University environments have always kindled societal progress. At institutions of higher education, students have spurred movements for national reform, demanded policy reconsiderations and sparred with laws they deemed unjust. The current administration is placing that legacy in peril.

On March 7, the Trump administration slashed $400 million from Columbia University, citing the extensive pro-Palestine protests that took place on its campus over the last year and a half. At the same time, over Trump’s disagreement on the University of Pennsylvania’s transgender athletic policies, Trump cut $175 million in research funding.

Donald Trump’s levying of attacks on university funding is a flagrant abuse of the executive office and dangerous for students across the country.
The recent cuts are just the start of Trump’s crackdown on higher education. The Department of Justice is investigating several top colleges where students engaged in protests, and the results of their searches could foment further suppression. These include Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, University of California Berkeley, University of Minnesota, University of Southern California and, just a few miles from McLean, George Washington University.

“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a post on social media platform Truth Social. “Agitators will be imprisoned/ or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.”

Trump’s statement, suggesting the terrifying prospect of imprisonment and deportation on the basis of peaceful protest, has already been fulfilled upon the arrest of activist Mahmoud Khalil. Political beliefs aside, free speech is one of the core tenets upon which our country rests. To make arrests on the basis of personal disagreement is to take an inexcusable step towards authoritarianism.

For McLean students who spend their high school years hellbent on getting into the college of their interests, the implications of these statements are especially concerning. Colleges are printed on student sweatshirts, hanging on bedroom wall pennants, molding students’ plans for the future and shaping the way they view themselves. Colleges make up a substantive part of McLean students’ lives, and all of these colleges are now at risk.

University funding cuts and further threats have pushed Columbia to remove control of the school’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department from its staff, impeding their academic freedom. Face masks have been banned to ensure all students, especially protesters, are identifiable.

This is not the first time colleges—or their students—have been attacked by government officials in times of anti-war upheaval. As encampments and demonstrations rocked schools across the country amid the Vietnam War, the National Guard was deployed at key protests, beating protesters and cracking down on what was also deemed ‘radical.’ Similar to today, states went as far to pass legislation cutting funds from universities that didn’t suppress protesters.

Today, Trump is following this precedent of Vietnam War-era repression, word by word, letter by letter. Defunding schools and attacking students only harms American higher education, academic freedom and expressions of protected speech.

If Trump’s university blackmailing policy remains intact, students from McLean entering college—many of them permanent residents who don’t yet have citizenships—will face tremendous threats. Students will be threatened if they speak out in ways unaligned with Trump talking points, and schools will be forced to acquiesce to outright political demands to maintain their budgets.

Academic freedoms will be lost and research capacities will be limited due to extensive funding cuts. Reduced medical research will lead to slower innovation. Trump is demanding that opposition to Israel be classified as antisemitism, forcing schools like Columbia to adopt definitions in compliance with his administration. Fear will grow on campuses that misinterpreted speech could lead to arrest or even deportation.

Trump must heed to the calls of students and academics nationwide, and end his relentless campaign aimed at hurting academia and crushing dissent. If this call is ignored, students’ futures—and the future of free speech—will be on the line.