What is behind Trump’s crackdown on U.S. universities?

Trump administration targets U.S. universities for anti-Semitism, impacting academic freedom and diversity, sparking concerns over discrimination and control.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has been targeting several U.S. universities, accusing them of anti-Semitism. When Harvard University refused to comply with the demands of the White House on hiring, admissions, and teaching practices, the administration froze federal grants to it.

On March 10, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to close to 60 universities saying they were under investigation for Title VI violations relating to anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination. The letter warned of action if the universities failed to comply with the administration’s demands.

However, the federal government letter, published by Harvard University on its site, reveals that the demands have more to do with governmental regulation of the private university than discrimination on campus. The terms include governance and leadership reforms, a forensic audit of foreign funding sources, and disclosure of all requested immigration, hiring, and admission-related data to the federal government.

It also includes auditing the student body, faculty, and leadership for viewpoint diversity. These signal the decline of academic freedom in the U.S., particularly institutional autonomy which declined to its lowest level in 2024 (Chart 1).

Chart 1 | The chart shows the index of various academic freedom measures of U.S. universities. The higher the number, the better the measure

The government’s other demand was that the universities commission an external party to audit programmes and departments that most fuel anti-Semitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.

Data indicates that there is less freedom of academic exchange and dissemination now in the U.S. than in the 2000s. This is also evident from the freedom of academic and cultural expression in the U.S., which has plunged to its lowest in two decades.