The following by Patricca with Arthur J. Lurigio
The attack on diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) is the poisoned tip of an arrow aimed directly at the heart of the university. Do not be distracted by the screeds and rants against “critical race theory” and “gender ambiguity.” The attack on DEI is the opening salvo in a war to control the narrative of our national identity that is safeguarded and nourished in our institutions of higher learning.
Listen to JD Vance: “I’m excited to close this conference with this particular set of remarks because I think if any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”
Trump 2.0, with the wrecking ball of the Elon Musk–controlled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is dramatically changing the function of higher education in the United States. The idea of the university originated and developed in the history of Western civilization and cultivated a community of scholars in which research, scientific investigation, and the arts and humanities were practiced freely and critically in the pursuit of truth and the common good. The Trump-Vance-Musk troika wants to make the university an indoctrination center, producing good consumers and good producers obedient to a version of history designed to support the prevailing cultural status quo.
The Power of the Purse: Starving Universities into Submission
Controlling the purse is a critical means of crippling our universities, which have become dependent on federal research dollars as well as other government funds, such as Pell Grants, to support their programs, faculty, and students. The Musk-controlled DOGE has already moved aggressively toward this objective, imposing a sudden, sweeping freeze on the grants sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This freeze has paralyzed many of our universities’ research activities, putting at risk vital medical and other essential studies necessary for the health and security of our nation. Universities are now expending significant time, energy, and resources attempting to decipher the bewildering, ambiguous, and contradictory dictates of DOGE and other federal agencies issuing a blizzard of edicts in an attempt to comply with the Trump agenda. Universities fear their federal support will significantly decline or evaporate if they do not act quickly. Still, their efforts to seek clarification are met with silence or more ambiguity and contradiction.
The Health Policy Institute of Ohio posted an example of the collateral damage caused by the DOGE’s reckless freeze on NIH funds: “The meeting freeze had stalled about 16,000 grant applications vying for around $1.5 billion in NIH funding, according to one person who is familiar with the grant-making process who did not want to be identified because of fear of retribution.” The grant applications were for research into “diseases ranging from heart disease and COVID to Alzheimer’s and allergies” (Source: “NIH partially lifts freeze on funding process for medical research,” NPR, Feb. 26, 2025).
The NIH has a budget of $48 billion and funds more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other institutions. President Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine efficacy denier and disinformation purveyor, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH. In response to the United States’ first measles-related death in a decade and amid a continuing outbreak of measles in West Texas, Kennedy’s comment was chillingly dismissive: The situation was “not unusual.”
Slashing Reimbursement Rates: The Next Blow to Cripple Universities
Another financial stranglehold is manipulating NIH reimbursement rates to cover the direct and indirect costs of conducting research. The Trump administration has issued a directive that slashes this rate to a mere 15% for new and existing grants. If this policy holds, universities will face an existential crisis, forcing them to shut down research programs, curtail operations, or scramble for private funding, which will crush their budgets.
The consequences of this funding assault extend beyond the sciences. The loss of federal research dollars, including for the arts and humanities, imperils the entire university ecosystem. This liberal arts core is essential to critical thinking, democratic engagement, and cultural progress.
Trump-Vance-Musk Attacking the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg
Our universities achieve results. They educate millions of students annually, including about a million students per year who come from other countries. American scholars from American universities dominate the Nobel Prizes.
Our universities are not only bastions of free speech, open inquiry, and groundbreaking research but also the creative engines that drive our economy, stimulate innovation in our industries and enrich our people spiritually and materially. The Trump-Vance-Musk triumvirate’s efforts to shackle the freedom of our universities is the first assault in their efforts to throttle the freedoms of our society.
This article is the first in a series examining the concerted efforts of the unholy trinity of Trump, Vance and Musk to restructure higher education to suit their agenda of controlling the narrative of our national identity. The next article will focus on DEI.
Nick Patricca, Professor Emeritus, Loyola University Chicago
Arthur Lurigio, Professor of Criminal Justice and Psychology, Loyola University Chicago.