Academia vs Trump is a war of ideologies

The administration is seeking to weaponise grants and funds to force universities to align with its thinking

- Sreeram Chaulia

The former US secretary of State and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, is said to have remarked that "the reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small". As the gloves come off in a monumental face-off between the administration of US President Donald Trump and American universities over sensitive political issues such as anti-Semitism, racism, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights and identity, the stakes are actually high and the ramifications go beyond academic squabbles within the ivory tower. This tussle is a marker of an ideological war in a polarised era and a litmus test of balance in knowledge production.

That Trump would go after universities through massive funding cuts was obvious since his re-election campaign, when he slammed them as "Marxist maniacs and lunatics" spreading anti-Israel and anti-conservative views on college campuses. As most of the academe in the US tends to fall into the Left-liberal mould due to inherent inclinations of intellectuals toward progressive values and critical thinking, universities have frequently been attacked by Trump's far-Right populists for perpetuating "liberal intolerance", "anti-nationalistic bias" and "woke culture".