Universities threatened with massive federal funding cuts, research programmes facing closure, and faculty and staff facing possible detention and deportation for political views – US higher education is being squeezed hard by Donald Trump’s presidency.
Threatened with the loss of $400 million in federal funding, New York's Columbia University has agreed to changes demanded by Trump, who has accused the Ivy League institution of tolerating anti-Semitism because it allowed Palestinian demonstrations to flourish on campus.
Johns Hopkins University is seeing $800 million in federal funding evaporate, leading the prestigious Baltimore school to announce more than 2,000 layoffs.
Other universities and the thousands of researchers there who contribute to some of the world's great medical and scientific breakthroughs are struggling with how to handle the damage -- or are bracing for the axe.
The Trump administration's threats and coercion, particularly at Columbia, ‘are part of a clear authoritarian playbook meant to crush academic freedom and critical research in American higher education,’ said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
The repercussions are landing like earthquakes in academia, he added.
Trump's ‘unprecedented demands and threats of similar actions against 60 universities have created instability and a deep chilling effect on college campuses across the country,’ the AAUP warned this week.
Trump's return to power has brought shock decisions, with the teaching of certain subjects suddenly banned, billions in research funding frozen, and researchers even being threatened with expulsion over supposed political positions and activism.
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‘There's sort of this state of underlying fear and uncertainty,’ an astronomy researcher in Boulder, Colorado told AFP on condition of anonymity. ‘Anything could happen any day now and the rug could be pulled out from under me.’
Becoming 'political'
When a French scientist was recently barred from entering the United States due to his ‘political opinion’ on the Trump administration's research policies -- opinion gleaned from a search of his phone, his government said -- concerns were further heightened.
Washington denies that was the reason he was refused entry.
Adding to the climate of fear was the recent arrest for possible deportation -- since suspended by a judge -- of an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University over his alleged ties to Palestinian group Hamas.
The Washington-based university said it backs the right to open debate on campus, ‘even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable.’
Researchers are warning that the very vocabulary they use in their work, from ‘diversity’ to ‘vaccines’ to ‘climate,’ puts funding at risk under an administration openly targeting such issues.
‘When it gets regulated by people outside science, it no longer becomes science, it becomes political,’ a scientist with 30 years' experience in biomedical research told AFP. ‘This is not an English poetry class.’
The strength of America's higher education system is its ability to ‘create and transfer knowledge and engage in research’ and innovation to serve the public good, said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU).
But achieving those objectives ‘presupposes the free exchange of ideas’ and the autonomy of educational institutions.
Looking abroad
Many researchers are keeping their heads down.
‘It underscores the atmosphere of fear,’ the Colorado researcher said. ‘Even if you're like me, an American citizen... you're wondering if you even have the freedom of speech anymore’ and whether there would be consequences for protesting Trump policy.
For one genetics student, the silence from his eastern US school has been particularly worrying.
‘There has been no talk about this and no transparency -- even though everything around the university is seeming like it's on fire,’ said the student, who asked not to be named.
Several students spoke about how researchers are in collective shock, refusing to believe such unprecedented behaviour is occurring in a nation long seen as academically stable and welcoming.
Some are even questioning their professional future in America.
The astronomer recalled reading social media posts from researchers saying things like, ‘I need information on how to get a visa to Spain.’
She herself has not ruled out exploring job prospects abroad.
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