Friday Op-Ed: Attacks on Higher Ed Must Be Repelled
The Trump Administration Has Little Respect for Colleges and Universities
The attacks on higher education are in high gear, with both public and private schools coming under withering attack from both the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, who are seeking to dismantle the existing system.
To accomplish this, they are using the power of the purse (cutting funding for research at schools that do not toe their line) and federal immigration law to come down on schools they see as overly ideological or not in lockstep with what President Donald Trump views as sufficiently in line with his own ideologies.
The efforts mirror what has happened in several Republican states, where members of college and university governing bodies have been fired and replaced with rightwing ideologues, or humanities programs have been slashed in size or completely eliminated.
The U.S. Senate hearing Thursday on campus antisemitism was obviously part of these efforts, a virtual replay of earlier House hearings on the same topic. As Inside Higher Ed reports Senate Republicans on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, argued that “university leaders need to crack down on campus conduct or be placed ‘on notice.’”
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chairman of the committee, announced that “the time of failed leadership is over,” and that Cassidy said in his opening remarks.
Universities have been put on notice: failing to protect a student’s civil rights will no longer be tolerated. If universities refuse to follow the law, address discrimination on campus, and support their Jewish students, then they should not expect the support of the federal taxpayer.
“Civil rights” is apparently a fungible concept, applying to supporters of Israel but not to critics, and not to Muslim majority groups on campuses. Cassidy, while pushing legislation that would broadly define antisemitism as including opposition to Israel and Zionism, announced that his committee will begin investigating American Muslims for Palestine, “demanding answers about their activities on college campuses.”
This investigation, sadly, relies on a willful mischaracterization of Muslims and Palestinians as “terrorists,” using an overly broad definition that is racist, and that leaves all activists — Muslim, Christian, Jew, etc. — in the crosshairs of government agencies and potentially vigilante groups.
What has followed is a direct attack on Muslim and Asian students, on their civil rights, as the federal government weaponizes its immigration laws against those it dislikes — at Tufts, Cornell, Georgetown, the University of Alabama, and elsewhere. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after the arrest of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, whose sin was co-authoring an op-ed, said the administrataion viewed Ozturk’s op-ed as “”equivalent to those who ‘vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, [and] create a ruckus.’”
This is chilling stuff, a direct assault on the First Amendment speech clause.
As Abdallah Fayyad writes at Vox, these graduate students “are in effect being targeted for their speech and activism — activity that, in all three cases, the administration has deemed to be aligned with Hamas.”
Columbia caved to pressure from the Trump administration, fearing the loss of $400 million in research funding. Other private schools are facing larger cuts, though most have healthy endowments and should be in good position to push back. Public universities, like Rutgers University (where I teach and am active with the union), are more vulnerable because they reply on public funding to a greater degree.
I get the urge to cave — to essentially keep your head down and hope the storm passes — but I find it unwise and dangerous. Every capitulation strengthens Trump and his sycophantic cronies, emboldening them and encouraging them to take harsher and more anti-democratic actions. Trump is acting as an autocrat, with a compliant Republican Congressional majority, weak Democratic opposition, and no regard for the federal courts.
This brings me to the interview I did with two TV reporting students at Rutgers. They were seeking my thoughts about the impending change in leadership at Rutgers University. The interview — part of a class project — was ostensibly focused on outgoing university President Jonathan Holloway, but it was a question about the as-yet unnamed new president that seemed most salient.
What qualities would I hope for in a new president? What would I hope they would do?
Stand fast. Defend the university, its students, faculty, and staff. Defend academic freedom, free speech and free assembly rights. Don’t cave. Be prepared to fight. The university’s future depends on it.