NYTimes Columnist: This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, If They Dare

Every day, it seems, the number of universities punished by name by the administration continues to grow. Last week, the administration announced that it was withholding staggering amounts of money from Cornell and Northwestern, while it floated the idea of placing Columbia University (already punished to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars) under the long-term supervision of a consent decree. These targeted attacks threaten the idea idea of the independent university, and impose serious costs on universities already reeling from the Executive Branch’s devaluing of scientific (and other scholarly) research and its weaponization of fear against immigrant university affiliates, especially students.

Universities have not been quick to fight back. Today, NY Times columnist M. Gessen urges universities to reconsider their passivity: 

There is a way for universities to fight back. It requires more than refusing to bend to Trump’s will, and it requires more than forming a united front. They must abandon all the concerns — rankings, donors, campus amenities — that preoccupy and distract them, and focus on their core mission: the production and dissemination of knowledge. Intellectuals have adopted this strategy to fight against autocrats in other countries. It works.

…

Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement.

Alternatively, you can try to negotiate with a mafia boss who wants to see you grovel. When these negotiations fail, as they inevitably will, it will be too late to ask for the public’s support.

Universities, like many nonprofits, often lose sight of the mission with a more immediate focus on money, means, and short-term metrics. Here, returning to first principles, and refocusing on the reason why universities exist may provide a path not just to survive this moment, but become stronger and more effective producers and sharers of knowledge.

-Joseph Mead