Trump and Higher Education: What Will Happen?

American Eclectic posts articles twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. This is the third year of publication; previously published articles can be found on my site.

February 1, 2025

Listening to Donald Trump’s inauguration speech, which sounded more like a rambling campaign speech, this part struck me:

[W]e have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves in many cases, to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.

I must wonder about the impact of Trump on education—particularly at the university level.

Trump’s criticism of education is nothing new; it is simply an extension of criticism by certain types of conservatives that extends back years. I have no intention of giving an extensive history here. Still, I was thinking of the influence of David Horowitz and his books, such as The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. This book was published in 2006 before Trump was a serious political figure. Horowitz has for years pushed the theme that radicals are running universities and conservative faculty have been pushed out. He founded the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 1988, with some of their attention focused on schools from grade school through universities. I went through the professors’ names in his book, and I knew of several, not all, and had read some of their writings. One that stood out was a professor who taught (now retired) at a small Quaker college in Indiana, where she taught courses on peace and social justice, which would seem quite standard to have at a Quaker school. In an interview as the book was being published, she stated she was surprised to be included and said, "I object to the idea that students are passive and that I somehow indoctrinate them.” I still have problems trying to understand how these professors were dangerous; for most of them, the reach of their influence or visibility was limited to academic circles. Horowitz is undoubtedly known more widely than most professors addressed in his book.

Horowitz has been criticized for inaccuracies in his research, so approach his writings cautiously or ignore his writings as nothing more than foolish nonsense. In his book, he has a quote attributed to one of the professors he considered dangerous. However, the quote was from someone else. This seems like the sort of error not to make when publishing.

Horowitz has had an influence on several state legislatures with Republican majorities. In 2005, there was a push in Florida to create an “Academic Bill of Rights,” where college students could potentially sue if they felt they were not provided a “balanced exposure to significant theories and thoughtful viewpoints.” In 2003, a Republican congressman introduced a concurrent resolution that was titled an “Academic Bill of Rights,” which included the following:

[S]tudents will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs.

Horowitz has a relationship with Stephen Miller (Trump’s deputy chief of staff), who will play a significant role in Trump’s immigration policies. Still, I wonder if he might not also have a role in affecting education issues. Horowitz stated regarding Miller:

Steve Miller is obviously a very brilliant young man, and he was when I met him when he was about 18. He comes from a liberal Santa Monica family. And I think that his values are still consonant with liberalism as I knew it when I was younger. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and the so-called liberals have moved so far to the left that they actively want to suppress free speech in people like Stephen and me.

Trump has indicated that universities are among the many institutions in this country he has bad feelings about, to say the least, mainly because of university policies supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, the dreaded DEI policies, but also because of whatever he feels university faculties are teaching—I am not clear as to what he precisely sees as the problem. Trump has referred to “[taking] away their endowments, and [having them] pay us billions and billions of dollars for the terror they have unleashed into our once-great country.” Does he think he can go after public universities under some degree of state government control in addition to private universities? His threats are unclear, but he can potentially cause more harm than whatever good he has in mind.

I was thinking of the many years of university teaching under my belt and the times when students complained that I gave them a bad grade on an essay exam because they were conservative. My first reaction was to ask how I was supposed to know they were conservative since they never spoke up in class. Second, I reviewed their essays, which often contained misspelled words, poor grammar, and sentences and paragraphs that made no sense. Third, I addressed that their essays frequently demonstrated that they bull-shitted their way through their essays about a book or article they obviously did not read. I often approached introductory American national government or American state government courses as though they were “boot camps” where the idea was to show students what was expected of them as they proceeded through higher-level courses. Teaching involves information about specific topics and expectations. I doubt that Horowitz would care much for these points since he seems too engrossed in culture war issues to care about some of the basics of critical reading, analytical thinking, or clear writing—tools essential to more than just English composition courses.

The assumption that university faculty are more concerned with the indoctrination of what I am not entirely clear is the stuff of the same fantasies that fill people looking for conspiracies under every rock. The essential point I made in every course and spelled out in course syllabi was that my goal was to prepare undergraduates for law school and graduate school. Horowitz has a master’s degree from The University of California, Berkeley; I wonder if he feels Columbia University, his undergraduate school, prepared him for his next educational step.

Horowitz and now Trump see indoctrination as the prime teaching approach at universities, with the result not only of having students ending up hating their country but also voting Democrat. Ironically, indoctrination is what both men want. The 1776 Commission, developed during Trump’s first term as President, addressed “patriotic education.” Trump issued an executive order during his first term that stressed patriotic education. Trump recently signed an executive order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools (as though that ever existed in the first place). Reading this executive order, parts sound like they are associated with the 1776 Commission:

Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority.

…demanding acquiescence to “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias,” actually promotes racial discrimination and undermines national unity.

Trump’s push for curriculum changes may be masked as patriotism but raises concerns over indoctrination. The 1776 Commission was focused primarily on K-12 schools. Still, with the statements Trump has been making about higher education, it does not seem like a big leap to assume that his focus on educational reform is broader than it was during his first term. All this sounds like ideology running amok, where people see what they want to believe. I am sure many K-12 teachers are wondering what Trump is talking about—many teachers at this level have curriculums (usually called Lesson Plans) they must follow. Indoctrination is not one of the things I have seen. Trump’s strange perception of what goes on in grade schools will, no doubt, provide ammunition for some parents who want to believe this nonsense, and that will prove to be both disruptive and dangerous.

Toward the end of my years of full-time teaching, I surveyed my graduates. I had 156 Political Science and Public Administration graduates between 2000-2013. My university did a terrible job accurately keeping track of our graduates; it took a long time going through transcripts to determine the precise number of majors who graduated and tracking down what they did and where they received advanced degrees. I was interested only in those who received degrees, not just those who had attended law school or graduate school but did not graduate. I did my survey in 2017 and ended it with the Class of 2013 to ensure I only addressed former students who would have received graduate and law degrees. I had verifiable information on 136 former students (out of the 156). Of those 136, 76 percent received a law degree or graduate degree, 8 percent received a doctorate, four attended the London School of Economics, and two attended the War Studies program at King’s College, London. It is nice to see one of my former students as a member of the House of Representatives (although he graduated before 2000). Several of those 20 students not included in the verified count went to law school and graduate school. Still, I did not have verifiable information about whether they had received degrees, so I did not include them. I frequently checked with law schools to see if there were any concerns about how my former students were doing. I was always concerned that I prepared my students well to hit the ground running for that first year of law school. One study says the flunk-out rate is 12-25 percent during that first year of law school. I know there were other faculty that checked on former students. We want our students to do well. We invest time in students and want them to achieve what they want. I had former students who sought state office, running as Republicans, and who worked to raise money for the state Republican Party. Whether it is Horowitz or Trump and their nonsense that appeals to some segment of the public that wants to hear stories that bear little resemblance to what I saw over almost four decades of teaching, it has the potential to cause harm.

Sure, there are college protests against speakers or actions by governments that students, or some segments of them, decide they do not support. These protests can anger and disgust many. There are faculty that are mediocre and make fools of themselves. In Trump’s inauguration speech, he said:

After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.

He may not have approved of campus protests widely covered on television last year, where the focus was on Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, but that seemed like free speech. Those annoyed by these protests could use their free speech right to object. Trump only wants a limited range of free speech focused on supporting him or his policies. Furthermore, it is questionable if these protests had any impact on the Biden administration and its dealings with Israel. It certainly is true that the protests will not influence Trump’s policies toward Israel.

A book published in 1958 addressed the political orientation of university professors, which might be the best term to describe faculty. A review of the book at the time stated:

[The authors] were able to demonstrate that it was not on the underprivileged, undistinguished colleges that the attack on nonconformist thought was concentrated but on the very colleges which their classification shows to be the outstanding universities in the country.

I have problems with a review like this, where the assumption is that only certain schools possess wisdom or knowledge; the rest of you can forget it. The impression created is of an academic caste system. Nevertheless, the point of this book was to examine the political views of university faculty, particularly in the Social Sciences, since there were members of the public at large and members of Congress at the time, such as Senator Joseph McCarthy (R, WI) who pushed their concerns about either the patriotism or loyalty of university faculty. McCarthy died the year before the book was published. This book was published 67 years ago, addressing concerns that Horowitz and Trump are addressing today. To suddenly assume that what Horowitz or Trump are throwing around are new complaints about university faculty is just nonsense. Expect these grievances to rise to raise their ugly head periodically. Trump is just the latest to jump on that bandwagon.

Trump has indicated some assault on universities with more than a billion-dollar endowment, but I have to assume the rest would not be free from his grasp. I suspect the use of Pell Grants might provide a means to threaten all colleges and universities. Conditions for schools to be eligible to have their students receive these grants seem within his reach. In Virginia, for example, while William & Mary College had 13 percent of its students receiving Pell Grants in the 2023-24 school year, Virginia State University had almost 70 percent receiving Pell Grants. As a result, some schools may seem to be more receptive to threats than others.

Trump’s halt to federal grants that go to primarily research universities is being felt quickly. I spoke with someone familiar with several of these grants, and apprehension is mounting quickly about what Trump wants and what he can do. I am sure court cases will become a feature of where we are headed. I suspect that since the public at large believes much of this has no impact on them, they do not understand that much of this research can matter to them, particularly in health-related research. How can it be explained that this research matters to Americans? As Trump's policies and actions become more apparent, educating the public that much of this research matters, will need to become part of a counter strategy to his administration’s policies. As of now, I see just plain vengeance against anything Trump sees as his right to cripple and dismantle. One researcher wrote:

Pausing federal research funding doesn’t just put my career at risk — it threatens the progress we’ve made in understanding what it takes to truly support people affected by cancer and countless other medical conditions. And the timing couldn’t be worse. Not only are cancer incidence rates climbing for women and younger adults with different cancer types, but the Covid-19 pandemic showed us just how damaging social isolation can be, especially for vulnerable populations. If anything, we should be doubling down on research into the social and emotional aspects of health — not pausing.

A court stepped in and ordered a halt to Trump administration actions, and then the Trump administration canceled its original order freezing federal grants and loans. This has all the hallmarks of looking more like a first skirmish with more action to come.

It is worth noting that all those Republicans in Congress and state legislatures, Trump himself, and the members of his administration have university degrees (in some cases more than one degree). If grievances about university faculty can be traced back decades, whatever indoctrination Horowitz or Trump believes has been happening has not worked. I wonder how all these college-educated members of the Trump administration managed to find their conservative credentials with the educational backgrounds they have, assuming indoctrination was the purpose of the professors they had—all to make them hate their country.

While I expect an increase in university students suddenly reacting to professors who give them bad grades, saying that happened because they are conservatives and their professors are punishing them, I expect that any close examination will show the students as deserving of the poor grades they get. The problem is that various television channels, particularly on Fox News and News Max, as well as talk radio, will fail to address the specifics, which will give the impression to anyone watching or listening that certain students have a legitimate point to make. In addition, expect very specific situations used to draw generalizations against anything and everything in higher education. One analyst on Trump stated, “The normalization of Trumpism endows the revolt of the public with legitimacy it has heretofore lacked.” There was a report that professors at several universities canceled classes because of Trump winning the 2024 election, which sounds odd, if not foolish. Reports such as this will encourage Trump to go after universities in any way he can. Reports such as this also add to the creation of impressions that universities are somehow out of touch with Trump’s supporters, so whatever he or others say about universities is accurate. I think it is safe to say universities will be attacked in every way possible.

Education at the higher level goes through changes—and it should. I was thinking of the changes I made to the Political Science and Public Administration majors to address what students needed to be prepared for as they headed toward careers, law school, or graduate school. However, the changes made within courses were more important than those to the programs. When I started teaching, during the early years of computers (a Tandy TRS-80 with two floppy discs) and no Internet, my courses were very different from later years, where getting students to learn how to do Internet-based research became essential to each course. During the 1990s, when I frequently interacted with state legislators as a vice president for legislative affairs for a medical society, I often heard legislators I knew say they were not particularly good at doing Internet-based research.

Internet-based research comes with a cautionary note. One researcher stated that he tries to emphasize how to approach and not approach it, in this case, with reference to Horowitz:

We teachers of composition need to find ways of getting our students to do more than simply mine the Internet for citations that seem to back up prior assumptions. Otherwise our students are never going to be able to read the works of people like Horowitz and recognize the weakness of their research and their arguments.

Weaving the importance of Internet-based research through all courses and constantly addressing students' need to avoid the pitfalls of simply finding quotes to justify what they want to believe is a painstaking process. Teaching takes patience.

Medical school will not revisit the basics students learned in an introduction to chemistry or biology course at the undergraduate level; well, expect much the same with law school courses or graduate school programs in political science or public administration, which will not cover what was addressed in an introductory American government or public administration course.

I wonder what Horowitz or Trump assume or understand are addressed in politics and history courses. I believe the focus of Trump’s anger at universities and what they teach will be in these areas in particular (maybe also include sociology). I remember a specific lecture I gave in a Constitutional Law course. A woman asked if she could sit in that lecture. She was taking an education course, and one of the assignments was to sit in several different classes and write a paper addressing the different teaching styles. In this lecture, I addressed that Americans are citizens under two constitutions: their state constitution (which contains a bill of rights) and the Bill of Rights within the United States Constitution.

In this lecture, I discussed the Supreme Court case of Barron v. Baltimore (1833). The basics of this case focused on a man named Barron, who owned a wharf in Baltimore Harbor. The city of Baltimore was paving roads and dumping rocks, dirt, and sand into the waters around his wharf, which led to sediment settling near his wharf. As a result, deep-draft ships could no longer use his wharf. Barron referred to the Fifth Amendment in the United States Constitution and wanted compensation for his property, which was now of little use. The Fifth Amendment, in part, states:

No person shall be…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It sounded like the Fifth Amendment applied, but the Supreme Court did not see it that way. In the opinion in this case, the Court stated:

The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of individual States. Each State established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated. The people of the United States framed such a government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation, and best calculated to promote their interests. The powers they conferred on this government were to be exercised by itself, and the limitations on power, if expressed in general terms, are naturally and necessarily applicable to the government created by the instrument. They are limitations of power granted in the instrument itself, not of distinct governments framed by different persons and for different purposes.

The Bill of Rights did not apply; Barron needed to address his grievance with the Maryland government. The city of Baltimore is part of the state government.

In addition to this case, I discussed an interview I had with the governor of Florida in 1990 (Bob Martinez). At the time, I was teaching at a university in Florida and writing for a weekly local newspaper. While the article I wrote addressed water management issues, a significant issue always in Florida, I discussed a situation with him where he called the state legislature back into special session a few years earlier to get them to increase the state government’s regulation of abortion. This was after a Supreme Court case that allowed states the right to increase their regulation of abortion (this was years before Roe v Wade was overturned). He pointed out problems with what he wanted and how it ran into the Florida Bill of Rights (called Declaration of Rights), which includes the right to privacy. This section in the Florida Constitution states:

Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein. This section shall not be construed to limit the public’s right of access to public records and meetings as provided by law.

The point is that here is an example of our two constitutions interacting: a state constitution and the United States Constitution. One book that was published the year before I retired stated on this issue:

For the first century of its existence, the Bill of Rights did not appear in many Supreme Court cases, principally because the Court ruled that it only applied to the national government, and the state governments exercised the most power over citizens’ lives.

Ok, the class ended, and a few days later, I ran into the woman’s husband who sat in my class. He said she “found me to be an extreme liberal.” I was curious why she saw me that way. I met her, and she told me my discussion of the Bill of Rights bothered her because it contradicted her beliefs. As a result of addressing ways of understanding how to look at the Bill of Rights differently than what she believed, I became a liberal. I expect this problem to confront many professors as they need to address whatever emerges as Trump tries to change teaching at the higher education level. Teaching can make students uncomfortable when their cherished beliefs are challenged. It is usual for people to assume, and assumptions are just that, education involves questioning assumptions. Questioning assumptions is part of teaching critical reasoning. Critical reasoning helps people to think on their own, and not to become indoctrinated.

I doubt that many students can coherently explain the terms liberal and conservative. Generally, teachers expect to hear students’ anecdotes to explain competing political ideology terms. I expect students, and people in general, to apply the terms liberal and conservative to anyone who challenges what they already want to keep believing. People always have inaccurate assumptions and beliefs, and education often involves getting students to be challenged. An excellent quote I used in my courses applies:

Our minds have the need to know. When we don’t know we make assumptions - they make us feel safer than not knowing. And we are pretty much always making assumptions.

I am concerned about the problems that will come with higher education, as Trump acts more like a bull in a China shop than a thoughtful leader with clear and coherent ideas.

My advice to professors: Use a tape recorder in all your classes. Write in your syllabus that you are using a tape recorder and display it prominently. Expect open season on your teaching. Save those tape recordings; your teaching may be challenged.

Notes

Aaron Barlow, “Research, David Horowitz, and Control of Our Public Universities,” ProgressPond (March 20, 2006): https://www.progresspond.com/2006/03/20/research-david-horowitz-and-control-of-our-public-universities/

Barron v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 (1833), Justia U.S. Supreme Court: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/32/243/

Book Reviews, Science, Vol. 129, Issue 3340 (January 2, 1959): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.129.3340.34

Executive Order, Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Education, The White House (January 29, 2025): https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/

Paul Lazarfeld, The Academic Mind: Social Scientists in a Time of Crisis (Glencoe, IL. Free Press, 1958): http://archive.org/details/academicmindsoci0000laza (this only shows a few pages)

Lexi Lomas Cochran, “College prepares for new legal and political terrain under Trump,” The Hill (January 8, 2025): https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5069936-college-students-trump-immigration-crackdown-daca-dreamers-h1-b-visas-campus-protests/

FA09: Pell Grant Report, State Council of Higher Education: https://research.schev.edu/fair/pell_dom_report.asp

Martin Gurri, “Marin Gurri: Trump Has a Mandate to Lead. What Comes Next?” The Free Press (January 19, 2025): https://www.thefp.com/p/martin-gurri-trump-has-a-mandate-inauguration?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=organic-social&hide_intro_popup=true

“David Horowitz: Activist and Writer,” Frontline: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/david-horowitz/

Scott Jaschik, “David Horowitz Has a List,” Inside Higher Ed (February 12, 2006): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/02/13/david-horowitz-has-list

Jennifer Kabbany, “’Devastated’: Classes at Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Swarthmore and other canceled over Trump win,” The College Fix (November 8, 2024): https://www.thecollegefix.com/devastated-classes-at-harvard-penn-columbia-swarthmore-and-others-canceled-over-trump-win/

“Now Cherished, Bill of Rights Spent a Century in Obscurity,” United States Courts (December 12, 2019): https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2019/12/12/now-cherished-bill-rights-spent-a-century-obscurity. The quote from a 2018 published book on the Bill of Rights is in this article.

Nataniel Popper, “Conservative ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ Picks Up Steam,” Forward (April 1, 2005): https://forward.com/news/3193/conservative-e2-80-98academic-bill-of-rights-e2-80-99-picks-u/

Sandra Packard, “The Academic Bill of Rights: Leadership in an Era of Legislative Oversight,” (No stated publication or date): https://our.oakland.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/cffc5c01-848b-43d1-82b9-080cddcd9f21/content

Robert Shaffer, “Response to David Horowitz,” HNN: History News Network (no date): https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/response-to-david-horowitz

Andrew Ujifusa, “Trump’s ‘Patriotic Education’ Order Heavy on Public Relations, Not Curriculum,” EdcationWeek (November 2, 2020): https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/trumps-patriotic-education-order-heavy-on-public-relations-not-curriculum/2020/11

David Victorson, “The federal research funding freeze holds the lifeblood of medical research ransom,” Stat (January 28, 2025): https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/28/research-funding-freeze-cancer-grants-what-now/

“What percentage of first year laws fail?” legalknowledgebase (June 30, 2022): https://legalknowledgebase.com/can-you-fail-first-year-law-school