MAGA Against College: A Fight for America’s Minds
Education Policy Brief # 201 | Damian DeSola | April 4, 2025
Featured Photo By: MSNBC
It is no secret that the past two months of Trump’s second term have rattled both American and international societies to their core. Racing out of the gates, the administration has enacted executive orders and taken initial action against those who stand against its policy agenda; these actions are illegal and fundamentally violate the Constitution. A prime example is the administration’s crusade against higher education institutions and their students across the country. Believing in a “mandate” from the American people, Trump and his executive compatriots seek to focus not only on influencing the people’s hearts but also shaping their minds.
Two different academic targets are implicitly named by the administration, the students at Universities and the Universities themselves.
Targeted students are of international origin and are legally in the United States on student visas or, in one instance, a permanent resident via a green card. They have been the focus of the administration as their supposed mandate to fight immigration has provided political cover for action against these students.
In one currently unresolved incident, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, Rumeysa Ozturk, was detained by plainclothes secret police officers wearing masks. Once arrested, Ms. Ozturk was flown from Massachusetts to Louisiana and is being held there. As of now, there is no official statement as to why Ms. Ozturk was arrested, as some speculate that her publication of an article arguing support for Palestine along with her non-citizen status made her a target by the administration. It is reported that outside of this article, which shows no favor for Hamas, Ms. Ozturk was not involved in mass protests or any other form of explicit activism.
Another infamous case is the much-publicized detention of Mahmoud Khalil by ICE. A graduate of Columbia University and a lawful permanent resident with a green card, Khalil participated in various pro-Palestine protests on campus and worked as a lead negotiator with the University. On March 8th, Mr. Khalil was detained by ICE without charging him with a criminal offense but under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a McCarthy era act used to deport immigrants that the Secretary of State determines threaten U.S. foreign policy. The State Department said they will remove his status as a permanent resident, and that his arrest was supposedly because he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
University officials have also faced challenges from the Trump administration. By threatening to remove funding and grants, the administration has achieved some success in bending the operation of these schools to its will.
Most notably, is the accession to the administration’s demands by Columbia University. The administration announced that around $400 million of federal funding would be withheld unless the University agreed to their demands. In response, the University relented and declared they would be reforming campus protest rules by banning face-concealing masks and requiring ID checks, and altering the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department, including the appointment of a new department head.
There have also been demands to allow police to arrest “agitators”, change the school’s definition of antisemitism, change how the university disciplines students, and reform the admissions process. All of this is under the pretense of fighting antisemitism and DEI on campus. The accession to the demands resulted in the president of the university stepping down.
Broadly, the administration is investigating hundreds of colleges and research institutions, with sixty receiving letters from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights notifying them of their ongoing investigation; the goal is to achieve similar results as Columbia’s case by threatening to withhold federal funding at their discretion. On April 3 the administration announced a pause of $510 million in federal funding to Brown University. Other major cases have involved the pausing of grants and contracts have also developed at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Analysis
Trump and the Republican party have long-standing grievances with higher education institutions. From their perspective, colleges and universities, and the voting alumni they produce, hold and espouse political philosophies that run counter to conservative values. University campuses are also liable for becoming the stomping grounds for disgruntled and bold students who protest national policies.
Furthermore, Universities retain curriculums and admissions processes that conservatives consider anti-American and unfair. Fields like Critical Race Theory and other critical sociological and historical fields have drawn conservative criticism for teaching points of view that consider American and European history and philosophy as less than perfect. In terms of admissions, the practice of DEIA in the selection process, which ensures a wide pool of diverse candidates that are fairly treated regardless of generally discriminated against features, has received massive scrutiny by the administration. They claim that this method of candidate selection results in choosing specific applicants based on their skin color, thereby reducing the opportunities for white applicants that have been passed over for minority candidates.
However justified the conservatives are for naming Universities as a source of political opposition, their actions that suppress free speech and bend independent institutions of study to their will is unacceptable. The value of independent educational institutions in a liberal democracy is incalculable as their capacity for promoting critical thinking skills and producing minds that create innovative solutions is an absolute necessity. Without free debate and peer review, democracy will wither in the shadow of a monolithic thought process that is incapable of providing the necessary hypotheses and frameworks for contemporary social and technological evolution.
Engagement Resources:
- A letter of support to US College and University Presidents from the ACLU
- An explanation of DEIA from the American Association of People with Disabilities
- ACLU petition to free Mahmoud Khalil