When you hear the term “America first” you tend to envisage the US prioritising its own interests before those of foreign nations, the recent trade wars pointed towards this, albeit in a limited way, when you consider how the tariffs could lead to products being more pricey for consumers in the US. But this is not the only battle the Trump administration has recently waged, as the US president’s administration has also cracked down on the country’s universities.
Aside from such a crackdown, the US also showed intolerance towards academics that oppose its views. On March 10th, a French scientist had been expelled and not granted entry in Texas for his views on the administration’s policies, according to the Middle East Eye. It is true that Texas is a Republican stronghold which explains why the state responded so harshly. But the fact that the move happened in a US state alone, shows that views of the political left or views that oppose those of Trump’s, are not necessarily welcome in the country.
The BBC reported on April 24th, that the US president inked an executive order which intends to to completely alter the system of university accreditation. The accreditation is a process universities need to submit to, in order to get governmental funding. The order on the accreditation alleged that accreditors were prioritising left-wing ideology, such as diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, instead of academic achievement. So in this instance and in the case in Texas, efforts to silence left-wing ideology have been demonstrated.
Trump has had a prominent disdain for wokeness; a modern branch of left-wing politics which focuses on tackling social injustice and presents a heightened awareness of how race, class and gender can cause societal division.
“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The president once insisted that his country “will be woke no longer.” He asserted that “whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender.” Wokeness does highlight some key intersectional issues, but it has also limited free speech, preventing right-wing or more traditional political narratives from having a mainstream platform. Many of us understand this to be “cancel culture.” Equally, limiting the expression of woke views restricts free speech as it obstructs this left-wing narrative of a typically younger demographic from being uttered. Whether Trump likes it or not, universities are institutions in which many dive into socio-economic discourse, perhaps to a greater extent than they have ever done before starting their studies. Secondly, universities are generally full of young people, which means that wokeness will inevitably be present in these institutions. So the idea of fighting the ideology would be as pointless as it is repressive.
Changing education for better or for worse
But Trump’s crackdown has also demonstrated that the government is on a mission to tackle antisemitism on campuses. On March 31st, authorities said that the US government might reconsider $9 billion in funding for Harvard, due to apparent antisemitism happening in the university. Now there is some truth to this, the president of the university, Alan Garber, apologised following internal reports on prejudice taking place in the institution. It has been found that students who were Jewish or Muslim felt unsafe as well as isolated and were in a learning environment of academic censorship, CNN reported on May 1st. But you do wonder why antisemitism was a sole area of concern for the Trump administration but not anti-Muslim sentiment as well, considering the fact that Muslims and Jews have had negative experiences in Harvard. The reason behind this could be highly political.
It is true that the US has temporarily given the cold shoulder to Israel. Trump did not visit Israel during his now completed Middle East tour. His ceasefire deal with Yemen’s Houthis protects the maritime security of his country but restrictions on Houthi attacks targeting Israel are not included in the agreement. But Israel is an undeniable ally of the US. This month, the US government declared that it was integrating its Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA) with its Israeli embassy, which means that the (OPA) would lose its status of being an independent entity. The move clearly serves the interests of Israel rather than the Palestinians.
What’s more, Trump’s campaign against universities has evidently tackled pro-Palestine activism. The BBC reported on April 14th that Mohsen Mahdawi, an organiser of Pro-Palestinian student demonstrations at Columbia University had been detained by US authorities. The Trump administration had also demanded extensive changes to Harvard University’s policies, concerning Pro-Palestine demonstrations and diversity and inclusion programmes. So Trump’s sole focus on antisemitism, coupled with his suppression of Pro-Palestine activism, suggest that his crackdown is driven by his ties with Israel.
If this is the true driving force, then these ties are so important to the administration that they are valued at the expense of supporting US universities. The reality was, If Harvard university did not comply with the changes, it would lose out on funding, Middle East Eye reported on April 14th. But the institution stood firm.
Garber said: “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The defiance of Harvard came at a price. The Trump administration cut $450 million in grants from the university, Al Jazeera reported on May 14th. The university said on the same day that it is using $250 million of its internal funding to aid researchers after the Trump administration froze federal grants and contracts.
Hurting America
But the financial implications of Trump’s cuts to federal funding are of American jobs being put at risk. Columbia University announced on May 6th that it is likely to lay off 180 staff members whose employment was aided by governmental grants that have been revoked by the administration. The administration withdrew $400 million in funding and contracts to the university, because it claimed Columbia had not managed to safeguard students from antisemitic bullying. While antisemitism is an issue which should of course be tackled, defunding institutions over purported prejudice taking place on campus would not help to curb the problem, but leave an institution with less resources to tackle it. But while the move is counterproductive, it is also not in the interest of the US, because it is weakening the financial standing of a prestigious US university and jeopardising employment levels.
The overall standing of US universities also seems to have weakened. As Trump has reduced federal funding, there has been a rise in people from the US applying to universities in Canada. According to officials from the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus the school had a 27% rise in graduate applications since March 1st from American applicants for courses starting in 2025, compared to the previous year. When you consider the bravado Trump exhibits in his bilateral relations with Canada, this fallout prompts a newfound vulnerability for the US.
While Trump’s financial warfare is a worrying issue, the administration’s fight against the Pro-Palestine student protests point towards a threat to personal freedoms. The crackdown on protests suggests the government does not value student activism, arguably one of the greatest facets of university life. The human impact of this crackdown is severe. Mahmoud Khalil is a graduate of Columbia University and a Palestinian activist was at the brunt of Trump’s crackdown. A US judge ruled that the administration can deport the 30-year-old due to his involvement in Pro-Palestine demonstrations. Khalil was a leading figure of the university’s protests against the Gaza conflict in 2024.
Khalil, however, was not the only victim of Trump’s grapple with academia. A doctoral student of Tufts University, Rümeysa Öztürk, had been released from custody on May 9th, following over six weeks in detention. Masked governmental agents had arrested her in Boston, as part of the US government’s curb on student activists who are Pro-Palestine. The US District Court for Vermont’s Judge William K. Sessions, said that Öztürk likely faced this ordeal due to an Op-Ed she had produced in a university newspaper that condemned her school leaders’ reaction to the Gaza conflict.
A government agency also attempted to clamp down on Left-wing and pro-Palestine academic initiatives. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), is a US health agency that is part of the country’s Department of Health and Human Services. The agency warned that it would drop medical research financial aid for universities which have diversity and inclusion schemes as well as universities that are boycotting Israeli companies, Middle East Eye reported on April 22nd.
US intelligence has also played its part in tackling Pro-Palestine activism. TCD Dearborn News posted a video online which showed men wearing FBI vests breaking the door of a home in which University of Michigan pro-Palestine student demonstrators reside, Middle East Eye reported on April 23rd.
All this curtailment on political activism in a US context has presented an opportunity for the west. France and the EU are trying to incentivise the idea of scientists coming to Europe, as they plan to get US-based scientists to start afresh in the continent so that they are not affected by Trump’s crackdown. This suggests foreign nations are capitalising off of Trump’s academic war, which is not an advantage for the US.
Is it all down to Trump?
But while Trump has executed the war on US universities, you could argue that Joe Biden, created an environment which facilitated Trump’s crackdown. During the university protests over the Gaza conflict last year, the former US President Joe Biden stressed that “order must prevail.” He also asserted that “[d]issent is essential for democracy,” but that it should never create disorder. Reportedly, he also mostly avoided addressing the demands of demonstrators. One of these demands was for his country to end its support for Israel’s military activity. His actions indicate that the former leader was trying to keep US-Israel ties intact.
In essence, Biden may have been critical of Pro-Palestine student activism but we cannot compare his actions to that of the Trump administration’s. The current US government’s battle against US universities is partly a war on diversity and inclusion initiatives and therefore an attack on an area of the political left. It is also a war against antisemitism, which is a just pursuit. But the administration’s clampdown on universities has gone as far as withdrawing financial aid, which is a destructive move for the country’s higher education that fails to live up to the “Make America Great Again” rhetoric. The administration has also trampled on Pro-Palestine activism which is an indicator of Israel’s alliance with the US.
What could this all mean? Well US students have already started to see less value in studying in their country. And the case of Khalil and Öztürk point towards personal and academic freedoms being undermined for the sake of tackling student activism, which could ultimately scare young people away from being student activists. The crackdown has also created an opportunity for the wider west to sell themselves on an academic level, in which a fallout for US-based scientific research could be on the horizon. So Trump’s attempt at creating an academic revolution endangers the repute of his country’s universities – most definitely not in the interest of the US.
BBC, Middle East Eye, PBS, Al-Monitor via AFP, CNN, The New Arab, Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, TCD Dearborn News, NPR, The Associated Press
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