- Joined
- Mar 13, 2025
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Trump is a man who made a career of sneering at intellectuals, decrying facts as "fake," and slandering the press as "enemies of the people" presumed to lecture the academy on the sanctity of free speech. With all the subtlety of a wrecking ball in a library, his administration launched a campaign not to defend expression, but to conscript it--to police the discourse of universities and force it into the uniform of right-wing orthodoxy.
Under the false banner of "protecting free inquiry," Trump issued an executive order threatening to strip funding from universities that failed to accommodate the grievances of the aggrieved conservative ego. This was not liberty--it was blackmail. Institutions were told: suppress student dissent against our favored speakers or risk your research grants. It was free speech on condition it served the state’s ideological appetites. A kind of Orwellian absurdity in which coerced compliance was paraded as academic freedom.
And what did this "freedom" consist of? Not the defense of pluralism, but the elevation of grievance. Not an even-handed commitment to open dialogue, but a shrill fixation on the imagined oppression of right-wing pundits who mistake heckling for persecution and cannot distinguish between protest and censorship.
Worse still, Trump and his proxies sought to rewrite curricula, denouncing entire disciplines as treasonous and ordering the creation of a jingoistic “1776 Commission” to cleanse the historical record of inconvenient truths. It was not enough to shout down dissent; they aimed to expunge it.
So this is a grotesque attempt to leash the liberty of the mind to the whims of political power--and to call that tyranny "freedom" is an insult to the word and all who have fought to preserve it.
It's called authoritarianism.
Under the false banner of "protecting free inquiry," Trump issued an executive order threatening to strip funding from universities that failed to accommodate the grievances of the aggrieved conservative ego. This was not liberty--it was blackmail. Institutions were told: suppress student dissent against our favored speakers or risk your research grants. It was free speech on condition it served the state’s ideological appetites. A kind of Orwellian absurdity in which coerced compliance was paraded as academic freedom.
And what did this "freedom" consist of? Not the defense of pluralism, but the elevation of grievance. Not an even-handed commitment to open dialogue, but a shrill fixation on the imagined oppression of right-wing pundits who mistake heckling for persecution and cannot distinguish between protest and censorship.
Worse still, Trump and his proxies sought to rewrite curricula, denouncing entire disciplines as treasonous and ordering the creation of a jingoistic “1776 Commission” to cleanse the historical record of inconvenient truths. It was not enough to shout down dissent; they aimed to expunge it.
So this is a grotesque attempt to leash the liberty of the mind to the whims of political power--and to call that tyranny "freedom" is an insult to the word and all who have fought to preserve it.
1. Executive Order Threatening Funding Based on Speech Codes (March 2019)
Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to withhold research funds from universities that failed to "promote free inquiry."- Problem: The order did not define “free inquiry” in concrete or neutral terms, opening the door to partisan interpretation.
- Threat: It effectively politicized academic funding, implying that schools could be punished for speech deemed hostile to conservative ideas—even if those ideas are challenged by students or faculty using their own free speech rights.
- Result: This incentivized universities to suppress student protests or dissent against conservative speakers, chilling left-leaning speech to protect federal funding.
2. Selective Defense of Conservative Speech Only
Trump and his allies routinely framed the issue of campus free speech as a one-sided culture war in which only conservatives were being silenced.- At CPAC and rallies, Trump referenced isolated incidents--e.g., a conservative student being punched or a speaker being heckled--as proof of widespread suppression.
- Yet there was no similar concern when leftist speakers, faculty, or protesters were harassed, disinvited, or censored (e.g., Palestinians, Black Lives Matter activists, or critics of Israel).
- The First Amendment protects all speech, not just ideological allies. By weaponizing "free speech" as a partisan cudgel, Trump reduced it to a slogan, not a principle.
3. DOJ and DOE Investigations into "Bias"
Trump’s Departments of Justice and Education launched investigations into universities for alleged anti-conservative bias or supposed violations of free speech.- These were often politically motivated and lacked clear legal grounding.
- In some cases, universities were pressured to alter disciplinary policies to avoid federal scrutiny—again, chilling academic autonomy and student activism.
- Meanwhile, the administration showed no interest in investigating censorship of leftist voices on campus.
4. Attacks on Academic Freedom
Trump repeatedly demonized entire fields of study as politically suspect:- He called critical race theory "toxic propaganda."
- He vowed to cut funding to schools teaching ideas he labeled "un-American."
- He ordered the creation of a "1776 Commission" as a nationalist counter to historical curricula that addressed slavery or systemic racism.
The Ironic Twist: Demanding "Free Speech" While Encouraging Retaliation
Trump created a chilling environment by encouraging:- Doxxing of professors
- Student surveillance (e.g., Campus Reform and Turning Point USA’s "Professor Watchlist")
- Threats of legislative punishment for speech he disagreed with
It's called authoritarianism.
