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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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Trump Safe After Being Rushed from White House Correspondents Dinner, Shooter in Custody
U.S. President Donald Trump is escorted out as a shooter opens fire during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026, in this screen capture from video. REUTERS/Bo Erickson
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner by Secret Service agents on Saturday night after a man armed with a shotgun tried to breach security, officials said.
A man armed with a shotgun fired at a Secret Service agent, an FBI official told Reuters. The agent was hit in an area covered by protective gear and not harmed, the official said.
All federal officials, including Trump, were safe. About an hour after Trump was rushed from the event, he posted on Truth Social that a “shooter had been apprehended.”
“Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job,” Trump added.
Shortly afterwards, he posted, “The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition.” He said he would be holding a White House press conference on Saturday night.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said the service was investigating a shooting near the main screening area at the entrance to the event.
After the sound of shots, dinner attendees immediately stopped talking and people started screaming “Get down, get down!”
Hundreds of guests dove under the tables as Secret Service officers in combat gear ran into the dining room. Trump and the first lady had bent down behind the dais before being hustled out by Secret Service officers.
Many of the 2,600 attendees took cover while waiters fled to the front of the dining hall.
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Trump Cancels Envoys’ Pakistan Trip, in Blow to Hopes for Iran War Breakthrough
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump canceled a trip by two US envoys to Iran war mediator Pakistan on Saturday, dealing a new setback to peace prospects after Iran’s foreign minister departed Islamabad after speaking only to Pakistani officials.
While peace talks failed to materialize Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to “forcefully” attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, his office said, further testing a three-week ceasefire.
Trump told reporters in Florida that he decided to call off the planned visit by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner because the talks in Islamabad involved too much travel and expense, and Iran’s latest peace offer was not good enough for him.
Before boarding Air Force One on Saturday for a return flight to Washington, Trump said Iran had improved an offer to resolve the conflict after he canceled the visit, “but not enough.”
In a social media post, Trump also wrote there was “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.
“Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” he posted on Truth Social.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi earlier left the Pakistani capital without any sign of a breakthrough in talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior officials.
Araqchi later described his visit to Pakistan as “very fruitful,” adding in a social media post that he had “shared Iran’s position concerning (a) workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy”.
Iranian media reported that Araqchi had flown to Oman’s capital Muscat, saying he will meet with senior officials to “discuss and exchange views on bilateral relations and regional developments”.
Sharif wrote in a post on X that he spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about the regional security situation and told him that Pakistan was committed to serving “as an honest and sincere facilitator — working tirelessly to advance durable peace and lasting stability.”
Tehran has ruled out a new round of direct talks with the United States and an Iranian diplomatic source said his country would not accept Washington’s “maximalist demands.”
IRAN AND US AT AN IMPASSE
Washington and Tehran are at an impasse as Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, while the US blocks Iran’s oil exports.
The conflict, in which a ceasefire is in force, began with US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28. Iran has since carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, and the war has pushed up energy prices to multi-year highs, stoking inflation and darkening global growth prospects.
Araqchi “explained our country’s principled positions regarding the latest developments related to the ceasefire and the complete end of the imposed war against Iran,” said a statement on the minister’s official Telegram account.
Asked about Tehran’s reservations over US positions in the talks, an Iranian diplomatic source in Islamabad told Reuters: “Principally, Iranian side will not accept maximalist demands.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come over the weekend, while Vice President JD Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan as well.
Vance led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran in Islamabad earlier this month.
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Hezbollah Says Ceasefire ‘Meaningless’ as Fighting Continues in South
Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army operates in it as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said a US-mediated ceasefire in the war with Israel was meaningless a day after it was extended for three weeks, as Lebanese authorities reported two people killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
US President Donald Trump announced the three-week extension on Thursday after hosting Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors at the White House. The ceasefire agreement between the governments of Lebanon and Israel had been due to expire on Sunday.
While the ceasefire has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Responding to the extension, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said “it is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in the south.
“Every Israeli attack… gives the resistance the right to a proportionate response,” he added.
Hezbollah is not a party to the ceasefire agreement, and has strongly objected to Lebanon’s face-to-face contacts with Israel.
BUFFER ZONE
The April 16 agreement does not require Israeli troops to withdraw from the belt of southern Lebanon seized during the war. The zone extends 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanon.
Israel says the buffer zone aims to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which fired hundreds of rockets at Israel during the war.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the group opened fire in support of Iran in the regional war. The ceasefire in Lebanon emerged separately from Washington’s efforts to resolve its conflict with Tehran, though Iran had called for Lebanon to be included in any broader truce.
Nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2, the Lebanese health ministry says.
ISRAELI MILITARY WARNS RESIDENTS TO LEAVE TOWN
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike killed two people in the southern village of Touline on Friday.
Hezbollah shot down an Israeli drone, the group and the Israeli military said. Hezbollah identified it as a Hermes 450 and said it had downed it with a surface-to-air missile.
An Israeli drone was heard circling above Beirut throughout the day on Friday, Reuters reporters said.
The Israeli military warned residents of the southern town of Deir Aames to leave their homes immediately, saying it planned to act against “Hezbollah activities” there.
Deir Aames is located north of the area occupied by Israeli forces, and it was the first time Israel had issued such a warning since the ceasefire came into force on April 16. Posted on social media, the Israeli warning gave no details of the activities it said Hezbollah was conducting in the town.
The Israeli military also said it had intercepted a drone prior to its crossing into Israeli territory, and that sirens were sounded in line with protocol.
WAR-WEARY RESIDENTS SEEK END TO FIGHTING
The continued fighting has angered war-weary Lebanese, who say they want to see a genuine ceasefire put a full halt to violence.
“What’s this? Is this called a ceasefire? Or is this mocking (people’s) intelligence?” said Naem Saleh, a 73-year-old owner of a newsstand in Beirut.
Residents of northern Israel had mostly returned to daily life, but expressed pessimism about the longevity of the ceasefire with Lebanon.
“I believe that the ceasefire is so fragile, and unfortunately it won’t stand long, in my opinion,” said Eliad Eini, a resident of Nahariya, which lies just 10 km (6 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least five people in the south, including a journalist.
Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter, in his opening remarks at Thursday’s talks, said “Lebanon should acknowledge the temporary presence of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the right of Israel to defend itself from a hostile force that is firing on the population.”
Lebanon’s Ambassador to the United States Nada Moawad, in a written statement sent to Reuters, called for the ceasefire to be fully respected and said it would allow the necessary conditions for meaningful negotiations.
Lebanon has said it aims to secure the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from its territory in broader talks with Israel at a later stage.
Trump said on Thursday that he looked forward to hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the near future, and said there was “a great chance” the two countries would reach a peace agreement this year.
Hezbollah attacks killed two civilians in Israel after March 2, while 15 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon since then, Israel says.