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College leaders, their lobbyists, and their donors have been nursing for months a low-simmering anxiety about what a second Donald Trump term would mean for their institutions. Academia had already been worried about Trump’s vows to replace the accreditation system to favor more “pro-American” footing and to install a punitive regime of taxes and fines against schools he sees as “too woke.” Then, Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Israel responded with overwhelming force, and the landscape of the American political dynamics over college campuses heading toward November’s election were sharpened.
As much as state, local, and campus leaders want to believe they are autonomous from Washington’s reach, that’s merely a myth. While colleges and universities tend to be liberal enclaves positioned as…
