Dem
47
GOP
53
If you plan to keep a population under your thumb, then you are going to be hostile to education. Educated people tend to see through the lies of autocratic regimes, and they can also project forward and guess what the long-term implications of an autocratic regime's statements and policies will be. Oh, and they also know about resistance, and how it's been effective throughout history. There is a reason that all of the great servile rebellions in U.S. history were led by educated Black men, and that antebellum Southern law made it a crime to teach an enslaved person how to read. There is a reason that Mao Zedong went after the professoriate and the intellectual elite. There is a reason that various autocratic regimes in Poland, Turkey, Russia, etc., have insinuated themselves into the governance of those nations' universities.
We do not think Trump aspires to be a dictator, per se, with the title and the lifetime tenure, etc. But he most certainly aspires to exercise dictator-like powers. And so, it was hardly surprising that one of the very first items of business, once Trump v2.0 commenced, was to go after America's most prominent universities. Not only was it a direct challenge to a potential anti-Trump power center, it also allowed Trump to avenge his own personal grievances. To put it briefly, and bluntly: He hates pointy-headed academics because they make him feel stupid. (Programming note: See this weekend's Q&A for some questions about whether or not Trump actually IS stupid.)
The choices made for Trump's first few targets were also pretty predictable. Harvard is the absolute embodiment, worldwide, of "elite academic institution." Cambridge and Oxford are on its level, in terms of fame and image, but not many others (and maybe not any—we'd argue Yale, Tsinghua, U. Toronto, are maybe a quarter- or half-step behind). And of the "Big Three," as it were, Harvard's the only one in the U.S., and thus the only one under Trump's purview. As to Columbia, it's in the heart of America's biggest city (a city about which Trump also has... feelings), and it was a flashpoint for the Gaza protests. Since antisemitism is the official justification for the administration to put the squeeze on universities, targeting Columbia was a good way to sell that.
Somewhat more surprising is that UCLA did not get targeted in the first wave of attacks from the Trump administration. We can assure you, approximately 100.0% of UCLA faculty were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The list of "selling points," from the vantage point of the White House, is long:
In short, UCLA checks an awful lot of boxes for the administration. Excepting Harvard and Columbia, it's hard to identify a more obvious target.
Late last week, the day that every Bruin had been expecting finally arrived. The administration had already frozen roughly $500 million in research funds, and on Friday revealed what the price will be to rectify the various "crimes" the university has committed: a fine of $1 billion, plus an agreement to make significant changes to university governance, in line with the White House's requirements. If UCLA agrees, the school would be "allowed" to pay on an installment plan: $276 million a year for 3 years, along with $172 million put into a trust fund to settle lawsuits.
At this point, let us note the story from The New York Times yesterday, reporting on the outlines of the agreement that Harvard is apparently about to make with the administration. The school will agree to a bunch of policy changes, and will also commit to investing $500 million on "vocational and educational programs" over some period of years. Other schools, including Columbia, have already agreed to similar deals.
The leadership of these various universities would not say so publicly, of course, but one imagines that compliance with the policy changes will be deliberately unenthusiastic, and will end the moment that the Trump administration does. Similarly, it is likely that the spending on "vocational and educational programs" will involve at least some creative bookkeeping. To take one obvious example, every major university has some sort of an extension program, where people can take versions of the serious academic courses (some of them), but can also take things like photography, cooking, wine tasting, infant care, selling real estate, etc. One can imagine some very large chunk of that being reclassified as "vocational and educational programs." That really wouldn't even be dishonest; those courses actually are "vocational and educational programs."
Meanwhile, the people who run Harvard, Columbia, etc. know full well that Trump cannot be relied upon to honor his commitments. They also know that if they take this to court, they will almost certainly win. But "almost certainly" is not "certainly," which means there's at least some small amount of risk. (Though note that the administration lost a case yesterday, and at the hands of a Trump-appointed judge. It did not involve a university, but it did involve arbitrary freezing of already allocated funds.)
More importantly, it's generally implausible to start and stop and start and stop a research project. If a project goes unfunded for a year or two, it probably dies. That means a loss not only of the funds that were to be paid, but also the funds that were already expended. So, the leadership is making a calculated decision, that it's worth paying, in effect, a bribe to avoid a long and expensive court case, and to salvage the future research funds, and to avoid the risk of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of partially complete research going up in smoke. If Trump does come back for more in a year, then they can think about changing tacks.
It is possible that, in the end, UCLA will also negotiate some sort of settlement, following the same logic. If we said we had any knowledge of what's going in Murphy Hall (where the administrative offices are located), we would be lying. However, there are two differences between UCLA and the other schools that are definitely worth noting. The first is that the amount of money being demanded is far greater than in any of these other cases, and of a university that is not quite as well-heeled. Yes, UCLA does have an annual budget in the billions, and yes, it does have an endowment of a shade less than $10 billion, but it's not in as good a position to take a nine- or ten-figure hit as, say, Harvard is.
The second difference, and this could be the biggie, is that the governors of Massachusetts, New York, and the other states that are home to targeted universities are not planning to run for president in 2028. Newsom is, and he's looking for every opportunity to burnish his credentials as the Trump slayer. Also, in contrast to nearly all of the other schools, Newsom is—as we note above—an actual part of university governance. Any payment, or other settlement agreement, would have to be approved by the Regents. Newsom might well use his influence to block that, even if UCLA tries it.
Incidentally, there is one possible answer to the mystery of why it took so long to get around to targeting UCLA. In contrast to nearly every other elite academic university (with Michigan, Stanford and Duke being the other exceptions), UCLA is also an elite athletic school. And college football season starts in a couple of weeks. Could be that the White House waited to maximize the attention it gets, since the extortion attempt is likely to get mentioned at least a few times during coverage of the football team. (Z)