Leaders from America’s top universities have formed a private collective in defense against the Trump administration‘s attacks on academic independence and research funding, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Operating behind the scenes, the collective consists of figureheads such as individual trustees and presidents from roughly 10 ivy league and preeminent private research universities, primarily located in Democrat states.
Issues like relinquishing academic independence, including autonomy over admissions, hiring, and curricula, are among the informal group’s foremost concerns. Trump has vowed “to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left,” and has moved to dismantle the department of education.
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There are also concerns over the federal government denying schools the ability to enroll international students and to hire international faculty.
The alliance reportedly allows its members to strategize about how to respond to the demands of the Trump administration. Thus far, the administration has paused billions in funding at Cornell and Northwestern and cut $400 million to Columbia. The administration it slashed funding for these schools in response to claims of antisemitism on their campuses.
“Universities’ violation of federal law, due to their blatant reluctance to protect Jewish students and defend civil rights, is unbecoming of institutions seeking billions in taxpayer funds. The Trump Administration remains committed to reforming higher education and combating anti-Semitism,” a White House spokesperson said.
These efforts come on the heels of Harvard reconceiving its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office following pressure from the Trump administration to the tune of $2 million in blocked funds. Harvard is still fighting back, however, with a lawsuit against the administration; an initial hearing is slated for federal court in Boston on Monday.
Public resistance groups among academic circles have been actively forming. A petition from the American Association of Colleges and Universities condemns what they called “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American colleges and universities.” The petition has received signatures from more than 500 higher-education leaders across the country.
The Trump administration’s war against DEI initiatives was waged early, as one of the first cuts in his second term as president.
Museums continue to remain divided on these efforts, with institutions that receive large amounts of funding, including the National Gallery of Art, slashing DEI efforts altogether. Private institutions may be unaffected; New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art recently said that the restrictions “don’t apply to us.”
It remains to be seen how art schools will be affected. One art professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) was fired for assisting with a student exhibition that espoused a pro-Palestine stance, advocated for divestment from Israel and for criticizing the school’s handling of a related encampment.
“The vast majority of art and design institutions are tuition-dependent institutions,” Deborah Obalil, the president and executive director of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD), told the Art Newspaper. “The reality is that within higher education it’s a very small number of private institutions that have the private resources to be able to sustain a significant disruption in federal student aid.”
Representatives for the Rhode Island School of Design, SAIC, CalArts, Yale, and Cooper Union did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s requests for comment.