The University of Pennsylvania campus just wrapped up an eerily quiet semester.
In the year and change since the Trump administration’s attacks on university diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, Penn has been beset by MAGA extremists, weaponized federal agencies, and right-wing billionaire donors looking to execute a calculated purge of U.S. higher education.
The intimidation campaign is working. While protests have erupted across the country this year over the crises facing our nation, a faculty member says there hasn’t been a single protest on Penn’s campus.
At Penn, diversity websites were wiped overnight. Words like racism and minorities seemingly vanished from official university vocabulary, as did many political posters on campus. Teachers have been investigated, doxed, and threatened.
What’s happening at Penn isn’t isolated, but the college’s connections to Trump and his administration make it a useful blueprint for forcing U.S. universities to bend the knee.
As one targeted professor rightly warned: "It’s pure McCarthyism."
The New Republic was founded on the principles of the First Amendment. As the Trump administration wages war on academic freedom, we’re doing all we can to sound the alarm about this chilling culture of fear and censorship settling over U.S. universities.
But we need help from supporters like you to keep filling the void in speaking truth to power.
Donate today, before Trump’s designs create a generation living in cowed, terrified silence.
