The Dismantling

The Trump administration has announced a complete halt to NIH-funded research using human fetal tissue derived from elective abortions. The policy expands upon restrictions from Trump's first term—and this time, there are no exceptions.

Fetal tissue research isn't obscure or marginal. It's foundational to work on HIV, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and developmental disorders. Researchers have spent decades building expertise and infrastructure around these methods. That work is now frozen.

Some labs will pivot to alternative methods. Others will watch years of work become stranded assets. The chilling effect extends beyond terminated grants: who starts a five-year research program when the ground can shift at any moment?

The University of Texas at Austin is closing its Center for Teaching and Learning, the Office of Community Engagement, and the Office of Undergraduate Research. Provost William Inboden calls it "optimization." Faculty call it abandonment.

The Center for Teaching and Learning, in particular, was no bureaucratic backwater. It helped faculty redesign courses, adopt new pedagogies, and navigate the shift to online instruction during COVID. Its staff knew how teaching actually works—rare institutional knowledge that takes years to build.

"We've spent years building faculty development infrastructure. Now we're told it's overhead."

The timing raises questions. UT-Austin has been under intense political pressure since Texas banned DEI programs last year. These offices weren't DEI programs—but they were soft targets, places where "streamlining" wouldn't trigger obvious political backlash.

As a flagship public university, UT-Austin's moves ripple outward. If Austin can close its teaching center, so can El Paso. So can Lubbock. The permission structure is being established.

Students at Augsburg University and the University of Minnesota are learning new routes to class. Not shortcuts—but shadow routes, paths that keep them close to buildings, inside skyways, underground in tunnels. Routes that avoid the open quad where ICE officers have been spotted.

Thousands of immigration enforcement officers flooded Minnesota last month as part of a regional crackdown. The administration has made clear that college campuses are no longer "sensitive locations" deserving special consideration. The result is a geography of fear.

The psychological cost extends beyond undocumented students. International students with valid visas report constant anxiety. U.S. citizens who "look foreign" modify their behavior. The perception of danger, as one administrator put it, is everywhere.

What happens to a university when its students are afraid to walk outside?

Morris Brown College fired President Kevin James. Then, days later, the board voted to reinstate him. The reversal came with an acknowledgment that his termination hadn't followed proper contractual procedures—and a warning that "retaliation against whistleblowers would not be tolerated."

That last clause hints at drama the public hasn't fully seen. But whatever internal conflicts erupted, one thing is clear: alumni and stakeholders pushed back, hard, and the board blinked.

James's credentials are extraordinary. He led Morris Brown back from a twenty-year loss of accreditation—a feat many considered impossible. That accreditation, regained in 2022, represents everything: federal financial aid eligibility, enrollment stability, institutional legitimacy.

"You don't fire the person who brought you back from the dead without consequences."

The episode highlights a recurring tension at HBCUs: boards under external pressure, presidents with precarious mandates, and communities with very long memories. James is back. Whether he can govern effectively with a board that just tried to fire him remains to be seen.

Northwestern University has agreed to a deal with the Trump administration requiring "Open Debate" training—specifically for international students. The agreement also includes providing the government with applicant disciplinary records and their stated motivations for studying in the United States.

The implications are staggering. International students—and only international students—must now undergo ideological orientation as a condition of enrollment. The training content remains vague, but the targeting is explicit.

One hundred twenty countries send students to Northwestern. Each of those students must now weigh whether studying in America requires submitting to a program that treats their presence as a problem to be managed.

The Chronicle's new intelligence report on AI in higher education arrives with a shift in framing. The conversation has moved past "will students cheat?" to "how do institutions adapt?"

The report argues that 2026 is the year universities must formalize AI strategies—not as reactive policies, but as institutional frameworks. This means deciding what AI tools faculty can use, what students should learn, and how academic integrity definitions must evolve.

"Institutions still debating whether to engage with AI are already behind."

The timing is notable. As other stories this week show, universities are under assault from multiple directions—research funding cuts, office closures, immigration enforcement. AI strategy might seem like a luxury when survival is at stake.

But the report suggests the opposite: institutions that get AI integration right may be the ones with the resilience to weather everything else. Those that don't may find themselves optimizing processes that no longer exist.