President-elect Donald Trump has been busy setting agendas and nominating cabinet members to hit the ground running on Jan. 20. It is no surprise that he wants to get rid of the Department of Education, as this plan was laid out in the Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025.
What many don’t realize is that Trump plans to reform universities.
Certainly, there are many things that could be reformed at the university level. For instance, Trump could use his presidential power to lower tuition costs and help relieve student loan debt.
Trump is not going to do this and instead plans on attacking universities as so-called “Leftist accreditors” that allow what Trump calls “Marxist Madness” to dominate campuses.
As for me, I certainly don’t see our campus as dominated by so-called “Marxists.” So why am I concerned? The answer lies in what Trump’s definition of Marxism is.
His plan for his first 100 days, coined as Agenda 47 on his platform page, was taken from Project 2025.
In his Agenda 47, he mentions that he will enact standards that will “[defend] the American tradition, Western civilization, protecting free speech…removing all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats…”
He also proposes to direct the Department of Justice to target universities that “continue to engage in racial discrimination,” as stated on his platform website. One might think this is a good thing, and it sounds great until it’s revealed that he means perceived discrimination against white students.
Trump continues on the website, “And schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
For those who are unaware, a university endowment is a permanent fund of donations and investments that it uses to complete its educational goals. What Trump is proposing is that if a university is perceived as discriminating against white people when accepting students, that endowment will be taxed fully. This would be devastating for many schools.
Not only that, but that white person would be “compensated” for the perceived discrimination. Journalists like Ja’han Jones of MSNBC have called this out for what it is: reparations for white people.
The way I see it, not only could UNK be in danger of losing more money as a result of simply accepting students of different racial backgrounds, but it might also lose its accredited status.
I mentioned in a previous column that there would be battles ahead and that we would need to fight when they arrived. This is one such battle.
No such discrimination is actually happening here. That is not the point, however. All that needs to happen is for the Trump administration to claim that there is discrimination for the endowment to be taxed.
We’ve already faced terrible budget cuts, but the devastation losing accreditation would cause is immeasurable. UNK is already scraping the barrel to get by. If the endowments were to be taxed, they would need to cut more programs to stay afloat.
