Seventy-one percent of public doctoral university presidents cite “political interference” as the fastest-growing risk to their university, with the second Trump administration’s impact on higher education having “exceeded presidents’ already-negative expectations.” That’s according to Inside Higher Ed’s latest survey of college presidents.

With unrelenting pressure on universities from the federal government, institutions are experiencing an “unmaking” of the great American research university, as Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker put it this week. The Trump administration found a key leverage point to pressure universities into alignment with his vision.

The Trump Administration has deployed a brutally effective, previously unused technique for getting these institutions’ full attention: suspending their funds, even those appropriated by Congress and legally committed to in contracts. The Trump Administration is unusual in its disregard for the law, rough way of doing business, and heedlessness about the effects of its actions. Still, it isn’t completely out of touch with political reality. These actions are not nearly as unpopular as universities think they should be. The heart of this tragedy is that universities believe themselves to be devoted to the public good but fall far short of the level of public support they need.

Universities in red states also continue to experience pressure from state legislatures, often taking the approach of banning progressive viewpoints from the classroom. This week, Iowa introduced bills aimed at limiting academic freedom for faculty in the classroom. “These measures would mandate reviews of classroom content for DEI or critical race theory, remove topics like ‘multiculturalism’ from teacher training programs, and enshrine a viewpoint-discriminatory definition of ‘antisemitism’ into university policy,” according to reporting by FIRE.

These bills would require that all four-year public universities:

Conduct a review of all undergraduate general education requirements and core curricula at institutions of higher education governed by the board. For the review, the board shall direct the institutions to review and identify any required courses or course requirements that include diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory-related content. The board in its discretion shall direct an institution to eliminate such a course or course requirement.

Amid this ongoing external pressure, universities also have been playing a new game this year by going on the offensive. We’ve seen how university presidents have changed their tune about open inquiry, free expression, and constructive disagreement, and are launching new initiatives to improve the climate on campus. This week, we’re witnessing offensive political strategies as well.

Reporting by the Chronicle of Higher Education shows that universities are now spending big on lobbying, especially at major research institutions. “Under intense scrutiny from the government, these colleges seem to be catching up to a tactic that other industries have long employed.” And universities are signing with companies with existing ties to the Trump administration, presumably to curry favor.

In Virginia, the General Assembly looks ready to pass legislation to limit political influence over and protect First Amendment rights at the state’s public colleges. “Each college’s governing board would be blocked from making decisions that would restrict or censor expression on the basis of viewpoint or ‘for the purpose of ideological correction or conformity or advancing or promoting any partisan objective’” according to Higher Ed Dive.

The offensive continues to include internal proposals aimed at solving the myriad issues causing a plummet in public confidence in higher ed the past decade. At Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, voting will take place next month to implement a new policy that will cap the proportion of ‘A’ grades faculty can give in their courses in an effort to clamp down on rampant grade inflation. “It’s clumsy, arbitrary and represents some degree of invasion into faculty autonomy. It is not ideal. But the alternative is the status quo, and the status quo is awful,” Steven Levitsky, a Latin American studies professor at Harvard told Inside Higher Ed.

A new EAB “State of the Sector” report out this week describes the “cumulative weight of many” shocks that higher ed is experiencing, including political, financial, and demographic changes. “For institutions willing to act decisively, this moment presents a real opportunity — not just to weather disruption, but to emerge more focused, more credible, and more relevant,” the report explains.

Universities are changing and going on the offensive in this new political era, one in which universities are no longer insulated institutions but active participants in a political struggle. The question now is not just how universities respond to external pressure, but whether they can rebuild the public trust that once shielded them from it.

Before you go…

If you’re on the West coast, consider joining Heterodox Academy at UC Berkeley for our regional conference April 23-24 focused on “The Value of Viewpoint Diversity: Why It Matters and How to Practice It Well,” with keynotes by Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Stony Brook Professor Musa al-Gharbi. Learn more and register here.