General
As Trump Targets Universities, Schools Plan a Counteroffensive
Universities are hiring lobbyists connected to Republicans and opening offices in Washington to argue their causes amid threats to funding.
With a now-rescinded White House directive that threw millions of federal dollars for education and research into uncertainty, President Trump and his allies tried to prove they were not bluffing with their campaign threats to target universities.
But before President Trump even returned to office, many of the nation’s well-known universities were already preparing to fight back.
While few college presidents are especially eager to spar with Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance in public, schools have been marshaling behind-the-scenes counteroffensives against promises of an onslaught of taxes, funding cuts and regulations.
Some universities have hired powerhouse Republican lobbying firms. Others are strengthening, or rebuilding, their presences in Washington.
Many are quietly tweaking their messaging and policies, hoping to deter policymakers who know it can be good politics to attack higher education — even when they themselves are products of the schools they castigate on cable television. Rutgers University, for example, announced last week that it would cancel a conference on diversity, equity and inclusion, a focus of the new administration.
“There’s a concern among a lot of campuses,” said Kenneth K. Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown.
