Hands Off the University, Indeed

When universities no longer accept federal funds, they will be free to run (or not run) their sports and dorms however they wish.

The Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the Department of Education and to DEI programs at universities across the country. And, in typical Trumpian style, the President has escalated and retaliated against schools that refuse to comply with his administrationโ€™s orders. Harvard recently decided to fight back, garnering praise from prominent figures like Barack Obama: โ€œHarvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions โ€“ rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.โ€

Opposition to the Trump administration hinges on the newly rediscovered virtue of academic freedom โ€“ something that had long been lost under microaggression warnings and inclusion training. Now, apparently, academic freedom is back in vogue because the federal government is attaching strings to its funding. โ€œHands Off Our Universityโ€ has become the slogan of recalcitrant university officials, outraged faculty, and student protestors. 

Harvard has become a rallying point for other universities that donโ€™t want to kowtow to the Trump administrationโ€™s demands. Harvardโ€™s President, Alan Garber, has said

As of writing, the administration has frozen roughly $2.2 billion of federal funding and has begun investigating whether it can revoke Harvardโ€™s tax-exempt status.

Administrators are right to chant, โ€œhand off my university!โ€ We should want the federal governmentโ€™s hands off universities. We can start by removing its tentacles from student loan financing. No more FAFSAs. No more Pell grants. This, by the way, would save taxpayers nearly $30 billion annually

Then, we can remove government research grants, whether for the arts and humanities or for science and medicine. The $40 billion to $50 billion of federal tax dollars spent annually at research universities could be used to pay down national debt (or at least to reduce the deficit). 

In 2018, colleges and universities received roughly $150 billion in federal money through a variety of programs. Thatโ€™s a lot of government โ€œhandsโ€ on the higher education system. If universities want those hands off, they should refuse the money.

But suppose that is a bridge too far. Afterall, we donโ€™t want to return to the dark ages before the 20th century when almost no general scientific research was done until national governments started funding it at universitiesโ€ฆ

Perhaps universities could set up organizational firewalls between the university and its various government research arms. Or they could spin off the med schools and research centers entirely. Afterall, the goal is to get the governmentโ€™s hands off of the universities. This would do that.

And before anyone says this is impractical, impossible, or purely hypothetical, we should note that several successful colleges do not accept federal money of any kind: Hillsdale College, Grove City College, Christendom College, Patrick Henry College, Wyoming Catholic College, Thomas Aquinas College, and New Saint Andrews.

When universities no longer accept federal funds, they will be free to run (or not run) their sports and dorms however they wish. No more โ€œDear Colleagueโ€ letters scolding or not so subtly threatening schools that donโ€™t take the right political or social stances.

Of course, this is decidedly not what President Garber and other university administrators have in mind. They very much want to keep all their federal funding (and get more if they can). They just donโ€™t want conditions for how they operate with that money. One could be forgiven for thinking this sounds more like a large-scale grift than a robust defense of academic freedom.

Remember, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If these universities donโ€™t want to face political pressure and government oversight, they need to stop taking government money. And until they put their money where their mouth is, academic freedom will remain a fig leaf for massive institutions (full of extremely well-paid administrators and faculty) that have been taking American taxpayers to the cleaners for decades.



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