The Trump administration is slashing research grants, halting federal scholarships, and dismantling diversity initiatives. 

For decades, the US has been known for having the finest and largest network of universities and colleges in the world. These institutions have not only been major sources of academic scholarship but have also served as centers of social movements, at least since the 1960s. Students organized for civil rights and against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. In the 1970s, they led movements for women’s rights and gay rights and organized protests against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Not surprisingly, many of these institutions have also been at the forefront of protests against Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 (soon after the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,100 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostages). The war has killed thousands of Palestinians and displaced millions.

However, in the last two months, since Trump again became president, institutions of higher education—specifically those with reputations for being liberal—have come under unprecedented attack by his administration. This assault has three main aspects.

The first aspect concerns the alleged anti-Jewish bias of these institutions. They have been accused of discriminating against Jewish students by allowing pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses. While many of these protests, despite being largely peaceful, were met with fierce backlash from university administrators, pro-Israel lawmakers, and other groups during the Biden presidency, the Trump administration’s recent policy of arresting protesters and threatening the possible deportation of foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests has raised alarm bells across the country.

In a first-of-its-kind arrest, immigration authorities detained a prominent Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, from his residence at Columbia University, where he was a student. He was accused of being "pro-Hamas." Reportedly, the administration revoked his green card, even though he is married to an American citizen, and has threatened to deport him. As of this writing, Khalil has not been charged with any specific crime.

Further, the administration has provided universities with the names of other individuals it accuses of “pro-Hamas activity,” confirming its intention to deport activists involved in pro-Palestinian protests since October 2023.

Days before Khalil’s arrest, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia University, accusing it of failing to protect students from antisemitic harassment on campus. The administration has also issued warnings to 60 other colleges and universities over allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination.

The second aspect of this assault involves the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. Under the guise of streamlining government expenditure, large-scale financial and personnel cuts are being arbitrarily and rapidly implemented. As a result:

* Harvard University has temporarily frozen faculty hiring.

* Columbia University is grappling with a $400 million cut in federal funding.

* The California Institute of Technology has decided not to fill postdoctoral positions.

* Johns Hopkins University has cut nearly 2,000 positions globally and 250 in the US after losing more than $800 million in funding from the US Agency for International Grants, which has effectively ceased operations under DoGE’s orders.

The third aspect of this assault is the Trump administration’s commitment to dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across the entire US administration, including higher education institutions. These policies, which emerged from the civil rights movement of the 1960s and were institutionalized through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sought to end discrimination in employment and college admissions, primarily benefiting Black Americans and women before being extended to other marginalized groups.

As a result of the administration’s crackdown, more than 50 universities are being investigated for alleged racial discrimination linked to their DEI programs. The administration calls this “race-based preferences” in admissions, scholarships, and student life. Targeted institutions include Arizona State, Ohio State, and Rutgers, along with prestigious private universities like Yale, Cornell, Duke, and MIT.

Thus, under various pretexts, the Trump administration has frozen or slashed research grants across the country, halted federal government-funded scholarships, and is pushing to reduce administrative costs to 15% of National Institutes of Health funding. Congress is also proposing billions of dollars in cuts to federal research and institutional funding.

Students, researchers, faculty, and university administrators are assessing the long-term impact of these funding freezes, budget cuts, and executive orders. “It is wreaking havoc throughout the whole pipeline,” said Levin Kim, chair of a coalition of labor unions representing 200,000 academic workers. More alarmingly, these policies in the US may embolden authoritarian regimes worldwide to intensify their own attacks on higher education under similar pretexts.

Significantly, all these administrative orders have been legally challenged in various US courts. There have already been numerous protests, both small and large, across the country opposing these policies. Without a doubt, these protests will intensify in the coming weeks and months. And yet, these measures have swiftly pushed the entire ecosystem of higher education in the US into chaos and turmoil. In the process, the country’s reputation and credibility in global academia may suffer irreparable damage for decades to come.