“I think this is the greatest fear in civil society, including in the higher education system, since the McCarthy era.” Michael Roth, President of Wesleyan University.
This page is part of a resource collection on far right extremism.
Resources
Cross Cultural Solidarity: Resources on Universities Standing up to Trump.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat: How Authoritarians Target Universities: What happens on campus reflects and often anticipates democratic decline.
News: 2025
March 7. Marina Dunbar & Joseph Gedeon: Trump administration cancels $400m in funds to Columbia University: Government alleges university failed to protect Jewish students amid pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
March 12. Calder McHugh: A College President Gets Real About Trump’s Attack on Universities: Wesleyan University President Michael Roth lets loose on Trump’s executive orders and the detention of Mahmoud Khalil.
March 14. Colin Binkley: More than 50 universities face federal investigations as part of Trump’s anti-DEI campaign.
March 17. Jason Stanley: Trump is setting the US on a path to educational authoritarianism.
March 20. Anna Dumont: What Autocrats Want From Academics: Servility In 1931, Italian scholars were made to take loyalty oaths. Will that happen to us?.
March 25. Rashid Khalidi: Does Columbia still merit the name of a university?
April 3. CTV News: ‘Pervasive culture of fear’: This Yale professor is planning to move to Canada.
April 14. The Guardian: Trump officials cut billions in Harvard funds after university defies demands.
April 6. NPR: How Princeton University is navigating the loss of federal funding.
April 8. The New York Times: Trump Administration Freezes $1 Billion for Cornell and $790 Million for Northwestern.
May 5. Liz Essley Whyte & Douglas Belkin: Trump Administration Proposes Terms for Federal Oversight of Columbia University.
May 6. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd: ‘The universities are the enemy’: why the right detests the American campus.
May 22. Elissa Nadworny & Jonaki Mehta: Trump administration revokes Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.
May 23. The Guardian: Trump’s Harvard visa threat could wipe out several of school’s sports teams.
May 27. Elissa Nadworny: Trump administration moves to cancel remaining federal funds to Harvard.
May 27. Joseph Gedeon: Trump orders agencies to cut all federal ties with Harvard.
May 30. PBS News: Harvard professor calls Trump’s attacks on funding and students ‘authoritarianism.’
May 30. Michael Sainato: Unions representing Harvard workers fear Trump’s ‘authoritarian turn’.
June 13. Jason Stanley:The mainstream media has enabled Trump’s war on universities. For the past decade, the US press has fueled a moral panic over leftists on campus while failing to report on the right’s assault.
June 23. Astra Taylor & Eleni Schirmer: The Republican Plot to Un-Educate America. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is an extinction-level event for higher education that would annihilate the country’s intellectual potential.
June 27. Michael S. Schmidt: University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration. The Justice Department had demanded that James E. Ryan step down in order to help resolve a civil rights investigation into the school.
June 29. Marina Dunbar: Trump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator says. Mark Warner says school would face slashes to jobs and financial aid if its president did not resign over DEI practices.
July 11. Katherine Mangan: George Mason Is the Latest University Under Fire From Trump. Its President Fears an “Orchestrated” Campaign.
August 1. Jaweed Kaleem: Trump freezes $300 million in UCLA science and medical research funding, citing antisemitism.
August 6. The Guardian: Trump administration freezes $584m in grants for ‘life-saving research’ at UCLA: School is first public university whose funding is targeted by White House over allegations of civil rights violations.
August 7. Cory Turner: Trump orders colleges to share admissions data, with an eye on affirmative action.
August 8. The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Threatens to Take Over Harvard’s Patents.