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The top campus security story this week is the resignation of Iowa’s largest school district superintendent, who was detained by federal immigration authorities on allegations he was living and working in the U.S. without authorization.

In a “targeted enforcement operation” a week agoImmigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Ian Roberts, a 54-year-old native of Guyana, who has led Des Moines Public Schools since 2023.

The fast-moving chain of events raises questions about why ICE agents specifically sought the arrest of the public official and the city’s first Black schools superintendent, whom federal officials said had a previously unreported final order of removal issued by an immigration judge on May 29. Yesterday, he was accused of federal firearm charges for possessing a gun at the time of his arrest.

The Trump administration has already tied Roberts’ detainment to the president’s broader crackdown on affirmative action. The Justice Department announced Tuesday it would investigate Des Moines Public Schools to determine if it engaged in race-based hiring.

In 2021, the district’s former human resources manager said that out of Des Moines Public Schools’ 4,000 staff members, some 400 were Black. His comments were made as the district reflected on hiring Iowa’s first Black teacher 75 years earlier.

The unraveling of Roberts’ career is also a story of purported deception. The school board, whose vetting practices have come under scrutiny, released a letter this week saying it is “also a victim,” after Roberts was accused of falsifying records about his immigration status and academic credentials.

Roberts, an Olympic runner for his native Guyana who came to the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa, previously served in leadership roles at school districts in Pennsylvania and Missouri and at a major charter school network.

Get up to speed with this step-by-step explainer by the Des Moines Register.

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In the news

A TikTok post led to the arrest of a Kennewick, Washington, 14-year-old who officials say had guns, a color-coded map of his high school and a manifesto outlining plans to carry out a campus shooting. | Tri-City Herald

In California, authorities say an anonymous tip thwarted a potential school shooting after a student posted “detailed threats” on social media including a “mapped-out plan.” | NBC News
The Education Department announced it would withhold more than $65 million in federal grants to the New York City, Chicago and Fairfax, Virginia, school districts for upholding equity policies designed to support transgender and Black youth. | The New York Times

Campus speech at the forefront: than 350 complaints have been submitted to the Texas education department against public school employees accused of publishing social media posts that praised the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. | Fort Worth Report

• The Los Angeles Unified School District faces accusations that its social media policy, which allows educators to ban parents from campus for making threatening or racist online comments about school officials, violates the First Amendment. | Let
  
• ‘Truly scandalous’: The Trump administration engaged in the “unconstitutional suppression of free speech” when federal immigration enforcement officials arrested and sought to deport international college students for their pro-Palestinian activism. | The Washington Post
  
• A new PEN America report warns of a “disturbing normalization of censorship” in public schools where book bans have risen sharply in the last few years. The 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess topped the list. | NPR
  
• Lawrence, Kansas, school officials were accused of censoring high school journalists and intimidating their adviser in violation of state law after current and former students filed a federal lawsuit alleging the district’s use of a digital student surveillance tool violated their privacy and press freedom rights. | Student Press Law Center
  
  • The student activity monitoring tool Gaggle, which flags keywords like “kill” and “bomb,” “has helped our staff intervene and save lives,” the Lawrence district says. But students say the system subjected them to false allegations. | The Washington Post
    
  • The 74 throwback: Meet the gatekeepers of students’ private lives. | The 74

  ‘Places of care, not chaos’: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law new rules that require federal immigration enforcement officers to show a warrant or court order before entering a school campus or questioning students. | EdSource

  Minnesota’s red flag gun law, which allows authorities to confiscate firearms from people with violent plans, has been used to prevent school shootings but its use is inconsistent, an investigation found. | The Minnesota Star Tribune

  A middle school boy from New York was arrested on allegations of catfishing classmates by impersonating a girl online, convincing male classmates to send him sexually revealing photographs and extorting them for cash or gift cards. | The New York Times

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  The Trump administration plans to overhaul a student loan forgiveness program for employees at nonprofits that officials claim are engaged in “illegal activities” — a justification that could be used to target organizations that serve immigrants and transgender youth. | The Associated Press

  A Michigan school district, where four elementary school girls said they were groped by a classmate on the playground, is accused of waiting eight days to report the incident to the police. | Lansing State Journal

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