President Trump’s second term has begun with a wave of executive orders, plus a policy memo, that have sent shockwaves through the American higher education system. The relevant orders and guidance memos include:

• Executive Order on Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing;

• Executive Order on Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity;

• Executive Order on Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government;

• Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism;

• Department of Health and Human Services’ Pause on Issuing Documents and Communications;

• National Institutes of Health’s Suspension of Travel;

• Email from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Ending PIER Plan Requirement; and the

• Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memo Issuing Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance; [Rescinded on January 29, 2025].

Heterodox Academy is committed to reforms of higher education that increase open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement. So we evaluate each of President Trump’s actions, and their effects on hiring, teaching, and research, through that lens.

As defenders of open inquiry, we support the aspects of President Trump’s actions that aim to stop federal agencies from screening out research proposals or candidates for faculty positions on the basis of political or ideological views rather than on their merits, as was often the case with government-mandated DEI policies. However, we believe that replacing one set of political litmus tests with different political litmus tests would be the wrong approach.

Some of President Trump’s orders do just that. For example, the short-lived OMB memo ordered a broad freeze on allocations of most federal dollars, including all federal research dollars, until political appointees could evaluate whether the money that had previously been awarded “conforms to the Administration’s priorities.” Open inquiry is directly threatened whenever federal research dollars are subject to political litmus tests—regardless of the source or the political direction. 

Another problem with several of these actions is that they are written so broadly that it is difficult or impossible for campus administrators to determine precisely what is permissible and what practices or programs will result in deep financial cuts. This unpredictability threatens the health and vitality of our truth-seeking institutions.

We urge the Trump Administration to seek to depoliticize the federal funding of higher education by removing ideological hiring practices and grant requirements without imposing a new set, and not rescinding funding for already approved projects. We must protect open inquiry in our nation’s colleges and universities, not close it down or subject it to new political tests.

____________

To learn more, tune in to our webinar on this topic today (Jan 30) at noon ET.