The Trump administration’s recent decision to pull billions of dollars in federal funding from Columbia, Harvard, and other elite universities over their failure to address antisemitism and anti-American sentiment marks an overdue reckoning in higher education.
For too long, American taxpayers have been subsidizing institutions that not only tolerate open hostility toward American values but actively undermine them through radical ideologies masked as scholarship. The real question now is not who doesn’t deserve the money but who does.
It’s time to support American institutions of higher education that support the American institutions of life, liberty, and moral excellence.
Religiously affiliated colleges across America have long upheld a deep respect for the principles that make this country great – freedom of speech, religious liberty, civic responsibility, and a belief in objective moral truth. While many elite, secular universities have devolved into echo chambers of postmodern relativism and post-colonial grievance, religiously affiliated schools continue to instill in their students a reverence for American ideals and a willingness to engage with diverse perspectives.
Unlike their secular counterparts, these colleges are not embarrassed by the concept of American exceptionalism. They don’t teach students to view the United States as a colonial oppressor in need of constant deconstruction. Instead, they explore the American project – with its Judeo-Christian intellectual and moral foundations – as an aspirational model for liberty, justice, and human dignity.
They do not treat patriotism as a vice or faith as a relic. They teach students to appreciate the hard-won freedoms enshrined in our founding documents and the moral heritage that shaped them.
Religious vs. secular educational institutions
At the same time, religiously affiliated universities foster an academic environment where diverse ideas can be voiced without fear of social or professional retribution. In many elite institutions today, students are punished – socially, academically, even professionally – for expressing dissenting opinions that challenge progressive orthodoxy.
Professors face blacklisting and professional ruin for publishing contrarian research or merely asking difficult questions. But on many religiously affiliated campuses, true intellectual diversity is not only tolerated, it is encouraged.
If American taxpayers are going to fund higher education, shouldn’t they be supporting institutions that actually support America?
Critics will argue that religiously affiliated universities are not on par with the elites in terms of academic prestige or research output. But that criticism ignores a structural imbalance that has long skewed rankings in favor of the most heavily endowed schools.
One major component of college rankings is the volume of research produced by faculty. But research requires money, not only to attract scholars but to fund their time, their assistants, and the infrastructure needed to publish and present their work.
At elite schools, that is easy. With billion-dollar endowments, tremendous access to government grants – not to mention overseas funding – they can offer six-figure salaries, generous research budgets, and a full suite of support staff.
But most religiously affiliated colleges operate on far leaner margins. Their faculty often wear multiple hats: teaching full loads, mentoring students, and administrative duties. And then they still have to find time to produce publishable research, often without assistants or dedicated time off. It’s no wonder they don’t climb the rankings.
Redirecting federal dollars to these schools could change that. With proper funding, religiously affiliated universities could recruit top talent, offer competitive salaries, and build the kind of robust academic infrastructure that supports research excellence.
More importantly, they could attract scholars of integrity from the silent pool of professors who still believe that education should be about seeking truth, not reinforcing ideology. There is an untapped reservoir of bright, principled academics who are quietly looking for a way out of the intellectual straitjacket that elite universities have become.
We used to teach civics. We used to celebrate the Constitution, venerate the founders, and study the ethical frameworks that built Western civilization. It’s time to return to those basics, not timorously but proudly. If elite schools have chosen a path that runs counter to the ideals of America, then let them go it alone. The American taxpayer shouldn’t have to foot the bill for their cultural self-loathing.
When asked by a passerby what sort of government the constitutional convention had formulated for the new nation, Benjamin Franklin memorably replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” If we want the next generation to understand and champion the principles that have made America a beacon of freedom, we must teach them accordingly. We cannot be content with defunding the institutions that are doing harm. We must be funding those that are doing good.
The writer is an assistant professor of political science at Touro University.