Mother Jones illustration; Nanako Sudo/The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP; Getty(2)
America is witnessing an unprecedented series of attacks on higher education that commenced well before Donald Trump was re-elected, amid the contentious protests that followed Hamas’ attacks on Israel and Israel’s ruthless (and ongoing) retaliation on Gaza and its inhabitants.
But Trump, as president, has taken matters much further. Claiming antisemitism, his administration is revoking student visas and arresting students who have engaged in nonviolent protests or expressed opinions on social media or in innocuous op-eds. The government’s pauses, reviews, and cancellations of grants and contracts at top universities—including new funding freezes totaling $1 billion for Cornell and $790 million for Northwestern—are…