Rubio’s new Chinese Exclusion Act: the Trump administration just went after Chinese students

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

On May 28th the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted this on X/Twitter:

The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Twitter/X: "The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields."

The State Department soon followed that with a formal statement on its website, slightly expanding on the original:

Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.

Let me explain why this might be a big deal for higher education and why it’s also very bad.  I will also try to be as calm as possible although my fingers are shaking and my mind is something like this:

Last scene of Planet of the Apes

To explain: American colleges and universities enroll a large number of international students, around 1.1 million now.  We do this in part for global and multicultural reasons. We also do this for financial reasons.  While a lot of American students do not pay full tuition price, most international students do.  As economist Noah Smith puts it, “International students subsidize American students, especially at state schools.”  (I would quibble and clarify to say they subsidize some or many American students, as some Americans also pay full freight.)

As with most academic things, this practice varies from institution to institution. The New York Times recently published this list of the colleges and universities most committed to that strategy:

Campus with most international students

Harvard highlighted because of their struggle with Trump.

Naturally, there are colleges and universities which don’t recruit so many international students. Of that entire student population enrolled in American post-secondary education as a whole, Chinese students constitute around one fourth, 277,398 in total in 2023 according to IIE.  Which means if those students turn away from the US, some campuses will take a significant financial hit.  Imagine, for example, a university charging $50,000 a year in tuition and fees.  Twenty Chinese students paying that level represent a million dollars in institutional revenue, which is gone if those students disappear.

The situation might get worse than that.  International students from countries other than China may react to Rubio’s statement and decide that America is really too risky a place to be a student in 2025-2026. Such a decision would draw on other Trump actions against international students, notably deportations and detentions, in addition to Trump’s fulminations against Harvard students. (See my “Trump vs higher ed” video series) Asians in particular might assess American anti-Asian sentiment has gone too far, but they won’t be alone in their trepidation.  So we could see more students turning away from United States campuses, worsening the financial hit.

As professor (and great Future Trends Forum guest) Robert Kelchen wrote on Bluesky,

We’re at the point where higher education cannot count on any international students being present in the fall. One of America’s biggest export industries is quickly being demolished.

Robert Kelchen on Bluesky: "We're at the point where higher education cannot count on any international students being present in the fall. One of America's biggest export industries is quickly being demolished."

Beyond economics, our campuses lose out on these fine students as human beings, not to mention as representatives of different cultures and the broader world.  American society will miss these students, including the ones who sometimes stay after graduation to become scientists, medical professionals, officials, activists, and entrepreneurs.  Noah Smith offers a good survey of research into how international students benefit the nation.

Let me shift to a bigger, more macro level. Rubio’s decision appears in the context of what some have nicknamed Cold War 2.0, the struggle between the United States and China.  As I’ve been writing for years, geopolitics and academic operations are increasingly intertwined, not always to the latter’s benefit.  You can see a sign of this as the Chinese government took Rubio seriously, responding formally:

A spokesperson for the Chinese government, Mao Ning, accused the Trump administration of using national security and ideology as a pretext for the “unreasonable” decision, which “seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese students and disrupted the normal cultural exchanges between the two countries”.

She added: “This political and discriminatory practice of the US has exposed the lies of the so-called freedom and openness that the US has always advertised, and further damaged the US’s own international image, national image and national credibility.”

A strongly anti-China American foreign policy stance is also what Project 2025 fervently recommended.  That high profile and influential document wanted a new American administration to go after Beijing across the board. Trump and Rubio are apparently working on doing so. (Here’s our full, open, online reading of Project 2025.)

An American position against China and Chinese people is, of course, replete with historical precedent. The first Cold War included a strong anti-Beijing stance from Mao’s Civil War victory through Nixon’s famous pivot to China.  That actually included a massive conventional war in Korea, not to mention a series of major crises (for example).  Prior to that Congress passed the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which build on American racism and racial panic and is the source of this post’s title. One scholar told me he thinks there might also be a link to Trump’s current campaign against birthright citizenship, as a major Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), ruled in favor of birthright citizenship for a man from a Chinese family.

In case you think I’m wandering too far into the historical weeds, some Chinese people are making these connections right now, in public.  For example:

Rubio’s announcement was a “new version of the Chinese Exclusion Act,” said Linqin, a Chinese student at Johns Hopkins University, who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of retaliation… He said Wednesday was the first time he thought about leaving the U.S. after spending a third of his life here.

“who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of retaliation.”  Think about how many current students are experiencing that state of mind now.  Are colleges and universities supporting them?

I must be cautious at this point. Perhaps Rubio’s action won’t turn out to be a big deal. Maybe State will only turn away a few students and many Chinese and other families will decide heading to America is worth the risks. Perhaps Rubio will back down. India could send more students, as they are already the leading sending nation and their prime minister is close to Trump.

But if not, I fear we’ll see American higher ed take a serious hit this fall. Personally, I am very anxious about Chinese students and the American academy now.

What can academics do in response?

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Against college for all: the AFT president

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Should everyone go to college?

Back in 2022 I posted on what seemed like a major cultural shift about higher education. For decades much of America grew increasingly committed to the idea of “college for everyone.” Readers can think of many ways they experienced this concept: high school guidance counselors’ advice, United States presidents calling for more enrollment, K-12 emphasizing academics as college prep, and more. That seemed to be a cross-cultural, bipartisan consensus.

Yet the idea started fraying in the 2010s. Enrollment numbers peaked, then declined.  Public opinion soured, notably with concerns over student debt. Donald Trump led the Republican party to oppose academia.  There have been calls for a return to shop class as soulcraft, for people to specialize in the trades.  (Check that post for more, or read this 2023 followup.) A bipartisan movement among business, state, and city leaders asks us to “tear up the paper ceiling,” opening up jobs to people without postsecondary degrees.  I devote a chapter in my forthcoming book to this shattered consensus.

Weingarten RandiToday there’s one more piece of evidence for this shift.  It takes the form of a New York Times editorial not by a reactionary anti-academic, but by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.  The title is clear: “Not All Students Go to College. We Need to Make That OK.”

Since the piece is paywalled, I’ll summarize it here, then add some reflections.

Weingarten begins by evoking college for all, then pronouncing it badly flawed in practice, if not an outright failure.  She cites statistics showing its limits: a substantial number of high school graduates not enrolling in post-secondary education, how many college students fail to get a degree on time. She then sketches the challenges facing K-12 education. Weingarten cites Republican educational efforts (school vouchers, defunding the Department of Education) to criticize them as poor solutions to the problem.

In response, she proposes a K-12 dual track, academic work towards university life and vocational training:

aligning high school to both college prep and in-demand vocational career pathways. Just as students who plan to go to college can get a head start through Advanced Placement programs, high schools, colleges and employers should work together to provide the relevant coursework to engage students in promising career opportunities.

Weingarten then gives examples of what she sees as good vocational schools and programs: RioTECH (New Mexico), the Brooklyn STEAM Center (New York) (“creates a diverse, skilled talent pipeline for the technology and manufacturing industries”), and a multi-state project driven by technology firm Micron.* She concludes by sharing statistics showing students in such projects graduating at high rates, and calling for both political parties to support such an educational transformation.

This is not the first time president Weingarten has issued this call.  A few months ago she told the Chronicle of Higher Education that:

Democrats “made a mistake” by putting all the emphasis on going to college, because high-school students need more than one pathway to success. More recently, she said, “We’ve been saying that high school should be a way to prepare you for career and life, not just college prep.”

“The fact that 60 percent of students don’t go to college right away,” she added, “should have been a wake-up call.”

How much of an influence will these statements have?  Randi Weingarten is the head of an enormous teachers’ union and has ready access to the national media (hence the New York Times piece).  She might also be pushing on an open door, if I’m right about the college for all consensus being in mid-shatter.

Yet transforming K-12 at a national level is a famously daunting task in general. There may also be anxieties about resurrecting shop class (which Weingarten addresses with some quick ambivalence).  The AI revolution casts doubt on all kinds of workforce and education planning.

Colleges and universities might be divided on this.  On the one hand the post-secondary world might object, arguing for the universal benefits of its offerings. On another level academic may also protest what looks like a shrinking of college student numbers.  Yet community colleges already play a role in technical education for the workforce.

I am curious if Weingarten’s call wins bipartisan traction.  So far I’ve seen similar statements from left and right, but the past few months has seen Trump go to war against education, which might block cross-aisle agreement.

Let’s see who follows this proposal.

(photo from Wikipedia)

*There’s a big Micron plan a couple of miles from my house.  I passed it this morning, biking to the gym.

Posted in higher education, K-12 | Tagged | 1 Comment

May 3rd and Dracula arises once more

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Greetings from May 3rd, 2025. There’s a lot going on in the world, some of which I’ve written about, but I’d like to take time to note a special meaning for May 3rd, one which might serve as a pleasant distraction.

You see, in fiction it’s when a young British solicitor starts writing about his journey across Europe.  It’s May 3rd sometime in the 1890s…

3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8:35 P. M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East…

By Unknown - Universal Studios, Public Domain,Yes, Jonathan Harker is on his way to Dracula’s castle.  Yes, this is how the great Gothic novel begins, as a diary entry.  Dracula is, in fact, a kind of scrap book of evidence: journal entries, like this one, along with newspaper clippings, letters, transcriptions of words spoken to an early audio recording technology, even a receipt, all arranged in rough chronological order.

That combination of time-bound order and discrete documents led me to blog Stoker’s novel for the first time waaaay back in 2005.  Twenty years ago!  I wanted to see if folks would read along and also comment.  Comments flowed, back in that bloggy day.  And I ran it again and again, year after year.  (Here’s my reflection on the design and how it grew over time.)

I have many thoughts about this as historic artifact. It was an experiment in digital storytelling. The Draculablog thrived when many people wrote and engaged with blogs. When we launched notices appeared from places like BoingBoing (“This genius blogger is posting the Jonathan Harker journal entries from Stoker’s Dracula as a series of dated blog posts”) and the Guardian. Andrew Connell of Dickinson College joined the blog to automate it and to add good images and more.

Since then people shifted to the social media giants and we lost traffic and comments. Now there’s an email newsletter version, and perhaps some folks are doing versions of the book on Tiktok.  Blogging has receded – but some of us still do it.

Now the Draculablog is in archive mode, each annual run available for those who’d like to read into it.   You can start here, with today’s entry, and follow poor Jonathan as he heads to his fateful assignment.  Who is the count?  What does Mina think of this?  And why do all the locals warn our narrator against making the trip?

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.

I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country.

I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.

I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it.

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga”, and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata”. (Mem., get recipe for this also.)

I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move.

It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject ot great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.

At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets, and round hats, and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them.

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier–for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina– it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.

I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress– white undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?”

“Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.”

She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirtsleeves, who had followed her to the door.

He went, but immediately returned with a letter:

“My friend.–Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.– Your friend, Dracula.”

 

 

Posted in blogging, cheer, digitalstorytelling, storytelling | 1 Comment

In memoriam: Cliff Lynch, 1954-2025

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

This month we lost a major figure in the information and library space. Cliff Lynch, the leader of the Coalition for Networked Information, was an enormously influential thinker, organizer, and supporter.  He was also a good friend.

Cliff Lynch with one arm extended

You can read about him at that Wikipedia entry.  CNI also has an excellent memorial page.  Here I’d like to share a personal reflection.  These remarks are brief because this was very hard to write.

I met Cliff through CNI, which I first attended in 2004.  Then I was with the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, a nonprofit which worked with small colleges across the United States.  We led a delegation of two dozen (I think) librarians and chief information officers to a CNI meeting, helping connect the liberal arts world with the big informatics one. I was deeply impressed by CNI. The quality of presentations was very high, driven by the request that presenters show ongoing and emerging projects. The event was sized and structured just right to allow every participant and presenter access to all others.  The crowd’s mood was buzzing, excited, open, and very convivial.

At CNI Cliff deeply impressed me. He opened the event and kindly welcomed newcomers with a special session for them, then became a quiet, nearly universal presence through each session. He was clearly listening, soaking up conversations and ideas. He was always thoughtful and supportive with each participant. You could see people relying on Cliff for feedback and conversation, no matter the topic.

Then Cliff addressed the whole conference to give his overview of where libraries and informatics were headed, and wow! He had so much expertise and knowledge ready to hand, yet elegantly and accessibly conveyed. He used no Powerpoint but held the audience (including me) mesmerized.   His understanding was international and crossed all kinds of intellectual domains, from computer science and archives to economics and geopolitics, academic structures and the human experience. I’ve never heard anyone else, before or since, with that grasp of the field and that effect a presentation style.

After that 2004 introduction I returned to CNI again and again. I always learned and connected with people.  That’s where I met some heroes, like Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Brewster Kahle. I saw plenty of projects in mid-stream and was able to give feedback.  Cliff’s annual tour d’horizon was vital for my work and thinking.

Eventually CNI let me present to some sessions, which was reliably a good experience.  Interesting people attended and talked with me (and my copresenters). Feedback was useful.  Then it was a signal honor of my career when in 2014 Cliff invited me to address the conference in conversation with him, then to tag-team a breakout session right afterwards.

Bryan and Cliff Lynch at CNI keynote 2014

Over the years I grew to know Cliff and relished our conversations.  He was happy to talk with me about copyright, new technologies, science fiction, climate change, academic business models, library automation, the poetics of games. and more.  I could run anything I was working on past him and he’d give sensible, thoughtful advice.

As long as I knew him Cliff helped me think and work better, and I know the same is true of a lot of other people.  His humility and ability to listen enhanced the informatics community, giving us a fine example of leadership. He was an invaluable colleague and I was honored to call him my friend. Our world was better with Cliff Lynch in it, and is less without him.  I miss him terribly.

(JISC photo from the CNI site)

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Trump versus higher education: deportations, cuts, climate change, and academic reactions

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

The Trump administration continued its campaign against higher education this week.  In this post I’ll summarize the key developments, both in video and blog text.

(I’ve been blogging about Trump’s second term here.  I’ve been vlogging it on YouTube.)

First, the video:

Second, here’s a text version.

These are the latest developments since the last video, as of today, April 9, 2025. I’ve organized items into 3 categories today: federal level, climate change, and academic responses.

1 At the Federal level

Multiple federal agencies are freezing spending on two major universities, $1 billion to Cornell University and nearly $800 million for Northwestern University. Departments involved include Agriculture, Defense, Education and Health and Human Services, according to a New York Times report. Similarly, the government is pausing more than $500 million to Brown University.

The Departments of State and Homeland Security expanded their campaign to deport international students.  Two weeks ago Secretary of State Rubio stated his team had ended visas for more than 300 students, and evidence for that is appearing.  There are reports of international students facing visa suspensions from Emerson College, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Harvard University, Texas A&M, the University of Akron, and Park University.  One report found 50 Arizona State University international students losing visas.

There are more. Inside Higher Ed’s tracker has 419 students revoked as of this recording, from 80 institutions.

Stories about some of these students have appeared.  Mahmoud Khalil dictated a letter aimed at Columbia University, which that campus’ student paper published. Authorities are allegedly denying Rümeysa Öztürk access to her asthma inhaler.

In previous videos I’ve paused to read the names of academics seized or threatened with deportation by these offices, the names of people like  Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. We can add Rasha Alawieh. Yunseo Chung. Alireza Doroudi. Doğukan Günaydın. Leqaa Kordia. Kseniia Petrova. Ranjani Srinivasan. Badar Khan Suri. Momodou Taal. It looks like there will soon be too many to read out loud.

2: Climate change

Climate action is another Trump target, one he has gone after in multiple ways. Some of those attacks are now impacting higher education. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Lutnick announced cuts to climate change support to Princeton University.  I’d like to draw your attention to two aspects of the official statement.  First, it’s clearly against climate science and action. Second, it makes a mental health argument:

This cooperative agreement promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as “climate anxiety,” which has increased significantly among America’s youth. Its focus on alarming climate scenarios fosters fear rather than rational, balanced discussion.

In my experience the opposite is true.  Students who learn about climate, and organize in response, tend to have better mental health.  Moreover, students can’t escape the topic, absent some kind of totalitarian information environment.

3 Reactions

There continues to be a lot of academic silence in response to the Trump’s administration’s actions, as well as silence from academically-adjacent people and enterprises. But there is also protest, resistance, and actions.

Students at several university newspapers told the Guardian they feared retaliation should they write articles the Trump administration criticizes. As a result they self-censor.

Several major publishers publicly called on Congress to restore the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS. Thomas Padilla, a strategist at Authors Alliance, launched a website to host IMLS stories.

More than 1,000 academics publicly declared they would not work with Columbia University over its responses to Trump actions.

A coalition is planning a day of academic labor action in a week, on April 17th:

More lawsuits are appearing.  The Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Association for Education Finance and Policy filed suit against Secretary of Education McMahon over cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences.

On the financial side Harvard University, facing challenges we just noted, is attempting to sell $750 million in bonds to raise funds.

We can also point to some emerging digital projects concerning Trump’s actions against colleges and universities. The We Are Higher Ed website set up a student deportation tracker, complete with map:

An independent computer programmer made MAGA Collaborators, a site which “track[s] the major collaborators and resisters of the autocratic MAGA regime, both to inform contemporary consumer spending choices, and to establish a historical record.” It has a tab for schools, under which you can find headers and lists for Collaborators, Capitulators, and Resistance.

To summarize: the Trump administration is continuing to go after higher education through multiple government offices and in many ways, from funding cuts to deportations and interfering in one university’s autonomy.  Academics are feeling impacts across the nation and elsewhere in the world.  As one commentator observes, “America is at risk of losing a generation of scientists.”  Members of the American academic community are starting to react in public, from issuing statements and holding demonstrations to filing lawsuits. Deportations of students are rising; I can’t believe I have to stay “some students are in federal custody, while others are in hiding from authorities” but that is where we are in April 2025.

I hope this video summary has been of use to you. Please share your thoughts, additions, and other reactions in the comment box below. If you don’t feel you can comment publicly, please reach out to me directly through the contact link. Given the pace of events, I’ll try to post these videos more frequently.

This is a rough, dark time for those of us in higher education. It seems likely to get worse. I hope we can help each other out – and fight. Please take care, everyone.

Posted in horizon scanning, politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Protesting Trump: scenes from Hands Off, April 2025

Posted on April 6, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Yesterday my family joined the local Hands Off! protest in our Virginia town. Today I wanted to share my impressions along with some photos, continuing with my March protestblogging.

Under grey skies around 500 or more people lined a major street, starting from a Social Security building.  We walked along the street, impressed by the size of the demonstration, running block after block.  We could hear people shouting, calling out, chanting, and sometimes singing, even over the traffic.

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_line to right

Joining it we were immersed in a great range of people. There were retirees, little children, and everyone in between.  A rough balance of male and female, with some trans and nonbinary representation.  Mostly white, with a few black folks; very few Latinos.

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_bunch of folks one walker

There were some very energetic protesters:

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_energetic couple

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_furious

Others were listening and watching, making their presence known.

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_woman wearing flag

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_Hands off smiling disabled guy

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_tax the rich bus stop

According to a planning email the event didn’t get approval for speakers, so there wasn’t any program beyond standing and hollering.  Some folks came and went, while others stayed for the long haul.

I spoke to one of the organizers, based in a little blue tent between a sidewalk and the Social Security building. She said they made 250 signs the day before and gave them all away. She was keen on protesters’ safety, urging everyone to stay peaceful, to deescalate if any tensions rose.

I didn’t see any counterprotesters, although someone in one car driving by shouted something I couldn’t make out. There was a minimal, marginal police presence.

There were plenty of signs.  I am always interested in DIY signs as American protect folk art. I appreciate how they combine pithy communication with humor and outrage:

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_no sign big enoughHands off Manassas 2025 April 5_Ikea has better cabinetsHands off Manassas 2025 April 5_Truck FumpHands off Manassas 2025 April 5_deport Melania and BarronHands off Manassas 2025 April 5_dog only bites Nazis

Hands off Manassas 2025 April 5_Musked

No one theme rose above the medley. Topics were familiar ones: defending Social Security, mourning the loss of federal jobs (many people here work for the government), wanting to protect vulnerable populations. There was a pro-democracy current and lots of Elon Musk hatred.

We left before the end because the heat and crowd took a toll.

Perhaps these protests will continue.  The organizer I spoke with thought it might.

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Joining two anti-Trump events this month

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Over the past two weeks I carved out time to participate in two anti-Trump in-person events.  In this post I wanted to share some notes on the experiences, along with photos.

Last Thursday, after the regular Future Trends Forum session, my son Owain and I went to a local town hall led by our federal representative, Democrat Suhas Subramanyam. It took place in a community center and was very crowded, packed with people.  Before it began I didn’t hear much discussion, but did see some folks with anti-Trump and -Musk signs.  I found some seats for Owain and I and we each opened up a Google Doc on our phones to take notes.

Subramanyam took the stage and began with some brief remarks, starting with citing the dangers of DOGE. He mentioned working in the United States Digital Service during the Obama administration, the unit which DOGE took over as its institutional base.  Subramanyam described why he voted against the continuing resolution to keep the government running and also spoke to the humanitarian and governmental problems of firing so many federal workers.

Subramanyam town hall 2025 March 20 rep on stage

Then it was over to questions. Folks lined up before two (somewhat functional) microphones. They told personal stories: of being lifelong federal workers, or having family members in those positions, and now facing their work being undone or their jobs ruined. Some spoke of depending on federal programs (SNAP, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) and fearing cuts to them.  Several had military experience, which won applause from the room. Above all was this seething sense that Trump was a brutal and extraordinary threat, that Democrats weren’t taking it seriously, and the question: what can we do to fight back? Subramanyam listened hard to each one and answered thoughtfully, respectfully, often pointing to resources or actions we could take.

Subramanyam town hall 2025 March 20 questioner leaning forward
Ever the extrovert, I joined the microphone line right away. I was going to ask about threats to higher education, but happily someone else beat me to it. The representative offered a positive response, praising the work of researchers and teachers, urging us to fight for educators.  So, standing in line, I came up with another question.  When my turn came I began by thanking the representative for actually doing a real town hall meeting, not a scripted thing. I compared this meeting favorably to Vermont’s town hall tradition, and mentioned Bernie Sanders as a comparable example of someone who also knows how to do a community meeting well, and the room erupted in applause.

So I asked about climate change, how we – academics and everyone – can do climate work in this situation. I noted how the crisis was worsening, and how Trump was going to make things even more difficult. I was impressed to have Subramanyam’s full attention while I spoke.  I was equally impressed that he replied by supporting my remarks and work, then called for more climate action in the face of Trump’s actions.

Subramanyam town hall 2025 March 20 questioner and rep closeup

Nobody got a photo of me that I know of, so here’s a shot of the representative (on right) paying close attention to one resident (standing on left).

(A sign of climate in culture today: people applauded my question. After I left the mic, several folks reached out to me – literally – to thank me for raising the topic.)

Returning to that question of what can be done to oppose Trump, Subramanyam and questioners listed these actions:

    • Legal action: filing lawsuits and supporting other people’s.  Getting Democratic politicians to do the same.
    • Congressional investigations into Trump: the Congressman pointed out that these can expose administrative malfeasance and build resistance.
    • Flat out resistance to Trump actions. Subramanyam argued that when people refuse to comply, the admin sometimes backs down, saying they made a mistake.
    • Doing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to get the feds to cough up documentation. They can slow-walk queries or outright refuse, of course, but FOIA can produce results.
    • Phone calls to people in red counties. (I think this was aimed at calling GOP officials, but am not sure.
    • People telling stories of Trump harms in whatever setting works. At one point Subramanyam said if the GOP wants to “flood the zone” with bogus content we should flood it right back with true, personal stories.

There were no calls for property damage or violence against people. Nor did anybody used the phrase “civil disobedience” or called for such actions.

The hour grew late and people started to drift out.  Owain and I had to get home and we filed out as well.

Two weeks ago I joined a different event, a rally for science in Washington, DC.  It took place at the Lincoln Memorial.  Several thousand people were there, all ages, races, genders. The mood was upbeat despite the chill and strong winds.

Stand up for science rally DC 2025 March 7_approaching along the pool

A podium rested on the steps and from there spoke quite the program of luminaries, including Bill Nye (I missed him), Francis Collins (just stepped down as NIH head), Atul Gawande (excellent medical writer, also surgeon), Phil Plait (astronomer, science communicator), and some other people I didn’t recognize. There was some singing, too.

Dr. Gawande

The overall theme was that Trump’s science cuts were awful.  Speakers hit on points under this header, such as that RFK was a dangerous idiot and that research reductions meant that human lives would be harmed and lost.  Diversity along race and gender lines was vital.  All kinds of science were mentioned, with medicine and public health leading the charge.

Stand up for science rally DC 2025 March 7_stand up for science sign

The consensus was on returning science funding to what it was under Biden, not in expanding it. There were no claims for adding scientific overviews to policy – it was a defensive, not offensive program.

There were plenty of signs.  Some had a fine satirical edge:

Stand up for science rally DC 2025 March 7_science runs ontransgenic mice

Stand up for science rally DC 2025 March 7_You wanted eggs and got measles

Off to one side – well, down along the reflecting pool – there was an Extinction Rebellion performance or group appearance, but I didn’t get to see if they staged anything besides looking awesome and grim.

Stand up for science rally DC 2025 March 7_XR group

During the time I was there no police appeared. There weren’t any counterprotesters.

Eventually I had to start the trip home.  As I walked along the reflecting pool towards the Metro station I heard speakers continuing and the roar of the appreciative crowd.

What can we take away from these two events?

There is a fierce opposition to Trump and it occurs across various sectors of society, from scientists to everyday folks (with some overlap!). Pro-Trump people didn’t appear, so I didn’t see arguments or worse between groups. I don’t know if this means that the president’s supporters are just confident or prefer to work online.

The Democratic party is not in a leadership role.  Outrage precedes and exceeds its actions so far.  The town hall liked Subramanyam, but it was clear they were bringing demands to him, and that he did not back the party leadership.

Both events had a strong positive feel, even though each was based on outrage. There was a sense of energy to be exerted, action to be had.

Many people visibly recorded each event, primarily through phones. I didn’t see anyone object to this.  (I tried to get people’s permission to photograph them, when they were clearly identifiable individuals.)

My feel is that climate interest is waning among people who oppose Trump.  They aren’t denying it and will support those who speak and act on it, but it’s no longer a leading concern.

Yet these were just two events, a very small sample size, and both in roughly the same geographic area, about 50 miles apart.  We can’t seriously generalize from this evidence, but hopefully it’s a useful snapshot and sample.

Personally, I found both to be rewarding and supportive. It was good to be with people who were similarly outraged and willing to be so in public.

American readers, are you seeing anything similar in your areas?  Non-Americans, what do you think of this glimpse?

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Trump vs higher education: a report from March 21, 2025

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Today I posted another vlog report on the latest Trump and higher education developments.  

If you’re new to this series, these videos are where I summarize what the Trump administration has been doing to higher education, and how colleges and universities have responded. It’s a little different from my usual video work, which focuses on the future of higher ed, and the future in general. 

Here’s I’ll share the video for you to watch (or, better, listen to) and also my notes for you to read:

1. At the Federal level

The Trump administration announced it was suspending $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania, due to the institution not sufficiently complying with new antitrans policies.  There will be more such cuts in response to trans athletes, according to a Fox News report. It’s not clear at this time which federal agencies and departments are involved.  The University says it hasn’t “received any official notification or any details” so far. 

President Trump issued an executive order trying to abolish the Department of Education.  The order criticized the department, then called for this action:

The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.

Note the hedging and qualifications there, due to the fact that by law the president cannot abolish the department.  Instead, it takes an act of Congress to do so.  What the order may cause is moving some departmental functions to other federal units. As of this recording, it looks like Trump is moving some student loans to the Small Business Administration, and some other functions to Health and Human Services. Also note that this move realizes one more Project 2025 action. (Here’s the relevant post from  our reading of that important document.)    

The Trump administration is also developing a plan to cut the Environmental Protection Agency, including its research wing.  The New York Times reported on documents it said Democratic officials examined: “The E.P.A.’s plan, which was presented to White House officials on Friday for review, calls for dissolving the agency’s largest department, the Office of Research and Development, and purging up to 75 percent of the people who work there.”  This is consistent with Project 2025, which called for ending the EPA’s climate change work. (Here’s our relevant post.)

Turning to the  National Institutes of Health (NIH), secretary brain wormKennedy is requesting researchers not work on mRNA vaccines.  According to one account, “National Institutes of Health officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications.”  As per another, “A scientist at a biomedical research center in Philadelphia wrote to a colleague, in an email reviewed by KFF Health News, that a project officer at NIH had ‘flagged our pending grant as having an mRNA vaccine component.’ ‘It’s still unclear whether mRNA vaccine grants will be canceled,’ the scientist added.”  Furthermore,

A senior official at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute confirmed to KFF that NIH acting Director Matthew Memoli “sent an email across the NIH instructing that any grants, contracts, or collaborations involving mRNA vaccines be reported up the chain to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s office and the White House.

It’s unclear if Kennedy will seek to restrict or punish academic medical and public health research, not to mention teaching, but this is a possibility we should monitor.

Agents of The Department of Homeland Security arrested a Georgetown post-doctoral fellow for deportation.  Indian citizen Dr. Badar Khan Suri* was working on a student visa at the School of Foreign Service’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. An Assistant Secretary Dept. of Homeland Security said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Suri was:

actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas. The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i).

Family connections may also have played a role. According to Georgetown’s student paper, “Khan Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh “is a first-year graduate student in the School of Foreign Service’s (SFS) Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. [additionally] Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, served as “a former Hamas official who remains close to its leaders,” according to The New York Times.”    

Meanwhile, US Customs allegedly refused an unnamed French scientist entry to the US because he had anti-Trump commentary on his phone. 

The United States Department of Agriculture is cutting subscriptions to many scientific journals, which makes it harder for USDA researchers to do their work.  While this unsubscribing might not have much impact on those journals, it could signal a broader agenda for the government to cut subscriptions, and perhaps to inspire others to do the same. If this occurs at scale, it could certainly hurt those publishers, as Kent Anderson suggests at his The Geyser newsletter.  

At the state level, several Texan legislators proposed bills to survey college faculty for bias.  Some academics have spoken against these laws in hearings. 

2 Cuts

Within higher education, one response to Trump actions is cuts to programs and operations. 

3 DEI

One area of cuts involves DEI, a particular focus of this administration.   Campus anti-DEI moves have continued this week.  One example comes from the University of California system, which ended requiring job applicants to share diversity statements.  Elsewhere, academic publishers are concerned that purchases of materials – books, journal subscriptions, articles – about DEI topics will decline. 

4 Reactions

There is a lot of academic silence in response to the Trump’s administration’s actions, as well as silence from academically-adjacent people and enterprises. But there is also protest, resistance, and actions.  There are also other responses across American society.

Financial ratings agency Moody’s just downgraded its outlook for American colleges and universities to negative, in response to Trump administration actions.

Elsewhere, some faculty and staff are making public statements in response.   A friend forwarded me an email from librarians at one state, detailing the benefits IMLS provides, which will be lost if that agency’s new leader cuts services. 

Eighteen Constitutional Law Scholars published an article criticizing Trump actions against Columbia University as illegally restricting free speech. That university rescinded degrees it previously granted to several students who protested Israeli actions last year.  Columbia is also negotiating with the Trump administration, trying to restore federal research funding.  According to some press accounts, such as the Wall Street Journal (What’s News, March 19) and NBC, the university is “close to yielding” to Trump’s demands, although discussions are still fluid.     

One institution, Dartmouth College, retained a leading Republican lawyer to defend itself. 

A coalition is planning a day of academic labor action on April 17th.

There are also some international responses.  According to Science,

Universities around the world have reported seeing an uptick in applications from U.S.-based researchers, who face an increasingly uncertain climate under President Donald Trump’s administration. And some countries and their institutions are already looking to use the opportunity to attract new talent and reverse the steady migration of scientists to the U.S. in recent decades.   

There are also cases of student support for Trump.  A Brown University student, inspired by DOGE, analyzed that institution’s faculty and staff, emailed them all to ask them to justify their work, and published a web site documenting this. (one account) 

To summarize: the Trump administration is continuing to go after higher education through multiple government offices and in many ways, from funding cuts to deportations and an extraordinary interference in one university’s autonomy.  Members of the academic community are feeling impacts across the nation, from faculty and staff to scholarly publishers; some are speaking out against the administration. Columbia University remains a flashpoint, perhaps a test case for the new government to see how far it can go, how much punishment it can mete out.

I hope this video summary and blog post have been of use to you.  Please share your thoughts, additions, and other reactions in the comment box below.  If you don’t feel you can comment publicly, please reach out to me directly through the contact link.

This is a rough, dark time.  It seems likely to get worse.  Please take care, everyone.

PS: Intro and concluding sound by envirOmaniac2.  

*I tried to link to his Georgetown page, but it seems to be gone now.

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Trump vs higher education: a report from March 17, 2025

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Recently I’ve been tracking what the Trump administration has been doing to higher education, along with how academics have responded.  I wanted to organize my understanding of the events and to share evidence about them.

I blogged about this (February 25, February 1, January 30), then decided to turn to a video format in order to broaden the audience.  That’s worked as far as I can tell, with a healthy amount of commentary.

Now there are four vlogs about Trump 2.0 and higher ed. I just posted the most recent one today, and thought I would try another track: sharing the video here, along with my show outline and notes.  You can watch the video here, or read the notes and use the links below.  Either way, please share and comment.

Trump report March 17 2025

Notes and links:

…If you’re new to this series, these videos are where I summarize what the Trump administration has been doing to higher education, and how colleges and universities have responded. It’s a little different from my usual video work, which focuses on the future of higher ed, and the future in general.   I initially started  doing these weekly, but things have developed at such a fast pace that I have to offer them more frequently.   

So here are the latest developments since the last video, as of today, March 12th.  

What follows is going to be formally very simple: no images or creative audio tracks or fancy editing; just me sharing the news, which I’ve organized into five categories: federal level, campus cuts, DEI, climate change, and academic responses.   

1 At the Federal level

I’ll break these down by departments and offices.

A White House executive order shut down a group of services “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law”, notably the United States Agency for Global Media, which includes the Voice of America. On the academic side, the EO ends the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  IMLS serves museums and libraries across the country with grants, research, and policy support.  In 2023 their budget was $313.58 million. Closing IMLS will cost the museum and library world.   One response from the EveryLibrary group called on Congress to restore that funding. The American Alliance of Museums is organizing to protect IMLS.     

The Department of Justice  requires, according to the University of Kentucky, “ If an award-funded project includes a survey, form, or data collection tool that asks about “gender” or “gender identity,” it must instead ask about “sex,” with only two available responses: “male” and “female.” A “choose not to disclose” response is not permitted. All questions about “gender identity” must be removed.”

The Department of Education  

On March 10, the Office of Civil Rights sent 60 colleges and universities a note “warning them of potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities.” This builds on previous warnings against this group of institutions.  The OCR then launched investigations into 45 campuses, charging them with failing to “end the use of racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.”  In part OCR criticized them for working with the “PhD Project”, an effort to grow numbers of underrepresented minorities with PhDs. OCR is also targeting seven others “for alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation.” 

The Education Department then joined with the Department of Health and Human Services and General Services Administration to send an extraordinary letter to Columbia University, outlining a set of internal changes for the campus to make. The letter calls for changes to campus police, admissions procedures, masking, organizing and disciplining student groups, and more. Perhaps most striking is to “[b]egin the process of placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years.” 

Let’s stick with Columbia for another development, this time from a different branch of the federal government.  We’ve already seen in our last update that The Department of Homeland Security arrest and attempt to deport a recent graduate, Mahmoud Khalil.  Khalil is still being held without charges, as of this recording.  ICE then deported a Columbia student, Leqaa Kordia, who came from the West Bank. Another Columbia student, Ranjani Srinivasan, fearing arrest and deportation, self-deported to India. Meanwhile, Customs deported a Brown University medical professor, a Lebanese organ transplant specialist with an H1-B visa, allegedly for a Hezbollah connection. , feds say

Elsewhere, the New York Times published a document describing new travel bans the Department of State is apparently considering. Promulgating such a new round of bans would likely depress international enrollment, both from the named states as well as from others fearing America has become less welcoming to international students. 

The State Department is also starting to ask other governments to change how they describe Fulbright scholarships.   According to a Swedish newspaper, this has occurred in two Finnish institutions, the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. As translated by Google: “ the American side has asked that the advertisements be cleaned of words such as “climate change”, “equal society”, “inclusive society” and “women in society”.”  Meanwhile, ABC News Australia reports that a group of as yet unidentified US federal agencies has started adding a new request to Australian researchers working with Americans:

Last week US agencies sent some of those Australian researchers what appears to be a global notice, asking them to justify their funding, as well as a questionnaire grilling them on a host of issues — including their links with China and the Trump administration’s edicts recognising only two sexes.

The document also asks them to confirm if they’ve received “ANY funding from the PRC” or Chinese state actors, and asks what steps they’ve taken against “Christian persecution” or to “protect women and to defend against gender ideology.”

2 Cuts

Within higher education, one response to Trump actions is cuts to programs and operations.  For example: “Johns Hopkins University announced Thursday that it will be cutting more than 2,000 jobs after it lost $800 million in funding from the US Agency for International Development.”  That’s “1,975 positions in 44 countries internationally and 247 in the United States,” according to a Hopkins representative. (more and more) 

Some universities have announced hiring freezes, like Duke. Others are pausing recruitment of new graduate students.  One, the University of Massachusetts Amherst actually rescinded acceptance to would-be students in its medical school.

3 DEI

One area of cuts involves DEI, a particular focus of this administration.  We have seen more program and staff changes and cuts.  For example, Kentucky’s legislature just voted to ban DEI programs for any college or university receiving state funding. This actually has many parts, according to Higher Ed Dive:

the bill seeks to limit the classes that colleges could require students to take. It would prohibit courses designed primarily “to indoctrinate participants with a discriminatory concept” and bar the Council on Postsecondary Education, Kentucky’s higher education coordinating board, from approving degree programs that require students to take such classes… The bill would also prohibit colleges from using diversity statements — descriptions of one’s experiences with and commitment to diverse student populations. And it would bar colleges from requiring employees or students to undergo diversity training. The legislation would exempt DEI training and programs required by federal and state law. Additionally, the bill requires state colleges to undergo audits every four years to prove they did not spend funds on DEI.

The state’s governor seems likely to oppose the bill, but Republicans seem to have enough votes to override a veto.   

4 Climate change

Climate change is another Trump target, one he has gone after in multiple ways. Some of those attacks are now impacting higher education.

For one example, we can draw on an excellent Hechinger Report update concerning New York’s state university system, SUNY:

At the start of the year, the State University of New York was awarded $15 million to buy 350 electric vehicle charging stations. “We have yet to see the dollars,” said its chancellor, John B. King Jr. A webinar on the Department of Transportation grant program, which is funded by the bipartisan infrastructure act, was canceled. “It’s been radio silence,” said Carter Strickland, the SUNY chief sustainability officer. 

The SUNY system, which owns a staggering 40 percent of New York State’s public buildings, had also planned to apply for IRA payments for a variety of projects to electrify campuses, reduce pollution and improve energy efficiency. In November, it applied for approximately $1.45 million for an Oneonta campus project that uses geothermal wells to provide heating and cooling. It still expects to get that money since the project is complete and the IRA remains law, but it can no longer count on payments for newer projects, King said.

Across the country lies another example:

[according to] Timothy Carter, president of Second Nature… The University of California system…filed applications for more than 70 projects, including a $1 billion project to replace UC Davis’s leaky and inefficient heating and cooling system and a project at UC Berkeley to phase out an old power plant and replace it with a microgrid.

5  Reactions 

There is a lot of academic silence in response to the Trump’s administration’s actions, but there is also protest, resistance, and actions.

Some faculty are making public statements in response.  One Columbia university professor, Marianne Hirsch, told the Guardian: “My committed Jewish faculty colleagues and I have warned that the false characterisation of [Columbia University] as a hotbed of antisemitism would be used as an alibi for what’s actually at stake for the Republican establishment and now the Trump administration: strict control of speech, of protest, and of higher education at large….”  Another Columbia professor Michael Thaddeus “described the combined cut to federal aid and Khalil’s arrest as a pincer attack by Trump.”

Seven other Columbia faculty, legal scholars, published an open letter analyzing and disagreeing with the Trump administration letter we mentioned earlier.  A Johns Hopkins political scientist, Lester Spence, is conducting a survey of people in two cities to see how Trump’s actions are impacting them: “Understanding these impacts in Detroit and Baltimore not only highlights the local consequences of federal policies, but also underscores the interconnected struggles and strengths of Black urban communities in the face of shifting political landscapes.”

Some northern Virginian colleges and universities now offer free or low cost classes to fired federal workers. One group, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, sued the Department of Education to block the mass firings we mentioned last time. 

There is also some international support.   Returning to our earlier story about Finland and the Fulbright program:

…around 700 Finnish researchers reacted to the American action by signing a call for academic freedom and freedom of expression.

“We want to openly show how many researchers are resisting these attacks and the goal is to reach a common line for all universities and colleges on how to deal with such censorship demands,” one of the initiators, researcher Tapani Hopkins at the University of Turku.”

There is also a petition in response, which “request[s] that the Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (Unifi) and the Rectors’ Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (Arene) publish statements on their websites that clearly reject any political attempt to censor the activities, research and related communications of higher education institutions.”

To summarize: the Trump administration is continuing to go after higher education through multiple government offices and in many ways, from funding cuts to deportations and even an extraordinary interference in one university’s autonomy.  Academics are feeling impacts across the nation and elsewhere in the world. Columbia University seems to have emerged as a flashpoint, perhaps a test case for the new administration to see how far it can go, how much punishment it can mete out.

Please use the comment box to add your thoughts, knowledge, and experience to this account.  You can also let me know what you think of this project, either the vlogs or blogging ’em. And if you’d rather reach me privately, please use this link to do so.

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America’s religious decline may have paused: new Pew research

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Bryan Alexander

Amid the chaos of American politics and higher education this month, I wanted to pause to note how one important, long-term trend has developed.

For a touch of background, I’ve been tracking the decline in American religiosity for some time (2017, 2019, 2021, 2022).  The big picture story is that while Americans were very religious by all measures throughout the twentieth century, belief and affiliation declined in the twenty-first by various metrics. There are many implications for this nation, including for its colleges and universities.  It’s also worth noting that many similar nations went through such a decline much earlier.

It now seems that the decline in American faith may have paused or bottomed out.  A new Pew Research study finds that its measures of religious adherence show little change over the past few years.

This plays out in several ways within the report. One is by asking people if they identify as Christian.  That number dropped, then hit a plateau:

Pew also identified a population which does not identify with any religion. That number grew to a significant size, and now seems to have stabilized:

Religiously unaffiliated adults – those who identify as atheists, agnostics or as “nothing in particular” when asked about their religion – account for 29% of the population in the new RLS. The size of the religiously unaffiliated population, which we sometimes call religious “nones,” has plateaued in recent years after a long period of sustained growth…

1.9% of U.S. adults identify religiously as something else, including 1.1% of respondents who identify with Unitarianism or other liberal faiths, and 0.7% who identify with New Age groups.

I’ll note 29% is a very large number, nearly one third of the entire nation.

Intergenerational differences remain strong, with younger Americans being much less religious than their elders:

At a smaller scale, the proportion of Americans who describe themselves as associating with a religion other than Christianity is quite small, about 7% all told, but also stable:

Pew slices this data in many ways, and I recommend the whole report.  I wanted to share a few of those here:

Gender differences remain stable, with women being more religious than men across the board:

there are still no birth cohorts in which men are significantly more religious than women. In every age group, women are at least as religious as men, and in many birth cohorts, women are significantly more religious than men. [emphases in original]

Although that gap might be narrowing:

Childhood religious upbringing and education is crucial to adult attitudes. Pew notes that

People who say they were raised in religious homes are much more likely to be religious as adults… People who grew up attending religious services regularly (at least once a month) are more than twice as likely as those who didn’t grow up attending services regularly to say they now attend religious services at least monthly.

This suggests a future decline in religiosity, because

[W]hile half of the oldest adults say that as children they received a lot of formal religious education (i.e., seven or more years), just 19% of today’s youngest adults say the same. People in the youngest age group are about twice as likely as those in the oldest age group to say they received no formal religious education at all (42% vs. 20%).

Further, “the persistence of a high level of religiousness from childhood into adulthood – the ‘stickiness’ of a religious upbringing – appears to be declining, while the stickiness of a nonreligious upbringing seems to be increasing.”

One more point: religious affiliation and politics remain strongly correlated.

In general, highly religious Americans tend to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and express conservative views on a variety of social, political and economic questions at much higher rates than do the least religious Americans. Meanwhile, Americans with lower levels of religious engagement tend to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party and express liberal views on the same gamut of social, political and economic issues.

Let me close with a few observations.

First, Pew finds large majorities who hold spiritual or supernatural beliefs about life after death, the existence of a deity, etc. The persistent of such attitudes might be ways for people to connect with religions in the future.  As ever, I am watching for the emergence of schisms and new religions movements (NRMs) which could mobilize that population.

Second, I’ll repeat why I think this matters for higher education. A number of private colleges and universities are part of a religious organization, so a decline in faith can exert pressure on their sustainability. Moreover, the fields of religious study (theology, comparative religion, Biblical study, priestly preparation, etc) may experience declining student enrollment as well as graduate students entering those areas.

Third, it’s important to recognize what a shift this move away from religion means for American culture.  We’ve been deeply, unusually (in an international context) faithful for generations.  If we are more secular, that has implications for politics, storytelling, community ties, and more.

Again, I recommend the whole report.  Kudos to Pew for doing this hard work.

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