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UNIVERSITIES CHOICE: SURRENDER OR FIGHT BACK AGAINST TRUMP
‘TAKEOVER’  
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J Oliver Conroy
March 20, 2025
Guardian
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_ ‘Extraordinary fear’ takes hold at universities as Trump
campaign threatens investigations or loss of federal funds _

Students stage a walk-out protest and call for the release of Mahmoud
Khalil at Columbia University in New York City on 11 March, photo:
Dana Edwards/Reuters

 

The Trump administration
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unprecedented pressure campaign on American higher education – which
is forcing major universities
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demands or risk investigations and the loss of millions of dollars in
federal money – is so far facing little pushback from the schools
affected.

That campaign escalated earlier this month, when the US
government cancelled
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in federal contracts and grants to Columbia University. In a
subsequent letter
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representatives of three federal agencies said they would reconsider
that freeze only if Columbia agreed to conditions including more
aggressively disciplining students who engage in pro-Palestinian
disruptions, planning “comprehensive” reform of the school’s
admissions policies, and placing one of school’s area studies
departments under “academic receivership” – meaning under the
control of an outside chair.

Other colleges and universities across the US have been watching to
see how Columbia reacts to the letter, which is widely viewed as a
test case for academic freedom. In an interview with the Chronicle of
Higher Education, Lee Bollinger, Columbia’s former
president, described
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situation as “an authoritarian takeover”. Yet ahead of a Thursday
deadline for compliance, the Wall Street Journal has reported that
Columbia appears to be poised to yield
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the Trump administration’s demands.

The government’s confrontation with Columbia, which critics describe
as ideological blackmail and possibly illegal, is only one of a number
of shots that the administration has fired in recent days across the
bow of American elite higher education – and so far, opposition has
been surprisingly minimal, as colleges and universities weigh whether
to surrender, negotiate or fight back.

Many of the demands that the Trump administration is making are not
lawful
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Jameel Jaffer told the Guardian. Jaffer, who said that he did not
speak for the university, is the executive director of the Knight
First Amendment Institute at Columbia.

“They can’t require Columbia to take the steps that they’re
demanding Columbia take, and no university could take these kinds of
steps without completely destroying its credibility as an independent
institution of higher education, or take these steps consistent with
the values that are common to universities in the United States.”

There is extraordinary fear across university campuses at the very top
level
Veena Dubal, law professor

A chill has descended on American academia, advocates for freedom of
expression say, with professors, graduate students and researchers
fearful that they’ll lose jobs or funding – because of their
political opinions, or merely because they work at an institution that
has come under the Trump administration’s Medusa gaze.

The government also announced a taskforce on alleged antisemitism at
10 major universities; sent a letter to 60 schools warning
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they are under investigation for discriminating against Jewish
students; and arrested
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Khalil [[link removed]], a former
Columbia student who led pro-Palestinian protests, under an obscure
provision that gives the US secretary of state the power to deport
foreign nationals whose presence in the US has “potentially serious
adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

On Wednesday, the administration also announced that it was freezing
$175m
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federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania because of the
university’s policies allowing transgender women to compete in
women’s sports, which the administration has called
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unfair, and dangerous to women and girls”.

While the pushback from institutions themselves has been minimal, some
college professors and university diversity officers sued
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month in an effort to block a US Department of Education ultimatum
calling for colleges and universities to cancel
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diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding.

“There is extraordinary fear across university campuses at the very
top level,” Veena Dubal, a law professor and the general counsel of
the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), told the
Guardian.

“University administrators are terrified of losing millions and
millions of dollars in funding,” she said, adding that “there is
a lot of self-censorship going on” as medical researchers and others
who previously considered their work apolitical reconsider that
assumption.

Political winds are already forcing drastic budget cuts at many
universities. Last week, Johns Hopkins said that it was eliminating
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than 2,000 jobs due to funding cuts by the US Agency for International
Development (USAid). Harvard has undertaken
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hiring freeze.

The president of Wesleyan, Michael Roth, has vehemently criticized the
Trump administration’s actions and what he calls universities’
insufficient response. Although he disagrees with many pro-Palestinian
protesters, he recently told
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that universities are suffering from an “infatuation with
institutional neutrality” that makes “cowardice into a policy”.

Legal experts say that universities, such as Columbia, threatened with
funding withdrawal have strong standing to sue, and expressed surprise
and concern that they haven’t.

Although federal agencies can place conditions on money they give
universities, Jaffer said, “they have the authority to demand those
things only at the end of a [legal process] that they haven’t
actually carried out.” In addition, “the first amendment still
guarantees universities the right to shape their own expressive
communities, and many of the demands that the administration is making
would intrude on that right.”

Katrina Armstrong, the interim president of Columbia, said
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statement that this was “a critical moment for higher education in
this country. The freedom of universities is tied to the freedom of
every other institution in a thriving democracy.” She did not
indicate how that rhetoric will translate into action. Columbia did
not respond to a Guardian request for comment.

“I don’t think that it is wise for a university with a large
endowment, that is the first university to be targeted in this way, to
be taking this more conservative approach,” Dubal said of Columbia.
“I think that if anyone is well-situated to lead the charge to help
save higher education, it would be a university like Columbia.”

Others experts noted that many universities are probably calculating
that resistance isn’t worth the cost. “I suspect we’ll see
litigation over this,” Tyler Coward, an attorney with the Foundation
for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), told the Guardian, but
also “see some universities capitulate and adopt the policies,
including the speech-restrictive policies, that government is asking
them to adopt”.

Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the
conservative American Enterprise Institute, told
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Higher Ed that he believed that there were real antisemitic incidents
on Columbia’s campus during anti-Israel protests, and that the
university had mishandled them in a “clear violation” of federal
anti-discrimination law.

But, he added, the federal government has “not been transparent”
about what it is doing and not done enough to “convince me that
these specific remedies are called for”.

Some observers have wondered if universities – some of which
have lost
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of dollars as pro-Israel donors, unhappy about radically
pro-Palestinian sentiment on campuses, pulled
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– are secretly pleased with the Trump administration’s actions,
because it provides political cover to take decisions unpopular with
students and faculty.

“I can only speculate,” Dubal said, “but it would not be
surprising to me if, in fact, the board of trustees is playing a role
in the non-aggressive approach that Columbia seems to be taking.”

Either way, she said, “I think it’s more clear to the public, to
university faculty and students, that they are not playing the kind of
role that we expect them to play in defending not just the
university’s coffers, but all the values that higher education is
built upon and, in fact, the laws of the nation.”

_J Oliver Conroy [[link removed]]
is a writer and journalist based in New York._

_The Guardian [[link removed]] is globally renowned
for its coverage of politics, the environment, science, social
justice, sport and culture. Scroll less and understand more about the
subjects you care about with the Guardian's brilliant email
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* universities
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* First Amendment
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* Donald Trump
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