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Friday, May 16, 2025
Moolenaar, Walberg Call on Duke to Terminate China-Based Campus Over National Security Risks (House Select Committee on China)
Friday, July 11, 2025
“You Don’t Need a Tariff. You Need a Revolution”: A Viral Wake-Up Call—Or CCP Propaganda?
In a clip that’s rapidly gone viral among both left-leaning critics of neoliberalism and right-wing populists, a young Chinese TikTok influencer delivers a searing indictment of American economic decline. Fluent in English and confident in tone, the speaker lays bare what many struggling Americans already feel: that they’ve been conned by their own elites.
“They robbed you blind and you thank them for it. That’s a tragedy. That’s a scam,” the young man declares, addressing the American people directly.
The video, played and discussed on Judging Freedom with Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer, has sparked praise—and suspicion. While the message resonates with a growing number of Americans disillusioned by the bipartisan political establishment, some are asking: Who is behind this message?
A Sharp Critique of American Oligarchy
In his 90-second monologue, the influencer claims U.S. oligarchs offshored manufacturing to China for profit—not diplomacy—gutting the middle class, crashing the working class, and leaving Americans with stagnating wages, unaffordable healthcare, mass addiction, and what he calls “flag-waving poverty made in China.” Meanwhile, he says, China reinvested its profits into its people, raising living standards and building infrastructure.
“What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, and mansions… You get stagnated wages, crippling healthcare costs, cheap dopamine, debt, and flag-waving poverty made in China.”
He ends with a provocative call: “You don’t need another tariff. You need to wake up… You need a revolution.”
It’s a blistering populist critique—and one that finds unexpected agreement from Mearsheimer, who said on the show, “I basically agree with him. I think he’s correct.”
A Message That Cuts Across Party Lines
The critique echoes themes found in Donald Trump’s early campaign rhetoric, as well as long-standing leftist arguments about neoliberal betrayal, corporate offshoring, and elite impunity. It’s the kind of message that unites the American underclass in its many forms—service workers, laid-off factory employees, disillusioned veterans, and student debtors alike.
Mearsheimer went on to argue that the U.S. national security establishment itself was compromised—that its consultants and former officials had deep financial ties to China, making them unwilling to confront the geopolitical risks of China’s rise. According to him, elites were more invested in their own gain than in the national interest.
But that raises an even more complicated question.
Is This an Authentic Voice—or a CCP Production?
The most provocative—and potentially overlooked—aspect of this story is the medium itself: TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a company under heavy scrutiny for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Could this slick, emotionally resonant video be part of a broader soft-power campaign?
The Chinese government has invested heavily in media operations that shape global narratives. While the content of the message may be factually accurate or emotionally true for many Americans, it’s not hard to imagine the CCP welcoming—if not engineering—videos that sow further division and distrust within the United States.
The video’s flawless production, powerful rhetoric, and clever framing—presenting China as the responsible partner and the U.S. as self-destructive—align closely with Beijing’s global messaging. Add to this the timing, with U.S.-China tensions running high over tariffs, Taiwan, and global power shifts, and the question becomes unavoidable:
Is this sincere grassroots criticism… or a polished psychological operation?
The answer may be both. It’s entirely possible that the young man believes everything he’s saying. But it’s also likely that content like this is algorithmically favored—or even quietly encouraged—by a platform closely tied to a government with every incentive to highlight American decline.
Weaponized Truth?
This is not a new tactic. During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the USSR employed truth-tellers and defectors to criticize their adversaries. But in today's digital landscape, the boundaries between propaganda, whistleblowing, and legitimate dissent are more porous than ever.
The Higher Education Inquirer has reported extensively on how American elites—across both political parties—have betrayed working people, including within the halls of higher education. That doesn’t mean we should ignore where a message comes from, or what strategic purpose it might serve.
The danger is not just foreign interference. The greater danger may be that such foreign-origin messages ring so true for so many Americans.
A Closing Thought: Listen Carefully, Then Ask Why
The influencer says:
“You let the oligarchs feed your lies while they made you fat, poor, and addicted… I don’t think you need another tariff. You need to wake up.”
He’s not wrong to say Americans have been exploited. But if the message is being boosted by a rival authoritarian state, it’s worth asking why.
America’s problems are real. Its discontent is justified. But as in all revolutions, the question is not only what we’re overthrowing—but what might take its place.
Sources:
Judging Freedom – Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer
TikTok (ByteDance) ownership and CCP ties – Reuters, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal
The Higher Education Inquirer archives on student debt, adjunct labor, and corporate-academic complicity
Pew Research Center – Views of China, U.S. Public Opinion
Congressional hearings on TikTok and national security, 2023–2024
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
China Select Committee Launches AI Campaign with Legislation to Block CCP-Linked AI from U.S. Government Use
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June 25, 2025
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the House Select Committee on the China opens its landmark hearing, “Authoritarians and Algorithms: Why U.S. AI Must Lead,” Committee leaders are unveiling new bipartisan legislation to confront the CCP’s growing exploitation of artificial intelligence.
Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) today announced the House introduction of the “No Adversarial AI Act”— bipartisan legislation also being championed in the Senate by Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Gary Peters (D-MI). The bill would prohibit U.S. executive agencies from acquiring or using artificial intelligence developed by companies tied to foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party. The House legislation is cosponsored by a bipartisan group of Select Committee members, including Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Darin LaHood (R-IL).
“We are in a new Cold War—and AI is the strategic technology at the center,” said Chairman Moolenaar. “The CCP doesn’t innovate—it steals, scales, and subverts. From IP theft and chip smuggling to embedding AI in surveillance and military platforms, the Chinese Communist Party is racing to weaponize this technology. We must draw a clear line: U.S. government systems cannot be powered by tools built to serve authoritarian interests.”
What the No Adversarial AI Act Does:
- Creates a public list of AI systems developed by foreign adversaries, maintained and updated by the Federal Acquisition Security Council.
- Prohibits executive agencies from acquiring or using adversary-developed AI—except in narrow cases such as research, counterterrorism, or mission-critical needs.
- Establishes a delisting process for companies that can demonstrate they are free from foreign adversary control or influence.
“Artificial intelligence controlled by foreign adversaries poses a direct threat to our national security, our data, and our government operations,” said Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi. “We cannot allow hostile regimes to embed their code in our most sensitive systems. This bipartisan legislation will create a clear firewall between foreign adversary AI and the U.S. government, protecting our institutions and the American people. Chinese, Russian, and other adversary AI systems simply do not belong on government devices, and certainly shouldn’t be entrusted with government data.”
Senator Rick Scott said, “The Communist Chinese regime will use any means necessary to spy, steal, and undermine the United States, and as AI technology advances, we must do more to protect our national security and stop adversarial regimes from using technology against us. With clear evidence that China can have access to U.S. user data on AI systems, it’s absolutely insane for our own federal agencies to be using these dangerous platforms and subject our government to Beijing’s control. Our No Adversarial AI Act will stop this direct threat to our national security and keep the American government’s sensitive data out of enemy hands.”
The legislation marks a major action in the Select Committee’s AI campaign, which aims to secure U.S. AI supply chains, enforce robust export controls, and ensure American innovation does not fuel authoritarian surveillance or military systems abroad.
Today’s hearing and legislation continues the series of new proposals and messaging the Committee will roll out this summer to confront the CCP’s exploitation of U.S. innovation and prevent American technology from fueling Beijing’s AI ambitions.
Friday, December 19, 2025
HybriU: A Cloaked Threat in U.S. Higher Ed That the House Committee on the CCP Has Ignored
[Editor's note: The Higher Education Inquirer has attempted to contact the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party a number of times regarding our extensive investigation of Ambow Education and HybriU. As of this posting, we have never received a response.]
In the evolving landscape of U.S. higher education, one emerging force has attracted growing concern from the Higher Education Inquirer but remarkably little attention from policymakers: Ambow Education’s HybriU platform. Marketed as a next-generation AI-powered “phygital” learning solution designed to merge online and in-person instruction, HybriU raises serious questions about academic credibility, data governance, and foreign influence. Yet it has remained largely outside the scope of inquiry by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Ambow Education has long operated in opaque corners of the for-profit higher education world. Headquartered in the Cayman Islands with a U.S. presence in Cupertino, California, the company’s governance and leadership history are tangled and controversial.
Under CEO and Board Chair Jin Huang, Ambow has repeatedly survived regulatory and institutional crises, prompting the HEI to liken her to “Harry Houdini” for her ability to evade sustained accountability even as schools under Ambow’s control deteriorated. Huang has at times held multiple executive and board roles simultaneously, a concentration of authority that has raised persistent governance concerns. Questions surrounding her academic credentials have also lingered, with no publicly verifiable evidence confirming completion of the doctoral degree she claims.
Ambow’s U.S. footprint includes Bay State College in Boston, which was fined by the Massachusetts Attorney General for deceptive marketing and closed in 2023 after losing accreditation, and the NewSchool of Architecture and Design in San Diego, which continues to operate under financial strain, low enrollment, leadership instability, and federal Heightened Cash Monitoring. These institutional failures form the backdrop against which HybriU is now being promoted as Ambow’s technological reinvention.
Introduced in 2024, HybriU is marketed as an AI-integrated hybrid learning ecosystem combining immersive digital environments, classroom analytics, and global connectivity into a unified platform. Ambow claims the HybriU Global Learning Network will allow U.S. institutions to expand enrollment by connecting international students to hybrid classrooms without traditional visa pathways. Yet independent reporting has found little publicly verifiable evidence of meaningful adoption at major U.S. universities, demonstrated learning outcomes, or independent assessments of HybriU’s educational value, cybersecurity posture, or data governance practices. Much of the platform’s public presentation relies on aspirational language, promotional imagery, and forward-looking statements rather than demonstrable results.
Compounding these concerns is Ambow’s extreme financial fragility. The company’s market capitalization currently stands at approximately US$9.54 million, placing it below the US$10 million threshold widely regarded by investors as a major risk category. Companies at this scale are often lightly scrutinized, thinly traded, and highly vulnerable to operational disruption. Ambow’s share price has also been highly volatile, with an average weekly price change of roughly 22 percent over the past three months, signaling instability and speculative trading rather than confidence in long-term fundamentals. For a company pitching itself as a provider of mission-critical educational infrastructure, such volatility raises serious questions about continuity, vendor risk, and institutional exposure should the company falter or fail.
Ambow’s own financial disclosures report modest HybriU revenues and cite partnerships with institutions such as Colorado State University and the University of the West. However, the terms, scope, and safeguards associated with these relationships have not been publicly disclosed or independently validated. At the same time, Ambow’s reported research and development spending remains minimal relative to its technological claims, reinforcing concerns that HybriU may be more marketing construct than mature platform.
The risks posed by HybriU extend beyond performance and balance sheets. Ambow’s corporate structure, leadership history, and prior disclosures acknowledging Chinese influence in earlier filings raise unresolved governance and jurisdictional questions. While the company asserts it divested its China-based education operations in 2022, executive ties, auditing arrangements, and opaque ownership structures remain. When a platform seeks deep integration into classroom systems, student engagement tools, and institutional data flows, opacity combined with financial fragility becomes a systemic risk rather than a marginal one.
This risk is heightened by the current political environment. With the Trump Administration signaling a softer, more transactional posture toward the CCP—particularly in areas involving business interests, deregulation, and foreign capital—platforms like HybriU may face even less scrutiny going forward. While rhetorical concern about China persists, enforcement priorities appear selective, and ed-tech platforms embedded quietly into academic infrastructure may escape meaningful oversight altogether.
Despite its mandate to investigate CCP influence across U.S. institutions, the House Select Committee on the CCP has not publicly examined Ambow Education or HybriU. There has been no hearing, subpoena, or formal inquiry into the platform’s governance, data practices, financial viability, or long-term risks. This silence reflects a broader blind spot: influence in higher education increasingly arrives not through visible programs or exchanges, but through software platforms and digital infrastructure that operate beneath the political radar.
For colleges and universities considering partnerships with HybriU, the implications are clear. Institutions must treat Ambow not merely as a technology vendor but as a financially fragile, opaque, and lightly scrutinized actor seeking deep integration into core academic systems. Independent audits, transparent governance disclosures, enforceable data-ownership guarantees, and contingency planning for vendor failure are not optional—they are essential.
Education deserves transparency, stability, and accountability, not hype layered atop risk. And oversight bodies charged with protecting U.S. institutions must recognize that the future of influence and vulnerability in higher education may be written not in classrooms, but in code, contracts, and balance sheets.
Sources
Higher Education Inquirer, “Jin Huang, Higher Education’s Harry Houdini” (August 2025)
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/08/jin-huang-higher-educations-harry.html
Higher Education Inquirer, “Ambow Education Continues to Fish in Murky Waters” (January 2025)
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/01/ambow-education-continues-to-fish-in.html
Higher Education Inquirer, “Smoke, Mirrors, and the HybriU Hustle: Ambow’s Global Learning Pitch Raises Red Flags” (July 2025)
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/07/smoke-mirrors-and-hybriu-hustle-ambows.html
Ambow Education, 2024–2025 Annual and Interim Financial Reports
https://www.ambow.com
Market capitalization and volatility data, publicly available market analytics
Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, Bay State College settlement
U.S. Department of Education, Heightened Cash Monitoring disclosures
House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, mandate and public hearings
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Ambow Education Pushes AI Agenda Abroad While Raising Red Flags in the U.S.
Ambow Education, once linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is aggressively exporting its AI-driven education platform, HybriU™, to global markets—even as its footprint in the United States remains small and opaque. The company’s international ambitions raise questions about transparency, governance, and potential political influence.
Ambow’s recent partnership with Bamboo System Technology aims to scale HybriU’s AI-education ecosystem across Southeast Asia, touting a deeper technology stack and expanded distribution. Yet outside China, Ambow’s record is spotty, and critics warn that the firm’s rapid expansion may outpace oversight or educational rigor.
In the U.S., Ambow reportedly explored a partnership with Colorado State University (CSU), though details remain murky. Engagements like these, combined with its involvement with specialized institutions such as the NewSchool of Architecture and Design, suggest a strategy of targeting schools where oversight may be limited and innovation promises can be oversold.
That strategy has already seen major fallout. Bay State College, which Ambow once owned, officially closed its doors in 2024 after years of financial instability, regulatory scrutiny, and declining enrollment. The college’s demise, following Ambow’s acquisition and subsequent divestment, underscores the risks faced by institutions entangled with opaque foreign education firms that promise modernization but deliver financial collapse.
Despite these global ambitions, Ambow’s American presence is modest: a small office tucked in Cupertino, California, suggesting the company may be testing the waters in the U.S. market rather than committing to a major operational footprint.
Recent corporate moves add to the uncertainty. In October 2025, Ambow filed a stock offering for up to $80 million, a move that could significantly dilute existing shareholders and raise questions about its capital needs, liquidity, and long-term strategy. While the offering may be designed to fund global expansion of HybriU™, analysts have noted the lack of clear financial disclosures and the company’s history of volatile performance.
Promotional efforts also raise eyebrows. Former Adtalem executive James Bartholomew has been enlisted to boost Ambow’s profile, but whether his role is purely marketing or part of a broader legitimacy campaign remains unclear.
For U.S. institutions, Ambow’s history—including prior CCP ties, the collapse of Bay State College, and its aggressive share issuance—presents a cautionary tale: a company that combines ambitious AI promises with a murky past and minimal transparency. Ambow’s expansion illustrates a growing challenge in higher education—navigating partnerships with foreign edtech firms while safeguarding institutional integrity, regulatory compliance, and academic quality.
Sources: Ambow Education press releases, SEC filings, Bamboo System Technology announcements, Higher Education Inquirer reporting, and U.S. Department of Education data.
Sunday, June 22, 2025
House Select Committee Seeks Answers to Chinese Communist Party -Linked Bioagent Smuggling at the University of Michigan
WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Chairman Moolenaar of the Select Committee on China, Chairman Walberg of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Chairman Babin of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology sent two letters investigating the potential agroterrorism incident in Michigan earlier this month.
The first urges the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation to review grants awarded to two University of Michigan professors whose labs hosted Chinese nationals recently charged by the Department of Justice with smuggling biological materials.
"The Committees found that Jian and Liu conducted research under the supervision of, or in concert with, UM professors funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is our position that Chinese researchers tied to the PRC defense research and industrial base have no business participating in U.S. taxpayer-funded research with clear national security implications—especially those related to dangerous biological materials," says the first letter.
The letter reveals that the Chinese nationals were tied to professors who received approximately $9.6 million in federal research funding.
The second requests information directly from the University of Michigan regarding its oversight, compliance practices, and any internal reviews related to those individuals. It comes after previous research security concerns were raised regarding the university's relationships to the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Earlier this year, the university announced it had closed its joint institute with Shanghai Jiao Tong University following a letter from Chairman Moolenaar that outlined the school's ties to Chinese military modernization efforts.
"We are deeply alarmed about recent reports and related criminal charges involving Chinese nationals with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allegedly smuggling dangerous biological materials into the United States for use at UM laboratories," the letter writes. "Given the recent criminal charges within the span of a week, the Committees have respectfully urged the NIH and NSF to initiate a full review of any grants related to these incidents. To support this effort, we request that UM produce all documents and records of any due diligence, investigations, or other reviews—conducted by or on behalf of UM—concerning conflicts of interest or commitment involving any UM faculty, researchers, or individuals granted access to UM facilities."
The letters were signed by twenty-five Members of Congress from the three committees.
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
What would a second Trump administration mean for higher education? Summing up Project 2025 (Bryan Alexander)
We’ve been exploring this question over the past year, including months of reading, analysis, reflection, and conversation about Project 2025 might mean for higher education. Today I’d like to sum up what we found.
The book, Mandate for Leadership, addresses academia directly on multiple levels. I’ll break them down here. The implications for the broader society within which colleges and universities exist – that’s a subject for another post.
I’ve organized the various ideas and threads into several headers: the Department of Education, higher education economics, international education and research, research supported and opposed, military connections, sex education, and anti-intellectualism.
Higher education and the Department of Education Many accounts of Project 2025’s educational impact draw attention to its attack on the Department of Education, which makes sense, since this is where the document focuses its academic attention. to begin with, Mandate for Leadership wants to break up the DoE and distribute its functions to other federal units. For example, the work the Office for Postsecondary Education (OPE) does would move to the Department of Labor, while “programs deemed important to our national security interests [shift] to the Department of State.” (327).
It would revise the student loan system to a degree. “Federal loans would be assigned directly to the Treasury Department, which would manage collections and defaults.” (327-330) Income-based repayment schemes would continue, but with restrictions. (337-8) Project 2025 would end the Biden team’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, along with “time-based and occupation-based student loan forgiveness” plans. (361) More ambitiously, the new government could just privatize loans. (353)
The chapter’s author also calls for “rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory” in the department or through its successor units. (322) This might also proceed via changes to one law, as a new secretary would “[w]ork with Congress to amend Title IX to include due process requirements; define “sex” under Title IX to mean only biological sex recognized at birth; and strengthen protections for faith-based educational institutions, programs, and activities.” (333) This culture war move could have another legal feature, given the call to amend FERPA in order to make it easier for college students to sue the government for privacy violations, in response to school support of transgender and nonbinary students. (344-346)
The obverse of these moves is having the new DoE or its replacements “promulgat[ing] a new regulation to require the Secretary of Education to allocate at least 40 percent of funding to international business programs that teach about free markets and economics.” Additionally, the government would “require institutions, faculty, and fellowship recipients to certify that they intend to further the stated statutory goals of serving American interests,” although it’s unclear what that would mean in practice. (356)
This section’s author, Lindsay Burke, also wants the next administration to change its relationship with post-secondary accreditors. She supports Florida’s new policy of requiring public universities to cycle through accrediting agencies. (332) Burke also wants to encourage new accreditors to start up. (355) Her chapter further calls for a new administration to prevent accreditation agencies from advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work on campuses. (352)
The economics of higher education The Department of Education chapter would see a revamped Department of Education or its successors “[r]equir[ing]… ‘skin in the game’ from colleges to help hold them accountable for loan repayment.” (341) I can’t see how this would work in detail. Her new federal administration would also reduce funding to academic research by cutting reimbursement for indirect costs. (355)
That section also wants to reduce the labor market’s demand for post-secondary degrees. Under the header “Minimize bachelor’s degree requirements” we find: “The President should issue an executive order stating that a college degree shall not be required for any federal job unless the requirements of the job specifically demand it.” (357). Later on in the book, the Department of Labor section section also calls on Congress to end college degree requirements for federal positions. (597) That chapter wants to boost apprenticeships, mostly likely in competition with college and university study. (594-5)
International research and education. Cutting down immigration is a major Project 2025 theme, and the book does connect this to academia. It calls out international students like so:
ICE should end its current cozy deference to educational institutions and remove security risks from the program. This requires working with the Department of State to eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations. (141)
First, this would impact many would-be students’ careers. Second, implementing such a policy would likely depress international student interest.
Project 2025 consistently focuses on China as America’s enemy, and this means it wants United States higher education to decouple from that adversary or else face consequences. For example, the introduction warns that “[u]niversities taking money from the CCP should lose their accreditation, charters, and eligibility for federal funds.” Later in the text is some language about the government and universities supporting American but not Chinese research and development. (100) Another section sees “research institutions and academia” playing a role in Cold War 2.0:
Corporate America, technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing, educated partners in this generational fight to protect our national security interests, economic interests, national sovereignty, and intellectual property as well as the broader rules-based order—all while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists and investors who ignore the China threat and increasingly dominate the corporate world. (emphases added; 218)
Later on, the Department of Justice discussion offers this recommendation:
key goals for the China Initiative that included development of an enforcement strategy concerning researchers in labs and universities who were being coopted into stealing critical U.S. technologies, identification of opportunities to address supply-chain threats more effectively, and education of colleges and universities about potential threats from Chinese influence efforts on campus. (556)
This seems to describe increased DoJ scrutiny over colleges and universities. I’m not sure what “education… about potential threats” means, although I suspect it might include pressure on academics.
The Department of Commerce section wants to “[t]ighten… the definition of ‘fundamental research’ to address exploitation of the open U.S. university system by authoritarian governments through funding, students and researchers, and recruitment” (673) More succinctly, that chapter calls for strategic decoupling from China (670, 674). We can imagine a new federal administration – along with, perhaps, state governments, businesses, nonprofits, and foundations – asking academia to play its role in that great separation. One of the trade policy chapters broods about how “more than 300,000 Communist Chinese nationals attend U.S. universities” and it’s hard not to see this as a call for reducing that number. (785)
That chapter’s author, Peter Navarro, condemns one leading American university for allegedly enabling Chinese power:
Huawei, well-known within the American intelligence community as an instrument of Chinese military espionage, has partnered with the University of California–Berkeley on research that focuses on artificial intelligence and related areas such as deep learning, reinforcement learning, machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision, all of which have important future military applications.28 In this way, UC–Berkeley, whether unwittingly or wittingly, helps to boost Communist China’s capabilities and quest for military dominance. (785-6)
I can’t help but read this as a call for federal scrutiny of academic international partnerships, with sanctions in the wings.
Project 2025 looks at other regions of the globe and wants higher education to help. For example, the State Department chapter calls on American campuses to assist its African policy: “The U.S. should support capable African military and security operations through the State Department and other federal agencies responsible for granting foreign military education, training, and security assistance.” (187)
Other federal units come in for transformation which impacts colleges and universities. One chapter calls for “reinstituti[ng] the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board.” (Wikipedia; 218) The USAID chapter would cut some post-secondary support, based on the argument that “[w]e must admit that USAID’s investments in the education sector, for example, serve no other purpose than to subsidize corrupt, incompetent, and hostile regimes.” (275)
Support for and opposition to research Project 2025 consistently calls for research and development, at least in certain fields. The Department of Energy chapter enthusiastically promotes science. That chapter also tends to pair research with security, so we might infer increased security requirements for academic energy work. Alternative energy and decarbonization research would likely not receive federal support from McNamee’s departments, as he might see them as a “threat to the grid.” (373)
The document also calls for transparency many times, which might benefit academics as it could (should it occur) give greater access to more documentation. One passage actually uses the language of open source code: “True transparency will be a defining characteristic of a conservative EPA. This will be reflected in all agency work, including the establishment of opensource [sic] science, to build not only transparency and awareness among the public, but also trust.” (417)
On the flip side, Project 2025 opposes climate research throughout. For a sample of the intensity of this belief,
Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs. (419)
That passage exists in the Environmental Protection Agency chapter, and fits into its author’s desire to cut back the EPA in general, but particularly to end its support for academic research. There are specific examples, such as “[r]epeal[ing] Inflation Reduction Act programs providing grants for environmental science activities” (440). This is also where we see a sign of Project 2025’s desire to get more political appointees into federal positions. There would be “a Science Adviser reporting directly to the Administrator in addition to a substantial investment (no fewer than six senior political appointees) charged with overseeing and reforming EPA research and science activities.” (436) That would have further negative effects on academic work.
Later on, the Department of Transportation chapter calls for shutting down the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Why? NOAA is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” (675) Faculty, staff, and students who rely on NOAA would lose out.
Military and civilian higher education There are many connections here, reflecting a view that all of academia can contribute in an instrumental way to American military and foreign policy goals, while also being reformed by a new administration. For example, the text calls for reforming post-secondary military education, asking a new government to “[a]udit the course offerings at military academies to remove Marxist indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals, and apply the same rules to instructors that are applied to other DOD contracting personnel.” (104)
There’s also an idea for creating a new military academy, a Space Force Academy:
to attract top aero–astro students, engineers, and scientists and develop astronauts. The academy could be attached initially to a large existing research university like the California Institute of Technology or MIT, share faculty and funding, and eventually be built separately to be on par with the other service academies. (119)
Related to this, a later discussion calls for the creation of a new academic institution dedicated to financial warfare:
Treasury should examine creating a school of financial warfare jointly with DOD. If the U.S. is to rely on financial weapons, tools, and strategies to prosecute international defensive and offensive objectives, it must create a specially trained group of experts dedicated to the study, training, testing, and preparedness of these deterrents. (704)
Earlier in the book there’s some discussion of reforming the Pentagon’s purchasing systems calls for spreading some Defense Acquisition University (DAU) functions to “include accreditation of non-DOD institutions” – i.e., potentially some civilian institutions. (98)
Project 2025 would reverse certain Biden- and Obama-era human rights provisions for military academies’ faculty, staff, and students. It calls for “individuals… with gender dysphoria [to] be expelled from military service…” (103)
Sex education, research, support for student life All of this appears under threat. Here’s the relevant passage from the introduction, a shocking response to pornography: “Educators and public librarians who purvey [pornography] should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.” (5) This seems aimed at K-12 schools, where so much culture war battling has occurred, but we shouldn’t assume higher education would escape. Remember that it’s a common strategy for critics to label sex education and research materials as porn.
Anti-intellectualism Project 2025 respects knowledge and skills insofar as they assist with making a new administration succeed, but is at the same time very skeptical of their role in broader society, when formally recognized. It wants universities to develop new technologies, but not to advance DEI. For a clear sense of what I’m talking about, here’s the introduction’s take on credentials:
Intellectual sophistication, advanced degrees, financial success, and all other markers of elite status have no bearing on a person’s knowledge of the one thing most necessary for governance: what it means to live well. That knowledge is available to each of us, no matter how humble our backgrounds or how unpretentious our attainments. It is open to us to read in the book of human nature, to which we are all offered the key just by merit of our shared humanity. (10)
One could respond that most of the book’s authors possess intellectual sophistication and/or advanced degrees and/or financial success, but that’s part of the conservative populist paradigm.
Summing up, Project 2025 presents multiple challenges, threats, and dangers to American higher education. Proposed policies strike at academic teaching, research, finances, autonomy, and some of the most vulnerable in our community. It outlines routes for expanded governmental surveillance of and action upon colleges and universities, not to mention other parts of the academic ecosystem, such as accreditors and public research entities.
Keep in mind that Project 2025 isn’t necessarily a total guide to a potential Trump administration. The candidate has denounced it and led the publication of another platform. I’d like to explore that document next. We should also track Trump’s various pronouncements, such as his consistent desire to deport millions of people. For that alone we should expect a major impact on higher education.
Yet Project 2025 draws deeply on Republican politicians and office holders, not to mention conservative thinking. It seems fair to expect a new administration to try realizing at least a chunk of it, if not more.
What do you think of this sketch of a potential Trump administration?