Unwilling To Give Trump Their Lunch Money, Universities Decide To Resist Instead
That old 'hang together or hang separately' line still applies.
It took a little while for universities to get their bearings after Donald Trump stormed into office and started demanding Big Changes in higher education, insisting that colleges and universities meet his demands to make their institutions more acceptable to his regime, OR ELSE. The guy was waving a tiki torch too close to the rare book collection, and it was unnerving. But now they’re organizing a little to stand up to the bully, simply by saying no, and further by pledging to help each other defend against the administration’s onslaught. Kind of like NATO, but with lawyers instead of tanks.
The schools were emboldened perhaps by the example of Harvard, which first told Trump hell no it wouldn’t let him step in and run things, down to governance, faculty hiring, international student admissions, “viewpoint diversity” in curricula, and which snacks could be stocked in the vending machines. Harvard then followed that up by suing the administration to restore billions of dollars in federal funding that Trump ordered pulled in retaliation, and to make sure Trump didn’t follow through on his illegal threat to end Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
Not wanting to see their own institutions gutted — or gutted any more than they already have been by federal rollbacks of research funding so billionaires can have another huge tax cut — leaders of more than 500 institutions have signed on to a statement opposing the administration’s attempts to remake higher education in Trump’s own image, if only because there simply isn’t enough tacky gold paint in America to cover all those campus buildings.
The statement, released by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, is hardly a radical document, but it gets the point across, saying that the signers, from institutions across the spectrum of higher ed, “speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” We’re fine with normal government oversight, the statement says, but the school leaders agree they “must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”
The college leaders unambiguously defend academic freedom, insisting that it’s only up to institutions and their own governing bodies, not the federal government, to determine “whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom,” without fear of “retribution, censorship, or deportation.” That shouldn’t sound especially confrontational, but these days, it unfortunately is.
The document is, more than anything, a pledge to stand up to Trump’s bullying, to draw at least a concept of a line in the sand and to work together against efforts to tear down our institutions. Remember, kids, Yale grad JD Vance is fond of Nixon’s observation to Henry Kissinger, “the professors are the enemy,” and the Christian nationalists who back Trump want to remake all American institutions as part of God’s Plan for America.
The tipping point appears to have been the administration’s insane letter to Harvard, demanding that the private college surrender to the government its hiring, governance, and the rest of that stuff in our second paragraph, according to Jon Fansmith, senior VP of government relations and national engagement at the American Council of Education.
The demands made it “crystal clear” that “the administration’s end goals here have nothing to do with addressing antisemitism or sustaining a partnership” with institutions, Fansmith said. “It’s about wholly taking over the institutions and dictating what academic life looks like at these colleges and universities. For a lot of people, I think that was probably pretty chilling, but at the same time, pretty galvanizing. This is not something that we can ever accept.”
It’s not only that college and university leaders are afraid of what Trump wants to do to them; Trump has also helped motivate them to join together by making it abundantly clear that even if they do give in to his demands, he won’t then leave them alone. Columbia University largely accepted everything Trump demanded of it, and was rewarded with even larger research funding cuts and more demands to hand over control to the federal government. When the price of resistance and the outcome of giving in look largely the same, resistance starts looking like the far better approach.
The letter is only one step; other institutions are already forming alliances to coordinate their resistance. The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link) that an informal group of about 10 universities has banded together to strategize and pool resources so they can put up a united defense against funding cuts and political pressure. The group includes “Ivies and leading private research universities, mostly in blue states,” and the Journal notes that some are calling it “the collective,” but we bet they giggle whenever they say that.
The group comprises figures at the highest levels, including individual trustees and presidents. Maintaining close contact, they have discussed red lines they won’t cross in negotiations and have gamed out how to respond to different demands presented by the Trump administration, which has frozen or canceled billions in research funding at schools it says haven’t effectively combated antisemitism on their campuses.
We sure hope their priority includes pushing back at the idea that such talk of “fighting antisemitism” is a completely bullshit pretext that isn’t fooling anyone. The Journal also notes that the group also hopes to prevent schools from giving in to Trump’s demands, as some law firms have. It’s not just solidarity, but an implied promise that giving in will be seen by other institutions as a betrayal. No precedents, anybody!
In a sense, that letter full of mafia demands to Harvard has proved to be very helpful to those organizing the resistance. Even though the administration’s demands were incredibly vague in some respects (does “viewpoint diversity” mean teaching homeopathy in the med school?), it at least laid out the areas the administration wants to target, so that helps schools plan defenses, too.
Other efforts are afoot, too; the Faculty Senate of Rutgers passed a resolution in March calling to establish a “mutual defense compact” among the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the academic affiliation of the sportsball conference, and just never you mind that there are 18 universities in the alliance. It would operate along the lines of NATO’s principle that an attack on any one member would be an attack on all. It’s a nonbinding resolution, since any actual alliance would need to be entered into by university leaders, but so far the faculty senates at half of the Big Ten universities have passed similar resolutions.
We have to say that these are all encouraging developments; the administration may have thought that it could roll right over academic institutions by threatening their funding, but they appear to be learning, as have many law firms, that if you give in to a bully, you just get bullied again and again. Well, don’t do that, then!
[Inside Higher Ed / NYT (gift link) / WSJ (gift link)]
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Somewhat OT, but... old principals never die, they just lose their faculties.
In the words of my alma mater Berkeley...
Let there be light, motherfucker!
(OK, so I may have added that last part)