The University of California system and Princeton this week joined more than a dozen top schools – including Harvard, Duke, and Stanford – in announcing hiring freezes following Trump administration spending cuts. Johns Hopkins University said it was laying off more than 2,000 employees after it lost over $800 million from US Agency for International Development funding amid White House efforts to reduce wasteful spending and downsize the federal government.
These drastic moves come as dozens of colleges and universities face federal investigations for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations that disrupted campuses across the country last spring over the war in Gaza.
In the most significant move in the escalating conflict against elite universities, the Trump administration this month targeted Columbia University, canceling approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts over allegations of antisemitism on campus. The university on Friday made apparent concessions, announcing a series of new policies, including restrictions on demonstrations, new disciplinary procedures, and an immediate review of its Middle East curriculum.
Washington’s unprecedented campaign against the Ivy League school has captured the attention of US higher education leaders, who must now consider whether to acquiesce or resist a series of assaults on issues ranging from pro-Palestinian activism to diversity programs and transgender women competing in women’s sports.
Higher education leaders warn that this dangerous assault against the country’s leading universities has unfolded rapidly on multiple fronts, threatening not only America’s economic and technological strength but also its cherished democratic system and traditions of academic freedom and free speech.
“It is, I think, the most serious intrusion into academic freedom and the autonomy of universities,” said Lee Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar and Columbia’s president for more than two decades. “We’re seeing a kind of effort to transform all parts of the government and all major parts of civil society to bring those into a partisan ideological conformity that is characteristic of emergent authoritarian regimes.”
Bollinger identified clear warning signs, including attempts to gain greater control over the traditional civil service sector and administrative agencies, the disregard for the rule of law and judicial orders, attacks on the media, law firms, and universities, and the crackdown on equity and inclusion programs.
On Thursday, the White House delivered another blow, signing an executive order to begin dismantling the US Department of Education, which administers federal funding for students with disabilities, along with federal Pell Grants for undergraduate students from low-income households.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai defended the moves, stating that the Trump administration’s decision to pause federal grants to universities is linked to these institutions’ inability to address rising antisemitic violence and protect biological women on their campuses.
Trump signed an executive order to “combat antisemitism” on college campuses by revoking visas and directing universities to “monitor” and “report” on the activities of international students and staff. The past academic year saw widespread campus unrest, including pro-Palestinian protests, counterprotests, building takeovers, arrests, and scaled-back graduation ceremonies. Columbia became the epicenter of the nationwide demonstrations.
On March 8, the Trump administration escalated its actions with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee whose green card was revoked over his involvement in demonstrations at Columbia. The government cited his alleged “activities aligned to Hamas.” His detention was seen as having a chilling effect on college campuses.
“I hear anecdotally now all the time of people who are not coming to the United States as international students because of fears,” said Bollinger, Columbia’s president emeritus. “There is evidence of this in schools where applications are down considerably from various countries, with major consequences for the financial bottom line of various schools and departments, but also for the richness of our educational system.”
A former president of a leading research university said, “This is an effort to destroy and control Columbia University.” He added, “It is also aimed at making an example of Columbia, thereby intimidating others from joining to fight these measures. A big coalition is a key to resisting these attacks, but those who stand with Columbia will fear they are the next target of a government takeover and an effort to financially cripple or drop the university.”
Columbia has stated that it expelled, suspended, or temporarily revoked the degrees of students who barricaded themselves in Hamilton Hall.
Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, said, “Columbia continues to make every effort to ensure that our campus, students, faculty, and staff are safe.” She added, “Columbia is committed to upholding the law, and we expect city, state, and federal agencies to do the same.”
Bollinger stated, “We have built up an incredible machine of research and education around the commitment of the federal government for more than a half-century to be a primary funder of basic research and a lot of educational opportunities.” He added, “And to use that now as a means, as a tool, of trying to bring universities to heel on issues that cut to the core of institutional freedom and institutional integrity, that’s really unacceptable.”
University leaders suggest that schools with large endowments could be targeted for increased taxation. In 2017, the first Trump administration imposed a 1.4 percent tax on large private university endowments. Trump has discussed increasing the tax. Some schools rely on endowments to cover financial aid to students.
“I see the current situation as pretty tragic,” said Bok. “I think, unfortunately, the word existential is not an exaggeration. If you think about the combination of significant research funding being withdrawn and possibly an increased endowment tax. For a major research university, you can pretty quickly get to a billion dollars a year in lost funding. And there’s no university that has an endowment that could fill that gap.”
At Johns Hopkins, for instance, the bulk of the more than 2,000 layoffs affected international employees, the university said. A federal judge on Tuesday indefinitely halted the dismantling of USAID, stating that Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, exceeded his authority.
“Diminishing the US research enterprise in this country would be a self-inflicted wound; that system is one of our greatest strengths as a country,” said the former president of a top research university.
Federal funds accounted for 55 percent of the total $109 billion universities and colleges spent on scientific research, according to a survey last year by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
The effects of a flurry of executive orders from the White House and concerns about broader assaults have rippled through the world of higher education, leaving university leaders scrambling for ways to react without their schools becoming targets.
“If you’re a university president right now, you’re in a terrible position, and if you are a board chair or board member, you’re in a terrible position,” the former university president said. “Presidents and boards have to make the impossible strategic calls about what to do. And there are no good choices.”
Some university leaders are calling the escalating clash the largest assault on higher education since the McCarthy era.
“The gravity of this one is much more serious than anything we faced since the 1950s. But even then, the attacks were on particular individuals, not on institutions,” said Bollinger. “I do think ultimately that it will be necessary to turn to the courts for assistance and protections.”
