‘No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.’ Alan Garber, President of Harvard.‘The executive order also undermines academic freedom and free speech by discouraging colleges and universities from teaching subjects such as the evils of slavery and the history of racism … The executive order is a brazen attempt to intimidate schools into abandoning lawful efforts to create inclusive learning environments.’ Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU.The war Donald Trump has waged against American universities represents a paradigmatic shift in the nation’s intellectual landscape characterised by a subtle yet insidious erosion of academic autonomy. This campaign, fought not through conventional warfare but through legislative fiat, funding manipulation and rhetorical coercion, seeks to redefine the very essence of higher education. By wielding executive power, President Trump has orchestrated a multifaceted assault on the academy, challenging the long-standing sanctuaries of intellectual freedom and critical inquiry that universities have traditionally embodied.Trump’s latest “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”, a document that several universities have already denounced as an extortionary condition for federal funding, is the most formal expression of this assault. It demands loyalty cloaked as accountability and compliance disguised as patriotism. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) became the first to reject this so-called compact, with its president Sally Kornbluth making it clear that scientific excellence cannot be policed through ideological litmus tests. “We freely choose these values because they’re right,” she wrote, “and we live by them because they support our mission.”That statement was not just an act of administrative defiance; it was a moral declaration of what a university is supposed to be – a site of independent thought and intellectual risk. Yet, in Trump’s America, such independence has been steadily redefined as subversion.The consequences are now visible across the academic landscape. Nobel Prize-winning economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, two of the outstanding thinkers of contemporary development economics, recently announced their decision to leave MIT and establish a new research centre at the University of Zurich. Their departure coincides with the growing disillusionment among America’s top scholars over restrictions attached to federal research funding and the broader atmosphere of hostility toward critical inquiry.It is not simply a matter of lost prestige for the United States; it is a measure of how quickly an intellectual ecosystem can deteriorate when freedom is treated as a privilege rather than a right. Trump’s interventions in higher education reveal an authoritarian impulse that views knowledge itself as a threat; an impulse that echoes earlier historical moments when universities became battlegrounds for ideology rather than free spaces of thought.At the heart of this crisis lies a profound misunderstanding of what a university is. The word universitas denotes not uniformity but wholeness, a meeting ground of diverse minds, perspectives and disciplines. The university exists precisely to resist narrowness, to welcome the world without boundaries rather than mirror the prejudices of its rulers. Trump’s approach to American academia has been characterised by a profound parochialism, wherein the pursuit of knowledge and intellectual freedom are subordinated to a narrow, ideologically-driven agenda. By casting the academy as a site of partisan orthodoxy, Trump’s policies aim to erode the very foundations of higher learning, replacing the values of critical inquiry and intellectual curiosity with a stifling conformity to a particular worldview.Moreover, Trump’s administration weaponises the notion of “merit” to dismantle equality and undermine diversity initiatives, while simultaneously invoking “freedom of speech” to stifle dissenting voices. This rhetorical manoeuvre exemplifies a profound caricature of ideals, where the language of meritocracy and liberty is co-opted to legitimise systemic inequality and subdue marginalised perspectives. In this context, merit becomes a thinly veiled proxy for privilege, obscuring the structural barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from accessing opportunities. By failing to acknowledge the role of privilege and bias in shaping opportunities, meritocratic systems can inadvertently legitimise inequality instead of promoting genuine equality. Ultimately, this approach reflects a profound disregard for the values of equity and justice, and prioritises the interests of those already in positions of power.The irony is bitter indeed. Trump’s allies accuse universities of indoctrination while imposing their own political catechism that equates critical inquiry with disloyalty and compassion with subversion. The anti-Palestinian fervour now sweeping through campus politics is part of the same project. Faculty members and students expressing solidarity with Gaza or questioning Israeli policy have found themselves disciplined, dismissed or publicly vilified. At Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, entire departments have been tarred with the accusation of antisemitism merely for demanding an end to violence.Also read: Why India Faces a Dilemma Today When it Comes to its Policy Towards the USTo discipline students and professors for pro-Palestinian expression is to criminalise empathy itself. It is also to forget that the vitality of American scholarship has always rested on its openness to the world, to the exchange of ideas across borders, the willingness to confront inconvenient histories. When Trump narrows that horizon, he not only wounds the moral credibility of American education but also its competitiveness. The exodus of esteemed scholars such as Duflo and Banerjee to Switzerland, coupled with a significant decline in international students enrolling in American universities, signals a profound crisis. This trend is not merely a consequence of logistical or economic factors but rather a symptom of a more insidious erosion of intellectual freedom.The symbiosis between intellectual autonomy and innovation is rooted in the inherent human drive for exploration and discovery. When individuals are granted the freedom to pursue knowledge and inquiry without undue constraint, they are more likely to venture into uncharted territories, challenge prevailing wisdom and pioneer novel solutions. This relationship is predicated on the notion that autonomy fosters a culture of self-directed learning, critical thinking and creativity, all of which are essential catalysts for innovation.The Trump administration’s rhetoric on “academic excellence” is starkly at odds with the reality of its policies, which methodically erode the very conditions that enable excellence to flourish. By valourising control and ideological conformity over diversity, freedom and intellectual curiosity, Trump’s vision for higher education reimagines the university not as a vibrant republic of ideas, where diverse perspectives and rigorous debate are cherished, but as a stifling regulatory apparatus where orthodoxy and compliance are paramount. This approach undermines the fundamental purpose of academia, which is to foster critical thinking, challenge prevailing wisdom and advance knowledge through open inquiry and debate.The parallel with McCarthy’s America is instructive. Then, as now, the language of patriotism was used to justify blacklists, loyalty oaths and ideological conformity. The result was not strength but decay, leading to a generation of thinkers lost to fear, and an academy drained of courage. Trump’s war on universities is repeating that history under new slogans. His suspicion of intellectual independence, his disdain for cosmopolitanism and his willingness to brand dissent as disloyalty have together transformed campuses into surveillance zones.What makes this moment particularly grave is its global fallout. American universities have long served as models for academic freedom worldwide. When their autonomy erodes, the ripple effects are felt from Delhi to Durban. Governments elsewhere, eager to emulate Trump’s model of ideological governance, now cite the United States’ example to justify their own assaults on academic freedom. Thus, the crisis of the American university becomes a crisis of the very idea of the university itself.Also read: Trump’s H-1B Visa Crackdown: A Reckoning for Global CapitalismIn this atmosphere, Trump’s calls to defend “Western civilisation” ring hollow. Civilisation is not defended by silencing its critics but by engaging them. The suppression of pro-Palestinian voices, the racialisation of merit and the politicisation of knowledge all serve to impoverish the very civilisation Trump claims to preserve. The intellectual diversity that once made the American university the envy of the world is now treated as a liability.Universities embody a sacred trust, upholding the pursuit of knowledge and truth as a communal inheritance that transcends the interests of the state. When they prioritise serving authority over critical inquiry, they betray their fundamental purpose, morphing into mere appendages of power rather than bastions of intellectual freedom. This transformation undermines the very essence of higher education, which is to foster independent thought, challenge prevailing narratives and advance knowledge through rigorous scrutiny and debate. By compromising their autonomy, universities risk losing their capacity to hold power accountable, thereby diminishing their role as guardians of democracy and intellectual integrity.In conclusion, America’s trajectory portends a paradoxical decline. A nation built on the ideals of intellectual freedom and critical inquiry may become the first to deliberately dismantle its own legacy. The greatest threat to its universities lies not in external forces but in the actions of its own leadership, which confuses loyalty with learning and fear with governance. As the university’s role as a bastion of conscience and truth-telling is eroded, so too is the foundation of democracy itself.The consequences of this moment will be measured not by policy decisions, but by the silenced voices and the long silence that follows. History will judge whether a nation that once embodied the pursuit of knowledge chose to defend its universities or sacrifice them for fleeting political gain, its verdict rendered not in words, but in the profound stillness that follows the collapse of intellectual freedom.Shelley Walia, Professor Emeritus, is a cultural critic and former Senior Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. He writes on education, culture, war and international relations.