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Can Donald Trump “Fix” Higher Education in the United States?
By HENRY SREBRNIK When protests disrupted campuses nationwide in the United States last year celebrating the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, signs and chants demanded “Divest!” and “Cease-fire now!” This fall, much of the protest language has grown darker, echoing language used by Hamas, and declaring “Glory to the resistance!”
Some protesters now refer to them as the “al-Aqsa flood,” the name Hamas uses. “Oct. 7 IS FOREVER” has been spray-painted on walls at colleges. The shift is very apparent at Columbia University in New York, one of the main centres of the protests.
This new messaging has been noticed by Hillel chapters across the country, observed Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International. “The overall picture on campus,” he said, “has moved from a mass protest movement that embodied a diverse set of goals and rhetoric to this more concentrated and therefore more extreme and radical set of goals, tactics and rhetoric.”
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to crack down on these campus protests, and his allies expect the Department of Education to more aggressively investigate university responses to pro-Palestinian movements.
“If you get me re-elected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he told donors last May. Trump called the demonstrators part of a “radical revolution” that he vowed to defeat. He praised the New York Police Department for clearing the campus at Columbia University and said other cities needed to follow suit, saying “it has to be stopped now.”
In an Agenda47 policy video released last July, he asserted that “the time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left, and we will do that.” Trump promised to axe federal support and accreditation for universities that fail to put an end to “antisemitic propaganda” and deport international students that are involved in violent anti-Israel campus protests. “As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.”
At a recent antisemitism event in Washington DC, he pledged to protect Jewish students on American campuses. “Here is what I will do to defeat antisemitism and defend our Jewish citizens in America,” he declared. “My first week back in the Oval Office my Administration will inform every College president that if you do not end antisemitic propaganda they will lose their accreditation and federal support.”
He announced that he “will inform every educational institution in our land that if they permit violence, harassment or threats against Jewish students the schools will be held accountable for violations of the civil rights law.
“It’s very important Jewish Americans must have equal protection under the law and they’re going to get it. At the same time, my Administration will move swiftly to restore safety for Jewish students and Jewish people on American streets.”
When back in the White House, Trump announced that he would direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination “under the guise of equity” and will advance a measure to have schools that continue these illegal and unjust policies fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.
Citing Trump’s campaign pledge to push for significant reforms, the Stand Columbia Society, which is dedicated to restoring the university’s “excellence,” has identified a handful of ways in which the federal government could pull financial support from Columbia, or any other university. They estimate Columbia could lose out on $3.5 billion in federal funding should they face government retaliation.
The most likely action, according to the group, would be for the government to slow down on issuing new research grants to the university, a move that would require no justification at all. The government could also squeeze the enrollment of international students by curbing issuance of student visas.
Columbia boasts upwards of 13,800 international students. Losing out on the cohort could cost them up to $800 million in tuition money. Neither one of these scenarios requires the administration to take legal action.
Moreover, the government could, additionally, push to withhold all federal funding should it determine that a university had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That statute bars recipients of federal funding from discriminating based on race, colour, or national origin. It was later clarified in 2004 by the then-assistant secretary for the Department of Education, Kenneth Marcus, that Title VI also protected the rights of ethnic groups that shared a religious faith, such as Jews.
Given the explosion of antisemitism that erupted on college campuses in the wake of Hamas’s attack, it doesn’t appear it would take much to make the case that Columbia, and a whole host of other universities, violated Title VI.
Columbia, for its part, already faces at least three Title VI lawsuits over campus antisemitism. (Among other major universities, Harvard faces two, and the University of California Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are also on the list.)
“These problems have existed for some time,” a contributing member of Stand Columbia, Alexandra Zubko, who is a Columbia graduate, contends. “This might be the moment that administrators look in the mirror and decide that they can’t let them continue.”
“All we need to do is listen to what President Trump has said during his campaign to understand that this administration will be serious about enforcing anti discrimination laws in ways that could be problematic to those institutions that have been getting a free pass for too long,” Marcus has said.
With Trump promising to make higher education “great again” once he returns to office this coming January, American universities will face increasing pressure to comply with his administration, if they don’t want to lose billions in federal support.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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Herzog Says Wellbeing of Israelis His Only Concern in Deal With Netanyahu’s ‘Extraordinary’ Pardon Request
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
i24 News – In an interview with Politico published on Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog remained tight-lipped on whether he intended to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extraordinary” pardon request, saying that his decision will be motivated by what’s best for Israel.
“There is a process which goes through the Justice Ministry and my legal adviser and so on. This is certainly an extraordinary request and above all when dealing with it I will consider what is the best interest of the Israeli people,” Herzog said. “The well-being of the Israeli people is my first, second and third priority.”
Asked specifically about President Donald Trump’s request, Herzog said “I respect President Trump’s friendship and his opinion,” adding, “Israel, naturally, is a sovereign country.”
Herzog addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the US-Israel ties and the shifts in public opinion on Israel.
“One has to remember that the fountains of America, of American life, are based on biblical values, just like ours. And therefore, I believe that the underlying fountain that we all drink from is the same,” he said. “However, I am following very closely the trends that I see in the American public eye and the attitude, especially of young people, on Israel.”
“It comes from TikTok,” he said of the torrent of hostility toward Israel that has engulf swathes of U.S. opinion since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, “from a very shallow discourse of the current situation, pictures or viewpoints, and doesn’t judge from the big picture, which is, is Israel a strategic ally? Yes. Is Israel contributing to American national interests, security interests? Absolutely yes. Is Israel a beacon of democracy in the Middle East? Absolutely yes.”
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Syria’s Sharaa Charges Israel ‘Exports Its Crises to Other Countries’
FILE PHOTO: Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday escalated his messaging against Israel at the Doha forum.
“Israel is working to export its own crises to other countries and escape accountability for the massacres it committed in the Gaza Strip, justifying everything with security concerns,” he said.
“Meanwhile, Syria, since its liberation, has sent positive messages aimed at establishing the foundations of regional stability.
“Israel has responded to Syria with extreme violence, launching over 1,000 airstrikes and carrying out 400 incursions into its territory. The latest of these attacks was the massacre it perpetrated in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, which claimed dozens of lives.
“We are working with influential countries worldwide to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied after December 8, 2014, and all countries support this demand.
“Syria insists on Israel’s adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. The demand for a demilitarized zone raises many questions. Who will protect this zone if there is no Syrian army presence?
“Any agreement must guarantee Syria’s interests, as it is Syria that is subjected to Israeli attacks. So, who should be demanding a buffer zone and withdrawal?”
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Turkey’s Fidan: Gaza Governance Must Precede Hamas Disarmament in Ceasefire Deal
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends a press conference following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2025. Photo: Pavel Bednyakov/Pool via REUTERS
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Saturday that not advancing the US-backed Gaza ceasefire plan to its next stage would be a “huge failure” for the world and Washington, noting that President Donald Trump had personally led the push.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, Fidan said a credible Palestinian civil administration and a vetted, trained police force needed to be in place to allow Hamas to disarm, and that the group was prepared to hand over control of the enclave.
“First of all, we need to see that the Palestinian committee of technical people are taking over the administration of Gaza, then we need to see that the police force is being formed to police Gaza – again, by the Palestinians, not Hamas.”
NATO member Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s assault on Gaza. It played a key role in brokering the ceasefire deal, signing the agreement as a guarantor. It has repeatedly expressed its willingness to join efforts to monitor the accord’s implementation, a move Israel strongly opposes.
Talks to advance the next phase of President Trump’s plan to end the two-year conflict in Gaza are continuing.
The plan envisages an interim technocratic Palestinian administration in the enclave, overseen by an international “board of peace” and supported by a multinational security force. Negotiations over the composition and mandate of that force have proven particularly difficult.
Fidan said the Gaza police force would be backed by the international stabilisation force. He added that Washington was pressing Israel over Turkey’s bid to join the force, to which it has voiced readiness to deploy troops if needed.
FIDAN SAYS KURDISH SDF IN SYRIA NOT WILLING TO INTEGRATE
Asked about a landmark deal in March in which the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus agreed that the SDF would be integrated into Syria’s state structures, Fidan said signals from the SDF showed it had “no intention” of honouring the accord, and was instead seeking to sidestep it.
Ankara, which considers the SDF a terrorist organisation, has threatened military action if it does not comply, setting a deadline of the end of the year.
“I think they (SDF) should understand that the command and control should come from one place,” Fidan added. “There can be no two armies in any given country. So there can only be one army, one command structure … But in local administration, they can reach a different settlement and different understandings.”
Almost a year after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, Fidan said some issues of minority rights were unresolved, insisting that Turkey’s backing of the new Syrian government was not a “blank cheque” to oppress any groups.
He said Damascus was taking steps toward national unity, but that Israeli “destabilisation policies” were the chief obstacle.
Israel has frequently struck southwestern Syria this year, citing threats from militant groups and the need to protect the Druze community near the frontier. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he expected Syria to establish a demilitarised buffer zone from Damascus to the border.
TURKEY: U.S. COULD REMOVE SANCTIONS ‘VERY SOON’
Fidan also said Washington’s initial 28-point plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war was just a “starting point,” and that it was now evolving in a new format. He said mediation by US officials was “on the right path.”
“I just hope that nobody leaves the table and the Americans are not frustrated, because sometimes the mediators can be frustrated if they don’t see enough encouragement from both sides.”
Asked about efforts to lift US sanctions imposed in 2020 over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems, he said both sides were working on it, adding: “I believe we’ll soon find a way to remove that obstacle.”