US universities anticipate impact of new Trump term

Higher education and research barely featured in the inaugural speech President Trump gave on Monday. He said nothing about academic freedom or the high level of student debt, and made no reference to anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses.

Ashamed

However, he did denounce an education system “that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves – in many cases to hate our country”. He appeared to be referring to classes that deal with racism and the history of slavery, which many conservative Americans object to, and possibly to sex education in schools.

He vowed to end positive discrimination for disadvantaged groups and to scrap government policies that – in his view – seek to bring race and gender into all aspects of public and private life. “We will forge a society that is colourblind and merit-based.”

In that light, he referred to the dream of Martin Luther King, whose campaign for civil rights and racial equality cost him his life. “We will make his dream come true”, Trump insisted.

Deportations

Meanwhile he pledged to start deporting immigrants on a large scale. He announced plans to send “millions and millions of criminal aliens” back where they came from and to eliminate “foreign gangs and criminal networks”.

Trump’s stance on deportation is bad news for the approximately 408,000 undocumented students in the US, almost half of whom are from a Hispanic background. Compounded by the new president’s hardline rhetoric about Mexican immigrants, it suggests that their future education is far from certain. Their mere presence in the country could soon be classified as criminal.

Undocumented students have spoken out about their concerns on InsideHigherEd.com and other platforms. For many, the fear of being thrown out of the country goes back to childhood. Similar fears are expressed in a number of articles. The protection offered to undocumented immigrants who grew up in the US by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme (DACA) may well be in jeopardy under the new Republican regime.

Some higher education institutions explicitly warned international students and staff to make sure they were back in the US before Trump took office

Over the Christmas holidays, some higher education institutions explicitly warned their international students and staff to make sure they were back in the US before Trump took office. The warning was prompted by fears that they could face problems at the border.

Victory

Following his election victory, Trump can count on the support of a large section of the population. Calls for students to be deported are particularly prevalent when anti-Israel protests are held on campuses. A range of commentators have voiced the opinion that protesters with Hamas sympathies should face deportation. Trump has also made comments along these lines.

In the new political climate, higher education institutions are bracing themselves for potential problems. Some are already saying they have no desire to cooperate with moves to deport their own students and intend to hold back any information on their residency status.

However, they will have no choice but to abide by the law. An advocacy organisation has published a guide outlining how institutions can support students who do not have US citizenship.

Exactly how these issues will play out remains to be seen. Trump has plans to seriously downsize the Department of Education and even get rid of it altogether. This task falls to his new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, a business executive with a background in professional wrestling.

HOP, Bas Belleman
Translation: Taalcentrum-VU