Trump’s power play with Penn, other universities

After major concessions from universities such as Virginia, Columbia and Penn on issues including DEI and transgender athletes, it seems the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape higher ed are making inroads. 

As Trump has leveraged outcomes by withholding federal funding, those efforts are raising concerns about the role the federal government can play in forcing campuses to conform to the prevailing ideological winds.

So are the administration’s actions an existential threat to critical thinking and an erosion of academic freedom? Or are they a necessary departure from a “woke” campus culture that had gone too far in crowding out a diversity of thinking? 

On this episode of Studio 2: The evolution of higher ed under Trump.

Guests

• Jessa Lingel, associate professor at Penn and director of its program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
• Will Creeley, legal director of FIRE
• Jay Greene, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation