Trump versus higher education: deportations, cuts, climate change, and academic reactions

The Trump administration continued its campaign against higher education this week.  In this post I’ll summarize the key developments, both in video and blog text.

(I’ve been blogging about Trump’s second term here.  I’ve been vlogging it on YouTube.)

First, the video:

Second, here’s a text version.

These are the latest developments since the last video, as of today, April 9, 2025. I’ve organized items into 3 categories today: federal level, climate change, and academic responses.

1 At the Federal level

Multiple federal agencies are freezing spending on two major universities, $1 billion to Cornell University and nearly $800 million for Northwestern University. Departments involved include Agriculture, Defense, Education and Health and Human Services, according to a New York Times report. Similarly, the government is pausing more than $500 million to Brown University.

The Departments of State and Homeland Security expanded their campaign to deport international students.  Two weeks ago Secretary of State Rubio stated his team had ended visas for more than 300 students, and evidence for that is appearing.  There are reports of international students facing visa suspensions from Emerson College, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Harvard University, Texas A&M, the University of Akron, and Park University.  One report found 50 Arizona State University international students losing visas.

There are more. Inside Higher Ed’s tracker has 419 students revoked as of this recording, from 80 institutions.

Stories about some of these students have appeared.  Mahmoud Khalil dictated a letter aimed at Columbia University, which that campus’ student paper published. Authorities are allegedly denying Rümeysa Öztürk access to her asthma inhaler.

In previous videos I’ve paused to read the names of academics seized or threatened with deportation by these offices, the names of people like  Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. We can add Rasha Alawieh. Yunseo Chung. Alireza Doroudi. Doğukan Günaydın. Leqaa Kordia. Kseniia Petrova. Ranjani Srinivasan. Badar Khan Suri. Momodou Taal. It looks like there will soon be too many to read out loud.

2: Climate change

Climate action is another Trump target, one he has gone after in multiple ways. Some of those attacks are now impacting higher education. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Lutnick announced cuts to climate change support to Princeton University.  I’d like to draw your attention to two aspects of the official statement.  First, it’s clearly against climate science and action. Second, it makes a mental health argument:

This cooperative agreement promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as “climate anxiety,” which has increased significantly among America’s youth. Its focus on alarming climate scenarios fosters fear rather than rational, balanced discussion.

In my experience the opposite is true.  Students who learn about climate, and organize in response, tend to have better mental health.  Moreover, students can’t escape the topic, absent some kind of totalitarian information environment.

3 Reactions

There continues to be a lot of academic silence in response to the Trump’s administration’s actions, as well as silence from academically-adjacent people and enterprises. But there is also protest, resistance, and actions.

Students at several university newspapers told the Guardian they feared retaliation should they write articles the Trump administration criticizes. As a result they self-censor.

Several major publishers publicly called on Congress to restore the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS. Thomas Padilla, a strategist at Authors Alliance, launched a website to host IMLS stories.

More than 1,000 academics publicly declared they would not work with Columbia University over its responses to Trump actions.

A coalition is planning a day of academic labor action in a week, on April 17th:

More lawsuits are appearing.  The Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Association for Education Finance and Policy filed suit against Secretary of Education McMahon over cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences.

On the financial side Harvard University, facing challenges we just noted, is attempting to sell $750 million in bonds to raise funds.

We can also point to some emerging digital projects concerning Trump’s actions against colleges and universities. The We Are Higher Ed website set up a student deportation tracker, complete with map:

An independent computer programmer made MAGA Collaborators, a site which “track[s] the major collaborators and resisters of the autocratic MAGA regime, both to inform contemporary consumer spending choices, and to establish a historical record.” It has a tab for schools, under which you can find headers and lists for Collaborators, Capitulators, and Resistance.

To summarize: the Trump administration is continuing to go after higher education through multiple government offices and in many ways, from funding cuts to deportations and interfering in one university’s autonomy.  Academics are feeling impacts across the nation and elsewhere in the world.  As one commentator observes, “America is at risk of losing a generation of scientists.”  Members of the American academic community are starting to react in public, from issuing statements and holding demonstrations to filing lawsuits. Deportations of students are rising; I can’t believe I have to stay “some students are in federal custody, while others are in hiding from authorities” but that is where we are in April 2025.

I hope this video summary has been of use to you. Please share your thoughts, additions, and other reactions in the comment box below. If you don’t feel you can comment publicly, please reach out to me directly through the contact link. Given the pace of events, I’ll try to post these videos more frequently.

This is a rough, dark time for those of us in higher education. It seems likely to get worse. I hope we can help each other out – and fight. Please take care, everyone.