A new school year calls for a news update: the attacks on universities have continued.
The latest at Carolina came just this week as the conservative group The Oversight Project requested the syllabi of 74 UNC courses using keywords including “DEI,” “LGBTQ+” and “anti-racism.”
This follows a gutting of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hiring and policies on campus in response to federal mandates. As ABC 11 reported:
“The university has eliminated 61 full-time and part-time appointment positions. Additionally, 27 positions were realigned to perform policy-compliant work. The university’s DEI office has been shut down, and all DEI trainings on bias and microaggressions were discontinued.”
Of course, DEI is just one thing under attack at Carolina and on campuses across the country. Many prominent institutions of higher ed are facing massive, politically motivated fines and intense cuts to their research budgets as the administration has gutted funds at USAID and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
At Carolina, the University announced earlier this month $70 million in budget cuts that will include layoffs.
The News & Observer reported this week that UNC-Chapel Hill and other North Carolina universities had increased spending on federal lobbying in response to what is happening in Washington, with Carolina quintupling its spending on lobbying compared to this time last year.
When looking at what’s happening in higher ed more broadly, it’s easy to understand why the dramatic increase in lobbying spending is so necessary.
Trump wants $1 billion from UCLA to restore its research funding, and the university and UC regents are currently negotiating with the Trump administration after $584 million in research funds are already “suspended and at risk.”
Trump wants $500 million from Harvard, with The Harvard Crimson reporting from this week’s U.S. Cabinet meeting: “We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard. Don’t negotiate, Linda,” Trump said, addressing Education Secretary Linda E. McMahon. “They’ve been very bad. Don’t negotiate.”
As the cuts and negotiations to restore funding to Harvard continue, $2 billion in research funding has been frozen, including funding for lifesaving studies like cancer treatment and prevention.
Several universities have already settled with the Trump administration. Brown paid $50 million and Columbia $221 million. These settlements are not a return to normal for universities, though. As The New York Times reports:
When Columbia University struck a deal with the Trump administration last month, the agreement came with the promise that the financial lifeblood of scientific research would start to flow again. But that was only part of the story.
While hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal research funding has been restored, a smaller subset of grants in areas that are out of favor with the White House, including transgender health, have not. Columbia’s School of Public Health and medical center remain in austerity mode, with fewer slots for Ph.D. students and hiring delays caused by the original suspension of funding.
And looming over the deal, researchers said, is a bleak national outlook for federal science funding, making some scientists feel as if they dodged a bullet only to face the possibility of a firing squad.
The situation on campuses gets more alarming by the day. At the Coalition for Carolina, we’ve spent the past several months sounding the alarm bells and asking those who love Carolina to make their voices heard. We’ve also called on leaders at Carolina and the UNC System to be outspoken about the cuts the schools are facing and to lead on a national level with the Association of American Universities (AAU).
As this new school year begins, let’s recommit ourselves to fighting back against these attacks on the University. The headlines aren’t slowing down, and we won’t either. Thank you for reading and for your support.