“A TIDE OF CHANGE IS SWEEPING THE country,” President Donald Trump said in his Jan. 20 Inaugural Address. The words were an ominous promise of what was to come under his return to power. Now, four months later, it seems more like reality.
Recently, Trump has threatened to pull research funding from colleges across the country if they don’t meet his demands. According to a letter the Trump Administration sent to Harvard University, these demands include immediately eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, focusing on merit-base admissions and hiring practices as opposed to race-based practices, and allowing the implementation of a third-party audit to assess “viewpoint diversity.”
If colleges concede to this pressure, it could normalize attempts to reshape higher education through enforcement rather than collaboration or shared values. Some institutions like Harvard have taken a firm stance, rejecting the demands and refusing to allow political threats to erode their right to academic freedom. Verde applauds Harvard’s resistance to Trump’s demands, and believes that Harvard should serve as an example for other colleges facing budget cuts.
According to Palo Alto High School senior Sarina Grewal, the Trump Administration’s recent actions threaten core values of academic freedom. “It [Trump’s threats to cut funding] is an insult in every sense to higher education, so … the response that Harvard has put out to Trump’s attempts to discredit them … really makes me respect them as an institution,” Grewal said.
In retaliation, the Trump Administration froze $2.2 billion in multiyear research grants, and $60 million in contracts to Harvard according to the Harvard School of Public Health. These research grants account for 46% of the university’s total budget.
For decades, American colleges have been at the forefront of innovation, pioneering developments in medicine, technology and more with their elite graduate programs. Budget cuts would decrease funding toward areas like biomedical engineering and public health that rely heavily on federal grants for groundbreaking research.
“The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement in April. “Research that the government has put in jeopardy includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, … to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield. As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are on the horizon, the government is slamming on the brakes.”
Cecile Alduy, a professor of French Literature at Stanford, said that, if left unchecked, compliance with Trump’s actions could embolden him to seek more control over America’s education system, and colleges that push back could face graver consequences than lost funding.
“I’m a scholar of fascism and European history, and [I] know that when civil society doesn’t resist a shift towards authoritarianism, things go … the wrong way,” Alduy said. “In the last 27 days, I’ve noticed likewise attacks on law and science.”
Alduy recently signed a letter for the American Association of Colleges and Universities decrying Trump’s actions and the “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” She believes Americans, including college students and faculty, should make their resistance known.
“Rallies, demonstrations, a lot of legal fights, … boycott products from brands that are overly compliant [with Trump’s demands],” Alduy said.
Still, several colleges appear to be complying with Trump’s threats. One of these colleges is Columbia University, where Trump threatened to pull $400 million in research funding
according to a letter from the Trump Administration to Columbia. Like Harvard, Columbia was presented with similar demands. However, unlike Harvard, Columbia gave in to most of Trump’s demands to maintain their federal funding.
Grewal says that the way a college responds to Trump’s threats plays a major role in her decision about whether to attend that school.
“I think it [whether or not a college concedes] really shows a school’s level of integrity and dedication to their mission of education, and whether or not they want to uphold the rights to free speech on their campuses,” Grewal said.
Verde believes Columbia and other universities in similar situations should follow Harvard’s example and take a firm stand against Trump’s demands to defend their academic freedom and valuable research.