Trump Wages War on Higher Education

The Trump Administration is waging an all-out attack on higher education. The freedom on campuses for students and instructors alike to question, to speak out, and to argue peacefully is called academic freedom.

Academic freedom is a threat to fascism, which only wants to feed propaganda to the public, about why the leader is their salvation. Therefore, the Trump administration is doing everything possible, legal and illegal, to attack universities.

At Columbia University but at other campuses too, ICE has arrested international students with no due process. Last week there was loud knocking at the door of PhD student Ranjani Srinivasan, whose visa and other papers are all in order—she’s been studying in the US for several years. Her roommate said through the door that she wasn’t home, and did not let the agents in.

When the coast was clear, Ms. Srinivasan quickly gathered up her computer, phone, and a few clothes, and stayed elsewhere in NY while her lawyer and officials at the university tried in vain to get more information. ICE agents again came and knocked on the apartment door the next day to arrest her, but she had gone. She has managed to flee to Canada where she’s staying with friends. That apartment door was the only thing standing between totally arbitrary arrest and probable deportation, and her freedom to legally study in the United States of America.

The Trump administration has decreed an end to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at universities, and is punishing colleges that don’t eliminate them by canceling huge sums of money in federal grants. Many colleges are scrubbing their courses clean of the contributions of minorities and women our Fuhrer deems inappropriate to his vision of the world. It’s a nightmare, a nightmare that Europe already lived through under Hitler, and we’re now fully living in it.

And just two months in to the Trump presidency, we’re already seeing the brain drain: India is keeping its highly educated people who used to want to come here, and American scientists and intellectuals and artists are leaving the US. In particular we’re mourning the impending loss of Yale historian Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny and tireless sense-maker of our present descent into fascism. He and his wife have accepted an offer from the University of Toronto, where he will have a distinguished named chair. As one person has written, “Snyder’s imminent migration can be likened to the canary in the coal mine. And he’s a very smart canary, who has been singing a very urgent song, very publicly, and for a decade.” We wish him well, in a place that will guarantee his freedom to continue to write.

Fortunately, many colleges and universities value diverse perspectives and academic freedom over Trump’s bullying and deal-making. The University of Washington is upholding its values and ethics, at least so far. We must ALL use our voices to make these values clear. Three of Tim Snyder’s twenty lessons on resisting tyranny: DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE! BE A PATRIOT! And BE AS COURAGEOUS AS YOU CAN!