Researchers Impacted by Federal Grant Terminations
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: Billions of dollars in federal scientific research grants have been rescinded or suspended since the start of the Trump administration.
Below, 16 researchers across nine different research areas who have had their federal grants terminated since the start of the Trump administration share just a few of the thousands of stories behind these cuts.
by Ed Yingling '70
Washington insiders believe it is very likely that a significant increase in the tax rate on university endowment income will be enacted this year. They cite the need for additional tax revenue to offset the Trump tax cut agenda and the antipathy of many Republicans to what has been happening on campuses for the last two years. They also focus on the fact that then-Senator JD Vance introduced a bill in the last Congress imposing a 35 percent tax on endowment income.
Ian Bogost
The Atlantic
Excerpt: The start of spring semester is a hopeful time on college campuses. Students fill the quads and walkways, wearing salmon shorts or strappy tank tops. Music plays; Frisbees fly. As a career academic, I have been a party to this catalog-cover scene for more than 30 years running. It looks made-up, but it is real. Every year in the United States, almost 20 million people go to college, representing every race, ethnicity, and social class. This is college in America—or it has been for a long time.
But college life as we know it may soon come to an end.
Ilya Somin
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine
Excerpt: The Trump administration has been detaining and trying to deport immigrant and foreign students for their First-Amendment protected speech. That includes even speech that does not actually support terrorism, as in the case of a Tufts graduate student detained for an anti-Israel op ed that, however flawed, does not endorse Hamas terrorism, or indeed even mention it. Such detention and deportation is an assault on freedom of speech, and violates the First Amendment, which has no exception for immigration restrictions.
John Avlon and Greg Lukianoff
How to Fix It with John Avlon, The Bulwark
Excerpt: What happens when universities stop defending debate—and politicians start punishing dissent? John Avlon interviews Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind. They unpack the escalating war over free speech—from college campuses to the courtroom—and explore how institutions meant to protect liberty are now leading the charge to suppress it.
Sara Weissman
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: Federal immigration authorities arrested a Tufts Ph.D. student Tuesday as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing attempts to deport pro-Palestinian activists, The Boston Globe reported.
The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, is a Turkish national in the U.S. on a student visa. Her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, told The Boston Globe she isn’t aware of any charges against her client. Ozturk co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to the campus pro-Palestinian movement, and her information had been posted on Canary Mission, a website that publicizes the identities of pro-Palestinian activists. Khanbabai initially didn’t know where Ozturk was taken and couldn’t contact her, the attorney said.