Universities Scramble to Avoid Being Trump's Next Target
Ohio University suspended next month’s Black alumni reunion. The University of Massachusetts revoked admission offers to biomedical graduate students. And new hiring freezes are stalling universities nationwide, from Stanford to Cornell and Harvard. After initial cosmetic steps like renaming DEI offices and scrubbing website language, schools now are making deeper, tangible changes in response to government spending cuts and President Trump’s campaign against elite universities. Schools are nixing events and rejecting previously accepted graduate students as federal funding hangs in the balance and anything perceived as “woke” becomes a no-go.
Universities are closely watching the example Trump is making of Columbia University. Last week, his administration canceled roughly $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the school over antisemitism allegations. Over the weekend, Homeland Security agents arrested a Columbia student protester. The Justice Department recently said a task force will visit 10 universities, including Northwestern, Harvard and UCLA, to “bring the full force of the federal government to bear” on its bid to eradicate campus antisemitism. Meanwhile, the Education Department sent similar warning letters to 60 universities.
With National Institutes of Health funding in jeopardy, Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, a Harvard Medical School associate professor, has been offering advice online to Ph.D. hopefuls nationwide who have had admissions rescinded. “It’s wasted investment,” Arboleda-Velasquez said, because many doctoral candidates already benefited from years of grant funding and training.
Some government moves are creating whiplash, like when Agriculture Department funding was paused, and then quickly reinstated, at the University of Maine after a clash between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills over transgender sports, temporarily threatening efforts such as blueberry research and 4-H programs.
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