Research Model of the United States is Threatened

Posted on April 16, 2025 by briansandberg

The entire research model of the United States is threatened with destruction.

“Around the time of World War II, the U.S. government started funding universities for the purpose of aiding the war effort, funneling money toward medical research, innovation and financial aid for students,” according to The New York Times.

“The relationship between the federal government and higher education soon became symbiotic. As the government counted on universities to produce educated and employable students, as well as breakthrough scientific research, universities came to rely on continued funding.”

Ever since the Second World War, research universities have pursued original research in all fields of knowledge with the support of various agencies of the federal government. Public and private research universities develop laboratories, libraries, and other facilities to pursue fundamental and applied research, in partnership with federal and state government agencies.

Federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Energy, Department of Education, and National Endowment for the Humanities hold competitions for research grants to obtain federal research funding. These competitions involve rigorous peer review evaluations and ranking of proposals in order to select the most promising research projects to fund.

“Big Science” depends on this partnership between the federal government and research universities.

The New York Times reports that “In 1970, the government dispersed about $3.4 billion to higher education. Today, individual colleges depend on what could be billions of dollars, which mainly go toward financial aid and research. Harvard alone receives $9 billion.”

The United States has led the world in science and knowledge development over the past 70 years because of the excellence of its research model based on intensive research conducted at research universities based on funding by federal research grants.

The Trump administration is now attacking the entire system of research and knowledge production in the United States.

The New York Times reports that “the funding freezes have caused work stoppages, cut contracts, imperiled medical research and left students in limbo. Reductions can also affect hospitals that are affiliated with universities, like the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, both of which are affiliated with Harvard.”

“Universities have stressed that losing federal funding would jeopardize dozens of medical and scientific studies, including those on cancer and diabetes.”

“After the Trump administration froze $1 billion for Cornell, the university said that affected grants included “research into new materials for jet engines, propulsion systems, large-scale information networks, robotics, superconductors, and space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research,” according to The New York Times.

“When Mr. Trump pulled $790 million from Northwestern, the university said that the freeze would hinder its research on robotics, nanotechnology, foreign military training and Parkinson’s disease.”

Harvard University has rightly rejected the Trump administration’s anti-research policies and coercive measures against institutions of higher education.

The Trump administration’s assault research universities threatens not only their research model, but also academic freedom, freedom of speech, faculty governance, faculty hiring, curricular integrity, peer review processes, and university autonomy.

Minsberg, Talya. “What to Know as Trump Freezes Federal Funds for Harvard and Other Universities.” The New York Times (15 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Education Policy, Grants and Fellowships, Higher Education, Human Rights, Legal history, Political History of the United States, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Whistleblower Exposes DOGE’s Unlawful Hacking

Posted on April 16, 2025 by briansandberg

A federal worker who works in Information Technology (IT) at the National Labor Relations Board has made a whistleblower complaint to the U.S. Congress, exposing unlawful hacking and data exfiltration by Elon Musk’s DOGE team.

“In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the Southeast Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board,” according to NPR.

“The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information.

“The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB’s internal systems. They’ve said their unit’s overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration’s policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.

“But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It’s possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending,” according to NPR.

“Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do. …”

Berulis, the whistleblower, has documented a massive data breach and data exfiltration by the DOGE team.

“‘We are under assault right now,’ he remembered thinking.”

“When Berulis asked his IT colleagues whether they knew why the data was exfiltrated or whether anyone else had been using containers to run code on the system in recent weeks, no one knew anything about it or the other unusual activities on the network, according to his disclosure. In fact, when they looked into the spike, they found that logs that were used to monitor outbound traffic from the system were absent. Some actions taken on the network, including data exfiltration, had no attribution — except to a ‘deleted account,’ he continued. ‘Nobody knows who deleted the logs or how they could have gone missing,’ Berulis said.”

“The IT team met to discuss insider threats — namely, the DOGE engineers, whose activities it had little insight into or control over. ‘We had no idea what they did,’ he explained. Those conversations are reflected in his official disclosure.”

Elon Musk and his DOGE team have had illegitimate access to U.S. citizens’ data, potentially to advance political, corporate, or personal agendas. At the minimum, there are huge conflicts of interest and potential corruption here. More likely, this nefarious data access represents illegal hacking in violation of U.S. citizens’ privacy rights and constitutional rights.

The FBI should launch an immediate criminal investigation of the DOGE team’s data access at the NLRB and other federal agencies.

McLaughlin, Jenna. “A whistleblower’s disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data.” NPR (15 April 2025).

Posted in Authoritarianism, Civil Rights Issues, Digital Humanities, Human Rights, Information Management, Legal history, Political History of the United States, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Harvard University Resists Trump Administration

Posted on April 14, 2025 by briansandberg

Universities are beginning to push back on the Trump administration’s war on research and higher education.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and other scholarly associations have filed a series of lawsuits against Trump administration attacks on research funding, research centers, libraries, museums, and universities.

Now, Harvard University is resisting the Trump administration’s sweeping pressure campaign against this elite private university.

“Harvard University said on Monday that it had rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration, becoming the first university to directly refuse to comply with the administration’s demands and setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university,” according to The New York Times.

“Other universities have pushed back against the Trump administration’s interference in higher education. But Harvard’s response, which essentially called the Trump administration’s demands illegal, marked a major shift in tone for the nation’s most influential school, which has been criticized in recent weeks for capitulating to Trump administration pressure.”

The New York Times reports that “A letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is ‘viewpoint diverse,’ among other steps. The administration did not define what it meant by viewpoint diversity, but it has generally referred to seeking a range of political views, including conservative perspectives.”

“‘No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,’ said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.”

Patel, Vimal. “Harvard Says It Will Not Comply With Trump Administration’s Demands.” The New York Times (14 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Education Policy, Grants and Fellowships, Higher Education, History of Race and Racism, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Legal history, Political History of the United States, Public History, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump Officials Remove Books from Libraries

Posted on April 14, 2025 by briansandberg

The Trump administration continues its war on knowledge by removing books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered staff to remove 381 books from the Nimitz Library. The books removed include novels by Maya Angelou, as well as historical studies of racism, antisemitism, gender, medicine, and other subjects by historians such as Janet Jacobs, Ibram X. Kendi, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks.

The New York Times reports that “the Trump administration’s decision to order the banning of certain books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library is a case study in ideological censorship, alumni and academics say.”

“Political appointees in the Department of the Navy’s leadership decided which books to remove. A look at the list showed that antiracists were targeted, laying bare the contradictions in the assault on so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies,” according to The New York Times.

“‘Initially, officials searched the Nimitz Library catalog, using keyword searches, to identify books that required further review,’ Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman, said in a statement on Friday. ‘Approximately 900 books were identified during the preliminary search. Departmental officials then closely examined the preliminary list to determine which books required removal to comply with directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president.'”

“‘This effort ultimately resulted in nearly 400 books being selected for removal from the Nimitz Library collection,’ he added.”

Admiral Stavridis commented on the potential harm to U.S. military forces of the censorship policies, arguing that “book banning can be a canary in a coal mine and could predict a stifling of free speech and thought. … Books that challenge us make us stronger. We need officers who are educated, not indoctrinated.”

This book removal clearly constitutes political censorship by the Trump administration, as well as an attack on library institutions and academic freedom.

Ismay, John. “Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library?” The New York Times (11 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Civil-Military Relations, Education Policy, Higher Education, History of Race and Racism, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Information Management, Legal history, Museums and Historical Memory, Political Culture, Political History of the United States, Public History, United States History and Society, Women and Gender History | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Resisting the Trumpist War on Knowledge

Posted on April 14, 2025 by briansandberg

M. Gessen has published a new essay on the Trump administration’s war on universities and knowledge itself.

“Almost three months into the Trump administration’s war on universities, and a year and a half into the Republican Party’s organized campaign against the presidents of top colleges, it is clear that antisemitism and D.E.I. are mere pretexts for these attacks. Like much of what this administration does, the war on higher education is driven by anti-intellectualism and greed. Trump is building a mafia state, in which the don distributes both money and power. Universities are independent centers of intellectual and, to some extent, political power. He is trying to destroy that independence.”

According to Gessen, “There is a way for universities to fight back. It requires more than refusing to bend to Trump’s will, and it requires more than forming a united front. They must abandon all the concerns — rankings, donors, campus amenities — that preoccupy and distract them, and focus on their core mission: the production and dissemination of knowledge. Intellectuals have adopted this strategy to fight against autocrats in other countries. It works. …”

“So this is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement.”

Gessen, M. “This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, If They Dare.” The New York Times (14 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Higher Education, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Political History of the United States, United States History and Society | Leave a comment

Christian Nationalist Agenda of Trump Administration

Posted on April 14, 2025 by briansandberg

Trump officials in the U.S. Department of State are calling for employees to report incidents of supposed “anti-Christian bias.” The pressure campaign seems intended to intimidate non-Christians working in the Department of State, potentially violating workers’ civil rights and constitutional rights.

“As the Christian world commemorates Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday, the State Department has issued an appeal for its employees to report instances of alleged anti-Christian bias, including formal or informal actions due to opposition to vaccines or personal pronoun choice, that may have occurred during the Biden administration,” according to the Associate Press (AP).

“The call comes amid heightened fear and anxiety in the American diplomatic corps, which is bracing for a new update on the Department of Government Efficiency-inspired budget and staff cuts that is due to be presented to the White House on Monday. That update is expected to include the State Department’s latest estimates of voluntary retirements and separations and how those will affect potential future layoffs to meet benchmarks from Elon Musk’s DOGE and the government’s human resources agency, according to officials familiar with the process.”

Trump administration says it cut funding to some life-saving UN food programs by mistake

“While foreign and civil service employees await word on their futures, the State Department has moved ahead with an initiative aimed at rooting out religious bias in its policies and hiring practices with a specific emphasis on anti-Christian activity that may have occurred under President Joe Biden.”

This bias-hunting aim seems blatantly political and anti-constitutional. If there were actual documented reports of bias, why would the State Department limit itself to reviewing actions only during the Biden administration? This seems more like a fishing expedition.

If the supposed bias actually had occurred, why investigate only alleged anti-Christian bias, rather than potential biases against any religious faith or organization?

“There is no immediate indication that such discrimination, as defined by President Donald Trump’s State Department, took place under Biden,” according to the AP.

“In a cable sent Friday to all U.S. diplomatic missions, Rubio asked that staffers report any perceived discriminatory actions taken against Christians or employees advocating on their behalf between January 2021 and January 2025. The cable, copies of which were obtained by The Associated Press, says that all reported allegations will be investigated by a government-wide task force on anti-Christian bias and if discrimination is found the culprits may be disciplined. It also makes clear that allegations can be submitted anonymously.”

These actions clearly violate the establishment clause of the Constitution of the United States and its provisions for a separation of church and state.

Lee, Matthew. “State Department Wants Staff to Report Instances of Alleged Anti-Christian Bias during Biden’s Term.” Associated Press (13 April 2025).

Gedeon, Joseph. “State Department Staff Told to Report Colleagues for ‘Anti-Christian Bias.'” The Guardian (1a April 2025).

Gramer, Robbie and Nahal Toosi. “State tells employees to report on one another for ‘anti-Christian bias.'” Politico (11 April 2025).

Posted in Civil Rights Issues, Education Policy, History of Race and Racism, Human Rights, Political History of the United States, Religious History, Religious Politics, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Many International Students’ Visas Revoked in Illinois

Posted on April 14, 2025 by briansandberg

International students at state universities in Illinois and across the nation are being improperly and unlawfully targeted by the Trump administration for visa revocation.

Last week, the Trump administration revoked the visas of five international students at Northern Illinois University, where I am a professor.

Students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois State University, Southern Illinois University, and other state universities were also targeted.

The Trump administration’s authoritarian actions violate these students’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Revoking students’ visas without cause or due process unjustly deprives international students of access to education, violating their civil rights and human rights.

Further, these actions constitute attacks on public education, academic freedom, faculty governance, and university autonomy. State universities are under a widespread and coordinated attack by the Trump administration.

“The federal government has revoked the visas of some international students studying at universities across Illinois, but college administrators are sharing few details, including how many students have been impacted,” Capitol News Illinois reports.

“A spokesperson for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this week confirmed that some of its students are affected, but did not disclose a number. U of I ranks sixth nationally in the size of its international student body at over 15,000.

“‘Out of student privacy concerns, we are not sharing specific information, but we are working directly with affected students to help them connect with appropriate resources and understand their options,’ said Robin Kaler, a university spokesperson. Kaler declined to provide more details, though multiple sources familiar with the situation at U of I, who asked that their names not be used because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, say the number of students whose visas have been revoked is at least several dozen — and likely growing.

“The revocations are part of a broader federal crackdown playing out on campuses across the country. International students have faced abrupt visa cancellations in recent weeks, as the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration dragnet ensnares college students, federal officials claim have violated visa rules, though the reasons for the revocations are not always made clear. In many cases, students have also lost their status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, SEVIS, which allows them to legally stay in the U.S. while enrolled in school.

“Across its vast network of public and private colleges and universities, Illinois hosts one of the largest international student populations in the nation, ranking fifth, with more than 55,000 international students, according to a 2024 Open Doors report. …”

“As university leaders try to balance student concerns, fears of retaliation in an increasingly fraught political climate and growing demands for transparency, some say they feel left in the dark. And they worry the lack of transparency could conceal the full scope of the federal government’s actions against international students nationwide.”

“‘What is deeply distressing about the news — that an international student’s visa was revoked — is the chilling silence around it, which only adds to the sense that we are powerless in the face of multiple attacks on the very existence of universities as places of learning, questioning and nurturing the next generation,’ said Jyotnsa Kapur, a professor in cinema and media studies and the director of the University Honors Program at SIU Carbondale.”

Brandhorst, Jackson. “‘Chilling silence’: Waves of Illinois’ International University Students Lose their Visas.” Capitol News Illinois (10 April 2025).

“The Visas of Five International Students at NIU Have Been Revoked.” NPR (10 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Authoritarianism, Civil Rights Issues, Education Policy, Globalization, Higher Education, Human Rights, Illinois History and Society, Legal history, Political Culture, Political History of the United States, United States Foreign Policy, United States History and Society | Leave a comment

NEH Funds to be Diverted to Trump Pet Project

Posted on April 11, 2025 by briansandberg

Last week, hundreds of active grants that were already awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) after rigorous peer review were unlawfully cancelled by Trump administration officials.

Many professors, researchers, and graduate students in History and the Humanities have been directly affected by these cancellations. Their ongoing research is now suspended or completely unfunded. Some researchers will lose their grant-funded positions, while others will be unable to pay for essential research materials, travel, and support that was already planned and allocated.

I personally know dozens of professors and researchers who have had their grants improperly and unlawfully cancelled.

Now, Trump-appointed leaders of the NEH indicate that some of these funds will be unlawfully diverted to one of President Trump’s political pet projects, a so-called National Garden of American Heroes. This illegitimate award of NEH funds will apparently happen without any grant competition or peer review process.

The Trump administration is attempting to transform the National Endowment for the Humanities into a political funding stream in a perversion of academic and research standards in History and the Humanities.

These unlawful and unethical actions are being done in order to implement President Trump’s personal and highly politicized vision of history.

“The National Endowment for the Humanities intends to redirect some of its funding to build President Trump’s proposed National Garden of American Heroes, as part of a reorientation toward the president’s priorities of celebrating patriotic history, according to three people who attended a meeting on Wednesday where the plans were discussed,” according to The New York Times.

“Last week, the agency, the main federal funder of the humanities, abruptly canceled more than 85 percent of its existing grants, which support museums, historical sites and scholarly and community projects across the country. The moves outraged supporters of the humanities, and stirred speculation about whether the agency would survive.”

The New York Times reports that “At the meeting on Wednesday, the agency’s acting chair, Michael McDonald, told its 24-member advisory council that the endowment would pivot to supporting the White House’s agenda, according to the three attendees, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to describe a confidential meeting. In particular, they were told, the agency would support Mr. Trump’s planned patriotic sculpture garden and the broader celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4, 2026.”

President Trump is clearly preparing to make the 250th Anniversary of the United States his own personal celebration.

Schuessler, Jennifer. “Canceled Humanities Grants to Help Pay for Trump’s ‘Garden of Heroes.'” The New York Times (10 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Grants and Fellowships, Higher Education, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Museums and Historical Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Presidential Abuse of Powers on Tariffs

Posted on April 11, 2025 by briansandberg

President Trump is abusing powers that he doesn’t even have.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States indicates that the U.S. Congress—not the President—has the power to set tariffs.

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States….”

“If the on-again, off-again tariff announcements by President Trump have struck you as unusual, that’s for good reason. Nothing like this has ever happened before,” according to Jeff Sommers in The New York Times.

“That’s the estimation of Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth economic historian whose 2017 book, Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy, is the leading work on the subject. I called him for perspective. He told me that what we were experiencing was way outside the historical norm. One man alone has risked the first global trade war since the 1930s by raising tariffs to levels unseen for more than a century. The president’s actions, he said, represent a ‘big break with history.'”

“Even if Mr. Trump removes the tariffs — he announced a 90-day pause for some of the highest ones on Wednesday, while keeping a 10 percent base line for virtually all imports from around the world — his go-it-alone stance is a major departure. However the trade saga develops from here, the first skirmishes in a trade war, a dreaded relic of the Great Depression, have begun in the 21st century,” Sommers argues.

“The consequences are still unfurling, but the stakes are high. They include the possibility of a global recession and geopolitical shifts that may not be in the interests of the United States — all occurring because of the swiftly shifting decisions by the president of the United States.”

President Trump is clearly abusing the power that Congress has unconstitutionally delegated to him.

Jeff Sommer argues that “The U.S. presidency has always been powerful, but in the past, presidents were hemmed in by law, custom and politics. As the wild swings of recent days show, however, Mr. Trump is unaffected by most of those restraints. More than in the past, the direction of the markets and the global economy depends on the mood of the president.”

Further, President Trump has been accused of using his tariff decrees to manipulate global markets in corrupt ways that may benefit himself and his associates.

“Accusations of insider trading, market manipulation and corruption more broadly are being levelled at the White House as Trump switches tactics,” according to The Guardian.

“The timing of the US president’s social media posts and the subsequent huge share jumps has sparked accusations of market manipulation.”

The Guardian reports that “Trump said it was a ‘great time to buy’ just hours before he made a dramatic retreat on his trade war that led to big rises in stock markets around the world.”

“The Democratic senator Adam Schiff has called for an investigation, saying: ‘These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading.'”

“Schiff said he wanted to know who in the administration knew about the latest tariff ‘flip-flop’.”

“Thousands of investors are dedicated to tracking short-term movements in prices and it is theoretically possible that many close to key members of the Trump administration have made a profit from advanced knowledge of the president’s plans. However, no hard evidence has yet emerged that this is the case.”

Since the Trump administration controls all federal agencies that might investigate these accusations, we may never know. There was a sharp exchange during a Congressional hearing, however:

“The Nevada representative Steven Horsford questioned the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, asking the representative during a committee hearing whether the climbdown was market manipulation,” according to The Guardian.

“‘How is this not market manipulation?’ Horsford asked, to which Greer responded: ‘No.’

“‘If it was always a plan, how is this not market manipulation?’ Horsford asked again.

“‘Tariffs are a tool, they can be used in the appropriate way to protect US jobs and small businesses, but that’s not what this does,’ Horsford said. ‘So if it’s not market manipulation, what is it? Who’s benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?'”

In a previous post, I provided some sources on the history of tariffs in the United States.

Sommer, Jeff. “How This Trade War Is Different From All Other Trade Wars.” The New York Times (11 April 2025).

Betts, Anna and Lauren Aratani. “US Stocks Fall Again as Ex-Fed Chair Decries ‘Self-Inflicted Wound’ of Trump’s Tariffs.” The Guardian (10 April 2025).

Inman, Phillip. “Why did Trump Retreat on Tariffs and is the Market Reaction Justified?” The Guardian (10 April 2025).

Irwin, Douglas. Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

The Constitution of the United States is available at the National Archives website.

Posted in Globalization, Historiography and Social Theory, Information Management, international relations, Political History of the United States, Strategy and International Politics, United States Foreign Policy, United States History and Society, World History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

International Students at NIU are Stripped of Visas

Posted on April 11, 2025 by briansandberg

I am dismayed to report that the Trump administration is now attacking international students at Northern Illinois University.

The Northern Star reports that “Five international students have had their visas revoked according to NIU officials.”

I send my compassion and support to all international students and researchers at Northern Illinois University.

5 NIU international student visas revoked, university officials confirm

“The university confirmed the visa revocations in a statement to the Northern Star.

“‘The university is working directly with each student to ensure they understand their rights, options and resources to support them as they navigate the significant disruption to their daily lives and future plans,’ a statement from the University said.

“NIU said it will not release identifying information about those affected out of respect for their privacy.

“This follows the revocation of hundreds of international student visas across the country by the Trump administration.”

I deplore the Department of State’s actions to rescind student and researcher visas for individuals across the United States.

These are coercive and unlawful actions of an unconstitutional regime that is violating free speech, freedom to assemble, academic freedom, and international human rights.

The U.S. Department of State has been unlawfully revoking visas of international students, recent graduates, and faculty members across the United States in an aggressive campaign intended to terrorize international students and faculty.

The Trump administration’s targeting of international students and researchers is part of its broader authoritarian attack on higher education and research.

I am sending strength and courage to all international students and researchers everywhere….

Lamb, Austin. “5 NIU International Student Visas Revoked, University Officials Confirm.” The Northern Star (10 April 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Authoritarianism, Civil Rights Issues, Education Policy, Higher Education, Human Rights, international relations, Northern Illinois University, Political History of the United States, United States History and Society | Leave a comment