Colleges Are Under Siege—Defending Them Is Defending Democracy

Critical perspectives and inconvenient facts are anathema to would-be autocrats. So, it’s no surprise that President Donald Trump has again placed fact-finders – journalists, inspectors general, nonpartisan governmental data-generating agencies, and the like – squarely in his crosshairs. Make no mistake, truth is out of favor at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

If that were not enough, Trump has launched a vicious campaign to undermine another locus of independent research and critical thought: our colleges and universities. He has promised to "reclaim"them from their “Marxist maniac … and lunatic …” leaders. It’s a familiar pattern. Historically, educational institutions and their faculties appear among the first targets of authoritarian regimes. As do the "dangerous" books scholars write and study with their students.

Trump’s current assault on higher ed comes from many directions.

Indiscriminate funding cuts to the NIH, other agencies, and now to universities themselves have already jeopardized thousands of medical and scientific research programs, both threatening public health and impeding discoveries. Trump wants to abolish the Department of Education altogether, without demonstrating awareness of what it does for millions of students. His Secretary of Education laid off “nearly 50 percent” of DOE staff, eviscerating her department and crippling its data-collection capacity. Before it disappears, however, Trump’s DOE issued a "Dear Colleague" letter to all colleges and universities prohibiting even the discussion of a broad set of ideas relating to race and other “DEI” topics – an obvious assault on academic freedom. Now the DOE is investigating more than 50 universities for “DEI violations.”

In lockstep with radical-right allies such as Christopher Rufo et al., Trump has proposed changing accrediting agencies and standards to “promote conservative values and [allow] state governments to take on the role of accreditors.” In Florida and Hungary, we’ve seen where this leads. More recently, the arrest by I.C.E. of Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil, over his prominent role in last year’s protests, sends a clear warning message to international students: Free speech is still permitted – provided it aligns with Trumpian perspectives.

Colleges and universities make an inviting scapegoat for populist resentment. They already face an array of vexing issues: from public perceptions that they "push political agendas"to fostering an intellectually free and open campus in an age of social media, political hyper-polarization, and grievance. Substantial investments in financial aid at almost every school across the country have not alleviated the perception – and in some cases the reality – that high tuition “sticker prices” still present barriers to many poor and working-class students. The intransigence of these and other daunting problems helps explain why the average tenure of a college or university president has slipped below six years.

However, we must not allow these formidable challenges to mask the crucial role colleges and universities play in our politics. Our nation’s founders understood the necessary function of education—from public schools to colleges—in “keeping” our republic. Today, colleges and universities also safeguard "America's national security and competitiveness."More than ever, U.S. higher education represents a public good that we fail to preserve at our peril.

So, what is to be done?

First, higher education leaders, trustees, alumni, faculty members, and students need to partner with commentators, journalists, and sympathetic politicians to oppose attacks on higher education's autonomy as part of resisting the broader assault on information. Administrators and faculty members alike must model the type of rigorous exchange of ideas that has always been a hallmark of human progress.

Second, college and university presidents must defy political pressures to abandon their institutions’ fundamental values of truth-seeking, knowledge-building, and critical thinking. They must articulate and fearlessly defend those principles on every possible occasion. The instinct to remain silent will not serve.

Third, we must champion higher education’s often-underappreciated role in generating, preserving, and publicizing research-based data, which is essential to informed public debate, especially now that such information is vanishing from government sites.

Fourth, we must support the besieged humanities – history, political theory, philosophy, literature, etc. – which develop the knowledge, conceptual tool-kits, and critical capacities that empower citizens to understand and, as is their right, alter political trends.

Lastly, we must understand that undermining higher education’s economic foundations makes expanding access for students with limited financial means impossible. Indeed, it poses an existential threat to countless colleges and universities. They cannot support democracy if they cease to exist.

George Orwell’s iconic novel “ 1984 ” dramatized how impoverished language prevents citizens from opposing a totalitarian political regime. Accordingly, college and university scholars must fight censorship, continue to develop diagnostic concepts such as “ state capture ” and call out politicians who twist phrases like “weaponization of government” to partisan purposes. Words matter in a democracy.

Despite its challenges, our system of higher education is respected worldwide and elevates the lives of countless students every year. For their sake and that of our troubled republic, we must preserve and protect this national resource against the clear and present danger it confronts.

Now … before it’s too late.

Philip A. Glotzbach, a nationally recognized figure in higher education, is president emeritus of Skidmore.

About the Author

Philip A. Glotzbach is president emeritus of Skidmore College, where he served for seventeen years. His recent book, “Embrace Your Freedom: Winning Strategies to Succeed in College and in Life,” offers guidance to college students, and their parents, in these chaotic times.

www.philipglotzbach.com