US higher education wants less government interference

Administrators at Princeton, Yale and MIT, among others, are speaking out 'against the unprecedented government intrusion and political interference currently threatening American higher education'. The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) released a letter today signed by 170 institutions.

For months, the Trump administration has been trying to impose its demands on US educational institutions, such as eliminating diversity policies and barring foreign students who are 'hostile to American values'. If an institution does not accept these demands, its financial support will be suspended.

Harvard's president also signed the letter. He announced last week that he would not give in to President Donald Trump's long list of demands. The administration responded by freezing 2.2 billion dollar in federal grants. It added another billion over the weekend. Harvard is filing a lawsuit, its president said on Monday.

Columbia University has not signed the letter. Only last month, the government threatened to cut the prestigious university's funding by about 400 million dollar. To avoid this, Columbia quickly agreed to the government's demands.

But the 170 US institutions that signed the letter refuse to budge. They want to decide 'who they admit and what they teach'. They also demand open research and a free exchange of ideas.

The letter is unlikely to make much of an impression. The White House reacted with derision to Harvard's lawsuit.