Politics are a fact of life. Universities have always been subject to political decisions and influence. After all, we in academia are trusted with taxpayers’ money in a variety of ways and we should work to provide returns on that investment. Overwhelmingly we have done so by educating students, producing knowledge, innovating, and being the drivers of a very large proportion of the wealth creation that makes this nation strong.

These days, we are not dealing with politics but with inquisition. To the Trump administration and many in Congress, higher education is the enemy. And like all enemies, it must be slain. So far, they are doing a good job.

In just two months, we have seen arbitrary changes to policies related to essential federal reimbursements of costs. We have seen wanton and unjustified termination of grants and contracts. We have seen the use of cuts in federal research money as a weapon to hurt those whose sole mistake has been to be a convenient target for political vengeance. All of the above is bad enough, but it pales in comparison to the damage being inflicted on a whole generation of young students, researchers and faculty who are losing hope and their dreams. They now live in fear of repercussions from the US government about what they say and do. They are beginning to self-censor, inhibiting innovation and the open exchange of ideas. The individuals that could have propelled the best higher education and research system in the world to even higher levels are being censored and stymied.

The arbitrary capping of “indirect costs” or “overhead” paid by government agencies that fund research was the first salvo in the war against universities. Indirect costs are expenses that cannot be attributed to any particular effort. They are standard practice in the private, non-profit and government sectors. The Trump administration chose the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as its first trial agency for these cuts since they are the biggest non-defense fish in the federal funders’ pond. Indirect costs are real; every penny, and more, is needed to keep the research enterprise going, to support the buildings, the labs, the libraries, and much of the supporting infrastructure.

If NIH were the only agency affected, the impact to places like my present home institution, the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), and my previous home, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), would be painful but manageable with cuts and reallocation of money, in the short run. Each would be experiencing annual deficits on the order of $25-$35 million, amounts that would need to be paid somehow if the research in the health sciences funded by NIH were to continue. For universities with large medical schools and hospitals, the proposed cap on NIH indirect costs is existential, amounting to hundreds of millions. But nobody believes that the Trump administration’s actions will stop at NIH. Word on the street is that indirect costs will be capped somewhere in the 30% range (presumably of the modified direct cost base – a quantity that excludes certain direct costs) for all federal funding agencies, including big research funders like the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA, National Science Foundation, etc. Even if we assume that research from the Department of Defense is spared, the impact of an across-the-board cap could be in the realm of hundreds of millions of dollars. Most universities would be unable to weather those impacts.

Research funding is also quickly disappearing. Practically all federal agencies have cancelled existing contracts and grants. The elimination of efforts funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in firings in several institutions and weekly losses in the millions. As an aside, the millions of dollars lost to universities in the United States pale relative to the unconscionable harm to people around the world.

Broad cuts in research funding are one thing, another is the use of stop payments and cancellations in transparently punitive actions. Columbia University had $400M in grants and contracts cancelled because of allegations that it failed to control antisemitism on campus. The University of Maine received pause orders on about $30 million from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), clearly in response to governor Janet Mills challenging President Trump in public. Some among us will rationalize the above actions as deserved – based on political beliefs or social norms. I suggest thinking twice – you could be next.

Proposed increases on taxes on endowment incomes are particularly serious for private universities like MIT and Harvard with heavy (ca 50%) reliance on that income for annual operations. Much of endowment income is not discretionary, but subject to donors wishes. A significant percentage goes into providing financial aid to students.

I cannot imagine a scenario where all the above actions against universities can be absorbed without retrenchment and reduction in workforce. Serious pain is unavoidable. Perhaps that is the point.

Possibly more significant than the slashing of funding are the non-monetary and indirect impacts of the recent federal government actions. Values like diversity, equity and inclusion are being cleansed from government and private websites. DEI is a “scarlet letter,” use it and you will be branded and punished – a throwback to the McCarthy era and accusations of communism. Climate and climate change are also verboten. The effect of this censoring of intellectual and social pursuits is to discourage research and innovation. Recently a senior faculty member in a well-known university questioned whether the institution should even bother to respond to an opportunity dealing with climate change. Already the attacks are creating an atmosphere of fear without even the need to persecute, as the targeted will begin to self-police out of fear and resignation.

The spectacle we are experiencing, and the open censoring of ideas, discourages young people from pursuing careers in academia and in government. Most top universities are already beginning to see softness in applications of graduate students. No international student that stops and thinks will be comfortable coming to the US when they can be denied entry, detained, or threatened with deportation for publicly expressing opinions. My own graduate students are wondering why they should continue following their dream – at least in the US.

It should be evident to all that the reduction in research and the coming drop in enrollments translate to more budgetary woes. In my opinion, the Trump administration’s attack on universities has already permanently damaged the country’s ability to remain the central hub of research and the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world.

Over the last few weeks, I have spoken to over a half dozen university leaders and many faculty from different institutions. Never, in nearly 50 years in education, have I seen such a frazzled group. All are doing their very best to deal with the barrage of attacks and adversarial requests. Some are mad as hell, others are numb. A few hold the pollyannish view that all will settle back to business as usual.

Our leaders need our support. They are in a tough and difficult position. But I do have concerns. When asked to talk about what they are doing to deal with the situation, all are implementing prudent controls on expenditures. They all are working directly or through friends (mostly private sector) to try to influence federal policies. They all are cheering for legal challenges led by organizations like the Association of American Universities and the Association of Public Land Grants Universities – although not all have explicitly or publicly joined these challenges. They are cheering at a safe distance.

The scariest thing to me is that some of these leaders say, explicitly or implicitly, that that they will be OK because they are better off than others – because of their missions, location, political “color” of their home states, or all the above. If at this point institutions resort to the instinct of self-preservation without concern about the fate of others our enemies can declare victory. And no matter how strong or well-aligned, institutions that chose to stay away from the fray and claim the fallacy of institutional neutrality will be consumed by their own inaction and acquiescence.

I am convinced that the only way to stop this situation is to have a loud coalition of leaders, faculty, staff and students that rise, nationally, to defend the future of the best higher education in the world. Nothing else will work but making our collective presence felt.

I had finished the first draft of this opinion piece when I read the March 12 issue of The Scholarly Kitchen. In a guest post, Dr. Nason Maani, of the University of Edinburgh, writes “[r]ecent governmental efforts to halt health research funding, defund government research bodies, intimidate universities with the threat of financial penalties, and the circulation of terms in research and academic papers to be “flagged” for review are concerning far beyond the disciplines directly affected, and pose a risk to the collective global enterprise of scientific discovery and knowledge development.” He calls for a march of Ents. Ents were the slow, deliberate, non-confrontational, tree-beings in the Lord of the Rings series who ultimately, at the sight of their forest being burned and destroyed, decide to act and use their awesome collective strength and march on the enemy. We are the Ents. We in academia must act together, now, to prevent further damage to higher education. I am not talking of just legal challenges, lobbying, or writeups like this one. I am talking about making our physical presence and unhappiness known (peacefully), and seen, by those that can stop the madness but so far refuse to act.

Note: I want to thank the Faculty Newsletter for inviting me to publish this opinion piece. It has been a while since I last wrote directly to my MIT colleagues! This piece first appeared in my Personal Blog. Needless to say, the content of this piece is my opinion and does not represent the position of GT, MIT or their leaders. 

Rafael L. Bras was Chair of the MIT Faculty from 2003-2005.

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