This article was originally published at Forbes.com on April 28, 2025.
Moral clarity matters. But so does the funding model that determines whether colleges can resist government influence.
Although the changes currently shaking American society are being celebrated by some and opposed by others, there is one thing on which we should all be able to agree: the U.S. federal government is not what it was 100 days ago.
Over the past few months, we have witnessed two radical trajectories of change, each occurring in opposite directions. On the one hand, the Trump Administration has slashed federal services with a zeal reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan’s tenure. Whole departments have been eliminated or gutted, and major areas of American life, which formerly fell under executive-branch oversight, are now being deregulated. But, at the same time, the administration has also initiated the most radical expansion of the executive branch since the New Deal, taking major steps to exert control in spaces that previously fell outside the federal government’s purview.
Academic Freedom Under Siege
One such space is the American classroom. Until recently, the federal government respected a basic boundary in its relationship with American schools: It tried to influence policies and programs, but it never tried to interfere with the curriculum itself. Though there have been attempts to standardize performance metrics, as in the case of No Child Left Behind, there has never been a serious attempt by the federal government to control the ideological content of what’s actually being taught. States, for their part, were entrusted with full control over public K-12 curricula, while private schools and colleges were considered sacrosanct. Until now, the notion that federal officials might try to dictate what was taught at a private college was simply unthinkable.
Then, the unthinkable started happening.
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