The "shock and awe" military tactic is often used to describe the first few weeks of Donald Trump's second presidency. In warfare, its aim is to crush an adversary as quickly as possible, using firepower to which they cannot respond. The comparison is apt, both for the number of fronts opened simultaneously and for the use of intimidation as an instrument deemed legitimate by the new administration.

The assault on universities, seen as bastions of a reviled elite, is paying off. Threatened with cuts in federal funding, New York's Columbia University, the scene since March 2024 of the strongest student mobilizations against Israel's war in Gaza, gave in on March 21 to the Trump administration's demands for oversight of its operations. This unprecedented attack on academic freedom has elicited no large-scale reaction.

In an interview with the New York Times on March 7, influential conservative activist Christopher Rufo defended the federal government's instrumentalization of university funding to place universities in a situation of "existential terror." The most prestigious institutions are not the only ones concerned. In the state of Michigan alone, at least two are also threatened with budget cuts and a third is affected by cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which the new administration intends to eliminate.

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