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Last week, the Trump administration’s authoritarian war on science and higher education reached yet another ignoble milestone.
The Justice Department forced the resignation of James E. Ryan, President of the University of Virginia, as part of a settlement in a civil rights investigation into the university’s diversity practices.
This marks the first time a U.S. university president has been pressured to step down by the White House—simply for upholding existing laws on diversity and inclusion. Yet this episode is just the latest assault in a broader campaign to dismantle American academia and scientific inquiry, animated by a reactionary urge to suppress critical thought and drag society backward.
On May 23, Donald Trump signed an executive order that marks a turning point in the politicization of knowledge. Framed as an effort to promote “Gold Standard Science,” the order gives politically appointed officials sweeping authority to define what counts as “scientific misconduct”—and to punish it accordingly. While the language of the order is cloaked in terms like “transparency,” “rigor,” and “peer review,” its actual enforcement is tied to partisan directives. In practice, this means that control over publicly funded research is being centralized within the administration, opening the door to a politicized weaponization of scientific standards.
While the order technically applies to federal employees conducting scientific work within government agencies, its effects will inevitably ripple into universities. Federal agencies remain a cornerstone of funding for academic research. What makes this particularly alarming is the broad discretionary authority now granted to politically appointed officials and their delegates. They are empowered not only to pursue cases of fraud or data fabrication, but also to sanction researchers for using methods or drawing inferences that they deem “inappropriate” — an intentionally vague threshold that opens the door to ideological interference in scientific judgment.
The goal is unmistakable: to deter research in areas considered controversial or politically inconvenient, to suppress independent inquiry, and to silence academic dissent. When scholars must weigh the risk of sanctions or retaliation simply for advancing unwelcome hypotheses, publishing uncomfortable findings, or working on “sensitive” topics, science is no longer free — it becomes conditional, constrained, and ultimately subordinated to power.
The most insidious consequence will not be immediate or spectacular, but slow-burning and systemic: the cultivation of a climate of fear, caution, and self-censorship. In such an environment, researchers may shy away from asking the very questions that matter most for collective progress—simply because they are politically inconvenient. Scholars working on complex social issues, public health, climate change, or inequality may choose the safer route, steering clear of topics likely to provoke the displeasure of the new political arbiters of “scientific truth.”
These latest assaults are just the newest phase in a broader offensive that began with the dismantling of the public research infrastructure. It has continued with a sustained campaign to defund private universities, curtail freedom of expression, and erode pluralism within academic institutions.
In the first two months of the new administration, the axe of the DOGE led to a drastic downsizing — if not outright shutdown — of government agencies such as USAID, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to name just a few.
One of the most alarming consequences is that much of the invaluable data once produced and shared by federal agencies has already become — or is rapidly becoming — inaccessible to researchers and the public. NOAA, for instance, tracks sea level rise, atmospheric temperatures, and air pollution. The CDC monitors the spread of viral diseases and vaccination uptake. CMS and NIH collect data on disease incidence and access to healthcare. USAID gathers statistics on epidemics, health conditions, and economic and gender inequalities in developing countries.
Tellingly, many of the issues tracked by these datasets overlap with the now-infamous list of “forbidden words” circulated by the White House. These aren’t radical slogans — they are ideologically neutral terms like (alphabetically): barriers, bias, disability, discrimination, disparities, diversity, equity, exclusion, ethnicity, female, gender, inclusion, marginalization, minority, orientation, racism, trauma, underestimation, and victim (full list here). Any research proposal that includes these words is at risk of losing federal funding — effectively threatening the careers of those who pursue it.
The administration has already pulled funding from thousands of projects containing these “prohibited” terms. This ongoing purge is just another surface symptom of something deeper: a systemic rewriting of the research incentive structure — one deliberately designed to deter scholars from exploring uncomfortable issues. After all, who would invest years of work into a project that has no chance of being funded? And what institution would risk hiring someone whose research touches on politically taboo subjects?
Imagine the outbreak of a new epidemic. How would we respond without data, without funding, and without researchers able — or willing — to study its spread and consequences? What if it became impossible to conduct serious research on climate change, poverty, inequality, or discrimination based on gender, race, or religion — all the issues the Trump administration is so determined to erase from the public conversation and the scientific debate?
Trump’s obscurantist fury — and that of his loyalists — is likely to escalate further as the macroeconomic outlook worsens. Erica Groshen, former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recently raised the alarm over the growing politicization of federal statistical agencies, warning that officials might soon be dismissed simply for releasing data that contradicts the president’s narrative. If inflation and unemployment rise, as the Fed anticipates, Trump may well push these agencies to deny that it’s happening at all. That may sound dystopian — but it’s perfectly consistent with a presidency that has already weaponized the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the CIA, and the FBI against its enemies.
The erasure of data gives autocracy the power to bend reality at will. Without evidence, propaganda becomes unassailable. Pandemics, climate change, poverty, inequality, and discrimination can all be made to disappear — simply by denying they exist. And in that vacuum, any conspiracy theory that flatters the regime’s worldview can masquerade as truth: vaccines cause autism; infectious diseases are engineered by those who profit from cures; cancer is treatable with raw vegetables and homeopathy; the planet isn’t warming — it’s cooling. Women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people face no discrimination, because discrimination itself is a lie. Science is a scam, scholars are paid shills for globalist elites, and education is just indoctrination. The economy is booming — and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor spreading fake news. And so on.
The Trump administration’s assault isn’t limited to federal research agencies, controversial topics, the data needed to document them, or the scholars who study them. It targets the entire university system.
The case of Harvard is emblematic. Trump demanded the right to oversee faculty and student recruitment — a move that would have allowed political control over research agendas and teaching content. When the university’s president refused, the administration retaliated by revoking billions in federal funding and imposing a ban on the admission of foreign students.
This is more than just punishment — it’s a strategic attack on one of the pillars of the American growth model: the ability to attract global talent. The ban is a self-inflicted wound that undermines one of the United States’ greatest competitive advantages — its unmatched capacity to recruit the brightest minds from every corner of the world.
The administration is also threatening to go after Harvard through the IRS — yet another example of how state institutions are being weaponized to punish dissent, in classic authoritarian fashion.
However, much of the media coverage has missed a crucial point: Trump’s assault on higher education goes far beyond slashing public funding for elite institutions like Harvard and Princeton. What’s being dismantled is the entire financial infrastructure that supports scientific research—especially in biomedical fields.
At the heart of this system lies a mechanism known as “overhead.” Research grants are typically divided into two categories: “direct” costs, which cover things like researchers’ salaries, equipment, and materials; and “indirect” costs—also called overheads—that fund the infrastructure enabling the research itself. These include buildings, labs, hospitals, utilities, and administrative support. Without this backbone, research cannot happen.
The portion of federal research funding allocated to indirect costs has long represented one of the main financial pillars of American universities. For at least seventy years, overhead rates have ranged between 50% and 70% of total research grants. The Trump administration has now imposed a drastic cap: overheads must not exceed 15%.
It may sound like a technical detail, but it’s a financial earthquake for American universities. To illustrate the scale: a university that previously received $500 million a year in research funding with a 55% overhead rate would instantly lose $200 million annually. Universities cannot simply reallocate other resources to cover these losses—most of their remaining funds come from earmarked donations tied to specific uses, which cannot be used to support core infrastructure or administration.
To contain the financial fallout, universities will be forced to lay off researchers and faculty, implement hiring freezes, cut investments, eliminate less popular undergraduate and PhD programs, and reduce student services. Several institutions have already suspended their doctoral programs.
Biomedical research is likely to be hit the hardest, because it relies on costly equipment, long-term projects, and steady funding—much of which comes from the NIH, the first agency where the administration’s overhead cuts were implemented. The result will be a slowdown in progress on critical fronts such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes.
As part of preparations for a new policy to monitor the social media activity of foreign students and researchers applying to enter the United States, embassies and consulates have suspended all visa interview appointments for applicants in education and research categories. The freeze also applies to cultural and professional exchange programs—including visiting professors and seasonal workers.
It remains unclear what kinds of content would be scrutinized under the proposed social media monitoring system. If implemented, the measure would be part of the broader “Catch and Revoke” initiative, which envisions using artificial intelligence to scan immigrants’ online activity and revoke their residence permits.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that the possibility to enter and reside in the United States is a privilege, not a right. But that’s precisely the problem: in a democracy, freedom of opinion and expression is not a privilege—it is a right, one enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
For Americans, accepting that this freedom no longer applies to lawful immigrants implicitly means accepting that even native-born citizens could soon be subjected to surveillance and punished for their views—effectively stripping them of the full protection of a fundamental right.
As in all authoritarian regimes, control and repression initially target the least popular groups: immigrants, particularly those enrolled at elite universities—a constituency that rarely elicits widespread public sympathy. But once the principle is accepted that online speech can be monitored and used as grounds for state repression, drawing the line becomes nearly impossible. Trump himself offered a chilling demonstration of this logic: after deporting lawfully residing immigrants to foreign prisons without formal charges, he declared from the Oval Office that similar measures could soon be extended to American citizens deemed “dangerous” to the national interest.
Measures like these serve a dual purpose. First, they further undermine U.S. universities, which depend heavily on international students for financial viability. Second, they help normalize speech surveillance while escalating the intimidation of one of the most influential centers of dissent: the academia. Social media are now the main channels through which information and opinion circulate. These policies aim to drain them of critical, civic, and constructive content.
Christopher Rufo—one of the chief architects of the campaign against universities—has been explicit about the strategy: the goal is to plunge academic institutions into a state of “existential terror,” where submission to the regime’s directives appears as the only path to survival.
Seventy years ago, Polish poet Czesław Miłosz captured this dynamic in The Captive Mind: in authoritarian regimes, scholars and artists begin by censoring themselves—not because they are forced to, but because the fear of losing everything shapes their thinking long before it constrains their actions.
The unlawful and traumatic arrests of immigrant researchers lawfully residing in the U.S.—whose only “crime” was expressing dissent—the suspension of funding to universities that uphold freedom of expression, and the prohibition of research and teaching deemed subversive all serve the same strategic goal: to compel administrators, faculty, and students to censor themselves out of fear of losing everything.
The images of Rumeysa Ozturk’s violent arrest—a PhD student at Tufts University—have reverberated around the world. Like others who have been deported, she was not charged with any crime. Her sole “offense” was co-signing a public letter expressing political dissent, published in a university newspaper. That act is called freedom of expression—a right protected not only by the U.S. Constitution, but by every democratic legal system. Following her arrest, Ozturk was transferred without formal charges to a remote prison in Louisiana, where she was held for over a month before being released. The legal basis for such arrests, deportations, and retaliatory proceedings under the Trump administration is flimsy at best. But securing convictions is not the point—the goal is to intimidate, isolate, and silence.
Even a frivolous lawsuit can result in years of costly litigation, the suspension of university funding—with repercussions for colleagues and the institution—and retaliatory measures against other members of the research team. The cumulative effect is selective silence and preemptive self-censorship. If a student or researcher is seen as a liability, universities will have every incentive to quietly dismiss them—even without just cause. Those known for intellectual independence are unlikely to be hired in the first place. This is the logic of authoritarianism, long visible in Orbán’s Hungary—now eclipsed by the speed and severity of the Trump administration’s crackdown.
As economist Dani Rodrik has pointed out, three pillars have underpinned America's global leadership: the rule of law, a robust system of scientific research and innovation, and an openness to talent from around the world. Under Trump, all three have been systematically dismantled. No enemy of America could have inflicted more damage.
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