It seems like I need to explain this very clearly. Trump and Co are creating a thicket of rules so dense, so ambiguous, so contradictory, and so sudden that full compliance is impossible. That will serve as a “legal” basis for selective enforcement. Enforcement measures will take the form of (1) a complete and immediate withdrawal of access to ALL forms of federal funds, including Pell grants, (2) summary de-accreditation, possibly of entire colleges and universities, and (3) immediate revocation of nonprofit tax status. The aim will be to shut down at least one major university — my guess is their notional target will be Columbia.
If your response is some variation on BUT THEY CAN’T DO THAT!!!, I think you already know in your heart that they can. If not, consider the fate of everyone else who believed that — USAID workers, for example.
If you’re counting on the courts to save you, don’t — they won’t because they can’t. There are multiple reasons:
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The courts have no enforcement authority, they’re under attack themselves, key parts of the judiciary have been corrupted beyond redemption, and many judges themselves are, like you, trying to understand how their own personal obligations and aspirations will fit into the changing political landscape.
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The Trump admin is taking a multipronged approach. For example, their attacks on USAID involve budget AND employment AND physical facilities. They may lose on one or two fronts (say, budget and employment), but the judiciary is not going to forbid them from terminating leases for USAID spaces. Or, even if they lose on all fronts, judicial resolutions will come too late.
There‘s one possible variation on this trajectory: whether, DeSantis-style, the Trump admin will give schools the option of continuing to operate on a probationary basis if they basically agree to go into a form of receivership and accept externally imposed leadership — people like Christopher Rufo. If so, the highest levels of institutional leadership will face a very stark choice: either accept these state-imposed leaders or wind down operations.
I’ve been warning about this for, depending on how the level of specificity you require, somewhere between 20 years and a few months. My advice remains the same: faculty need to organize. Now.
And on 13 March, that’s exactly what the Trump admin did:
🎩 to the top-notch Zeteo reporter Prem Thacker for this letter.