When Academic Freedom Falls, Civil Society Is Next
Zane McNeill | 29 April 2025 | NonProfit Quarterly
Across the United States, universities are raising the alarm about what they see as a campaign by the Donald Trump administration to assert political control over higher education. Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania have all experienced withdrawn federal grants—part of a broader strategy to condition public funding on political compliance. Federal officials had previously warned 60 institutions that their civil rights policies could jeopardize their grants.
More recently, Trump also signed an executive order threatening to revoke the accreditation of universities that refuse to comply with his administration’s policies against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)…