A student at Brown University is facing disciplinary charges for emailing thousands of non-faculty employees in a “Doge-like” email asking, “What do you do all day?”

Alex Shieh created a database of 3,805 administrative employees to attempt to understand why the Ivy League has become so expensive after the latest tuition hike brought annual costs for students up to $93,000.

Shieh’s email attempted to identify three particular jobs: “DEI jobs, redundant jobs, and bulls*** jobs,” but in the end, Shieh only received several dozen largely profane, belligerent responses from irate bureaucrats in addition to possible repercussions from Brown.

“Brown is retaliating against me for exposing that the exorbitant tuition costs are going to a bloated bureaucracy, not educating students,” Shieh told Fox News.

“Because Brown can’t outright punish me for calling out their hypocrisy, they are instead accusing me of committing obscure conduct violations that are not applicable to my situation, in order to scare other students from speaking out,” he added.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) sent a letter to Brown University Friday morning urging the school to “reconsider any disciplinary action” against the Brown sophomore, first reported by Fox News.

“Reports indicate that Mr. Shieh engaged in a journalistic act of contacting university administrative employees to inquire about their roles and responsibilities. This action, it appears, stemmed from his perspective as a student paying a substantial tuition fee and experiencing concerns regarding university facilities, leading him to question the allocation of administrative resources,” Nehls wrote.

“Penalizing a student for what appears to be an attempt to understand the university’s administrative structure raises serious questions about the institution’s commitment to open inquiry and the tolerance of dissenting viewpoints.”

The congressman demanded information on how Brown uses its $7.2 billion endowment, which boasts a 10% annual return, to reduce student costs.

Annual expenses to attend Brown for 2025-2026 are estimated at nearly $96,000, including tuition, fees, food, and housing. Nehls previously introduced legislation that would significantly increase excise taxes on larger colleges’ endowment funds from 1.4% to 21%.

Brown University spokesman Brian Clark denied free speech was the issue, writing in a statement to Fox News, “At the center of Brown’s review are questions focused on whether improper use of non-public Brown data systems and/or targeting of individual employees violated law or policy.”

The controversy emerges as Ivy League schools face scrutiny from the Trump administration over both tuition rates and anti-Semitism concerns.

Shieh’s concerns regarding inflated college bureaucracies are reflected in a larger trend amongst universities, as according to Forbes, “Between 1976 and 2018, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively,” and “the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by only 92%, marginally outpacing student enrollment which grew by 78%.”

Shieh is planning to bring his campaign to other Ivy Leagues such as The University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Cornell University “to expose wasteful expenditures there” and release “an online tool to demand that schools cease and desist DEI.”

The second Trump administration has made a point of rolling back regulations that restrict the functionality of home appliances in the name of efficiency during its first 100 days.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright laid out what the administration has accomplished on appliance efficiency standards that should result in a better quality of life for consumers during a trip to a Georgia factory that could have been shut down if not for deregulation.

At the Rinnai America Corporation’s manufacturing facility in Griffin, Georgia, they make tankless water heaters, one of the appliances for which the Department of Energy has postponed new, more restrictive standards. Tankless water heaters, of course, are beloved appliances in households across the country where residents have decided they don’t like running out of hot water for showers.

Wright’s agency postponed water heater rules on March 24. The rules would have punished companies such as Rinnai, according to the Department of Energy.

“Rinnai is the only company manufacturing non-condensing tankless water heaters in the United States. A Biden-era rule would have effectively banned these products — putting more than 200 Georgia jobs at risk, undermining U.S. manufacturing, and stripping away a cost-effective, high-efficiency option from American households,” a department press release said.

On the same day in March that Wright’s department took action on water heater rules, the Energy Department postponed and rescinded rules on a slate of other household appliances, as well. It lifted rules and deadlines on appliances such as walk-in coolers and freezers, central air conditioners and heat pumps, electric motors, ceiling fans, dehumidifiers, and external power supplies.

“Today, Americans are paying less at the pump and have more choices for home appliances thanks to President Trump cutting red tape and unleashing the production of affordable, reliable, secure American energy,” Wright said in a statement marking Trump’s 100th day in office.

President Donald Trump joked about actions his administration took on showerheads during a rally on Tuesday.

“We’ve opened up your faucets,” Trump said. “I don’t like taking a shower where the water goes drip, drip, drip onto my luxuriant hair. I need a lot of water. I need everything I can get. I don’t need to be under a shower trying to get water to come out of that damn thing.”

Last month, Trump ordered the repeal of a 13,000-word regulation defining the term “showerhead.” The Energy Department also postponed Biden-era efficiency standards for manufactured housing and began the process to lift efficiency regulations on portable electric spas.