Colleges and universities are running scared after Columbia University lost $400 million in federal funding for its lackadaisical response to antisemitism on campus. They realize this is just the beginning of the Trump administration's efforts to rein in the radical left on campus and bring a semblance of balance back to academia.
It won't be easy, nor will it likely happen without bloodshed. However, schools have been taking trillions of dollars in federal grants for research over the last half-century with no strings attached. The result has been radical-left ideology — anti-American, anti-capitalist, and twisting the culture into unrecognizable shapes —propagandizing students and stifling dissent.
"This is just the beginning,” Jonathan Fansmith, the American Council on Education's senior vice president for government relations, told an audience of academics at the Kennedy Center recently.
The group’s president, Ted Mitchell, vowed a fight. “The flurry of these threats [is] designed to cower us into silence,” he said. “These executive orders are an assault on American opportunity and leadership."
Bold words that have already turned to mush.
“There’s got to be course correction,” said Lindsey Burke, director at the Center for Education Policy at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
Related: Columbia University Caves 120% to Trump Demands
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reports that many schools have decided to play ball with the Trump administration, hoping their funding will be spared the ax. What that means will depend on each individual school and how well they cooperate with efforts to eliminate DEI, rein in radicals on campus, and at least make an effort to diversify their faculty.
While many faculty members argue universities shouldn’t yield to Trump, they are in a tricky spot. It isn’t uncommon for a quarter or more of the operating budget of a large university to come from federal sources in the forms of student loans, Pell Grants and research funding—research that supporters say goes on to produce innovations and fuel the broader economy.
On campus, many faculty and staff still embrace the things Trump is trying to change. Many higher-education institutions still have senior-level officials focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. One lobbyist recalled a video call with university clients who listed their pronouns under their names, a practice many who work with the federal government quickly abandoned after Trump’s November victory.
Lobbyists say they are advising schools to keep their lobbying secret to avoid winding up a target.
There is no doubt that federal money for colleges and universities fuels American economic dynamism. The astonishing breadth of innovations and breakthrough discoveries in medicine, metallurgy, biology, and electronics has propelled U.S. innovation since the end of World War II.
Several ideas are kicking around Capitol Hill that would encourage universities to be more tolerant and open to more diverse opinions. One idea that has gained considerable traction in recent weeks has been increasing the tax on endowments from 1.4% to 35%. Another idea would force universities to pay some of the money back that was loaned out to deadbeat students.
U.S. taxpayers cannot be expected to keep forking over tens of billions of dollars in research grants to universities while those same universities hire anti-American faculty, approve anti-American courses, and actually celebrate a virulent form of anti-Americanism on campus.
Biting off the hand that feeds them has to end.
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