Former U.S. President Donald Trump has never been particularly fond of Princeton. In 2020, after the University removed Woodrow Wilson’s name from its School of Public and International Affairs, Trump took to X to complain. The re-naming, he wrote, was an act of “incredible stupidity!”
During the second Trump administration, this nascent distaste would develop into an all-out assault on Princeton — and the rest of our nation’s colleges and universities. The writing is on the wall: policy proposals from the CATO institute and the Heritage Foundation — organizations flushed with personnel from the first Trump administration — describe plans to dismantle the Department of Education, limit discussions about LGBT+ issues in the classroom, and use federal funding as a political tool. As members of a university community who benefit from our access to education and intellectual freedom, we have a responsibility to stop these plans by voting against Trump.
At first, it might not be entirely obvious as to why the right would want to target elite universities. After all, Trump himself is an Ivy League graduate, and historically, these colleges have nurtured right-wing thought. Princeton alone counts conservative figures such as Samuel Alito ’72, Ted Cruz ’92, and Larry Kudlow GS ’71 among its ranks of alumni.
But modern conservatism in America is less concerned with policy than it is with the “culture wars.” When it comes to the values of diversity and inclusion, it’s fair to say that most elite universities have chosen a side.
This is why Trump describes the shift many American colleges have made to tackle their historic racism — say, by removing Woodrow Wilson’s name from a public policy center due to his segregationist policies — as a product of “radical left indoctrination.” According to Trump, when academics publish papers about America’s systemic inequality, they are spreading “hateful lies about [the] country.” When students are encouraged to interact with a diverse set of peers — when they hear about each other’s life experiences on an Outdoor Action trip, for example — they are being fed leftist “propaganda.”
This rhetoric is disconcerting. Our ability to encounter a diverse set of viewpoints and backgrounds on campus greatly enhances the quality of our Princeton education. By politicizing even student body diversity, Trump imperils valuable discussions about the legitimate structural and social challenges that marginalized Americans face.
The details of Trump’s schemes illustrate the urgency of this threat. As the former president said last year in a campaign video entitled “Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs,” his administration would employ a “secret weapon” in its quest to disempower America’s universities: the college accreditation system.
Since the early 1900s, colleges have had to go through the accreditation process in order to qualify for federal funding — or, crucially, to admit students on federally subsidized loans such as work-study or Pell grants. Accreditors make sure that a college is, in fact, providing its students with a holistic and valuable education. The process is usually a rubber stamp, especially for a school like Princeton: a 2014 study found that over four and a half years, less than 1 percent of colleges had their accreditation terminated. Trump has made it clear that he intends to bend this system to serve his partisan goals by cutting funding from schools who focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, firing any accreditor who stands in his way.
Even Princeton, a school with a healthy endowment — to say the least — would suffer from a sudden drop in government funding. The University takes in more than twice as much from government grants and contracts than it does in tuition: it received $406 million dollars from the United States government over the last fiscal year, as compared to $154 million in tuition payments.
That being said, Princeton will likely receive government funding during a second Trump administration. Trump, and his anti-intellectual ideologues, are prepared for this. His administration also wants to mire elite universities in a swamp of lawsuits and subpoenas. During Trump's first term, for example, the Department of Education launched an investigation of Princeton after its president, Christopher Eisgruber, issued an open letter that promised “to combat systemic racism at Princeton and beyond.” Trump has also, in a surreal set of speeches, called for the termination of the U.S. Department of Education.
Inarguably, Trump wants to see a drastic decrease in the freedom of students and faculty to discuss issues such as the massacre of the Palestinian people, racism on campus, or LGBT+ rights. He wants a decreased emphasis on the diversity of student bodies. Ultimately, then, he threatens to spark an alarming decrease in the intellectual vibrancy of America’s higher education system as a whole.
When a party’s platform slouches towards anti-intellectualism — as Trump’s has done — that platform becomes not just disagreeable but also dangerous. America’s universities are key to its social reforms and its economic growth. They are the root of our public policy development — Princeton faculty, for example, design green tech policy, serve on nuclear disarmament boards, and chair the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors. When Princeton renamed its School of Public and International Affairs, it was signaling its commitment to the sort of policymaking that benefits all Americans — not just the Woodrow Wilson demographic. This is what Trump is reacting to. This is what we must fight for.
Today, participating in that fight is simple enough: we must vote against Trump. Tomorrow, it gets tougher. Trump’s hostility towards higher education is ultimately a symptom of a broader anti-intellectual trend among conservative voters, who are becoming increasingly distrustful of American institutions. As members of one such institution, we must turn our attention after this election to building back trust among Trump supporters — no matter who wins.
This is frustrating work. There is no easy answer to the kettle logic of anti-intellectualism. But rebuilding red America’s trust in Princeton is much more feasible in a world where our commander in chief isn’t constantly threatening us with a funding drought or a deluge of lawsuits. Despite what Trump’s legion of ideologues would like you to think, no American institution — least of all Princeton — is trying to “rig” the election against him. Our university — and every college in America — will be better off if he loses.
Alexander Margulis (he/him) is a freshman from Princeton, N.J. He’s interested in studying English or public policy. Accreditors should email amargulis[at]princeton.edu if they intend to cut his funding.
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