The War on Higher Education

At my college, the changes came quietly. Any page on our website that referenced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was scrubbed from the Internet without notice. The bios of the people who led our DEI department were deleted, leaving unclickable names and headshots behind. The arrival of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials was rumored on students’ Instagram stories, and later substantiated by paper messages that began to pop up on tables in our dining hall, reminding students of their rights. For good reason, there was a strange subtlety to all of these measures, an eerie silence surrounding their origins: to draw the attention of the Trump administration would only jeopardize our safety.

“In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families,” begins the Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL), which was sent out on February 14 to educational institutions that receive federal funding, including my college. “These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia.”

The aim of the DCL was to prevent colleges across the nation—which cumulatively received about $60 billion in federal funding in 2023—from practicing affirmative action in their admissions (which the Supreme Court had already ruled against in 2023) or upholding their DEI initiatives. The DCL likened DEI to segregation, referred to the concept of systemic racism as toxic indoctrination, and threatened to withhold federal funding from institutions that “fail to comply with federal civil rights law.”

For the leaders of my college’s DEI department, the DCL was one of the main factors influencing their decision to remove visible DEI resources—which included a bias incident reporting form, as well as educational resources combating racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia—from the college website. Their decision to heed the DCL’s warning was made out of concern for the student body: although my college receives a modest amount of federal funding, most of it applies to federal financial aid for students.

Since President Trump retook office in January, his attacks on higher education have been swift and deliberate, primarily taking the form of federal funding cuts. The Trump administration’s cuts have impacted multiple sectors; in January, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo requiring all federal agencies to temporarily freeze the disbursement of grants and loans, something that was rescinded after multiple lawsuits were brought against it. The funding cuts have not ceased, however: it was recently announced (via a late-night and likely unlawful executive order) that NPR and PBS would no longer receive federal funding, and National Endowment for the Arts grants have started to be canceled as well.

For large research institutions like Johns Hopkins University, which received $3.3 billion in federal money in 2023, or Georgia Tech, whose research budget was made up of 77% federal aid that year, cuts have major implications. Harvard University received $640 million in 2023; now it is one of the Trump administration’s fiercest adversaries.

The Trump administration made a number of demands in a letter sent to Harvard on April 11; these included leadership reforms, alterations to the admissions process, investigations of student views on diversity, and disavowal of student groups. Many of the administration’s demands were presented as concern over the university’s failure to combat antisemitism during 2024 pro-Palestine protests. The Trump administration has approved roughly $12 billion in arms sales to Israel since January. After Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, publicly refused to comply, the Trump administration promptly froze over $2.2 billion in grants. Harvard filed a lawsuit in April to halt the freeze, citing their First Amendment rights; on Tuesday, Trump cut $450 million more.

Of the individual students the Trump administration has targeted, perhaps none are more at risk than international students. Since March, ICE has been terminating thousands of Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records—which track whether international students are complying with U.S. requirements—for international students who have had any encounter with law enforcement. Although this often comprises infractions as small as traffic offenses, these infractions now lead to immediate visa status loss. In an interview with NPR, immigration lawyer Brad Banias said: “ICE is completely comfortable painting anyone who has any interaction with the police as someone with a criminal record. That's the terrifying part.”

At the beginning of April, it was estimated that over 500 student visas had been revoked. Politically active students, especially those involved in pro-Palestine protests (such as Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University, who was detained by ICE in March), are major targets of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. In response to increased ICE activity on college campuses and in cities across the nation, groups like ACLU have created “Know Your Rights” guides for immigrants and international students.

The Trump administration’s ideological warfare against universities, while novel in certain regards, is nothing new: college students have long fought for their right to free speech, to a fulfilling education, and to safety. From the Vietnam War to the Red Scare, student protests and demonstrations of resistance have evolved to meet the challenges of their time. I was struck by the still-relevant words of a Brandeis University student who, in 1951, wrote about the threat of McCarthyism for the campus newspaper: “On campuses throughout the country students and teachers have been witnessing for the past few years the steady descent of an ivy curtain of fear and suppression over the last frontiers of free conscience in our democracy.”

Perhaps it jumped out at me because of the content’s similarity to the closing words of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s open letter, published back in March: “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”