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Donald Trump’s second US presidential term has been marked by voracious, sustained assaults on democratic values and institutions as his administration continues to impose a repressive regime that strips Americans of their constitutional right to free speech and freedom of assembly.
Currently at the centre of Trump’s crosshairs are academic institutions. Education is knowledge, and with knowledge comes the confidence to question and challenge those in power — a risk this government is unwilling to take.
Following the autocrat’s playbook, Trump and his MAGA cartel are attacking alternative sources of power; universities, the media, and the judiciary — all of which pose a threat to the unchecked power Trump seeks.
More than 40 universities are reportedly under investigation by the Trump administration; investigation typically means that they are being targeted, threatened, and hollowed out of academic freedom and autonomy.
The first to fall was Columbia University. Facing a $400 million loss in federal funding, the university capitulated to alarming demands from the Trump administration including ceding control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East, empowering security officers to arrest students, and placing new restrictions on protest.
The symbiotic partnership between the federal government and research institutions formed a cornerstone of American innovation and academic structures since the Second World War, usually with bipartisan support.
The action is largely being carried out by the newly established multi-agency task force to combat antisemitism, which announced its priority would be to “root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”, using the 2023 anti-war protests as a foothold to pursue their agenda. The task force is led by the Department of Justice’s Office for Civil Rights, deeply ironic considering the objective is to strip citizens of their rights.
Columbia’s decision had a chilling effect on other institutions, with some seeking to evade Trump’s attention by pre-emptively adopting the administrations demands.
Their efforts, however, proved ineffective, with universities like Northwestern still hit with investigations and funding freezes, as Trump’s motivations were never about changing policies or antisemitism — the ghastly guise behind which the administration has shielded itself in order to stifle free speech — this, as it always has been with Trump, is about power.
I was speaking in the US at a university campus the day of the presidential election. There was an anxious electricity in the room and an expectation that a second Trump term would be worse. In the campuses I have since visited, all expectations as to how extreme the Trump agenda would be have been surpassed; “it is so much worse than anticipated” is the general sentiment I routinely hear from students and faculty alike — only the professors who teach autocratic regimes appear unsurprised.
In the weeks since Columbia’s capitulation, over 1,800 international students have had their legal status changed, students and graduates have been arrested for espousing pro-Palestinian views, and academics have been denied entry into the US for expressing criticism of Trump.
Square this reality with the executive order actioned by Trump on day one titled ‘Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship’. What Trump and fellow ‘free speech’ sycophants like Elon Musk really mean is freedom of speech for Trumpites, MAGA-followers, and conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr, while stamping out any criticism or political expression that the Trump administration disagrees with.
There is a reason the first universities targeted were global institutions; Trump wanted to spread fear to encourage self-censorship amongst smaller universities. I have witnessed this self-censorship first-hand: students and faculty are wiping their social media content, reconsidering what they post going forward, and readjusting the focus for their forthcoming programmes and events. Peacebuilding, the topic on which I lecture, is being defunded or side-lined.
Emboldened by their success after steamrolling Columbia, the Trump administration set its sights on Harvard, an institution 140 years older than the United States of America with a GDP higher than many countries. It’s here where the battle for academic freedom will be won and lost.
Harvard has rejected the demands of the Trump administration, with President Alan Garber stating that, “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
How profoundly this response was needed cannot be overstated; it has galvanised universities to push back, uniting students, faculty, and boards to rally against the greatest assault on academic freedoms in generations.
Last week the presidents of over 150 universities released a joint statement condemning overreach from the government while protests have erupted across several states.
When I visited Cornell university earlier this month, 200 faculty members and students gathered for a demonstration against the Trump administration’s threats. Cornell has been threatened with $1 billion in federal funding losses and announced on April 14 that the institution is suing the government.
Harvard is also taking forward litigation alongside over 250 international students across 65 cases who are challenging the government’s decision to change their legal status. Trump has almost unchecked power at a governmental level with Republicans holding both the House and the Senate — the courts are the last bastion of American democracy.
The ensuing resistance from universities will have casualties; Trump will break every convention and every rule he chooses to force capitulation. Students and faculty will face arrest and deportation; funding cuts will set back critical research by decades. And yet, there is no alternative. Universities must fight back.
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America teeters so close to the edge of falling into a totalitarian regime; this is a president who has described Hungarian President Viktor Orbán as “fantastic … There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader”. Orbán also attacked academic freedom, seizing control of numerous institutions in 2021.
Trump is not hiding his agenda; Trump 2028 merchandise is already on sale. He wants to emulate his autocratic heroes, and if he succeeds, it won’t just be Americans who suffer, but all of us.