Last Friday could have passed for a lovely spring day on the Connecticut campus of Wesleyan University. Students with books and laptops dotted a green hillside; flocks of admissions visitors trailed tour guides; baseball season had just begun, and practice was under way. It was almost possible to forget the grim straits of American higher education in 2025.
Colleges and universities have been early targets of the second Trump Administration. In the past month, the Administration has announced it will investigate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at more than fifty schools; cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from such institutions as Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania; and sought to deport international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Columbia received a letter from the federal government issuing demands—which included making changes to discipline and admission policies, and placing the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies under “academic receivership”—to be met as a “precondition” for negotiating the restoration of four hundred million dollars in federal funding. The university agreed to these demands the following week; the week after that, the university’s president resigned.
Columbia’s capitulation was in line with a general trend toward circumspection. The memory of Congress grilling university presidents in 2023 seems to be fresh among leaders in higher ed: few want to risk either their jobs or their budgets by saying the wrong thing. A handful of exceptions have stood out; for example, President Christopher Eisgruber, of Princeton, who wrote a piece for The Atlantic about “The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia.” (This week, the Administration suspended dozens of grants to Princeton.) But perhaps none has been as voluble or persistent as Michael Roth, who has been president of Wesleyan since 2007.
Roth is a historian and a Wesleyan alumnus who, as an undergraduate, designed a major in the history of psychological theory. His scholarship has dealt with Freud and memory but also colleges as institutions, in books such as “Safe Enough Spaces” (2019) and “The Student: A Short History” (2023). Recent years have brought an increasingly political thrust to both his writing (for national media and his presidential blog) and to his work as president. In 2023, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action, Wesleyan ended legacy admissions.
When Wesleyan students joined the national wave of protests over the war on Gaza, Roth—who describes himself as a supporter of both free speech and Israel’s right to exist—tangled with student protesters as well as with those who wanted him to shut the protests down. Meanwhile, in interviews and essays, he took administrators at other colleges to task for embracing the principles like those found in the “Kalven report”—a 1967 document out of the University of Chicago, which advanced the argument that universities should almost always remain scrupulously neutral. (Such stances were, he told me, “a cover for trying to stay out of trouble.”) As the Trump Administration has ramped up its attacks on the academy, Roth has continued to publish widely, urging fellow-leaders to stand up for their principles. “Release Mahmoud Khalil! Respect freedom of speech!” he concluded in a recent column for Slate, which argued that the Columbia activist’s arrest “should terrify every college president.”
Roth and I met in his office, which is dominated by a round table where he meets with both students and his cabinet. Wearing Blundstones and polka-dot socks, he was loose-limbed and gregarious, and our conversation (which has been edited for length and clarity) was punctuated by the bright sound of batting from the baseball diamond just outside.
You wrote last year, before the election, that colleges and universities weren’t ready for what was coming. How has the reality compared to your expectations?
It’s much worse than I expected.
I had this idea—alas, it was in 2020, just as COVID was happening—that it would be great if colleges and universities took our civic responsibilities more seriously and really incentivized students to participate in the public sphere: work on a campaign, zoning commission, whatever. Rigorously agnostic about what they chose to work on. We found a few hundred schools that agreed in principle and we created a network. Before the 2024 election, we reactivated that group, and this time around, the institutions were much less likely to want to be publicly in support of even something so nonpartisan.
We’re really small—three thousand students or so—and I wanted University of Texas at Austin, and Michigan, other big places. Some of them did agree in principle, but this time, in 2024—in the spring, let’s say, when Biden was still in the race, it was clear Trump was going to be the candidate—the reticence of academic leaders was already apparent.
Last year, we ran a program called Democracy 2024. We brought people here—nice conference, all that stuff. And even a group of presidents that I helped put together for this purpose, they started talking more about “dialogue across difference” than participation in the electoral system.
Everybody’s in favor of not fighting and having better dialogues, and I am, too. But I’m more in favor of people working on campaigns and learning about issues and getting things done. And in the last two months, it’s become painfully apparent that wanting to have nice conversations is not going to stop people who are bent on authoritarianism. Right now, I’m not sure what will stop them, except successful court challenges, and even that seems precarious.
Watching the video of this poor woman at Tufts who was abducted by federal agents —I wrote my blog today about that. I think the government is spreading terror, and that’s what they mean to do. This kid isn’t a threat to security.
It’s a terrifying video.
I wrote to the president of Tufts—who I know, because we’re in the same athletic conference—and just said, “Is there anything you want anyone to do?” He said, “Thank you for writing.” And I don’t know his business. I’m sure he’s trying to help the student; that’s his responsibility, and I respect that. But I also think every citizen, but certainly every university person, should be expressing outrage.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about how we wound up here. Are there choices that universities have made that have made them more vulnerable to attack?
I try to think about that without blaming the victim, because right now the story for me is that the government is abusing its powers by making war against civil society. That’s the song I’ve been singing—because you may not like universities, but you probably like churches or synagogues. But I have also been thinking about how universities can be less vulnerable in the long run. I’ve been arguing for almost a decade about the intellectual and political insularity of especially highly selective colleges and universities, and that we need more intellectual diversity at these places. I wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal [in 2017], about affirmative action for conservatives, which annoyed everyone—which makes it a good op-ed, I guess.
I teach a course, “The Modern and the Postmodern.” It’s not really about conservatism, but I have added conservative critiques of some of the modernists that I talk about. I teach a course on virtue and vice in history, philosophy, and literature, and I have added conservative critiques of the liberal assumptions that almost all my students share. And it’s interesting to see how they react—they’re shocked by these critiques, in ways they’re not shocked by, I don’t know, Bolshevism or violent anti-colonial revolutionary rhetoric. And I point that out. So we talk, and they’re perfectly able to deal with it. I’m not trying to convince them that these guys are right or anything; just that it’s interesting to think about.
We have to be less insular, less parochial, and being politically more diverse is part of that. Also, at the fancy places—like Wesleyan and Ivy League schools and others, a small percentage of schools in the country—I do think it would not be unfair to say we’ve bred a kind of condescension. When you define the quality of your institution by how many people you reject, you can create—unintentionally—an attitude of “I’ve earned my superiority.”
Trump and his allies have found a way to tar all of the sector with the brush of the Ivy League. They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university. But higher education serves so many more people in so many different ways than the places that are highly selective.
What do you make of the fact that the conflict over Israel and Palestine has become the pretext for the current crackdown?
I think anti-antisemitism is a very useful tool for the right. Many others have noted how comfortable these same people who are cracking down on antisemitism are with Nazis—real, frighteningly confident antisemites. But it’s a useful tool, because so many people in the liberal-to-progressive, educated coalition are divided about it, and it’s generational.
Anti-antisemitism can be appropriated by any political movement. They can use that as a vehicle for persecuting researchers and institutions that are not aligned with the ideology of the person in charge. It’s to show that you control them.
You have prominent Jewish figures around the country who get comfortable with Trump, it seems to me, because they can say he’s fighting antisemitism: “He’s good for the Jews.” It’s pathetic. It’s a travesty of Jewish values, in my view.
Over the last couple of months, many leaders of colleges and universities haven’t spoken out against the Trump Administration’s attack on higher education. You’ve been pretty vocal. What do you think has made that possible?
I have, for many years, spoken my mind in ways that are clearly fallible. I’ve had to apologize. My communications office, when I said I wanted to do blogging, thought it was a bad idea. I think it’s important to participate. And then to say, “Oh, shit, I made a mistake.” “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.” “Yes, I should say this.” It’s not perfect—no conversation is.
I think my job as a leader of the university is to speak up for the values that we claim to believe in, especially when they’re at odds with people with enormous power. So I think I’m speaking now because I’ve been speaking.
My board is very supportive. My board teases me that I threaten to quit a lot. I don’t think I do, but they say I do, so they’re probably right. In November, after the election, I said, “If you want a president who’s not going to speak up, you have to find another president.” One of my friends on the board said, “Why did you do that? You don’t have to threaten to quit. Everybody wants you to stay.” I said, “I didn’t threaten to quit! It’s just a fact!” I’m more combative than I want to be, and I’m not looking for a fight, but I do feel that when people are getting really pushed around, in horrible ways, that someone who is at a university and has a platform and can call an editor—we should try.
I actually thought other people would speak out. Because the missions are at stake. Even the Kalven people—when the mission’s at stake, you’re supposed to speak out.
Someone on the faculty at Columbia who works in the administration asked me to put together a group of presidents. I was unable to. I wrote something quickly for people to sign, and one of the people I contacted said to me, “Are you sure the president at Columbia wants you to?” I said, “I’m not sure.”
Tell me about the kinds of conversations you’ve been having with fellow-presidents. What’s your sense of the internal debates they’re having?
Presidents—we’re not usually honest with each other. It’s just the nature of the job. You’re always trying to put your institution in the best possible light. I always joke that I see a president I haven’t seen in a few years, and he used to have two arms and now only has one —“What the hell happened, Charlie?” “Oh, I hated that arm! I feel so much freer!”
I don’t go to a lot of presidential gatherings, but I go to a couple. I was at one, and this guy came to me and said, “You know, you make me feel like a coward.” I said, “I’m sorry, that’s not really what my intention is.” But he said he’s at a public university—he was going to the state legislature two days later. He said, “They’re not going to let me have any diversity stuff in the university.” I said, “Well, you can quit.” He said, “And what good would that do?” So, I’m lucky—I have a board that likes the work we do. I have an incredible team of vice-presidents and a wonderful faculty, and they’re supportive. But I don’t understand. Because I know some presidents—many of them are a lot smarter than I am. I’m sure they can write well. I don’t understand.
People have said to me, “Well, you take all that money from the government, why don’t you listen to them?” The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath. And that has served the country so well because Americans and various governments we’ve had recognized that it’s better for the country if people can practice freedom. The government’s not going to tell you how to run your business. It starts with universities, because universities are this object of resentment and this kind of weird charisma, negative and positive. It starts with that, but it could very easily go into these other aspects of this culture that, again, depend on the government.
I don’t have to agree with the mayor to get the fire department to come put out a fire. And that’s what they’re saying to these international students: “Well, you came to this country. What makes you think you can write an op-ed in the newspaper?” Well, what makes you think that is, this is a free country. As I say that, I can hear my leftist friends: “Oh, yeah, it’s never been free.” It’s never been totally free, but freedoms haven’t been as threatened as they are now since World War One. I’m confident of that. Universities are part of a sector of our culture that is worth preserving, from the Kennedy Center to magazines to churches. Autonomy of these different areas, even if they’re entangled economically with the government or with rich people, is so important. I can’t believe that I have to say these things out loud; it’s so obvious.
What are you doing right now at Wesleyan? What kinds of plans are you putting in place to protect your school?
We’re making sure that we are not wasting a dollar, so that we can have monies available should we need them. It could be because of the endowment tax—which is really an ideological, punitive thing. That would have an impact on us—our financial-aid program is supported by the endowment. We’re preparing scenarios for the endowment tax, for cuts to the scientists and other things. I’ve talked to schools about creating a legal-defense fund, but I don’t know—that’s a relatively new idea. I’ve talked to a group of faculty at Yale about that.
How much federal funding does Wesleyan get?
About twenty million. A good chunk of that is student loans that are guaranteed, and then the rest is grants to scientists and others. Right now, we have N.I.H, N.S.F. We have graduate programs in the sciences, so we are unlike most other liberal-arts colleges.
The scale of our budget is three hundred million, let’s say, annually. So it’s real; it’s an important part of the budget. People use the word “existential”—it’s not. It would change the dynamic we have.
What kinds of concerns are you hearing from students?
International students are very afraid to travel. The idea that somebody would take your phone and look at all the images and find an image they didn’t like is very frightening. International faculty, too—we have faculty who are here, of course, legally, and working for the university either as permanent residents or on visas. Then we have a lot of faculty who travel for research, and go to scientific meetings, or are doing work in archives around the world. And I think all of them are nervous about this use of the border in an ideological way. As I say that out loud, I can hear many of my colleagues on the left saying, “Duh! We’ve been using the border in an ideological way forever.” And that’s true—in a certain way, borders are a product of ideology. But saying “This isn’t different than five years ago” would be, for me, like putting your head in the sand. To use the tools of the government to make people align ideologically is really different—and, I think, would offend the values that many conservative Americans have. I did the Charlie Sykes podcast, and I’m trying to get some other more conservative people to have me on, so I can talk about these things in ways that aren’t just for the faculty at liberal-arts colleges.
What would you do if ICE agents showed up at Wesleyan? Do you have a plan in place?
We are making sure that our students, faculty, and staff know their rights, as people who live in the U.S. and are owed due process. The university would ask any federal agents to check in with the Office of Public Safety—that’s the campus police. They would need to have judicial warrants. [Mahmoud Khalil has said that the agents who arrested him refused to produce a warrant.] We would want to make sure government officials are following the law. We will protect people who are on our private property from people who want to constrain their freedom. We’d offer whatever legal assistance we can.
We’re not going to obstruct the work of legally authorized officials—we want to make sure that they are, in fact, legally authorized.
In your scholarly work, you focus on the ways people grapple with the past—the psychology of history. How does that inflect your work as president, especially now?
Scapegoating and the creation of categories of people you can hate on and abuse is a fundamental aspect of human societies, and one should really pay attention to the dynamic in which that process takes place. That definitely comes out of my work on Freud—and, in a weird way, René Girard, who’s anti-Freudian, but there’s a lot in common. An appreciation for the ways in which animosity can spring forth in brutal forms, especially when it’s been repressed—that’s something I’ve tried to stay aware of.
I wrote a lot about Freud over the years, and for me, the most important concept in Freud is the transference, and how sometimes we treat people as if they were other people from our pasts. Famously, the analyst is transformed into the parents and other things. I think that that happens a lot in my job. It happens as a teacher all the time. And as president, oy. It’s really big time. People were like, “Why don’t you end the war in Gaza?” last year—they just want someone to be able to do the things they desire. They didn’t have that relationship to Biden or the Secretary of State; it was me, I was in charge of the university. You know, so, they give me credit for things that I don’t deserve and they blame me for things I don’t think I deserve the blame for, and that’s just part of the deal.
I didn’t see that before. I didn’t care so much about the president when I was a student. I loved my teachers—I mean, I had massive transference for my teachers. But the president, these days, has more symbolic importance than I expected. ♦
