Many top U.S. universities have been torn with strife for the last decade. Dating back to an uproar over a warning to students against donning offensive Halloween costumes at Yale and a conflagration over issues of race at the University of Missouri, both in the fall of 2015, front pages have carried a steady stream of headlines about provocative campus speakers, hateful speech, efforts to foster equality and belonging, viewpoint diversity, racism, antisemitism, the pandemic, the Israel-Hamas war, ousted university presidents, encampments and more.
In the last two months, though, some of the academy’s warring flanks have suddenly found a common foe. The Trump administration’s campaign to defund research, hike endowment taxes, dictate admissions and faculty appointments and otherwise forcibly reshape universities has — for the moment — substantially united fractious faculties, student bodies, donor populations and alumni groups.
To successfully repel this onslaught, university communities will have to sustain and build upon this improbable, newfound and fragile unity. Doing so will mean accepting the idea that, to make common cause, one need not hold every cause in common.
The schisms tearing at elite universities reflect those forces dividing American society. Immigration, demographic change, new norms in terms of gender and sexuality and other shifts have challenged tradition-bound institutions, most of which were originally founded to serve white, affluent men. As student bodies and faculties gradually diversified over decades, they came to question aspects of how the universities were run, and to point out that vestiges of discrimination and exclusion stubbornly endure.
This resulted in a heightened awareness of the role of race — and, to a lesser extent, sex and other aspects of identity — in shaping American society. Efforts to advance updated concepts of equality and equity raised issues in terms of the policing of speech and the ability to express divergent views on hot-button issues.
After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, fierce conflicts arose over encampments, discriminatory harassment and the bounds of protest rights. Universities have found themselves torn between their responsibilities toward particular groups including Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Black, Latino and Asian students, conservative and progressive activists and international visa-holders.
The result, on campuses including Columbia, Harvard and elsewhere, is a cauldron of impassioned feelings about how the university has let various groups down. During the same period, and probably not coincidentally, public perceptions of higher education have plummeted, with the proportion of Americans expressing confidence in the sector dropping from 57% to 36% between 2015 and 2024, according to Gallup.
As these viewpoints ricocheted across campuses, the Trump administration tilted the table. It began by banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs and followed by yanking back overhead contributions in support of scientific research. Then it imposed a set of demands on Columbia University in exchange for continued federal funding. The administration soon hit Harvard far harder, revoking larger sums of money and imposing more intrusive punishments, such as, most recently, attempting to block all international students from attending the university and severing all government ties and funding to the institution.
Initially, some university constituencies voiced at least partial support for the administration’s approach, arguing that such coercion was necessary to force campuses to face up to antisemitism, dominating ideological orthodoxies and other serious problems cited by the administration as grounds for their actions. Activist investor and alumnus donor Bill Ackman continues to insist that Harvard submit to Trump’s demands, which he sees as a rightful antidote to the university’s fecklessness. But even for others who might have initially favored government pressure for change, the administration’s scorched-campus tactics and the draconian consequences for blameless students, faculty and research initiatives have gone too far.
No matter their grievances with the university, most campus constituents are convinced that heavy-handed federal government intervention is no answer. Libertarians and conservatives view the overreach as an improper intrusion into the running of a private institution, worrying also about the precedent it sets. Free speech advocates recoil at the prospect of the government dictating hiring or curriculum decisions. Progressives are convinced that Trump’s attack on the university aims to root out racial minorities and reassert white dominance. Many Jews are worried that their legitimate concerns about antisemitism are being self-servingly manipulated by others in ways that will leave them further isolated and vulnerable.
Collectively, there is fear that the administration’s actions will cast a chill across the entire sector of higher education. Experts have sounded alarms that this battle could permanently destroy the worldwide esteem reserved for America’s top universities, destroy the scientific partnerships between gown and government that have been a wellspring of discovery and innovation for more than 80 years, and give succor to American enemies as they watch us destroy our intellectual crown jewels. The notion of a British prime minister putting Oxford or Cambridge into the stocks or a French president defenestrating the Sorbonne or Sciences Po is unimaginable. So too the White House’s current tarring and feathering of Harvard.
Broad campus constituencies want their universities to withstand federal pressure. They are rallying through organizing efforts like a Harvard alumni collective calling itself “Crimson Courage” and an outdoor demonstration held at Yale’s recent reunion to protest cuts to research. Seeing its academic and athletic competitor in the hot seat, the Yalies chanted: “Who do we love? Harvard!” — perhaps the first such sentiment in the two schools’ 150-year rivalry.
To successfully fight back alongside the university, its constituencies will need to rally not just those worried for their alma maters, but also the millions of Americans with a stake in higher education’s role in society. An Associated Press poll indicates that 56% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s attacks on higher education. By building and activating that majority, university supporters can make Trump’s crusade a liability and, if his behavior on other politically costly policies is a guide, possibly press him to dial back or reverse course.
To achieve this, business leaders and entrepreneurs will need to insist on the importance of top universities for talent and research. Civil rights leaders should rally behind the universities as pipelines for advancement. Conservatives will need to uplift the university in sustaining vital academic legacies and forms of knowledge. Activists will need to defend the campus as a training ground for citizenship. Each group will need to speak in terms that invite one another in, take account of varied concerns and — at least for now — put the universities’ survival first. This does not mean that constituencies need to permanently give up their individual causes, but that they need to join to ensure that the university remains a place vibrant and independent enough to be worth fighting for.
As our society has grown more polarized, it has become harder to find common ground across chasms of politics and principle. Motives are distrusted, and the inability to agree on everything can stand in the way of being able to agree on anything. By design, American universities have long been places where people from all backgrounds come together to live and learn, bridging across divides of geography, socioeconomics, race, tradition, lifestyle, religion and belief. The intellectual and professional paths forged and friendships formed over generations at American universities have helped solder together a multitudinous society united by a belief in democracy and country.
With the university now under siege, those bonds will be tested. Their ability to hold and strengthen may determine whether the university can survive and thrive, and whether we as a people can as well.
Suzanne Nossel is a member of Facebook’s Oversight Board and the author of “Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.”