Brown University is under fire after putting a student journalist under investigation for an exposé on alleged administrative waste. The DOGE-type review of Alex Shieh embarrassed the school and certain officials. He was reportedly accused of falsely representing himself as a reporter because his newspaper, The Brown Spectator, is not a recognized student publication. The rationale seems strikingly weak and the investigation itself overtly retaliatory.
On March 17, 2025, The Brown Spectator student newspaper posted Bloat@Brown, a version of Brown’s organizational chart listing employees’ names, titles, and reporting relationships. Shieh then emailed 3,800 administrators asking them to explain what they did the prior week, an obvious duplication of Elon Musk’s famous emails to federal employees.
Staff were ordered by the university not to respond to the emails and Associate Director of Student Conduct & Community Standards Kirsten Wolfe told Shief that he was now under investigation for “access[ing] a proprietary University data system which maintains confidential … information” and using confidential information to build a public website.
She also alleged that Shieh was misrepresenting himself due to the lack of official recognition for his newspaper.
Shief was also told by Russell Carey, executive vice president for policy and planning, that he may be charged under the Code of Conduct for stating that Brown had lost $510 million in federal funding. Carey said that the assertion was false despite a New York Times article claiming just days earlier that the Trump administration was planning to cut $510 million from Brown.
The alleged violations are paper thin. First and foremost, the fact that the Brown Spectator is a new and unrecognized newspaper does not mean that it is not a newspaper. This was a journalistic enterprise. Indeed, it is precisely the type of investigative journalism that is at the core of protections for press freedom. As noted by FIRE, as a private institution, Brown is committed to free speech and free press values.
Moreover, the statement on the funding is based on national reporting. While there may be quibbles on language, it is insignificant against the thrust of the story that Brown could lose half a billion dollars.
Brown University had every right to tell its employees not to respond to the inquiry. However, its threatening of this student journalist is abusive and retaliatory. The school needs to drop this investigation and reaffirm its commitment to both free speech and the free press on campus.
Professor Turley, you report that the student is “under investigation for ‘access[ing] a proprietary University data system which maintains confidential … information’ and using confidential information to build a public website.” So are those activities, if substantiated in an investigation, ok with you? Would they be ok at George Washington Law School?
I don’t think you know what that means. It’s an employee directory. Every university has one. Every Department in every university has one. Here are the first three professors listed in the Africana Studies Department at Brown. I redacted their emails.
Máyọ̀wá Ajíbádé
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
[EMAIL REDACTED]
Prof Ater in front of stone wall smiling at camera
Renée Ater
Visiting Associate Professor, Africana Studies, Director of Undergraduate Studies
[EMAIL REDACTED]
A photo of Professor Lisa Biggs.
Lisa Biggs
John Atwater and Diana Nelson Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
[EMAIL REDACTED]
Try to use your brain for more than keeping the draft down between your ears.
Máyọ̀wá Ajíbádé
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
=========
Can you spell that out phonetically for me … so I can pronounce it 😭✓✓
SEND DOGE TO BROWN.
“‘NUFF SAID.”
_________________
“PRESTIDIGITATION”
How do schools circumvent the 1.0 GPAs of football players who regularly partake, as does Snoop Doggy Dog?
Is that not how Brown persists as an educational foundation and institution of “higher” learning?
“I’m starting to think my $500,000 of student debt wasn’t worth it because I don’t know a thing about molecular neuroscience,” said Dr. Grayson, who finally earned his PhD in 2024. “Free Palestine!”
https://babylonbee.com/news/sad-this-guy-spent-500k-on-ivy-league-education-and-all-he-knows-how-to-do-is-chant-free-palestine?
This effort to expose the bloat at the university is going to take more than one student journalist at one “prestigious” university. If there was one movement that could and should go viral across the country, it’s protests over the cost of education, especially higher education. Imagine an organized, nationwide boycott of every school that rejects a DOGE-like review their operations. Every school that receives government funding of any kind should have to undergo such a review. Same goes for the government-backed student loan programs.
Olly,
You are right. I will add that every student and parent should have to go through an extensive financial orientation. In that orientation, they should be given examples of what it is like to repay a student loan with post-tax dollars, tax brackets, what are the prevailing wages for the degree plan the student pursues, what percentage of students actually complete the program and this is the big one, that they CANNOT declare bankruptcy on student loan. It follows them around through life until the day they die or pay it back. If they skip a payment, there is the snowball effect of compound interest. This is menace to society but the left-leaning professors look the other way and in many cases have no clue about mathematics or finance.
Also, students should be aware of alternative strategies. A personal friend did medicals school the smart way. He had advanced credits in high school, took as many hours from the community college as possible. He completed his bachelor’s degree from a state university. He got into medical school with a state funded larger university and was able to do two years on campus and was able to complete the last two years in the same school in his hometown. He matched for one of the top 5 residencies in ophthalmology and completed his residency and fellowship at prestigious universities. He ended up in the exact same place as many who had dropped over a quarter of million dollars in student debt. There are ways of getting. top education without ever touching the Ivy League undergraduate programs. There is also a military option that works well for the right candidates.
This is a legal blog, Olly. It’s “alleged” higher education, until proven. 😋
I’ve never been tat impressed by Brown U. and now I’m even depressed by Berown.
3800?
Lord!
Well, looking at the lack of journalistic integrity of MSM, independent, objective journalists like Alex Shieh are what society needs.
Whether it be a Federal, State or Local governmental employer. ‘The Press’ disclosures & exposures are what the Admin and Management fear the most. The “fault” lies with Them and they know it, and after publication, Everybody knows it. It’s no different in the Corporate world.
Dismissals (firing) are kept quite, and so, there is nothing to see here. because if it were to be seen, you would find a mountain of waste in terms of Human capitol. just sitting there musing life 40 hrs per week collecting a paycheck and earning a retirement fund. A black-hole of human time going down the drain, nothing come out of it.
Oops ! – I just said the quiet part out loud – To bad I was fired long ago.
Alex Shieh – It was broken before you got there, it will be broke after you leave – That
s the mindset of the Administration, so don’t rock their Boat.
Here’s some advice – You Win Some / You Loose Some, get the F_ _ _ away from Brown University and get on with your Life.
What happened, Happened. It’s behind you now. RUN !
#. His stock just jumped way up as an investigative journalist. Alex Shieh and the the Brown Spectator, Bloat@Brown. Someone will buy him out for millions.
The numbers for Brown seem a bit off. 3800 administrators, 848 faculty and 10,700 students. That is 2.81 students per administrator, 12.6 students per faculty member and 4.48 administrators per faculty member. Yeah I think a request from the 3800 administrators would be in order. What exactly are they doing? I think I see a hint as to why the cost of higher education is going up so fast.
In the past multispecialty medical groups tried keep their medical support staff (including nurses, aides, administration, lab personnel and all the rest ) at about 3.5-4.5 per physician in the outpatient setting. Physicians such as in primary care would see up to 20-30 or more patients per day. Some would see up to 40-50 per day but that was unusual. The surgical specialties saw less per day but that was because they did surgery usually involving longer than the 15-20 min time of a patient visit in primary care. On the other hand surgeons often required less support staff in the offices.
Hospital centered care is different for staffing.
Even with that knowlege I would suggest 3800 administrators is excessive. What is not mentioned is who is included in administrators. Administrator title implies some decision making and that is not clear here. A lot of room for discussion but need more data to really draw any conclusions. A comparison might be drawn if you consider faculty equivalent to a physician, and administrator equivalent to support staff. Are there other employees?(not known) who are not administrators?
As far as the student is concerned, if he is paying tuition or acting as a journalist he has every right to ask the question.
Brown’s overkill response suggests that they are very uncomfortable with the question or maybe the answer they may have to produce. But that is speculation
Hahvahd says, “Hold my beer!” That cesspool of woke anti-free speech sludge has a 1:1.1 student to admin ratio.
Someone should LOOK into Brown Universities fraudulent support for the very corrupt wind industry- Brown entities take wind industry money to produce junk science reports upon which the NOT so clean wind industry can use said “reports” to further promote their fatally flawed product – both on land and now out in our precious oceans.
i was invited to see a Brown Prof lecture about his super-popular course which “teaches Brown students how to think for themselves”. these are the same students who willingly complied (over 98%!) with a mandate to be injected with experimental cocktail despite being in a super low-risk cohort for COVID…..
All of the indoctrination centers support freedom of the press and freedom of speech, until someone prints/says something that they don’t like. Then it is “hate speech”.
These administrators are typical parasites. Fire 75% of the administration, remove the political bias in hiring, cut the foreign student population by 95%, stop bias in admissions, and these schools could be great someday.
Double dipping ‘pyramid’
– exempt tax entity and,
– receives my tax money
I’m way past exhausted with the waste and entitlement.
But this was a free speech article. Good for the student whistleblower.
This is a an over reaction by Brown’s administrative leaders and they will regret it.
Ivy League is TRASH.
ignorance is bliss
Why I voted for Trump, Chapter XXXVI.
Do any of these Ivy League schools recognize that these, “students” are children, whose parents pay a great deal of money and expect these institutions to set a good example for these kids?
Just like the Left Wing Woke Ivy League schools, waste money but scream when Trump cuts off funds. The student exposing the waste for all to see just like Trump Admin. exposing the waste of grants/funds.Think Trump Admin. needs to support this student and look into the waste of Gov’t grants at Brown
time to end Federal Aid to colleges/students
ignorance is bliss
It is only ignorance if it is leftist indoctrination. Then it truly is ignorance and bliss.
“PRESTIDIGITATION”
How do schools circumvent the 1.0 GPAs of football players who regularly partake, as does Snoop Doggy Dog?
Is that not how Brown persists as an educational foundation and institution of “higher” learning?