“There are a lot of levers and tools that will get their attention from day one,” Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican, said in a meeting with lobbying groups earlier this month to discuss ways to punish universities. he said. on suspicion of civil rights violations.
President Trump and his allies said the second Trump administration would replace existing universities’ oversight bodies, which have influence over funding and fair practices, with a new agency that protects “American traditions and Western civilization.” . President Trump said he would step up civil rights investigations into anti-Semitism and racism. The term is borrowed from its familiar use by conservatives to refer to affirmative action and campus diversity initiatives. And, importantly, it would cut off federal funding to universities deemed to be in violation of federal regulations.
Higher education experts said the plan is aggressive but doable because it calls for leveraging existing federal powers under the president’s control. If Trump wins the election, he could implement these and other proposals through regulation or executive action, even if Republicans do not control Congress.
“As president, you have a lot of authority on all these different issues. [executive branch] ” Scalise said at a Washington conference held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The Guardian published a video of the remarks for the first time.
For his campaign and its supporters, President Trump’s pledge to crack down on higher education represents a premature liquidation of institutions that, in their view, have moved too far to the left and strayed from their founding mission.
“Universities are part of the social contract in this country. They educate our children. They produce important intellectual property,” Vance said in a CBS interview in May. “But if they’re not educating our children properly, then they’re not accomplishing the purpose of the contract.” The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
But some critics see President Trump’s comments on higher education as the rhetoric of a man who enjoys executive power and wants to confront political opponents and crush dissent.
“This is what authoritarians do,” said Stephen Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard University who studies democracy and authoritarianism. “Authoritarians on the left, center, and right are targeting universities.”
Trump himself has praised authoritarian leaders in China, Russia and Hungary. In an interview with CBS, Vance reflected on Hungarian President Viktor Orbán’s takeover of his country’s universities, saying the Hungarian president “made some smart decisions there that we should learn from.”
In some ways, President Trump’s federal higher education policy plan is an extension of Republican ideas already in place in some states. In recent years, Republican governors and state legislatures have banned diversity and inclusion offices, replaced leaders at public universities with ideological allies and cut courses seen as having a liberal bent.
So far, these efforts have been limited to mostly red states, but higher education officials are concerned that President Trump could introduce similar policies nationwide. “We’re already seeing state governments politicizing higher education, but doing it at the federal level would be devastating,” said Natasha Warikoo, a sociology professor at Tufts University. said.
Some of President Trump’s higher education plans are outlined in his speeches, policy statements, and the platform of the Republican National Committee, which he supports. Similar proposals are included in Project 2025, a sweeping strategy document for the second Trump administration prepared by Trump’s allies and disavowed by Trump.
The plan’s main goal is federal funding in the form of student financial aid and research grants, which most universities rely on to stay in business. This adds up to tens of billions of dollars a year. To receive that critical funding, educational institutions must comply with federal regulations, including civil rights laws. Additionally, to benefit from student financial aid, you must have a stamp of approval from a federally recognized accredited institution.
The deal creates some leverage that President Trump can use.
“Our secret weapon is the university accreditation system,” he said in a campaign video last year.
This obscure system, rarely mentioned in presidential campaigns, is at the heart of how America’s university system operates. Accrediting bodies such as the New England Commission on Higher Education, which oversees schools such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, set standards for universities’ academic quality, financial health, and governance. Accreditation is required for schools to qualify students for federal financial aid, and most students rely on this aid to cover tuition.
“In other words, almost all colleges and universities need accreditation to remain viable,” said Peter Wood, former chief of staff to the president of Boston University.
Accrediting agencies are private, nonprofit organizations, but they can only accredit schools if they are approved by the federal government. The Secretary of Education, who is appointed by the President and reports directly to him, may revoke that approval at any time.
This would give the president broad authority over certifiers, a key element of Trump’s plan.
“When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors who have allowed our universities to be controlled by Marxist lunatics and lunatics,” President Trump said in a campaign video last year. We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will once again impose real standards on universities. ” He reiterated that vow at a campaign event in September.
Scalise said this month at a conference in Washington. Want to get their attention? The party is over. ”
Higher education experts point out that the federal government itself cannot revoke a school’s accreditation. But it could exercise significant influence over accreditors and revoke their official accreditation, or in Trump’s terminology, “fire them.”
Larry Rudd, a higher education finance and governance expert at the Association of University Trustees, expressed some skepticism about whether Trump will be able to successfully implement his plan through executive action. He noted that President Biden has struggled to achieve some of his higher education priorities, such as student loan forgiveness, but legal challenges have prevented them from happening. “Just because you have nominal power doesn’t make it a reality,” Rudd said of Trump’s plan.
Another tool President Trump and his allies say they plan to use is federal civil rights law.
“I am directing the Department of Justice to file federal civil rights lawsuits against schools that continue to discriminate against others, and schools that continue to engage in blatant illegal discrimination under the guise of fairness,” Trump said in a campaign video.
The federal government has the power to investigate universities for whether they discriminate or create hostile environments for protected classes, such as racial, gender, or national origin groups. If government investigators find violations, federal authorities can revoke a school’s eligibility for federal funding.
“it is [official] It’s a remedy for civil rights violations,” said Tyler Coward, an attorney and campus free speech advocate with the nonpartisan Individual Rights Expression Foundation. In practice, the more typical outcome is an agreement with the federal government in which the university commits to changing its actions and policies.
In addition to using the Justice Department, the second Trump administration may also investigate civil rights violations through the Department of Education. Last year, the department filed dozens of formal complaints alleging that universities violate civil rights laws by aggravating anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hatred. Republican Congressional leaders have convened university presidents in Washington for hearings on campus anti-Semitism that led to the resignations of three Ivy League presidents, including Harvard University’s Claudine Gay.
“We’ve had public hearings. We’re well prepared,” Scalise said at a conference held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. A Trump victory could allow him to withhold billions of dollars in federal funds from schools the federal government determines violate the civil rights of students, he said.
Coward, a free speech advocate, said there was nothing inherently concerning about the pledge to enforce civil rights laws. In the past year, since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, there have been instances of assaults on Jewish students and protesters blocking students from entering parts of university campuses, a move that could constitute a civil rights violation. He said that there is.
But he also warned that civil rights enforcement could go too far and endanger freedom of expression. He said that even under the Biden administration, the Department of Education is asking universities to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech, which is protected by the First Amendment. He said some of the policies proposed by Mr. Trump and his allies could increase pressure on universities and lead to further suppression of speech.
“When an institution has a choice between stripping students of their First Amendment rights or losing federal funding, nearly all will choose censorship over losing federal funding.” said Coward.
Wood, a former Boston University administrator and current president of the right-wing National Association of Scholars, said he felt some of Trump’s plans were reasonable, including the prospect of accreditation reform.
He and other conservative critics of higher education argue that accreditors simply ensure that schools are financially sound and have strayed from their original mission of providing a good education. There is. Now, they are explicitly political and pushing DEI priorities, Wood says.
But critics of Trump’s plan see the power grab as potentially undermining universities’ independence.
“Whether it involves completely disenfranchising an institution, taxing endowments, or using other appropriations to obtain federal research funding, the use of wallets to shape governance policy “You’re harnessing the power of,” said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race, and public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.
Muhammad also said that Trump’s proposed policies could disproportionately impact academics of color, women and gender non-conforming people. The Project 2025 policy document calls on Congress to cut funding for “area studies” such as gender studies and African American studies, which have fewer white and male faculty than other fields.
If President Trump follows through on his promises, Muhammad said, “we could see a massive purge of faculty of color across higher education.”
Some of Trump’s critics say his vow to influence universities is consistent with what they see as his increasingly authoritarian politics. .
Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University who views President Trump as an authoritarian, said universities are a prime target. , often have significant amounts of resources, and in most cases, universities are always strongholds for opposition and dissent, regardless of the government or color of the regime.”
President Trump’s allies say such calculations are premature.
“I think it makes perfect sense that we need a political solution,” Vance said in an interview with CBS.
Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com. Hilary Burns can be reached at hilary.burns@globe.com. follow her @Hillary’s Birds.
