The first three months of President Donald Trump’s second term have been marked by consistent efforts to entrench the president’s ideological control over major public and private institutions, including Northwestern.
Since Trump took office, his administration’s tiff with higher education has increasingly besieged elite universities.
In his first term, Trump adopted a sometimes contradictory approach to colleges nationwide, strengthening federal funding for historically Black colleges while simultaneously working to nix affirmative action. Between 2017 and 2021, Trump also enacted several technocratic reforms, including several measures to lessen the regulatory burden on for-profit colleges.
His policies today echo those of his first term, when he also imposed new restrictions on student visas and tied research funding to ideological priorities. In addition, Trump narrowed the definition of sexual harassment, reshaping how universities investigate Title IX cases.
The second time around, Trump has a concrete plan. According to academic experts and political insiders, the administration is taking aggressive action to punish elite universities for promoting what his administration sees as liberal ideology.
The most effective weapon in Trump’s new toolkit appears to be the threat of funding cuts and freezes. Last week, the Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funding to NU, which joined the likes of Harvard University, Cornell University, Brown University, Columbia University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania as a key target.
After two weeks of facing down a $400 million funding freeze, Columbia capitulated to several of Trump’s demands last month before backtracking and showing signs of pushing back. The Trump administration reportedly plans to pursue a consent decree, which would place the university under the oversight of a federal judge. Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting president, announced Monday that the university would not sign such an agreement.
Though NU pledged to fund research affected by stop-work orders on Thursday and offered guidance to researchers, the federal government has not yet unveiled a list of demands for NU.
A government divided
The Trump administration’s funding freezes have revealed deep political fault lines between Democrats and Republicans, igniting clashes over academic freedom and federal authority on Capitol Hill.
The House Committee on Education and Workforce has spent the past year probing colleges and universities, including NU, in congressional hearings about their responses to pro-Palestinian activism and incidents of antisemitism on campus.
University President Michael Schill appeared before the committee in May 2024, where he doubled down on his commitment to fighting antisemitism on campus while also defending his decision to make an agreement with demonstrators at last year’s pro-Palestinian encampment.
For U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, Trump’s recent university funding freezes cross the red line into “executive overreach” territory.
DeSaulnier told The Daily in an email that the funding freezes at NU and other universities are an attempt by the Trump administration to pressure universities into political compliance. DeSaulnier said he is concerned about what the freezes mean for free speech and academic freedom.
“Based on his past behavior, it seems that the President’s intention is to stifle academic thought and speech that challenges his political policies and to punish institutions that do not comply with his views,” DeSaulnier wrote.
DeSaulnier also criticized some of the Committee’s recent work. While he acknowledged the need for the committee to review universities’ actions to combat antisemitism, DeSaulnier said Republicans on the committee have used recent hearings to “target pro-Palestinian groups and smear university presidents.”
But DeSaulnier also expressed worry about the freezes’ national impact. In his email, he noted the importance of critical research conducted at universities — and his fear that it could be further halted.
“The nature of scientific research makes funding uncertainty incredibly risky and puts the development of new treatments, cures, and discoveries at risk,” he said.
If Trump was serious about fighting antisemitism, DeSaulnier added, he would cease his efforts to dismantle the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
Others on the committee, however, have lauded Trump’s efforts to fight antisemitism on college campuses, lambasting universities they claim have failed to do so.
U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), who chairs the Committee on Education and Workforce, said in an email to The Daily that the committee’s hearings have reaffirmed the need for federal action against universities who fail to address antisemitism.
Walberg said the committee has heard “shocking testimony” from Jewish students and faculty across the country detailing “terrible antisemitic attacks.”
In order to create a safe learning environment for all students and faculty, he said, universities must follow federal law.
“The Committee will continue to stand with our Jewish communities and push back on this notion that colleges and universities are entitled to federal funds despite their failures to follow anti-discrimination laws,” Walberg said in a statement.
Federal Illinois lawmakers criticize funding freezes
Since the start of Trump’s second term, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have prioritized issues such as the contentious budget bill, border security and Cabinet confirmations. However, as congressional Democrats prepare to mount an offensive against Trump, the president’s higher education policy could take center stage.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) are beginning to counter Trump’s policies in the Congress.
Durbin, who sharply criticized Trump’s stalled attempt to freeze all federal funding in January, acknowledged the importance of student safety on campus but called Trump’s funding freezes “counterproductive.”
“The decision to revoke funding for Northwestern will only harm students and the critical medical and other research conducted at the university,” Durbin told The Daily in an email.
Like her Democratic colleagues, Duckworth questioned the motives behind Trump’s decision to freeze funds at these universities.
“Continued threats of funding freezes for universities like Northwestern will do nothing to protect students,” Duckworth said in a statement to The Daily. “But they are putting so much critical research at risk that’s vitally important for our state, country and beyond.”
Hannah Webster contributed reporting.
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— Federal government freezes $790 million in funding for Northwestern
