What Trump is doing to US universities is not as bad as the McCarthyite witch trials – it's worse

Irish Times

2 days ago

Some have said the current assault on American universities is the worst since the McCarthyite purges of the 1940s and 1950s. It's actually much worse. McCarthyism targeted individuals with 'Communistic' beliefs, which could include anything left of centre.
Donald Trump
similarly seeks to stamp out dissent. But his attack is McCarthyism on steroids, attempting to destroy universities as institutions.
Trump began by threatening to withhold federal funding from universities that refused his demands. The US spends roughly $60 billion a year on university-based research and development, about half the size of the total Irish governmental budget. Because these funds have already been appropriated by the US Congress, withholding them is illegal. Yet Trump is doing it anyway and daring the courts to stop him.
In March,
Columbia University, fearful of losing $400 million in federal funding, caved to Trump's demands
including surrendering control over its Middle Eastern studies programme. In April,
Harvard fought back
and has had nearly $2 billion pulled. These funds support all manner of research, and their suspension will have devastating effects on scientific progress, the benefits of which would have been felt far beyond the American borders. Just to take one example, say you or a relative develop Alzheimer's disease: these cuts will delay the search for treatments.
More recently, Trump escalated his attack on another key source of university revenue: international students, who make up more than 20 per cent of the student body at most American research universities. Across the country, immigration officers have disappeared international students involved in anti-Israel protests. A haunting video showed one woman, Rumeysa Ozturk, walking near campus, pulled into an unmarked car in broad daylight by masked, plainclothes officers. In some cases, the government has provided no information as to the whereabouts of these students or information as to why they were detained.
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CCTV footage shows US immigration detaining college student Rumeysa Ozturk
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International students seeking to re-enter the US have been detained at the border; like undocumented migrants, these students with the legal right to study in the country fear going home in case they are not allowed to travel back. Now,
Trump has revoked Harvard's certification for enrolling international students
, leaving nearly 7,000 in limbo. And last week, the
State Department paused appointments for international student visas
, which affects any non-citizen wishing to study at any US university.
These actions will permanently damage American higher education – not simply Harvard or Columbia, which are just the most prominent examples. All American universities are potentially in the firing line.
The
New York Times reported last week
that a Trump administration taskforce had identified 10 universities for particular attention. They include George Washington University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.
Many measures may be blocked in the courts; indeed, a judge has already prevented him from blocking Harvard's enrolment of international students. Regardless, the measures have created so much uncertainty that no international student can feel good about studying in the US. Who would want to bet their future education on the chance that American courts will restrain Trump? And even if a Democrat wins the White House in 2028, any student considering a multiyear degree in the US will have to factor in the possibility of a future republican victory.
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Judge blocks Trump administration's ban on international student enrolments at Harvard
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To be sure, universities made themselves vulnerable to attack. By cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests in 2024, many gave Trump an entering wedge. Now 'fighting anti-Semitism' is the flimsy pretext of his current assault.
Private universities, in particular, are elitist institutions. The annual cost of a Harvard bachelor's degree is just over $90,000 for next year, though many students – including international students – benefit from need-based financial aid. Because most US universities, including public ones, depend on private gifts to balance their books, they focus on pleasing big donors. They kowtow not just to the rich, but to the ultra-rich.
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Donald Trump's chilling assault on universities mirrors that of the Nazis in 1930s Germany
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Trump retains a lot of political support for anti-elitist attacks on academia among voters without third-level education who have trended republican. The Maga movement loves hierarchies based on wealth, nationality, race, and gender. But it hates the kind of hierarchies that US universities supply: ones based on merit and thereby more open to women and people of colour. Trump's arch nemesis, Barack Obama, demonstrates how a black man could rise to the presidency through academic institutions: Columbia, Harvard Law, and a professorship at the University of Chicago.
As imperfect as US universities are, they remain vital institutions of free speech, which is precisely why Trump is attacking them. His attacks have had a chilling effect on college campuses. Some, such as Columbia, have been internally riven over how to respond. Academics and students are demoralised. Many are fighting back, but they are forced to redirect their energy away from studying, teaching, and researching. Three leading scholars of fascism – Marci Shore, Jason Stanley and
Timothy Snyder
– made headlines by leaving Yale for the University of Toronto. Needless to say, it is a disturbing sign for American democracy when those who know the most about fascism's rise start to flee.
Destroying higher education is a strange way of making America great again.
US universities have been not just engines of economic growth, they have been tremendous sources of soft power. According to one count, more than 50 current world leaders were educated in the US. Like other aspects of Trump's radical agenda such as his imposition of tariffs, his attack on universities in the name of America First is rapidly accelerating the decline of his country's geopolitical power.
But Trump's attack on academia
presents Ireland with a unique opportunity
. Just think how desirable it is for researchers and students to come here to an English-speaking country that is a functioning democracy. Minister for Education James Lawless recently announced a scheme for attracting disaffected American academics. Yet it is unclear whether it will be of the necessary scale and ambition to truly benefit from the US brain drain. Such a scheme, if successful, would enable Ireland not only to be a refuge for academic freedom and democracy, it would generate long-term economic growth through science and innovation. But the scheme shouldn't be too narrowly focused on the hard sciences. After all, we need artists, humanists, and social scientists – and perhaps some scholars of fascism – to help us understand the madness that is Trump's America.
Dr Daniel Geary is Mark Pigott Professor in US History at Trinity College Dublin