Education Is Under Attack

[AI generated]

I have been in higher education for 50 years, and I have never been as shocked, dismayed, sad, crushed, and furious as I am now. This piece from Robert Reich's substack on 3-20-25 gives the bigger picture of what is happening re: education. Here it is, reproduced in full, and I add more of my own comments at the end.

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Trump's attack on the American mind

Behind his closure of the Education Department, his assault on higher education, on science, and on libraries and museums, lie the oligarchs of the techno-state.

Robert Reich

Mar 20

Friends,

Today, Trump is dismantling the Department of Education. He’s ordering wrestling executive-turned-Education Secretary Linda McMahon to shut her department.

His executive order will effectively destroy a $100 billion-a-year executive department created by Congress under President Jimmy Carter 45 years ago.

But there’s a much larger plan here.

Combine this with Trump’s attacks on higher education — his gutting the funding of the National Institutes of Health (which provides a large portion of biomedical research) and the National Science Foundation (engineering and computer research), and his effective closure of USAID (which underwrites research in global diseases).

Put this together with Trump’s (and RFK Jr.’s) attacks on vaccine science,

Combine this with Trump’s attacks on the freedom of speech of university students and professors.

And Trump’s and rightwing governors’ attacks on teaching the truth in our schools about America’s history of slavery and Native American genocide.

Put this together with Trump’s attack on America’s libraries — last week’s executive order mandating cuts in the funding of libraries around the country — which will jeopardize literacy development and reading programs, reliable internet access for those without it at home, and homework help and other resources for students and educators.

Combine this with his attacks on America’s museums (the same executive order cut their funding, too). And his attack on the arts, as illustrated by Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center (last month, he announced himself its new chair, replaced 13 board members, and inserted a new interim president).

What’s the larger picture? What’s the overall purpose?

Not to mount an “attack on the liberal state,” as I keep reading. Not “a culmination of Trump’s culture wars.” Or that Trump seeking “small government” over “big government,” or is advancing traditional conservatism over traditional liberalism.

What’s really occurring is an attack on the American mind.

Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated citizenry. Slaveholders prohibited slaves from learning to read. Nazi’s burned books.

Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.

Those who believe in democracy, on the other hand, have been at the forefront of the movement for free, universal public education; and for public libraries, museums, and the arts. They understand that democracy depends on people knowing what’s occurring around them and having the capacity to deliberate critically about it.

Trump is only the frontman in this attack on the American mind.

The attack is really coming from the anti-democracy movement: From JD Vance; and from Vance’s major financial backer, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who staked $15 million on Vance’s Ohio senatorial election in 2022 and helped convince Trump to make Vance vice president; and from Thiel’s early business partner, Elon Musk.

Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Hello? Freedom is incompatible with democracy only if you view democracy as a potential constraint on your wealth and power.

Behind Vance and Musk is a libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers, and disaffected far-right intellectuals.

Curtis Yarvin comes as close as anyone as being their intellectual godfather. He has written that political power in the United States is held by a liberal amalgam of universities and the mainstream media whose commitment to equality and justice is eroding America’s social order.

In Yarvin’s view, democratic governments are inefficient and wasteful. They should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose major “shareholders” select an executive with total power, who serves at their pleasure.Yarvin refers to the city-state of Singapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime.

Make no mistake: Trump’s attack on the American mind — on education, science, libraries, and museums — is an attack on the capacity of Americans for self-government.

It is coming from the oligarchs of the techno-state who believe democracy is inefficient, and want to replace it with an authoritarian regime replete with technologies they control.

Be warned.

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I find Reich's argument compelling and persuasive. New actions are taking place daily to erode our country's prized education and scientific enterprises, which are beacons to people all over the world. Scholars from abroad compete hard for the opportunity to study here, and countries all over the world rely on our advances in science and technology (not to mention all the other fields of endeavor.)

I see federal grants being cancelled, articles in scientific journals being withdrawn, databases being altered, and universities being coerced into suppressing free inquiry. The federal government does wield a big stick --- withdrawal of federal funds to support research, students, and infrastructure. Big, for sure.

There is now a list of 60 universities under scrutiny for deviation from new government directives. Columbia got hit first and hard. Who's next? I am hoping that, at the very least, the leaders of these 60 universities are figuring out how to act in concert. I could forsee a NATO-like agreement that an attack on one is an attack on all. But at the moment, it looks like they are all sitting ducks at an arcade waiting to be picked off one at a time. God, I hope not. I don't see any external entity riding to their rescue.

At this moment, I have little to offer by way of action steps. But if you have friends or loved ones in higher education, I'd encourage you to offer them support during this stressful time. If you are a researcher or a teacher, make secure backups of your documents. If you are a student, pay close attention to what is happening and raise lots of questions. I am seeing notices about mass mobilizations on April 5 and am watching that carefully. Google it.

Of course, this whole education thread is only one of many happening simultaneously, as the regime "floods the zone." Ukraine? Palestine? Canada? Greenland? the stock market? tariffs? Medicare? humanitarian aid? Medicaid? bird flu? measles? All of this and more has come to a head in just two months. just two months

But important voices are speaking truth to power, and for that I am grateful. I will close by adding a link to my essay from last weekend, highlighting the courage of the Rt. Reverend Mariann Budde from the Washington National Cathedral. Her 15 minute sermon at the Inaugural Prayer Service (just 2 months ago today) and her book (How We Learn to Be Brave) are inspiring me. What's inspiring you?