CounterCurrent: Week of 04/14/2025
Higher education won’t reform without a fight. As we discussed in last week’s edition of CounterCurrent, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) isn’t dead, and schools are either quietly or defiantly standing against the Trump administration’s education orders to curb DEI ideology and anti-Semitism on campuses.
The Trump administration has not explicitly endorsed a plan for education reform. But with the administration’s latest responses to Harvard and Columbia, a plan of sorts appears to be taking shape.
Yesterday, X buzzed with news that Harvard had rejected the Trump administration’s updated list of demands. These demands, sent to Harvard University on Friday, April 11, expanded on an earlier letter to the institution sent on April 3. The prompt rejection of the latest letter was a surprise, as up to this point it appeared that the University was willing to accept the administration’s admonishment. This outright rejection places billions of dollars of federal funding on the line.
The latest letter sent by the Trump administration contains several notable demands. A few are listed below:
- abolish all criteria, preferences, and practices, whether mandatory or optional, throughout its admissions and hiring practices, that function as ideological litmus tests.
- every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity.
- commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.
If you haven’t been keeping up, Harvard was set to undergo a review by the Trump administration’s anti-Semitism task force to investigate allegations of anti-Semitic behavior on campus. This comes in conjunction with Trump’s Executive Order (EO) “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” which directs all heads of executive departments and agencies to submit a report to the President within 60 days of the EO date, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, on measures taken beyond a prior EO—EO 13899—to combat or curb anti-Semitism. Also, the reports must contain “an inventory and analysis of all pending administrative complaints, as of the date of the report, against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil-rights violations related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023, campus anti-Semitism.” Nearly $9 billion of federal grants and contracts to Harvard were in review by the investigation.
As of yesterday, Harvard President Alan Garber stated that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” indicating non-acquiescence with Trump administration demands. Harvard faculty—through the Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors—have also joined the fight by filing a lawsuit against the administration on Friday, “alleging that the review of Harvard’s funds was an illegal exploitation of the Civil Rights Act and an effort to impose political views upon the institution.”
While most college presidents are remaining silent in the face of Trump’s education reform efforts, there are some exceptions to the rule other than Alan Garber. Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth, and Trinity Washington University President Patricia McGuire, have teed up to fight the Trump administration.
In contrast, Harvard’s formerly defiant Ivy bedfellow, Columbia University, has calmed down its efforts to fight the Trump administration’s quest for higher education accountability.
Last month, the Trump administration froze $400 million in federal research funding to Columbia, prompting the university to yield to a list of demands. In the aftermath, Columbia interim President Katrina Armstrong stepped down and the National Institutes of Health froze another $250 million in funding, in addition to the $400 million still in limbo. The federal government is also considering federal oversight of Columbia University through a consent decree—a so far, unprecedented action for a college or university, but common in other contexts such as police forces and prisons.
Other universities are in the sights of the Trump administration for allegations of anti-Semitism on campus and pervasive DEI ideology and programs. Inside Higher Ed explains,
Universities that have had their federal funding targeted include Cornell University (more than $1 billion), Northwestern University ($790 million), Brown University ($510 million), Princeton University ($210 million) and the University of Pennsylvania ($175 million).
Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, writes on the recent developments at Harvard, Columbia, and other universities, stating that though the Trump administration may be receiving pushback from opposition and institutions themselves, that the executive branch is not unjustified in its efforts to “discharge the poison of the ideologically extreme establishment from our postsecondary institutions.” Such measures by the Trump administration are necessary because,
Our colleges and universities are the moral and practical equivalent of the Jim Crow South. They are privileged, in some cases immensely wealthy, and, because they act as a law unto themselves, are practically lawless. The battle at hand is whether we will have lawful higher education or rule by these well-entrenched cultural warlords. They amount to a state-within-a-state dedicated to perpetual discrimination and authoritarian illiberalism.
Hopefully in the coming days, the Trump administration will lay out a comprehensive and clear plan for reforming education in the long-term—perhaps Congress and the Supreme Court will join in as well. Until then, the Trump administration is likely to continue seeking to remake and reform reluctant colleges and universities.
While higher ed scoffs at Trump’s push to gut toxic campus ideologies, don’t expect change anytime soon. Even with funding cuts looming, colleges seem hell-bent on doubling down on DEI dogma and ignoring anti-Semitism. Pinching their pocketbooks might sting, but these institutions are too far gone to ditch their sacred cows.
Until next week.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by the NAS Staff. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
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