we spend every year, the hundreds of billions of dollars that are going to be cut because of this bill are going to those cuts are going to fall directly on students, families, and institutions. Students are going to have to make hard decisions about whether they can go to college, stay in college. Folks are going to have to make hard decisions about how they're going to manage their student loans um with the debt that they currently have. Parents are going to have to make hard decisions about whether they can afford to send their kids to school.
▶ 0:18:32Schools are going to have to make hard decisions about what programs they are able to keep, but some of them whether they're even able to stay open with these changes. We should be very concerned. We know that there's an affordability crisis in higher education. We know that there's a student debt crisis and that is disproportionately burdening families of color, low-income students, um veterans, women, all the folks who are disproportionately harmed when we make these huge cuts. This bill doesn't make life easier or make higher education more accessible for any of these communities.
▶ 0:19:02It puts it further out of reach.
▶ 0:19:04So, so thank you. And my colleagues have talked a lot about eliminating the Department of Education, but I'm not sure the American people understand what the department actually does for students. So, so let me ask, can you tell us what the Department of Education does for college students, for institutions of higher education, and can you talk about the negative impact that these layoffs, grant cancellations, inter agency transfers have already had, especially on campuses trying to serve students?
▶ 0:19:30And how will the continuing dismantling of the department affect our most vulnerable students, low-income students, first generation students, and students of color? The Department of Education was created by statute by Congress and one of its most important functions is that it protects the civil rights of students. Students are able if they are being discriminated against on their campus, in their school district, um anywhere to pro to file complaints and to have that investigated by OCR, the Office of Civil Rights.
▶ 0:19:58But right now, because that department has been gutted and that office specifically, thousands of complaints are going unanswered. Folks don't have a response. Um, last year alone there were 23,000 complaints made to the Office of Civil Rights. Many of them are still open. Folks have submitted complaints this year. There is no continuity. They have no idea who their case officer is. There is no idea for next steps. And that impacts the schools and institutions as well. Many of them are waiting for guidance on what to do next. They're waiting on guidance on how to handle this.
▶ 0:20:26They're trying to do the right thing, but they don't even have anyone they can contact at the department. So let me ask you that about the dismantling of this department and the transfer of elimination of core programs and how it affects H.B.CU's ability to serve their students uh and strengthen their campuses and continue their mission.
▶ 0:20:44Anytime we try to move broad swaps of a program, we saw this already with the transfer of the office of career and technical education. There were disruptions in funding, disruptions in the system. All of this takes time to implement. It's not something that can be done overnight. We see this moving to departments where they don't have the expertise, the resources, the years of experience with these programs. And so there are going to be funding disruptions and that will be most felt by the schools that are most
▶ 0:21:08Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 0:21:11Thank you. Uh like to now recognize my friend from New York, um Miss Stefanic, who is actually a former member, a board member of Truman.
▶ 0:21:20Thank you so much, Chairman Owens. Um thank you for the witnesses for being here today. I've been tracking these issues quite closely and your work for some time and most recently as a sitting board member of the foundation and the first board meeting will be right after this hearing in about 5 minutes. I sent a letter to my fellow board members on May 28th of this year raising serious concerns regarding the ideological bias and impartiality of the scholarship selection process. So I have a few questions for some of the witnesses. Mr.
▶ 0:21:48Kissle, based on your work examining ideological issues in higher education, what are the inherent risks to a congressionally established scholarship program like the Truman Foundation when public reporting suggests its selection process may be prioritizing ideological alignment over the merits of leadership and public service?
▶ 0:22:09Thank you for the question. U every government body can easily be captured by politics and ideology. uh non-governmental bodies can as well, but the problem is especially acute for organizations like the Truman program where the members of the foundation are political members.
▶ 0:22:29Thank you. Um Ms. Kabani, do you believe that the foundation's current lack of transparency in its selection criteria and the makeup of its selection committees make it vulnerable to political and social activism rather than those committed to broad nonpartisan public service? Absolutely. That can have an impact on who they decide to send forward as the candidates and the fellows.
▶ 0:22:53Also on the campus level, those that are deciding who gets put to the regional committees, I mean the they're professors and we all know 30 to one professors are liberals. So they're obviously going to advance candidates who have uh beliefs and pet causes that they love and they support and they want to see funded. So the the bias is actually starts at the campus level and then goes to the regional and the final two. So it's it's really
▶ 0:23:21Thank you. Dr. Hess, I have questioned the will and commitment of the foundation's board to maintaining ideological neutrality. What specific actions or policy changes should the board and the foundation immediately implement to restore public trust and demonstrate a genuine commitment to political and ideological neutrality in their selections? It's a great question. Look, and it's important for folks to understand why this matters so much.
▶ 0:23:47The Truman Fellowship exists as a model of how we want to encourage young Americans to engage in public service. We want young leaders who can model the breadth of good faith disagreement in this country, who can bridge divides, who can lead us forward. We cannot do this if half of the nation is not is not at the table. So what kinds of changes are necessary?
▶ 0:24:13One, look, the pro Truman program ought to understand its primary mission as making sure it is inviting all Americans to the table. It needs to recruit aggressively on campuses where it is not currently getting submissions. It needs to make sure it is reaching out to networks it may not have already tapped. There needs to be public transparency and scrutiny about the processes.
▶ 0:24:39Uh right now the regional review boards if you survey as the as the chairman mentioned if you survey uh the makeup of the judges it's pretty clear that there's a heavy ideological tilt that needs to be addressed. There need to be clear guidelines on the kinds of questions that should and should not be asked in the interview process.
▶ 0:25:02Um really what we need is a a a somebody to approach this with the primary goal of reassuring all Americans, all students, all professors that we are trying to create a heterodox inclusive community of scholars who can lead us forward rather than one that happens to be responsive to orthodoxy on campus.
▶ 0:25:25Well, thank you. That's one of my missions and one of the reasons that I requested uh for this position on the board and I've been deeply concerned. One of the most egregious examples is there was a 2025 Truman scholar who publicly espouse for support for Hamas, a US designated foreign terrorist organization. Uh as you know, I've been a leader in combating anti-semitism in the higher education space.
▶ 0:25:50and we need to address this rise of anti-semitism with some of the recipients of the Truman scholarship program. So, thank you very much. Look forward to working with you to try to implement many of these policy reforms and I yield back.
▶ 0:26:02Thank you. I'd like now to recognize my friend from Georgia, Miss McBth.
▶ 0:26:05Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being with us today. I've already read your testimonies. Miss Harrington, my father was president of the Illinois branch uh NAACP for over 20 years in Chicago in Illinois at the height of the civil rights movement. And I'm so glad to see you here today to continue the important work to help this country actually live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all people.
▶ 0:26:30That promise, despite being the culminating line of our pledge of allegiance, despite being recited by members of Congress and classrooms around the country every single day, is one that is increasingly under attack by my Republican colleagues in Congress and the White House. Time and time again, Republicans attempt to demonize programs that make people's lives better as politically biased because they simply don't believe them to be an important role of our government.
▶ 0:27:00It isn't about evaluating these programs on their merits or the benefit that they provide. It's about trying to fulfill their narrow view of what the role of our federal government should be. It's about propping up the idea that their way of thinking is the only acceptable one regardless of the outcomes of the policies that they support.
▶ 0:27:23They're so focused on those goals that they fail to see the benefits that the work of these scholars and other public servants provides to our country and actually for the world. It's why this administration would rather pay money to set food on fire and destroy it than to see it end up in the hands of hungry women and Wanting to represent your country on the largest stage in the in order to share how your work makes this country
▶ 0:27:53a better place is not a progressive ideal. It's a uniquely American one. wanting to lead in spaces like human rights, wanting to eradicate poverty at home and abroad so that all those that are made in God's image can live a decent and fulfilling life. These are not progressive or partisan ideals. These are the things that make millions of Americans um take real pride in their lives every single day.
▶ 0:28:23It's what is supposed to make this country so special and better than others like it. It isn't just about where you were born or where you live. It's about what your country stands for. Whether it's really fighting for the ideals or just talking about them out of convenience. Miss Harrington, as you know, the Truman Foundation requires scholars to take a job in public service for at least three of the seven years after their studies.
▶ 0:28:52This suggests the idea that the scholarship's focus on public service itself is the source of the misguided opinion that a disproportionate share of Truman scholars are progressive. Can you please talk about how conservative attacks on the importance and the benefits of public service play a role in the makeup of Truman scholarship recipients? And if you can do so quickly, I have such short time.
▶ 0:29:20I think this is just an attack on on disscent and and public service should have no ideology as you mentioned. Um and so with bipartisan a bipartisan board of trustees, bipartisan selection committee, bipartisan selection this is this they have created a program that values people who are interested in public service. Period. It's not about partisan identity, but they're also trying to do an attack on public service and descent so that they can also impact the services that are provided by these entities, right?
▶ 0:29:50And the communities that are impacted by these services. And so it's an idea of not just attacking the beliefs and ideologies, but what the what hap what what organizations, governments can do for the communities they serve.
▶ 0:30:03Thank you. So, this is clearly just another episode of selective outrage over the use of public dollars. So, let's put this in perspective. We are having a hearing today over an annual appropriation that's made by Congress of just $3 million. Just three million. An appropriation supported by Congress and signed into law by the president.
▶ 0:30:28President Trump Trump just sent $20 billion dollar and that's billion with a B to help his political allies in Argentina win a foreign election. And the Republican majority will not condemn that as a misuse of public funds. I don't believe any committee or subcommittee has had a hearing on that.
▶ 0:30:53Instead, we're using the people's time to examine $3 million specifically dedicated to scholarships meant for people trying to make this country a better and safer place to live. I don't believe this is a good use of this subcommittee or any subcommittee's time. And I hope that we recommmit ourselves to real issues that have a positive impact on Americans everyday lives. And I yield.
▶ 0:31:17Thank you. And I'd like to recognize my friend from Wisconsin, Mr. Kaufman. Thank you very much. Uh Miss um Kabani, uh I I found your testimony very interesting, particularly interesting given this is a public program. You mentioned that the people who run the program kind of scrubbed some information that you wanted and you couldn't really get all the information you wanted to adequately do the study.
▶ 0:31:44Could you comment on a little bit and perhaps why the people who run the uh um run the Truman Foundation want to hide things from Congress and the
▶ 0:31:58Yes. So I I am aware that the biographies of the Truman winners have been removed. They used to publish. We started our research in 2015 and they used to publish everyone's biography, what nonprofits they were interested in, who they volunteered with, who they've interned with. And now when they publish the winners, they just give their name in their school. Do they even Yeah, just the name in the school.
▶ 0:32:24And so we've used our the LinkedIn bios and their social media accounts um and other, you know, school biographies or other public statements that they've made, but the uh unfortunately the Truman Foundation has made it a bit more difficult for us to do our research every year.
▶ 0:32:41Okay. Kind of that contempt for for the public. Um okay, other couple comments as far as the Argentina thing. I don't mean to get into that, but I believe it was a currency swamp. It wasn't a guess. and leases of a couple months ago. The US was ahead of the game in that. Um uh um do you guys know one of you mentioned the already ideological bias that conservatives have to put up with from the faculty of the universities around the country?
▶ 0:33:10I think one of you threw out, but I'd like to repeat what of the percentage of faculty in this country, particularly liberal arts faculty that are kind of of the progressive bent.
▶ 0:33:22Yes. So look, study after study shows that 30 to1 40 to1 uh professors are liberal to conservative. And so whoever is tasked on these campuses with selecting the Truman fellows to nominate forward to the regional committees is probably a liberal and they probably like liberal causes, progressive co causes, democratic causes. So it's really no surprise that the applicants that are moving forward uh lean left.
▶ 0:33:51So the the problem starts on the campuses and whoever is selected on each campus to advance their uh school's nominee.
▶ 0:34:00Okay. Um um uh Miss Harrington uh when she talked she uh mentioned that uh DEI was mentioned as a favorable thing. Is anybody familiar with where the DEI philosophy came from or familiar with Christopher Rufo's writings? You want to want to elaborate a little on uh who came up with DEI and what their ultimate goal is?
▶ 0:34:31Um I mean the critical theory started as a school of literary thought uh more than half century ago. It was brought into particularly law as a way of pushing back on some of the assumptions of the American of the US Constitution and of established federal law and state
▶ 0:34:50What what is the goal of labeling people by where their ancestors come from? Why is this so obsessed over today?
▶ 0:35:00You know, I mean, I think there are obviously two schools of thought when it comes to equality. One is that Americans need to be equal under the law. Um, a second is a philosophy of equity. uh, we'll give Jennifer one more question. Uh, what push back has there been against, uh, been against the left term from the Truman Foundation? Has there been push back?
▶ 0:35:26No. um they essentially just say, "Well, we can only field the players we're given." And so, okay, how do we reform the players they're given then? Because if we want to fix this and and create some balance, we need to advertise better on campuses to college Republicans, Turning Point USA and Young Americans for Freedom and make sure that uh maybe the College of Business or the College of Economics so that a wider net is cast and we get more applicants and then
▶ 0:35:57make sure that the faculty who are selecting these candidates know that they need to put the best person forward, not just the one that mirrors what they believe. Okay, Miss Harrington, you want diversity. Uh, the country right now is about one half Republican, one half Democrat about. Do you think it'd be a good goal for the Truman Foundation to have approximately one half of their recipients more of the conservative bent and one half more of the progressive bent?
▶ 0:36:22I think the best goal for all programs and particularly for this committee to focus on is ensuring that we are taking down barriers and improving access for all. And that is the point of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access programs which are help which helps universities and will help this and will help institutions actually comply with their civil rights obligations and ensure that they're prime pro um providing equal opportunity. So this is about taking down barriers and not continue to put barriers up.
▶ 0:36:48We know who the barriers are against. But in any event, thank you.
▶ 0:36:53Thank you. I'd like now my have my uh acknowledge my friend from Oregon, Miss
▶ 0:36:59Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chairman and ranking member, I I have to say it's pretty disappointing and also pretty tonedeaf for the majority to use this committee's valuable time to talk about this politicized issue. I have been on this committee for more than a dozen years. And you know, Dr. Hers talked about bridging divides. I can't remember a hearing that hasn't that has felt more divisive than this with these labels, left, right, conservative, liberal. My constituents back home aren't looking at labels. They want us to fix problems.
▶ 0:37:27They don't want us to label each other and labor label ideologies. And I have to say that, you know, Republicans want to talk about this scholarship program, but what we should be talking about is how we make higher education more affordable and accessible. We got the big ugly bill that wiped out federal support for student aid, the final rule on the public service loan forgiveness program, now is subjecting public service workers to unfair political litmus tests and unnecessary limits on loan forgiveness. Let's talk about that.
▶ 0:37:53The administration is doing everything it can to undermine and shut down the Department of Education and the programs it administers that help students like TRIO and Gear Up. Let's talk about the harmful and nonsensical declaration by the Trump administration that certain fields of study, including nursing, are no longer professional. Now, it's going to make it harder for people to enter into this necessary and honorable work.
▶ 0:38:14And last week, the Department of Education announced another six inter agency agreements are going to move several core functions to other agencies that are unequipped and uh uh underfunded and don't have the staff to operate these programs. This includes everything in the office of post-secary education which administers critical higher education grant programs and technical assistance. And I want to ask you, Miss Harrington, what's the role of the Office of Post-Secary Education in implementing higher education policy in overseeing student centered grant programs?
▶ 0:38:44And what's at stake if students in colleges aren't able to access those services provided by the Office of Post-Cary Education in a timely manner,
▶ 0:38:54it will be incredibly it could be catastrophic. Um, their role is to not just determine who who how grants are awarded to determine the the qualifications. They work directly with institutions to implement the programs. They work directly with institutions to answer questions to make sure that the programs are operating effectively, that they're getting to the students that they're supposed to get to and evaluating their programs.
▶ 0:39:15So, if you move them to another department that has no experience and doesn't have the staff to do this, then you're going to directly impact those institutions and their ability to carry out the programs and the students that relied on those
▶ 0:39:26This is just closing the doors of opportunity to many. And Miss Harrington, I trust we can agree that public service workers like teachers, nurses, first responders, service members, those are critical jobs despite the low wages and underst staffing. So the new public service loan forgiveness rule will continue the Trump administration's legacy of abandoning public service workers by allowing the secretary to determine who's eligible for public service loan forgiveness based on political ideology, which is not what the country expects or needs.
▶ 0:39:53Public service workers deserve transparency in a system that works for them. So with that in mind, how will the new uh final rule on public service loan forgiveness affect the ability of public ser service workers to remain in their roles and achieve meaningful debt relief and will it reduce the number of nurses for example uh that will help maintain our healthare system and if you could be brief because I have another question for Dr.
▶ 0:40:16Absolutely. is going to determine if we if folks can if the Trump administration can take away status as being a PSLF employer, that means fewer folks are going to be able to go into those industries, go into those organizations, and that has direct impact on
▶ 0:40:28Thank you very much. Um, Dr. Hess, I just have a a couple of yes or no questions. You wrote an article called, "Do the roads and Truman Scholarship have any room for the right?" And you wrote that with a Mr. Joe Pitts. Is that
▶ 0:40:41And and does Mr. Joe Pittz identify as a conservative? I believe so.
▶ 0:40:47is it correct that Joe Pittz was a Truman Scholar nominee who did not get a
▶ 0:40:52I believe so.
▶ 0:40:53And was that fact disclosed in the article that you wrote?
▶ 0:40:57I don't believe so.
▶ 0:40:58And you don't think it would be helpful for people reading that article to know that there was a disgruntled Truman scholar who was participating in the report? You don't think that would be helpful for them to know?
▶ 0:41:08Uh, it didn't seem material to me.
▶ 0:41:11Okay. In your May 2025 op-ed called the Truman Foundation must embrace civic seriousness. Uh you were the sole off a author of that I understand but at one point you quote an unnamed recent Truman finalist. Was that finalist you quote but did not name Mr. Pittz?
▶ 0:41:29Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. I I submit that many people would be interested in knowing that there was it was a disgruntled uh Truman uh nominee who did not get the scholarship who participated in the report. I think that's important information and I yield back the balance of my time.
▶ 0:41:44Thank you. Uh I'd like to recognize my friend from Guam, Miss Malone.
▶ 0:41:49Thank you, Chairman Owens and Ranking Member Adams. Uh thanks for hosting today's important hearing on Truman Scholarship Program. And since its inception, the program has provided critical financial support for students in the territories, including 27 scholars from Guam, 22 of which were from the University of Guam, which coincidently established when Harry Truman was president. And the program has also supported an additional 75 students from the other territories and commonwealths.
▶ 0:42:18In comparison, other public service scholarships like Broads, Marshalls, and Fulbright select far fewer, if any, awardees from the territories. Now, while college affordability is a problem everywhere, high higher education costs and geographic barriers mean that it is especially challenging for students from Guam to access higher education. Receiving the Truman Scholarship can and has been transformational for students who receive it.
▶ 0:42:47So that's that is why I'm concerned to hear instances of political bias in federally funded program. This is the type of behavior that can threaten the program long-term sustainability and we must ensure that it is being administered fairly without regard for political affiliation ensuring students across the political spectrum have a chance to s succeed.
▶ 0:43:11So, uh, Miss Cobony, conservative students may be less likely to pursue degrees in social science and more likely to pursue degrees in things like business, criminal justice, engineering fields that aren't typically associated with the traditional public service. From what I heard, uh, the scholarship program can sometimes have limited outreach to programs that tend to have conservative students in them.
▶ 0:43:39What reforms can be made to ensure broader outreach and therefore greater intellectual and political diversity?
▶ 0:43:48Thank you for the question. So, I think that we need to do better advertising and marketing to uh students who tend to go into those fields that you s you cited off because $30,000 for grad school is $30,000 for grad school. I mean, I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving three years of a job of public service. Conservatives and Republicans love public service just as much as left-leaning students do. And it's a wonderful opportunity.
▶ 0:44:12I mean, a lot of times people have been saying, "Well, it's only $3 million." But the Truman Scholarship fellows have an outsized role in advancing the the nation national conversation. They go they they go into jobs that are influencing, you know, lawmakers that are influencing think tank policy papers that are influencing um all sorts of advocacy work.
▶ 0:44:36So they're the cream of the crop of our students and they're driven, they're ambitious, they're talented, and our right-leaning s students deserve a fair shot at at such a wonderful opportunity as much as the left-leaning students do.
▶ 0:44:50Thank you, Mr. Hess. Uh in your testimony you touched on political bias problem with a specific focus on the awardes political learnings. This seems to also indicate that there could be bias in some of the panels selecting finalists and winners. You mentioned this briefly in your written testimony, but did you also do research into political learning of these panels? If so, what did you find?
▶ 0:45:15Um I have not delved deeply into the makeup of the regional review boards. Um if one looks at the publicly available names and tries to identify their ideological leanings uh it's roughly four to one uh left to right.
▶ 0:45:31I mean, I think it's useful to understand uh I've had a number of former Truman uh fellows and Truman board members reach out over the last year or so since I wrote this and one former Truman board member explained that when this question comes up of why there are not more right-leaning folks involved in the program, there generally are two responses.
▶ 0:45:54uh he indicated one was that look Republicans and conservatives just aren't interested in public service. That's why they're not here. They just don't want to be here. And the second is, you know, conservatives and Republicans, they're just not as academically accomplished. They're just not as credentialed. So, they are losing out in a merit-based competition. Um, personally, having been a teacher, a professor, and a scholar at AEI for decades, I have not found either of those defenses to ring true.
▶ 0:46:26U, one last thing as a followup also, what steps might Congress be able to take to ensure balance and fair representation on these review and award
▶ 0:46:37Um, honestly, I'm less concerned about representation than I am about fairness and merit. For instance, of the 182 awardees in the between 2021 and 2023, just four looked at cyber security and technology. This says to me that the priorities of what judges are looking for and asking about are a skew. And so I think what we need is careful scrutiny to ensure that it is public service in the national interest with an eye to forging inclusive, healthy conversation.
▶ 0:47:08Thank you very much to the panel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You go back.
▶ 0:47:11Thank you. I'd like to recognize my friend from from Arizona, Miss Coralver.
▶ 0:47:16Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I'm deeply frustrated that we're sitting in this committee room listening to Republicans recite the same culture war talking points instead of discussing how we can address college affordability in that crisis. This year, congressional Republicans slashed over 300 billion in federal student aid on top of cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. All to give billionaires a permanent tax break.
▶ 0:47:41As a member on the Education and Workforce Committee, I'm disappointed that my Republican colleagues choose to spend taxpayer dollars this way rather than reinvesting in our higher education system to lower student costs. Miss Harrington, what message are congressional Republicans and the Trump administration sending to students and families and colleges by diverting over 300 billion from students towards tax cuts for the ultra rich?
▶ 0:48:09The concern is that they are there is they are not concerned about equal opportunity for all. That they're putting the folks who need it most against the wealthiest of Americans. If folks can never go to college, they'll never be able to apply for a treatment scholarship anyway. So, the real focus should be on how we expand affordability across the board.
▶ 0:48:28Yeah. Um I mean, I think this hearing is really part of an ideological agenda. Taking a quote from Dr. Hess's introduction speech. I have a concern in Arizona CD7. We have a lot of rural communities. Rural students and local colleges are already facing shrinking resources and limited access to higher education. The big ugly law worsens these challenges by making college less affordable and undermining the institutions that serve as economic anchors in rural um areas.
▶ 0:48:56Many of the policy changes in this law deepen educational and workforce disparities, pushing rural communities further behind. I think those communities in my district in southern Arizona like Douglas, Ngales, Aaho, Summerton, and St. Louis that are affected as a direct result of these policies with communities like this in mind. Miss Harrington, how do the changes to the student loan program impel eligibility in the big ugly law harm rural communities? And what unique challenges do rural students and colleges face?
▶ 0:49:28it it it puts it it puts college even further out of reach if they have fewer resources um to go to school. The institutions themselves have fewer resources to provide services. Um and in in rural communities oftent times these institutions just like many others are the drivers of that economy as well. And so if these institutions are struggling the entire community struggles and that will have ripple effects across that
▶ 0:49:51Thank you. Um, Miss Kabani, you mentioned left-leaning careers when you were talking about the kinds of um, your assessment. I'm wondering if an immigration attorney would be considered a left or right leaning career.
▶ 0:50:11uh that would probably fall under a uh could not classify or potentially left-leaning if that person also had other um democratic or progressive items on their bio so that we could make a better determination.
▶ 0:50:26Okay. And what about a public school teacher um teaching in an urban public school setting? Would that be a left-leaning or right leaning career?
▶ 0:50:34That would be an NA. We wouldn't put them in either. I'm I'm just really curious about how, you know, we're we're having a lot of big numbers and discussing um what this looks like for all of the Truman scholars, who's being selected, and knowing personally a Truman scholar, understanding the transformative nature of this scholarship. I think it's really important for us to get through what this process looks like and that on every college campus, it's competitive. It's competitive.
▶ 0:51:00And so to suggest that because someone is interested in a career um when you look at them after having all the education that they've collected, I think that it's important for us to see that these opportunities that we have in these spaces really influence people and maybe they started out with one career in mind and ended up with another one. And so I'm very concerned about how we're categorizing a left-leaning and a right-leaning career. If you're a member of Congress, it shouldn't be either one, right? that should just be it is what it is.
▶ 0:51:30So, um I want to thank you all for your time here. Um and with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
▶ 0:51:36Thank you. I'd like to rec recognize my friend from North Carolina, Mr. Harris.
▶ 0:51:41Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And uh thanks to all of you uh serving on the panel today. Apologize for being in and out, but other hearings taking place and other committees. I did have the pleasure of reading your testimonies and uh knowing uh what you have shared and and have a couple of questions that I I want to just address. Uh Miss Gabbani, you mentioned that the Truman program spawns 35 Democratic jobs for every one Republican job. That number was simply stunning to me.
▶ 0:52:10Could Could you say more about why we should all, regardless of our political party, find that number so Well, this has become a taxpayerf funed scholarship program and talent pipeline for the Democratic party and the uh progressive activist network. And so that's not fair. I mean, there not all taxpayers are Democrats, right?
▶ 0:52:35So, it's not representing all the Republican voters, your Republican constituents. For example, in North Carolina, um, from 2015 to 2020, there were 11 Truman scholars from your state and, um, two were identified as progressive and Democrat. Um, zero Republican and nine we couldn't identify because we aired on the side of caution. We we never wanted to classify wrongly.
▶ 0:53:03So, but it just goes to show that in most of the states we looked at, the the voting block is not represented. Uh, Red State Truman scholars are Democrats.
▶ 0:53:13Gotcha. And Mr. Kistle, you mentioned that one source of bias is the sample responses the Truman Foundation post on its website. And you mentioned that two of the examples of quote substandard responses involved an applicant interested in military history and a Christian who is interested in serving in the military. Now, you mentioned this in your testimony, but does the website list any positive examples you found of Christian or military focused
▶ 0:53:41Thank you for the question. Unfortunately, there are zero examples of such people who are considered to have had a successful application.
▶ 0:53:50Ah, okay. Well, listen. Today we're we're talking about a federally funded scholarship program for graduate degrees that honors the legacy of President Harry Truman. But in fact, I don't know if any of the witnesses or if it's even been mentioned earlier today know what school President Truman graduated from. And the answer is he didn't.
▶ 0:54:12Um, this program was created to honor President Harry Truman, a man who left college after one semester and never earned a degree, yet went on to become president. So, it's deeply ironic to me that taxpayers are also uh who also never attended college, just like Truman himself, are now forced to fund elite post-graduate degrees for a handpicked few. In my opinion, the federal government has no business running a scholarship program at all.
▶ 0:54:39And with our national debt over $ 38 trillion, which I just left a hearing where that conversation was being discussed, we literally cannot afford these luxury academic subsidies. In 2024, taxpayers spent $3 million to send about 60 people to graduate school through the Truman Scholarship. And the federal government should not be making decisions about which students are the best or the most promising.
▶ 0:55:04nor should it be using taxpayer dollars to shape the future leadership class through targeted scholarship programs. This is not the role envisioned by our founders, nor is it's well we find it well outside our constitution's limits. I don't fault any of the students. I certainly don't fault the alumni who've taken advantage of this program because if the government offers free money, people will understandably accept it. But that does not make the program wise, nor does it make it justified.
▶ 0:55:35It simply means it is time for Congress to stop the gravy train. At a time when our nation is drowning in debt, every dollar must be scrutinized. The American people are calling for every dollar to be scrutinized. And for this reason, I believe we should no longer fund this program.
▶ 0:55:55And today's hearing, I think if anything else, has exposed the liberal bias within the program, adding just one more reason we should not spend any more money on it. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
▶ 0:56:09Thank you so much. Uh, like to now recognize my friend from California, Mr.
▶ 0:56:14Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses. Um I represent a district in the east bay of the San Francisco Bay area right next to the University of California at Berkeley and we've had a long history of um these type of issues. I remember Prop 209 almost 30 years ago.
▶ 0:56:32Uh the university system has always um embraced the public university system CSU and UC diversity but it's also based on merit and just in terms of return on investment I there's we have lots of numbers in California with the return on investment for everybody. So the idea of merit-based but ignoring the fact that not everyone starts at the same place.
▶ 0:56:57Miss Harrington, in that regard, um, you know, we've had lots of challenges at UC in the system and at CSU, but particularly Berkeley. Um, having just gone there for a football game, Mr. Chairman, where Berkeley upset SMU, um, it trying to protect this, but also doing it. We have history in California is my point.
▶ 0:57:18And of course the stereotype is particularly for Berkeley and we just went through this with UCLA um from the administration is that it's left-leaning and but the reality is we've had a long time dealing with civil rights issues not just for Truman but for everything.
▶ 0:57:35So, Miss Harrington, in this particular program, first, how does this continue erosion just deal with um the reality that the taxpayers get a lot of value out of getting people from these communities protected and getting them a bachelor's degree or graduate
▶ 0:57:57I think uh the Truman Scholarship, Truman Scholars are selected by bipartisan groups of individuals. They really seek to um pick people based on their commitment to public service. This is not a question of ideological bias. And so the idea is that folks who are going to contribute who want to give back to the entire community to public to to the society is very very important. And the goal is to take down barriers not to put up more.
▶ 0:58:21But a lot of the folks that would be targeted from my perspective in what the administration is doing, the value to the taxpayers is enormous of getting people high degrees in every group but particularly protected classes.
▶ 0:58:35Absolutely. We all benefit when fewer barriers are erected, when more folks have access, when we don't leave talent on the table. The entire society benefits. There have been numerous studies that by not doing something about these barriers, by keeping people out of post-secary education, by keeping them out of employment opportunities, for instance, we lose trillions of dollars to our economy actually. And so we all benefit both in terms of real dollars, but also in terms of the society that we're trying to create.
▶ 0:58:59And just in in in general, um you know, young people go in to get a bachelor's degree to be special ed teachers. We need now they're not part of this right now but moving that out of the department of education which has been proposed as well is there's level of expertise in getting diverse groups irrespective of their ideology and different perspectives in society poverty uh but also specific needs in our education system.
▶ 0:59:28So could you briefly talk about that when we lose these revenue sources so people can compete for them irrespective of their political ideologies that's just another barrier for getting a return on investment and I constantly think that uh separate subject but having spent a lot of this as the ranking member of the health employment labor and pensions commission the president's budget wants to cut NIH even though return on investment for the national institutes for health are almost dollars for
▶ 0:59:58every dollar taxpayers put into this. So that's sort of where I'm getting in this question line with you is we get value out of the Truman scholarship just like Harry Truman would want. I would think
▶ 1:00:10I think so and I think uh the bigger issue is that we also get value out of creating more opportunities for more folks. And so um while we sit here focusing on this one scholarship, we should be thinking bigger picture. we should be thinking about how we create opportunities across the board so that we can increase that value
▶ 1:00:27and it certainly seems targeted and a particular group or groups of Americans uh this overall initiative that Truman is just a part of. I would I would think that the NAACP would feel that way but I don't want to put words in your mouth. I think we believe in the value of public service and so we support making sure that there are pathways for folks to go into public service whether it be through the Truman scholarship through other programs.
▶ 1:00:53Folks who are just trying to uh go through grad school with reg regular federal student loans, regular federal grants who have to who have to navigate this complex system, this more expensive system that's being created by this big beautiful bill. And so what we are concerned about is how we make sure that more pathways are being created and not focusing on trying to close one small pathway. Thank you. I yel back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:01:14Thank you. And I'd like to recognize um chairman of the full committee, Chairman
▶ 1:01:20Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for this hearing. I think uh the answer why we're looking at one specific issue today, one specific entity is it's just illustrative of so much that goes on that we uh definitely are ought to have concern about. that monolithic entity called US Department of Education has failed, failed, failed and all that is surrounding that.
▶ 1:01:46Uh we're starting to there's a lot of cancer in the system. And today as we talk about liberal bias versus conservative bias, I think even more importantly, we're seeing a bias in opposition to the American idea that isn't liberal or conservative. It's American. Uh that certainly speaks to merit and all the rest that goes with it. Dr. Hess and the rest of the panel, thank you for being here.
▶ 1:02:13But let me ask you, I I want to talk about the Truman Foundation's response to your research. Thank you for that research after you found liberal winners outnumbered conservatives 12 to1. The Truman Foundation responded by hiding the evidence. That never works too well. Um, can you talk more about what they hid and why that makes it more difficult to replicate your study?
▶ 1:02:40Yeah. Um, thank you. Thank you very much for the question, sir. Um, what what's so frustrating about their response is they said nothing to see here and then they made sure that nobody could see anything. So what they did is for as long as I've been aware uh you know for certainly for a number of years at least to 2015 uh they have routinely had bios of Truman fellows on the website intended primarily to show off these folks.
▶ 1:03:10What Joe Pittz and I did was we said all right let's just look at what these people are studying. Let's not talk about their politics. Let's talk about what they're studying and whether it seems reflective of the kinds of issues that are important to this country and that reflect the broad swath of views and values of American college students and of the American uh taxpaying and voting public. Um they they removed those.
▶ 1:03:34They also then went ahead and hid past releases bragging about the winners so that only those with a Truman account can actually go back and look at this. So then when they complain about the nature of the study, they complain about the study at the same time they've made it impossible for anybody to actually assess the virtue.
▶ 1:03:55Yeah. Except those they want to see the system. Okay. Thank you. Um Mr. Kabani, um you mentioned that the Truman Foundation uh selects students from almost every state.
▶ 1:04:09Why has that practice failed to ensure that conservative students get a fair Well, our research has found that the Truman scholars that are selected from red states uh are often going on to to Democratic careers and progressive uh causes. you're from Michigan and we found 12 uh of the scholars over the last several years.
▶ 1:04:38Seven of them were Democratic P and progressive and zero were Republican and five we couldn't determine. But essentially that the problem is is these Truman fellows are very influential. Uh again, they're the cream of the crop.
▶ 1:04:53And so it's not spreading the opportunity to everybody um to get this kind of support and networking uh because they're they're lobbying, they're working for lawmakers, they're consulting, they're working for very influential uh liberal leaning law firms. And so they're having a big influence on our nation's uh conversation and on u what legislation has brought forth. This isn't just a $3 million scholarship.
▶ 1:05:21This is the direction of our country and those that are leading it. And so, uh, the problem needs to be reformed because it's absolutely not fair to 50% of American
▶ 1:05:32Yeah. Yeah. And, um, certainly, uh, it doesn't even come close to in many states the percentage of the makeup of the congressional delegation as well. And we're not asking for that, but we're asking for a fair approach to it. Thank you. Um, Mr. Kell, um, one downstream effect of Truman bias is that students at universities considered right-leaning are effectively disqualified, at least it appears, from competing for the award.
▶ 1:06:01You touched on this in your testimony, but in history, how many Truman winners have come from colleges such as in my district, Hillsdale College or Liberty University or Patrick Henry College?
▶ 1:06:15Thank you for the question. uh out of the entire history of the Truman Scholarship program, only one out of any of those universities you mentioned, one from Hillsdale has won a Truman scholarship, zero from the others. And if you look at right-leaning or uh faith-based institutions, it's an extremely extremely small number.
▶ 1:06:35Okay, thank you. My time is expired. I yield back.
▶ 1:06:38Thank you. And I'll recognize my friend from Virginia, uh ranking member full of committee, uh Miss Scott.
▶ 1:06:45Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, we heard one of the reasons we have the budget out of whack. We had one um of our colleagues just complain about this $3 million expenditure while saying nothing about his vote that increase the debt by $3.5 trillion. $3.5 trillion. I mean, you round off the 3.5 trillion, you round off to the nearest hundred billion.
▶ 1:07:14and he's complaining like three bill this $3 billion expenditure is affecting the future of the budget. Uh Mr. Castel, you mentioned the colleges that didn't get any Truman scholars. How many colleges are there and how many of them how many others at no Truman scholars? I appreciate the question.
▶ 1:07:32I think there's something like if you include community colleges in every accredited in institution somewhere around 6,000 uh 4,000 uh that might have names that anyone would recognize and then 2,000 others that are also accredited. So when there's only 50 per 55 57 uh per in the country per year most institutions will not have any.
▶ 1:07:55So 99% won't have any.
▶ 1:07:58Right. Right. It's the it's the more the elite institutions that get them and those are the ones that skew most to the
▶ 1:08:0499% won't get any if they're randomly distributed. Um Mr. H, did you study any other fellowship programs to see if they have this kind of bias?
▶ 1:08:16Uh the road scholarship, sir.
▶ 1:08:18And what kind of what did you find
▶ 1:08:20Uh similar finding sir.
▶ 1:08:23Similar finding.
▶ 1:08:24Yes sir.
▶ 1:08:25Well uh you consider left leaning if you have an interest in racial justice.
▶ 1:08:34uh that's right. Uh DEI in particular was coded as uh
▶ 1:08:38racial justice. That's not a universal kind of idea, but that's a leftleaning fact. Do you need to balance that off with people that oppose racial justice?
▶ 1:08:54No, sir. It was a priority. For instance, um, religious liberty, uh, tends to be coded as righting, sir.
▶ 1:09:02Religious liberty. Now, by religious liberty, you mean like charitable choice that allows grantees of federal contracts to discriminate based on religion so that if you have a federal contract, if a religious organization has a federal contract, they can have a policy that we don't hire Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. No, I mean that in the biographies of the Truman Fellows when they uh describe their research interests as related to advancing religious liberty liberty.
▶ 1:09:30Well, that's what I mean by religious liberty. That's a conservative position on charitable choice that you allow discrimination based on religion.
▶ 1:09:38Uh none of the Truman fellow bios got into the question of uh you know that level of specificity.
▶ 1:09:46Okay. Um, climate change is a leftleaning idea. Is that right?
▶ 1:09:54That's how we code it, sir. That's
▶ 1:09:55Okay. Now, how many college students fail to recognize the scientific fact of climate change? I don't know.
▶ 1:10:08What portion of what portion of college students fail to recognize the scientific fact of ch of climate change?
▶ 1:10:17I don't know.
▶ 1:10:19Uh what portion of uh college faculty can prospective college faculty can get hired if they say they don't believe in Not many. Uh, let me um ask Mrs. Harrington a couple of questions. Um, in terms of access to education, you said a lot about what that big ugly bill did.
▶ 1:10:48Um, just generally, what what does that do to access to education?
▶ 1:10:54Puts it further out of reach. It makes college more expensive, more inaccessible, and it makes it harder for people to go and to stay and to stay in repayment and positive repayment once they get once they get out of college, if they're able to go. And what about medical school in particular?
▶ 1:11:08It's going to put it out of reach for many students of color. And so we're going to have a der of black and brown doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, all because of these caps that are made in the lack of investment put back into these into these professions and
▶ 1:11:21Are you familiar what the Department of Education is trying to do with the public service loan forgiveness in terms of eligibility based on ideology?
▶ 1:11:29Yes, sir.
▶ 1:11:30And um how does that how does that work? it has the same chilling effect in terms of which folks are able to go into these professions and whether they're going to be able to stay in them and then what these what services these organizations will be able to provide.
▶ 1:11:45Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:11:48Thank you. Uh lamb now like to recognize my friend from Missouri, Mr. Andrew.
▶ 1:11:52Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. When Congress established the Truman Scholarship, it made um this finding because of the desiraability of encouraging young people to recognize that political and and provide service in the highest and best traditions of the American political system at all levels of government. It is especially appropriate to honor former President Harry S.
▶ 1:12:19Truman through the creation of a perpetual education scholarship program to develop increased opportunities for young Americans to p pursue and prepare careers in public service. Um, you know, Congress did not left-wing students did not say students interested in climate change or or uh DEI. It it said to prepare and pursue careers in public service. And I think that should include all students left, right, and center.
▶ 1:12:48But we've got to ask ourselves today, is the Truman Scholarship encouraging young people to participate in public service at the highest levels or at least equally? And I think unfortunately the answer is no. The program only encourages some young people to serve the public. You know, Mr. Hess, as you mentioned in your testimony, over the past 10 years, Truman scholars pursuing careers in left-wing politics outnumbered those pursuing conservative politics at a 56:1 ratio. That speaks for itself.
▶ 1:13:17I mean, primmaaccia, you know, I looked at this testimony preparing for this hearing and I just said, "Okay, we just need to get rid of this damn thing. We just need to get rid of it. It's irredeemable. Whenever there's a pot of money, the left manages to get in there and take it over." And this Truman scholarship, and I'm from Missouri. I I have an affection for Harry Truman is it's just one more example of that happening. But I'm trying to be more positive today, uh, Mr. Hess.
▶ 1:13:46So h how how can we change the culture on college campus is to help conservative students feel like applying to the Truman scholarship is worth their time because it seems part of the problem at least is the colleges are encouraging their left-wing students to apply or or even that the the colleges play a role in the recommendation process and they're they're just recommending the left-wing students and not the conservatives.
▶ 1:14:11Yeah, it's a wonderful question. You know, one of the one of the healthy developments on college campuses I think we're seeing as we come out of many of the excesses of identity politics of the last five or 10 years is there's an understanding that there's a difference between identity politics and wanting to ensure that everybody feels welcome.
▶ 1:14:30Included. So that we we see colleges taking more seriously how do we reach out to folks who are not on campus? How do we recruit them? Thinking about them as individuals and not as members of identity populations. That's what I would encourage Truman to do. How can it reach out to campuses that are not historically sending uh nominees forward? How can it reach out to faculty who have may have felt frustrated or tuned out in the past? How can it, as Mr.
▶ 1:14:57Kissle suggested take a look at its materials to ensure that they are inviting to young talented Americans who are passionate about public service regardless [snorts] of their ideological priors. Those seem to me the kinds of steps that move us in a healthier
▶ 1:15:15Very good. And Miss Kabani, um, you know, how can we change? Do are there changes we need to mi make in the application and selection process to make sure this program is free of left-wing bias? Because it certainly seems that that's the case right now. Is it just a matter of changing personnel or there or or there are other structural changes we need to make here?
▶ 1:15:38You know, I'm like you. I want to be positive and think we can fix this, we can change it, we can reform it. Um, but
▶ 1:15:45because another option is to zero it
▶ 1:15:47Well, that's the thing. And you know, we've been doing this for 10 years. We've been doing this research for 10 years. And every time we give the Truman folks leading this program the information, they shrug their shoulders. And now here we are 10 years later before Congress. Will they change anything? I'm actually wondering whether they will. I mean,
▶ 1:16:04and as has been testified, they worked hard at making sure you didn't have the information so you can make those
▶ 1:16:10Exactly. So, I want to believe in reform, but it's it's deeply broken and I question whether it can be.
▶ 1:16:16No, I I I I do as I do as well. Um, and you know, as it occurs to me, you know, Mr. Hes, the problem with the Truman scholarship is not only that conservative students are being sidelined. I think a lot of our discussion is centered on that, but also that leftwing students are being are being given a leg up. you know, they're they're giving a leg up as the farm club for the next generation of left-wing activists or left-wing politicians.
▶ 1:16:45That just seems antithetical to a free free democratic society.
▶ 1:16:50Um, I think it does. I al also think it it represents something of a distortion of the mission of the of the Truman Fellowship. You know, one of the one of the points that Congress made a half century ago in establishing the program was it recognized President Truman's commitment to national well-being, to national security.
▶ 1:17:10Well, if you look at the winners of Truman fellowships today, they tend to be much more focused on current um cultural um a advocacy. And you find remarkably few who are focused on cyber security, on national defense. Sure.
▶ 1:17:28So what's happening is part of the reason you're seeing this bias is because we're leaning away from the exact kinds of national imperatives that this program is supposed to cultivate.
▶ 1:17:38Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
▶ 1:17:41Thank you. Um like to recognize my friend from Florida, Mr. Fine.
▶ 1:17:45Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. and and we've talked a lot in this hearing about the rise uh the left and the left's pernicious influence over this program. I'd like to talk about something that arguably is worse and the the Truman Fellowship's embrace of Muslim terror. I will not have any questions for Mr. Kle given his institution's views on anti-semitism and its embrace of it, but I will have a couple of questions to Dr. Hess and Miss Kabani.
▶ 1:18:07Um last year a student at Harvard um who immediately after the worst day for Jews in the world since the Holocaust 1,200 were killed as thousands of Hamas um terrorists and to be clear Gaza Arab civilians streamed across the border engaged in a genocide to kill as many Jewish men, women, and children as they could find. A genocide that only stopped because the IDF repelled it several days later.
▶ 1:18:33um a student at Harvard who embraced this and embraced Muslim terror was awarded one of these scholarships. I'm curious from either of you any insight you have, any description you can have because this to me is is beyond liberal bias. This is a flatout embrace of Muslim terror and the fact that US taxpayer dollars are being used to fund terrorists.
▶ 1:18:55So I'm curious if either of you have any insight to share on this Um what what's more troubling is it's not an [clears throat] isolated phenomenon. Um shortly after the 2023rd um barbaric Hamas attacks on Israel uh a letter was issued by winners of many prominent uh fellowships uh road scholars, Truman scholars.
▶ 1:19:17Um if I wrote the hundreds of names affixed if I recall right it was about 55 or 57 Truman winners from the prior three years um signed a letter uh lamenting Israeli genocide and calling on the need for the US to refuse to provide support for Israeli self-defense. no such letter re e either uh denouncing or responding to the Hamas atrocities was forthcoming from any of these individuals.
▶ 1:19:47So I think there absolutely is um a pathology that we have seen on campus. Um much of it supported with foreign money and we have seen it bleed into winners of these elite programs. And for a program established to honor President Truman uh with a primary goal to providing public service in the US national interest. Uh it is an appalling state of affairs
▶ 1:20:11and I would note that President Truman was the person who recognized the state of Israel. Miss Kavani, do you have any thoughts on this?
▶ 1:20:18Just that the example that you raised from Harvard of the young man who supports Hamas and terror is the quintessential example of why we're here because they're advancing candidates who truly don't represent America. And in many cases, not all, but just this example is one. Uh it's a problem. It needs to be reformed. And when we brought it to their attention, they just don't care. They shrugged your shoulders.
▶ 1:20:41Um, Representative Stefonic had asked for a review of that particular individual and they basically I think ignored that request. So, uh, some the the legislature needs to hold the Truman uh, leaders more accountable for their choices and their actions, which is I think really the primary reason why we're here today is to get that ball rolling.
▶ 1:21:02Well, I can only give my my view on this. I have zero desire to reform the Truman Fellowship. I'm not interested in borrowing $3 million from my children and grandchildren to give it to people who would like to kill them. So, I believe that we should shut down the program and be done with it. So, thank you all for being here and I yield back my time.
▶ 1:21:22Thank you so much. Uh, we'll now move to closing remarks. I'd like to recognize Miss Madams for Miss Adams for her closing remarks.
▶ 1:21:34Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, and thank you to our witnesses. Uh today's hearing could have been an opportunity to work together to tackle the real challenges facing students and families, but instead we've seen a partisan attempt to manufacture outrage over a respected scholarship program while ignoring the the growing crisis of college affordability and student debt. So, let's not lose sight of what's at stake. The average cost of college has skyrocketed.
▶ 1:22:03Tens of millions of Americans are carrying student debt that impacts every aspect of their lives. From starting a family to saving for retirement, this burden falls heaviest on those already facing systemic inequality. Women, first generation students, and communities of color.
▶ 1:22:24And yet, instead of offering solutions, Republicans passed the big ugly law, a policy that slashes financial aid, eliminates key protections, and increases monthly payments for most borrowers. All while the Trump administration is illegally dismantling the Department of Education, including the Office of Postsecary Education.
▶ 1:22:45Together, these actions by Republicans make it harder to go to college, harder to stay in college, and harder to recover financially after graduation. Democrats are offering a better way forward. The lowering the lowering obstacles to achievement now loan uh this act would double PEL grants, would lower interest rates and and ensure student loan repayment is fair and manageable.
▶ 1:23:12It's a real plan to fix a a real problem. The American people don't want political theater. They want us to to lower cost, expand opportunity, and give every student a fair shot, and that's what we're fighting for. Thank you again to all of our witnesses, and Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
▶ 1:23:34Thank you so much. Uh uh this is um a very um insightful I will say very timely hearing. U you know as I was as I was listening to the comments there's four things that I I wrote down that is very very um uh evident evident as we look at it. One is number one our country is built on the concept of freedom of speech. That's who we are.
▶ 1:23:57We're we're that people that might disagree, but if we feel confident about ourselves, our education, we can have tough conversations knowing that in the long run, if we just were respectful and thoughtful, that we can bring somebody to our side. I also realize this, numbers don't lie. Number two, those numbers whether it be 14 to1 against conservatives or 56 to1 depending on the on the on the on the what's looked at uh is very very discriminary discriminatory.
▶ 1:24:28Uh it it says very simply that the Truman committee in this entire process is anti-conservative 14 to1 or 56 to1 is not embracive. is not in bringing people into the process and this has been a pipeline for Democrats. No question about it. So uh I think we have a a problem here that is not uh I don't think it's fixable as we try to address it, try to have conversations, try to say how can we come to this place of of being fair.
▶ 1:24:56Uh they change the they change the goalpost. They go someplace else. But this is the way it will continue to work. Uh we have something that I think is systemic. We need to even though it's $3 million, I think it's part of his muscle memory. If we can stop wasting $3 million, we can figure out how to stop wasting wasting 16 and 20 and 300 million and we start here. Uh this program is not working for our country.
▶ 1:25:19Our country works only when we have a diverse process of thinking of backgrounds and we see that's not happening right now. So I I I'm thankful first of all for have for this this time we're having to have this conversation for the public to see it. I thank each and every one of you guys for your thoughts, uh your study, your commitment to our country, our commitment to uh fairness, and and I think as we move forward, we have to figure out how to now um I think end a program that's not working for America anymore.
▶ 1:25:50So, with I'd like to thank our witnesses again for taking the time to testify before our subcommittee today. Without objections, uh there being no further business, the subcommittee stands