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Even those who aren’t surprised by the simple fact of Donald Trump’s assault on America’s universities must be shocked by the full frontal magnitude of it all, belated attempts to walk back parts of it, notwithstanding. (Harvard is putting up a courageous, clever, and effective defense.)

Trump’s promised attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was a major talking point for his 2024 campaign, and rolling DEI back is an article of faith for many of his advisers and backers. Higher education was certainly a target from that perspective — yet few imagined the savagery that, given the chance, he would unleash. 

But I see even more in this, something bigger and more disturbing. This country, with everything good it ever represented, is on life support, and the people in charge are whacking away at all that could save it. 

The current standoff at Harvard Yard harkens back to a long-playing project of more traditional conservative Republican elements: weakening all institutions perceived, rightly or wrongly, as pillars of the Left, the Democratic Party, those who challenge tradition — and the primacy of both the American white male and the One Percent. 

These “villains” include the full range of nonprofit organizations, of which universities are but one example. Well, perhaps not the full range: only the non-right-wing ones.

This initiative can be dated to various manifestos, perhaps the most important the so-called Powell memo of the Nixon era, which served as an intellectual forebear of the notorious recent blueprint from the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, about which Trump pretended to know nothing, but then followed to a T.

Trump says explicitly what bothers him: “DEI, critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.” He doesn’t elaborate on just which “political content” he doesn’t like. However, we know — it’s communicated in his steady stream of messages to the faithful, full of code words, dog whistles, and euphemisms, as well as garishly unsubtle slurs and sneers. 

Alleged antisemitism, a core allegation used to justify cuts of government funding to universities, is merely a cynical pretext for a larger purpose, driven by Trump’s far-right political and cultural agendas. 

Related: Could Fighting Antisemitism Cause More Antisemitism?

We know the Trump team hardly cares about that issue, given how many neo-Nazi fellow travelers they have welcomed, and the antisemitic dog whistles targeting George Soros and the like that played a major role in their victory. (As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz bluntly put it, “Trump’s podcast pals are mainstreaming America’s worst anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists.”)

To be sure, universities can be critiqued on many fronts and the top ones are very much conduits from a privileged past to a privileged future. But that said, they do a surprisingly good job of exposing students of all backgrounds to facts and analyses that encourage them to question aspects of the system and to think rationally and for themselves. And for Trump et al., that’s the problem.

Trump’s aggression can lead us to overlook the fact that higher education and the basic values it teaches have been under attack for years, with one university after another under assault from conservative alumni demanding that resources be redirected from what they consider unacceptable purposes to more acceptable ones. 

Too few (James Carville is one) have spoken up about this or sought a way to fight back. (To read of noble, and sometimes sophisticated efforts, go here, here, here, here, here.)

Among the concrete barriers we are up against: the network of virulently conservative think tanks — backed by a very small group of millionaires and up — whose policies have led to over 100 state-level bills banning DEI, critical race theory, and other “divisive concepts” in colleges, according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). 

The think tanks include the Center for Renewing America, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, American Legislative Exchange Council, and of course, the Heritage Foundation, mother of Project 2025.

Liberal Arts: An Ever-Present Threat to the Right Wing

Those hostile to the academy usually embed their true goals in layers of cotton candy, but the inevitable result of their “educational” agenda — anti-science, anti-independent institutions of higher learning, anti-rule of law — would be to reduce Americans from thinking individuals to lockstep followers of authoritarian leaders, who want to keep “the masses” focused primarily if not exclusively on pursuit of personal comfort. 

For top-down leaders, it’s a whole lot easier to rule a citizenry who have no awareness of the function of government — and how to use it against the encroachments of a stifling oligarchy.

And almost as threatening to authoritarians is a citizenry who feel compassion for those who are different, because they understand that we are all part of the same commonweal and interconnected in a single ecosystem.

This deep understanding often comes from exposure to literature, history, and folklore, and all the arts that bring to life the images and perceptions that arouse compassion. Which is anathema to authoritarians because, among other things, it may incite the public to resist governmental policies that scapegoat specific institutions and segments of the populace. 

Universities have always struggled to fund higher-minded pursuits. A lot of their wealthiest funders actually favor college sports, or the business school, or having their name affixed to a university hospital or research center that produces tangible, measurable benefits to the community at large.

The number of donors who eagerly support true liberal arts education is small. 

But take note: It’s not “civics courses” per se that the Right deplores but the teaching of common goals, collective action to reach those goals, and the virtues of cooperation, compassion, and empathy — all of which are necessary to a strong, decent society. And all of which stand in opposition to a society composed of an oligarchic ruling class and an underclass of atomized individuals who mistakenly believe that, Game of Thrones-style, they can forge their own destiny as lone operators.

Authoritarians and billionaire oligarchs don’t want people to understand the origins, purpose, and functioning of democratic institutions, which in the United States is based on three co-equal, balancing branches of government. 

And they certainly don’t want people to appreciate how liberal arts impact their lives, if only indirectly. Trump and his faithful like to denigrate a liberal arts education as the province of snobs, to ridicule it as all puffery with no practical application. 

But what kind of person is better prepared to handle the challenges and opportunities of life in a complex society — in other words, to be a constructive citizen: a person exposed to psychology, philosophy, political science, art, language, writing, history and more — or someone whose entire outlook on life comes, say, from a narrow focus on developing technology products or mastering business practices? 

An even fairer comparison might be between the former group and the proud know-nothings who make up Trump’s hard-core base — the terminally incurious.

Right after Trump’s victory in November, I wrote about an urgent related problem: the decline of the intellectual curiosity and mental health of the American electorate. 

As I said at the time: 

At some point in our education we all need to be trained in critical thinking, real “research” (which involves more than idly Googling something), learning to weigh alternative viewpoints, and, perhaps most important, understanding how we know what we know. In other words, the meaning and value of proof and the nuances involved in its pursuit. 

That “mental infrastructure” also needs to take into account how the control of technology and media by the money-driven is bound to lead in directions that are not salutary to a government of, by, and for the people. We see that most clearly in the growing influence of figures like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Joe Rogan. 

Many Americans are not familiar with, say, the history of once-free societies that descend the slippery slope into tyranny — or the importance of the rule of law, as articulated by independent courts, in resisting would-be dictators. 

When I urged that the authoritarian assault on all aspects of our democratic system receive immediate attention, some argued that it is too big an issue, too hard to explain in easily grasped sound-bites, 

and that we have more pressing needs. That was right after Trump took office.

Now, thanks to the spectacle of Trump’s egregious attacks on Harvard, Columbia, et al., this is a moment to acknowledge the pricelessness of these institutions. We should all take heart from these stirrings of resistance, not only among academics, but from all the people turning out to cheer the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are criss-crossing the country in what they call a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. 

Ninety days of Trump-style one-man rule seem to have triggered a renewed determination to affirm the basic rights guaranteed in the US Constitution — and, paradoxically, to defend elite institutions we never imagined could not defend themselves.