Trump describes his attack on American universities as a war on antisemitism in academia. But the real question is: To what extent does this attack place higher education in America at risk? Could America lose its role as a world leader in academia?
Following the usual Trump chaotic script of “shock and awe,” his administration, in quick succession, first arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and green card holder, with the aim to deport him, then withdrew $400 million in Federal Grants from Columbia University, and finally sent letters to 60 American universities, threatening them with defunding if they didn’t reform. All of that happened last week.
How the Trump administration is moving against academia
The letters focus on whether universities have:
- responded appropriately to reports of harassment or intimidation targeting Jewish students, grounding these demands in Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance;
- maintained policies that uphold free speech without allowing discriminatory behavior; and
- Implemented effective mechanisms to prevent and address antisemitism on campus.
Failure to comply could lead to financial penalties, forced policy changes, or loss of federal funding.
In its letter to Columbia University, the Trump administration was more specific: it called for expulsion or multi-year suspension for students who participated in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments on the Columbia campus last spring. It also demanded that the university establish a new, formal antisemitism definition and policy; reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices “to conform with federal law and policy”, without specifying which laws or policy; and to grant Columbia security officers “full law enforcement authority,” including the power to ban masks on campus and closely monitor any student groups that could be in violation.
Jacking up the pressure on the university, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday it was looking into what it said were possible violations of terrorism laws during protests over the Gaza war at Columbia University.
To put the withdrawal of $400 million from Columbia in context: The university receives Federal grants for a total of some $ 5 billion. Thus, the problem isn’t the actual amount withdrawn so much as the threat that more will be withdrawn and that it can happen at any time in the future whenever political winds turn and there’s a sudden pretext to do so.
Add to this the impact of major cuts in international health and agricultural programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that have led to hundreds of layoffs at universities around the country, most notably at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
A chill in the halls of academia
Commenting on this dire situation, Meghan O’Rourke, the editor of The Yale Review and a professor in the English department at Yale University, wrote a brilliant opinion piece this weekend published by the New York Times.
Entitled “The End of the University as We Know It,” she notes how the “defunding of Columbia and the threat of future cuts has sent a chill throughout the halls of academia.” She goes on to say: “The destruction underway is not a considered reaction to allegations of civil rights violations or a fine-tuned reform of university policy. “Instead, it is a hammer smashing a very complicated mechanism.”
A “very complicated mechanism,” indeed, as American academia has ramifications in all directions, especially in scientific research. The federal government invests billions of dollars annually, supporting a wide range of research, from basic science to applied technology. Agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Defense (DOD) are major sources of this funding.
And American universities don’t just serve Americans. They have become so successful that they actually serve the whole world, attracting a large number of foreign students, with India and China as the leading countries of origin. During the 2023-24 academic year, the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities rose to an all-time high of 1,126,690, a 6.6% increase compared to the previous year, according to the annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the U.S. Department of State.
As Meghan O’Rourke notes:
“[This attack on the universities] will have real, damaging consequences across party lines. It will dismantle expertise that benefits America and its status in the world. Cancer research. Maternal health. Climate-related technology. All this will be materially worse off. The economic impacts will be enormous. But so, too, will be the cultural ones. What is really happening here is an attack on the American faith in knowledge as a value and a public good that has served us well.”
The likely impact of Trump’s attack on American universities
For many years, elite universities in America, from the largest and most prestigious like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia, and on down the academic chain, saw winning federal research grants as a reasonable and reliable way to expand their scientific reach and resources. As long as they adhered to detailed submission requests, regular reporting, and met their academic institutions’ own vision criteria, it was as good as it gets for the university itself and the researchers. It expanded knowledge and stimulated innovation.
Then, the Trump Administration enters and puts all “objectivity“ in the rearview mirror. When it does not like the politics of an academic institution, it takes the electric saw to all its grants, in some instances allowing completion of research underway but no more. Such is the case with macro terminations of institutions of higher learning, such as Columbia University, but also even in federal institutions and grants for public health, mandating childhood vaccines and vaccine research when incompatible with the new Administration’s thoughts on any given subject. This is all known, and we witness the script being written daily.
What is the probable impact? The big private and State institutions will undoubtedly survive, albeit not as they are today. Their question will be whether they will or can afford to reconsider reliance on federal funding. (Many had become more cautious in seeking and accepting private or foreign donations that come with strings.)
There is another facet of the new Trump Administration directives: There is a real possibility that the Trump team will limit the offering of grant funds to ideological subjects reflecting their own ideology and preference.
It is not impossible to imagine nightmarish scenarios whereby the federal government is calling, for example, on sociology departments to produce research to show atheists are more likely to be communists, performing terrorist acts against icons such as Tesla.
Or produce “scientific evidence” that DEI undermined efficiency and effectiveness in government, industry, and the military.
Or that expanding job opportunities in the workforce to women to a much greater degree would lead to a population decline and fewer well-attended children in their first five years of life.
Or, researchers into the US Constitution might be forced to show that the founders really meant Christianity to be the national religion. This could lead to national education standard testing requiring related questions, thereby forcing all schools across the country to teach “Christian principles and beliefs.”
These are simply illustrations of what might be more “Trump appealing” topics for federal grants in the days ahead with the new Trump team in control of education at every level across the country.
In a way, it’s already happening. The latest news, as reported by NPR, is that the Trump administration has made an offer to Columbia University: The $400 million that was withdrawn will be returned provided the university agrees to place three of its departments (Asian, Middle Eastern, and African studies) in “academic receivership for a minimum of 5 years,”
In practice, this means the government is demanding that control of those programs be taken out of the hands of the professors currently running them and placed in the hands of the university administration. Whether the Columbia administration will accept these demands for “reform” in order to get the money back and how this “academic receivership” will play out—if at all—is not yet known.
The question then is: How will academics and researchers react?
Sadly, it is not impossible to imagine them pivoting to get the money, using all manner of intellectual contortions and excuses to justify their actions. Such behavior may start at the top of the institution but readily cascade down the ladder to the researchers.
The effects will be devastating for the schools, the society, and the individual. It will mean ceding leadership to competitors, not just in domestic terms, but in international scientific coordination and for national security. Such self-inflicted harm is not readily reversed, especially in these times. An optimist may hope there is still time for patriots of every political stripe to rise up and save a national jewel…but the clock is ticking.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: Scarlet Sappho.
