Although colleges and universities are generally considered essential to fostering informed citizenship, their campuses have often served as flash points for political issues many of which include the exercise of First Amendment rights.
What are the First Amendment rights of colleges and universities and their faculty when it comes to protecting their own academic freedom and speech against government retaliation? A series of actions by Donald Trump's Administration in 2025 could test the limits of such freedoms, particularly as the federal government moves to cut off research grants to some institutions that refuse to make policy changes.
Populist politicians, particularly those on the right, have often targeted colleges and universities as liberal bastions. Echoing words that President Richard Nixon had once uttered, JD Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School, said in 2021 before he was elected U.S. vice president that “The Universities are the enemy,” and that “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country” (Poisson 2025).
Although private colleges and universities often choose to extend First Amendment freedoms to their students, they have greater ability to set policy than their public counterparts, which as government entities must follow the Constitution. Both public and private American higher educational institutions are a source of national pride, and education autonomy and research have long been prized as promoting innovation and progress.
History of resistance, activism at colleges and universities
During World War I, universities fired individuals who opposed the war (Wilson 2018).
In the 1960s, students at the University of California at Berkeley organized a Free Speech Movement that challenged university rules limiting First Amendment rights. Students held many protests, some while occupying campus buildings, against American participation in the Vietnam War during this same decade.
Since the 1970s, some colleges and universities adopted campus speech codes (many of which have been invalidated by courts), designed to limit comments that might create a hostile environment for women or racial minority groups. University admissions policies and affirmative action policies have been subject to judicial review.
More recently, campuses have been the sites for protests against the war in Gaza that have called for divestitures of foundation funds invested in Israel. Some Jewish students have, in turn, reported feeling threatened or intimidated.
Trump Administration efforts to shape higher education policies
Seeking to present a more unified view of U.S. foreign policy, the Trump Administration has sought to deport foreign students, such as Mahmoud Khalil, who have participated in demonstrations against Israel on U.S. campuses. The Trump Administration has also begun withholding federal funds from colleges and universities with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies that it considers to be racially discriminatory and from those that it does not think have adequately protected Jewish students or reined in student protests.
In addition, the Trump Administration has created a Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), which, under the leadership of Elon Musk, has cut funding and staff for multiple governmental agencies and has suspended or cancelled grant funding to institutions of higher learning throughout the United States.
Trump has targeted some high-profile colleges and universities that are especially dependent on funds generated by governmental grants. Such grants can run into billions of dollars. Although no such law has as yet been passed, the Trump Administration has also proposed taxing the principal and/or returns on large college and university endowments. Changes in rules providing for tuition assistance and other student support could also affect student enrollments and the tuition they generate.
Government shows power by withholding research grants
Institutions of higher learning face a collective action problem, or prisoner’s dilemma, in that if some comply with administration demands and others do not, those who comply are more likely to get preferential treatment than others with whom they might be competing for students or grants (Asch 2025). Colleges and universities may think that the projects that the government are funding are more important than asserting their own individual rights to autonomy or the First Amendment rights of their students.
Johns Hopkins University has announced that it will cut more than 2,000 employees in the U.S. and abroad as a result of threatened cuts of $800 million. Cornell University, Northwestern University, Brown University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania are among the institutions facing similar funding cuts.
Although former Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, a recognized expert on the First Amendment, has described Trump’s actions as part of “an authoritarian takeover” (Conroy 2025), the university has agreed to alter its campus policies on student demonstrations by prohibiting protestors from wearing masks or intimidating Jewish students (laudable goals) and making it easier for administrators to expel them without going through more democratic, but often time-consuming procedures, involving faculty and staff.
Does funding cutoff violate First Amendment rights of universities?
By contrast, Harvard University has refused to comply with governmental demands, outlined in a letter to the university on April 11, 2025. Its chapter of the American Association of University Professors has filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary injunction against the cutoff of federal funds.
Law professor Nikolas Bowie, said that Trump “is violating the First Amendment rights of universities and faculty by demanding that if universities want to keep this money, they have to suppress our speech and change what we teach and how we study” (Winter and Romine, 2025).
Chilling effect of crackdown on universities
Few institutions have the same financial resources as Harvard, and, whatever the outcome of its actions, Trump policies are likely to have a significant chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights and on academic freedom. Cutting research funding can also have significant consequences for medical, scientific and other research.
Universities challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s policies in courts might eventually succeed, but, as the district court decision in Mennonite Church USA v. U.S. Department of Home Security (2025) demonstrates, obtaining relatively quick relief through preliminary injunctions requires plaintiffs to meet a high bar. In the meantime, institutions that fail to accept Trump’s mandates remain in limbo and will likely have to make short-term, albeit often significant, cuts.
John R. Vile is a political science professor and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.