Brown is just the latest major university to be threatened with the loss of federal funds by the Trump administration. But while the White House has not yet formally frozen Brown’s federal funding nor presented the University with a list of demands as conditions of restoring that funding, we can be certain that such a list will come and that it will likely resemble the demands presented to Columbia, Harvard and other universities. This will likely be partially justified under the pretense of protecting Jewish students from antisemitism.
There are at least two possible courses of action Brown might take in response. One is to submit to each demand in the fervent hope that the current masters of the federal purse will agree that the University has been sufficiently compliant. If this is done, the hope is that the tap would open and money would flow again to support our researchers, their laboratories and their staff and students. However, this money would now come with the understanding that the current federal government has established its right to control each and every aspect of University policy according to its political whims.
But there is another course: Brown could just say no.
The programs through which agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have funded research at American universities were established by Congress as a matter of law. The peer review systems by which research grants are allocated are also matters of law, and the role of the executive branch is to administer these systems. Constitutional law experts have argued that it is illegal to withdraw federal funds without first following strict procedural guidelines to evaluate any misbehavior on the part of the recipient. But, these scholars argue, the federal government threatened to withdraw funds from Columbia even though no court or federal agency has found that Columbia did anything wrong — and Columbia caved to their requests. If a similar case is to occur at Brown, complying with the Trump administration’s demands would be ceding to the executive branch a power that it does not have.
The most shameful aspect of this attack on Brown is the way it has been cloaked in the pretense of fighting back against antisemitism. Brown has a long history of peaceful protest, and student actions in response to both the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and the Israel-Hamas war were very much in the spirit of this tradition. As Forward, an independent Jewish newspaper, pointed out, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Brown last spring “was not plagued by the antisemitism, violence or arrests that have dominated headlines about schools including Columbia and the University of California (at) Los Angeles.” The University demonstrated leadership in supporting Jewish students and community members. Brown has further been praised for the peaceful and constructive way in which it brought the encampment to an end by allowing students to make their case directly to Brown’s governing Corporation.
As someone whose research was supported by federal funding for more than two decades, I fully understand what is at stake. The abrupt cancellation of grant support would devastate our research efforts, not to mention the financial hardship it would place on our graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and research staff. Therefore, the temptation to give in to the Trump administration’s potential demands is understandable. But I feel compelled to suggest: If not us, then who? Who will stand up and decry the unlawful tactic that holds scientific research hostage for political purposes, seeks to rob American universities of their independence and crush dissent and independent thought? Why shouldn’t Brown be confident in its legal position, take a stand against the Trump administration’s constitutional overreach and urge other universities to join us in halting this outrageous grab for power on the part of the executive branch of our government?
Kenneth Miller ’70 is an emeritus professor of biology. He can be reached at kenneth_miller@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
