Historian Ellen Schrecker argues that the Trump administration's actions against universities represent an unprecedented assault on academic freedom, worse than during the McCarthy era. Unlike the past's focus on individual professors, today’s policies attack the very foundations of higher education, targeting entire institutions, faculty, curricula, and diversity of thought. Schrecker emphasizes the scale of this repression, citing events like Harvard's legal battles against the federal government's actions. These developments are seen as fostering a climate of fear and censorship within academic settings, as protests erupt in response to these measures.
During the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left. ... Today, the repression that's coming out of Washington, D.C., it attacks everything that happens on American campuses.
The damage that the Trump administration is doing is absolutely beyond the pale and has never, never been equaled in American life with regard to higher education.
President Trump's crackdown on academic institutions in the United States was the focus of protests and commencement speeches this week as universities like Harvard held commencement ceremonies.
Schrecker is the author of many books about the McCarthy era, Cold War politics and right-wing attacks on academic freedom.
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