2 weeks Ago
President Trump, RFK Jr. and their followers in the administration have set out to destroy America’s best universities and research centers. Harvard , Columbia, Penn, Brown, Princeton and other preeminent universities have all been threatened with crippling loss of federal funds and the termination of major government grants for biomedical, climate and food research if they don’t yield control of admissions, curriculum content, free speech and of student records and personal information to Elon Musk’s DOGE and other Trump administration agencies.
Grants are being cut for bad reasons, ridiculous reasons and no reasons whatsoever. Some universities, notably Harvard have refused to comply with this assault on basic academic freedom. A few other institutions and faculties including Indiana University- Bloomington, Rutgers University and all the other 18 universities under the Big 10 academic alliance have passed resolutions to defend academic freedom.
But allies and spokespersons defending our universities, which are the envy of the world and the engine of our past and future economic success, are few and far between. This ought not be. Connecticut has a huge educational footprint which feeds students to the universities now being damaged.
Choate Rosemary Hall , Hotchkiss , Taft, Hopkins, Kent, Suffield and many others pride themselves on preparing their students at significant cost to attend the very universities under attack. So do a huge number of Catholic schools including Sacred Heart, Canterbury, Notre Dame Prep and so on. And there is another large group of private elementary schools such as Ridgefield Academy, Torrington Christian, Housatonic Valley, Seven Acres, Renbrook and so on which are also in the business of preparation to attend the finest American universities.
Many Connecticut public schools are also evaluated on the basis of their student success in university admissions. Add to this list an array of specialty summer camps, after school programs public and private, tutors, and college counselors and it is clear that Connecticut and indeed much of New England has a key industry being put at grave risk. These are the voices; teachers, administrators, coaches, alumni, trustees, state legislators, students who ought assert their grave concern for what the Trump administration has done and may yet do to colleges and universities.
They ought let their representatives know that it is wrong and come out in public in support of those institutions under attack. As Jonathan R Cole wrote in his book “The Great American University“ the best U.S.
universities are the envy of the world”. Destroying one of our best inventions makes no sense. Those who have benefited from or are working in Connecticut who are a part of the vast educational system that forms the foundation for American educational preeminence must speak up before it is too late.
Arthur L Caplan, Ridgefield.
