When I joined the faculty of Indiana University after decidedly non-academic stints as a lawyer, real estate developer and ACLU executive director, non-university friends would often question the institutional obligation to devote considerable time and effort to research. They questioned the reason so many institutions of higher education pursue a “publish or perish” criterion for tenure (and a number didn’t understand why we had tenure, either).
I’ll leave my fairly robust defense of tenure for another time, but in the face of Trump’s unprecedented assault on universities, the New York Times recently ran an editorial explaining the critical importance of scholarly research.
The editorial began by explaining that what we are seeing is typical of authoritarianism:
When a political leader wants to move a democracy toward a more authoritarian form of government, he often sets out to undermine independent sources of information and accountability. The leader tries to delegitimize judges, sideline autonomous government agencies and muzzle the media.
One of those “independent sources of information” is, rather obviously, scholarship. As the editorial points out, academic researchers pursue the truth–empirical facts– and that can present a threat to those in authority. Putin and Erdogan have closed universities, Modi’s government has arrested dissident scholars, and Orban has appointed loyal foundations to run universities.
Mr. Trump’s multifaceted campaign against higher education is core to this effort to weaken institutions that do not parrot his version of reality. Above all, he is enacting or considering major cuts to universities’ resources. The Trump administration has announced sharp reductions in the federal payments that cover the overhead costs of scientific research, such as laboratory rent, electricity and hazardous waste disposal. (A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against those cuts.) Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans have urged a steep increase of a university endowment tax that Mr. Trump signed during his first term. Together, these two policies could reduce the annual budgets at some research universities by more than 10 percent.
There is public dissatisfaction with the very real problems of America’s universities, and the editorial goes into considerable detail about the current deficiencies and problems of those institutions. But as it also notes, just as with Trump’s approach to trade, government waste, and immigration, the administration’s “solutions” won’t ameliorate or address the real problems. It will make things much worse.
The American higher education system, for all its flaws, is the envy of the world, and it now faces a financial squeeze that threatens its many strengths — strengths that benefit all Americans.
Chief among them is its global leadership in medical care and scientific research. American professors still dominate the Nobel Prizes. When wealthy and powerful people in other countries face a medical crisis, they often use their connections to get an appointment at an American academic hospital. For that matter, some of the same Republicans targeting universities with budget cuts seek out its top medical specialists when they or their relatives are ill.
American leadership in medical and scientific research depends on federal money. Private companies, even large ones, typically do not conduct much of the basic research that leads to breakthroughs because it is too uncertain; even successful experiments may not lead to profitable products for decades. Mr. Trump’s planned funding cuts are large enough to force universities to do less of this research. The list of potential forgone progress is long, including against cancer, heart disease, viruses, obesity, dementia and drug overdoses. And there will be costs beyond the medical sector. There is a reason that Silicon Valley sprang up next to a research university.
The Times is right to say that we need to speak–loudly and publicly– about why universities matter, to point to the many ways in which higher education and research promote public health, economic growth and national security. It’s also important to recognize that universities are the largest employers in some regions. And for many Americans, universities have been “an unmatched, if imperfect, engine of upward mobility that can alter the trajectory of entire families.”
Thus far, too many academic officials have been timid and quiet in the face of this assault. That needs to change.
College presidents do not need to become pundits. But they do need to defend the core mission of their institutions when it is under attack. University leaders would help themselves, and the country, by emerging from their defensive crouches and making a forthright case for inquiry, research, science and knowledge.
This administration is waging war on science and knowledge. It’s a war we cannot let them win.
Good luck with that appeal to university presidents who are more interested in appeasing their board of directors and corporate donors. If anyone paid attention to the right-wing donors who rattled eastern university cages to shut down protests against Israel’s genocide. I wish I could attach the photo of the snipers on top of a building at an IU building in Bloomington. Paid right-wing protesters were relevant nationwide, especially out west.
Columbia set a horrible precedent by caving under Trump’s pressure, and so did the Paul Weiss law firm. Universities haven’t been the beacon of free thought for decades. Quite frankly, there shouldn’t be conservative-led universities. Closed minds in a university setting are an oxymoron, but they exist all over the country thanks to influences like Charles Koch and other billionaire donors. They were toast once they became dependent financially on the state and corporate donors. Talk about bloated bureaucracies!
If you noticed that conservative states across the country are vying for Trump’s attention by becoming even more radical right-winged sycophants. Texas and Florida are destroying their educational systems to align with Trump’s vision. Never mind the simple fact that Trump owned and ran a university into the ground and conned thousands of students out of their hard-earned money.
We are dealing with mental midgets in Washington who are now circling the wagons because, in just two months, they’ve set the country on fire and aren’t mature enough to handle the consequences. However, what we see in Washington is reflective of our oligarchy. These are not very smart people!
The boneheaded move by Hegseth and Vance, which discussed national security matters over social media and included a journalist, is a fine example. Not only did they do it, but when the Atlantic journalist wrote an article about it, Hegseth attacked the journalist for being “an idiot!”
You couldn’t make this shit up!
Todd makes some good points, especially about the quality of creatures “running”our government (into the ground). For the imbeciles Trump has put in place, scholarly research terrifies them. Their psyches are so fragile that having their idiotic ideas debunked by real research is anathema to their health.
When I wrote op-eds for two newspapers, wrote non-fiction political books and my novels, research was absolutely necessary. Research doesn’t have to be scientific in nature, but it does have to reveal the truth for publication. The readers will tell you when your research is flawed. Also, as a former scientist, research is essential to proving and disproving theories and hypotheses.
This clown car in D.C. is filled with idiots, not the least of which is Hegseth. He is hard at work destroying our DoD. Enjoy the train wreck.
They don’t undermine education only at the highest level, but also at each one leading to it. If you kill curiosity and eagerness for learning early, you get non-critical thinkers. Which is to say, intellectual illiterates. Look at Indiana public schools as well as other red state education systems.
Isn’t that like the emperor’s clothes? Walk around like royalty, thinking regality is written on your clothing, when actually, you are naked! And the sad thing is, not really knowing you’re naked! Weak minded, and immensely stupefied, they continue with very little blowback. Hey, I get it, those whose blowback might garner attention, are afraid! They’re afraid of pain, they’re afraid of skeletons in their closet, if there are any, they’re afraid of losing their material possessions. In other words, they’re afraid of becoming average or less. There’s a level of narcissism involved in the calculations also.
You see, those who tend to be liberal-minded, actually, most anything goes, have been steered in the direction of zero consequence. There are no consequences keep pushing the boundaries. But trying to create a panacea or a paradisiacal existence based on the knowledge of men, you can see the outcome right before your eyes today. But the blowback, comes from a fanatical realm, the teachers dogma that is not scriptural, to control their throngs of righteous warriors. Two wrongs don’t make a right! And let’s face it, those who claim to be ultra-liberal, are not fighters.
Of course you have outliers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John Lewis, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell and others! Large voices from humble beginnings. They weren’t looking for anything but basic human rights. No additions, and no subtractions. Basic human rights, was written about in documents throughout human history, but just as what men do, they can write a good story, but they can’t morally back it up. And here we are today! The same exact bent of history. It all sounds good until it ain’t! What then? What now?
Somebody wanted to make sure that the use of Signal became public knowledge and slipped Goldbergs phone number into the queue. Like Deep Throat, they will be the subject of much speculation and become a hero of the resistance to the clown show.
I am thanking them for their service!
Melinda, “non-critical thinkers,” if they can be called “thinkers” at all, is the entire point. The powerful do not want the public filled with people who can think in a critical manner, as these are much easier to manipulate.
It is nice to see the NYT coming out with this, though they should have come out with much more before the recent election. At this point WaPo would not even do this much.
CGH, let’s hope you’re right and a secret “somebody” put the ATLANTIC into that que on Signal. Not the National Security Advisor himself. If Walz did it by mistake, we are in big, big trouble. We would seem to have a bunch of rank amateurs running the country.
How is it that the guy who made his name firing fake employees on a fake “reality” TV show can’t find the guts to do the same in real life where it counts, and the country’s future hangs in the balance?
Just read yesterday that a major French university is recruiting US researchers who used to get medical research grants…
MELINDA – adequate funding would remedy the problems in Indiana schools . . . teachers are dedicated / burdened by budget cuts / attacks from outsiders. The Indiana “legislature” is substituting charter / private alternatives, draining support, crippling staff.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state
https://www.ecs.org/50-state-comparison-k-12-funding-2024/
https://www.future-ed.org/the-new-wave-of-public-funding-of-private-schools-explained/
https://www.epi.org/publication/vouchers-harm-public-schools/
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/school-vouchers-catastrophic-failure
I’m a true believer in research, especially medical and rehabilitation research. There are three major government agencies that provide the bulk of the funding. They are NIH, VA, and Defense. The three often work together to accomplish miracles.
One that I’m very familiar with is the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Arm. Developed by DARPA, tested and improved by VA. This mechanical arm is capable of anything a human arm can do because It’s controlled by a brain implant. NIH is familiar to everyone. NIH and VA partner on many large clinical trials. VA has developed important advances independently, like the pacemaker (first implemented at VA, as well), and the original shingles vaccine. Nearly every advance in medical care has come about only because of funding from those three agencies.
This is where I tell you that none of this is done in a vacuum. It takes personnel to do the research. Every stage requires different skills, so personnel changes over the life of the research. It also requires oversight. If animals or humans are involved in the research there are special committees that have to approve and monitor them. Audits are done annually and each study has to submit an annual report to the committees to continue. This is expensive, but we can pay the price or we can let people die. It seems as if the current administration would choose the latter.
As an aside, when I was a Patient Advocate, veterans would storm into my office saying I’m nothing but a g..damned guinea pig. My response was: Oh no, sir, if you were a guinea pig, your surroundings would be much cleaner. The reaction was always the same. The vet would stop in his tracks, think for a few seconds and burst out laughing.
Amen. As someone who has spent 32 years as a professor (the last 20 as a tenured full professor) and who is now employed as a statistician/researcher at the IU Med School and whose job is fully funded by NIH grants, I agree. The advances in medicine over the last 50 years are phenomenal. Do we really want to cut that off?
University costs are totally out of control. If I could change my life I would have learned a trade and worked in either a factory or an office environment instead. I would have spent my time paying for certifications out in the world that I could add to my resume. I work in a factory setting now where I don’t even use my degree. I’m learning about the supply and demand side and how systems and machines run and are repaired. I am lucky that I work with very kind and smart people who don’t make me feel stupid if I have a question or I’m not understanding something. I understand students frustrations about financials and planning for the future. I live with my parent at 40 years of age not just because I am disabled and single but because I cannot afford my own place.
I understand my post may not correlate completely with the discussion. I’m just trying to say that even if academic research is important for schools ( even I get that) there are things about universities that need to change or improve for the modern world. I think things need to be more hands on and less living in our heads and letting everything be theoretical.
I have stage four cancer. Trump slashed funding for cancer research. I am well and truly pissed. Trump wants me to die.
slipstream. Trump doesn’t give a damn whether you live or die and he feels that way about all of us. If his actions kill thousands or millions, it’s all the same to him. His priorities are himself, power, and money.
Slipstream – I am so sorry to hear that you are going through cancer. My father had CLL and MDS leukemia. I hate cancer! I will pray for you.