These are bad times to be a recalcitrant Trump-hating college administrator. In his first nine-and-a-half days in office, the 47th president has signed numerous executive orders with the potential to change campus life, instruction, funding, and governance. While none of the moves should come as a surprise to observers of Trump’s 2024 campaign, they have nevertheless shaken higher-ed commentators to their core, with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the ACLU, Inside Higher Ed, and many major newspapers running some version of the same sky-is-falling story.
Below, the Martin Center lists three of the orders in question and offers thoughts on their efficacy. To what extent will universities have to comply with the new policies issuing from the White House? More to the point, to what extent will colleges’ usual dodging and weaving be effective in the weeks and months to come?
The most important college-related order touches not only universities but whole segments of the American economy.“Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity”
President Trump’s most important college-related order touches not only universities but whole segments of the American economy. In this order, the president directs “all executive departments … to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements.” Furthermore, and crucially, all executive agencies must “enforce [the nation’s] longstanding civil-rights laws and … combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”
What this means for higher education is not left to the imagination. First, the order states clearly that “institutions of higher education have adopted [DEI policies] that can violate the civil-rights laws of this nation.” Second, it directs agencies to identify up to nine potential non-compliers across several categories, among them “institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars.” Third, it requires the attorney general and the secretary of education to “issue guidance to … institutions of higher education” on how to comply with the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision. Fourth, it hints darkly that colleges receiving federal grants or participating in the student-loan program—basically all of them, in other words—are obligated to get on board, perhaps under threat of losing access to that funding.
A potential fifth outcome is at least as intriguing. Henceforth, “the head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award … a term requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI.” Given universities’ and professors’ reliance on National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) research funding, such an obligation is quite serious. Indeed, this week’s attempted pause on funding might be considered a shot across the bow. If schools will not comply, the federal spigot can be turned off.
Of course, schools will try to get around Trump’s instructions. Shortly after the White House’s executive-order announcement, the University of Colorado renamed its DEI office the “Office of Collaboration” and reaffirmed its intention to “serve all of Colorado’s communities.” (For the uninitiated, this is code for “We’re changing nothing.”) Other institutions have been similarly cagey in response to state-level DEI bans and will presumably keep up the bad work now. In the end, some universities will likely have to be made examples of. Many would cry foul if, say, Harvard lost access to federal loan dollars. Lawsuits would certainly be filed. But taking a big-name offender to task could be just the trick if the president wants the higher-ed sector to know that he’s serious about curbing divisive and racist practices on campus.
“Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats”
This order attempts to ensure that “admitted aliens … do not bear hostile attitudes toward [the nation’s] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles” and “do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.” In other words, pro-Hamas protesters here on student visas probably ought to study their shoelaces the next time “Palestine” launches a sneak-attack and draws Jew-hating undergrads onto the quad.
Institutions of higher learning have been coddled, protected, and allowed to subvert their traditional missions for decades.But don’t take our word for it. As Campus Reform recently opined, “the Department of Homeland Security can 1738213845 investigate” foreign students “who express anti-American sentiment and engage in hostile rhetoric against the United States. […] If those students are deemed a threat, they can be removed from the United States.”
Like the order discussed above, this one will need to be enforced a few times before anyone believes it. Yet over-enforcement could chill free speech, leaving colleges worse than President Trump found them. As is often the case in politics, two things are simultaneously true. Peaceful protesters shouldn’t (and won’t) be deported, but it is entirely reasonable to send back foreign nationals who violently despise this country or abuse American citizens on campus. The nation saw depraved behavior during the 2023-24 school year. It’s appropriate to push back.
“Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”
This order turns the clock back to 2008 or so, tersely declaring that “women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.” It further directs the executive branch to “enforce this reality,” states that “federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology,” protects “intimate spaces designated for women,” and mandates that “federally funded entities” comply.
Lawsuits will be forthcoming, of course. Yet an expansive reading of the order could conceivably affect classroom instruction, college-sports participation, locker-room access, and dorm assignments. As Inside Higher Ed recently noted, forthcoming guidance related to the order could very well “complicate institutions’ efforts to accommodate transgender students and eventually change how the federal government enforces Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” At the very least, it appears that colleges will no longer be allowed to base crucial decisions on novel conceptions of social and biological reality. While bad for gender radicals and their confused clients, such a turn of events is very good for decency, decorum, and common sense.
Conclusion
The above and other week-one executive orders will surely be tested by the judiciary. But, for now, the terms of the relationship between the Trump administration and universities are becoming clear. Institutions of higher learning were coddled, protected, and allowed to subvert their traditional missions for decades before conservatives and other reformers caught on. Such men and women now have a friend at the White House. For colleges used to unsupervised radicalism on the federal dime, the party may well be drawing to at least a temporary close.
Graham Hillard is editor at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
This article was originally published at www.jamesgmartin.center
