Academic freedom siege in the US is under siege as never in our nation’s history. Convicted felon Donald Trump is doing all he can to blackmail great universities and education systems into conforming to his model of indoctrinated, far right-wing education. And it’s happening in places one might not expect, namely California. A phony veil of manufactured anti-Semitism is driving Trump’s relentless assault on academic freedom, while Jews across the political spectrum express their objections to being used as cover for this cynical campaign.
Professors and instructions have been fired from American universities all over the country. The list includes, UC Berkeley, Indiana, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Claremont Schools, Harvard, Georgetown, Occidental, and many others. A comprehensive list of schools impacted was published by the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association. The reasons for dismissal or detention most often involve expressing support for Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank.
Or by check:
Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)
The Indiana Legislature has gone to extreme lengths to destroy the academic, cultural and social fabric of Indiana University in Bloomington, the state’s flagship university. This includes trying to kill the venerable Kinsey Institute, which has been in the forefront of sexual behavior research and fighting censorship since its inception in 1948. On May 6, 2025, Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed a new budget bill that includes provisions that weaken faculty tenure protections at the state’s public universities, and reduce the influence of faculty decision-making bodies in favor of political appointees. Before California did it, Indiana introduced bills that invite, and indeed encourage, students to make tenure-killing complaints against faculty members, whose class content may make them “uncomfortable.” Hey, dealing with discomforting challenges is a vital part of any college education. There’s now a compulsion to coddle white “conservative” students, so they won’t feel bad about themselves for supporting Trump’s war on anything beyond his limited capacity for understanding.
Though my degrees are from other schools, I did summer coursework at IU between my junior and senior undergraduate years, and found many things to love about the school and the town of Bloomington. As a former college journalist, I read about the draconian efforts to sabotage the venerable student newspaper, The Indiana Daily Student (IDS) with great sadness. The newsprint IDS served as a morning newspaper for the town of Bloomington when I was there; addressing municipal, state and national issues, in addition to the on-campus focus. There’s a legal battle over the directive to discontinue the print addition. In October 2025, IU fired Jim Rodenbush, the director of student media, over a dispute about the content of the student newspaper.
Some of the most brutal and bizarre actions have been directed at IU by the deep red, Indiana legislature through Braun’s SB 202. It’s been tragic the follow this story, as they deliberately eliminate and destroy degree programs, which make IU a great university. Tenured professors have been summarily fired for sinnocuous comments promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), or objecting to Trump on social media. Indiana SB 202 is a weapon designed to fight DEI in academia. The political purpose is to please and impress Trump, and help Braun and other Hoosier Republicans climb the political-social ladder.
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A parallel dynamic has been the rude aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and the massive number of private individuals and public employees, whose careers have been sidetracked for making “protected speech” comments on social media. An illustrative example is Assistant Professor Tamar Shirinian of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee. The reasons for her firing include promoting DEI, candid comments about Kirk’s rhetorical history, and unfavorable comments about Trump. Academic program review is the latest Republican technique for rooting out DEI from academia. The pretext of supposedly “guarding against anti-Semitism” is often used to attack DEI, and to launch similar attacks on academic freedom and free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said it has reviewed 87 cases since the conservative activist was fatally shot at Utah Valley University. These cases involve faculty or students investigated or disciplined over social media posts, posters, or comments tied to Kirk’s death.
UC Berkeley has surprisingly caved to Trump’s demands that they furnish federal police agencies with the names of students suspected of anti-Semitic expressions, for demonstrating against the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and brutalities in the West Bank. Recently, UC Berkeley lost funding for a 50 year old program, because the grant application included the words “inclusion” and “equity.” The Trump administration is vigilant in its effort to criminalize everything associated with combatting racism and discrimination in this country. Before Trump (BT), it was a crime to NOT honor DEI requirements; now he has criminalized them in his effort to re-make America in his own cruel, racist image; which accurately reflects his business history of legal trouble for housing discrimination.
Photo of UC Berkeley by Jeremy Huang on Unsplash
As I wrote last week, California AB 715 is the latest and most surprising salvo in this onslaught. I’m surprised Gov. Newsom acquiesced to signing this bill, which empowers any student at a public institution in the state to make an anonymous complaint, to claim that any academic content that’s critical of Israel be considered anti-Semitic, and thus discriminatory. Teachers and schools would be subject to sanction. The bill frames some academic discourse as “unlawful discrimination,” and echoes Trump’s 2019 Executive Order declaring Judaism to be a nationality. The aim is to censor academic content, and hijack the Free Speech Movement, as I discussed a few years ago. There’s been a cogent legal objection filed by the ADC and other objectors with standing.
Trump’s attacks on DEI, and efforts to minimize the number of non-US born students on campuses reintroduced the quota system, which limited opportunities for Jewish students in the 1930’s and 40’s at premier US colleges and universities. Though his actions have been declared unlawful in numerous legal opinions; those findings were undermined by Trump’s Supreme Court lackeys. Trump’s myopia and ego have made him into the destroyer of the education industry in the US, and a the new face of Moloch; as discussed by Allen Ginsberg in his epic poem Howl:
- Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! . . . Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! . . . Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! . . . Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! . . . Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses . . . monstrous bombs!”
Big Brother IS watching; he really stupid, and too cruel for any sensible motivation. Trump is a juvenile minded monster, who has become the most powerful man in the world. Imagine if Bill Mumy’s Twilight Zone character Anthony had grown up and become president? Trump is as powerful and destructive as Anthony, but on a global scale.
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