Trump, Hegseth, and the Bombing of Iran: Taking the Bait at America’s Peril

The sudden arrival of the U.S. Air Force's E-4B “Doomsday Plane” at Joint Base Andrews this week has reignited fears of impending military escalation in the Middle East. As speculation swirls online and among defense analysts, President Donald Trump and his Fox News consigliere Pete Hegseth appear to be inching dangerously close to embracing a war plan that plays into the hands of both their domestic political ambitions and the geopolitical strategies of their adversaries.

The E-4B, also known as “Nightwatch,” is no ordinary aircraft. Built to survive a nuclear attack, maintain satellite command and control in the event of total ground disruption, and oversee the execution of emergency war orders, its presence near Washington, D.C. signals something far more than routine military procedure. The use of a rare callsign—"ORDER01"—instead of the standard "ORDER6" only stokes the sense that we are on the brink of another catastrophic foreign policy decision.

This show of force comes amid rising tensions with Iran, exacerbated by ongoing Israeli aggression and increased Iranian defiance. But rather than de-escalate or seek diplomatic offramps, Trump and Hegseth—cheered on by neoconservative holdovers and MAGA populists—seem eager to provoke or retaliate with military might.

Political Theater with Global Consequences

The specter of bombing Iran isn’t just about foreign policy—it’s political theater. In the lead-up to a contentious election cycle, Trump is once again playing the wartime president, wielding fear and nationalism to consolidate support. For Hegseth, a veteran turned right-wing media figure, the promise of patriotic glory and "restoring American strength" makes for good ratings and even better branding. Both men are using the possibility of war as a campaign tool—recklessly gambling with global stability.

Yet the U.S. has nothing to gain from an expanded conflict with Iran. If anything, such an act plays directly into the strategic interests of hardliners in Tehran and Tel Aviv alike. For Iran’s theocratic regime, American aggression would bolster internal solidarity and justify further authoritarian crackdowns. For Israel’s leadership, it would secure unwavering U.S. allegiance in their own campaign of regional dominance. For both, American bombs would mean the end of diplomatic ambiguity.

Higher Education and the Fog of War

War is also profitable—for defense contractors, media networks, and privatized universities that specialize in churning out online degrees in homeland security and intelligence studies. Institutions like the Liberty University, whose ads routinely appear alongside war reporting, are the educational arm of the war economy, training an underpaid, precariously employed labor force in service of endless conflict. These for-profit institutions have long aligned themselves with militarism, offering “education benefits” that function as recruitment tools for the armed forces.

Meanwhile, real intellectual inquiry is under siege. Faculty who question U.S. foreign policy—particularly in the Middle East—face surveillance, harassment, and cancellation. Dissenting students are monitored. Grants for critical research dry up, while think tanks funded by the arms industry flourish. Universities become staging grounds for ideological conformity, not bastions of free thought.

Taking the Bait

Trump and Hegseth are being lured into a trap—one that benefits the very global elites they claim to oppose. Escalating with Iran serves the military-industrial complex, shores up Israeli hardliners, and consolidates state power under the guise of national emergency. At home, it means more surveillance, more censorship, and more austerity for working families already reeling from inflation and housing insecurity.

In the end, the cost of war will not be borne by Trump or Hegseth. It will be borne by low-income soldiers and their families, the people of Iran, and the students who forgo education for military service. It will be paid for by cutting healthcare, housing, and higher education. And it will hollow out American democracy, all while propping up the illusion of strength.

This is not leadership. This is entrapment. And it’s time we said so—loudly, before the next bombs drop.

U.S. Interventions in the Americas: A Historical Pattern of Force, Profit, and Human Cost

From the mid‑19th century to today, U.S. interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean have consistently combined military force, political influence, and economic pressure. Across this long arc, millions of lives have been shaped—often shattered—by policies that prioritize strategic advantage over human flourishing. Today’s geopolitical tensions with Venezuela are the latest flashpoint in a historical pattern that rewards elites while exacting profound human costs.

Note on Timing: This article is intentionally posted on Christmas Day 2025, a day traditionally associated with peace, goodwill, and reflection, to underscore the contrast between those ideals and the ongoing human toll of U.S. militarism and intervention abroad. The symbolic timing is a reminder that while many celebrate, others suffer the consequences of policies driven by power, profit, and geopolitics.

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A Critical Warning for Students and Young People

As Higher Education Inquirer has repeatedly argued, the United States’ military footprint—its wars, recruitment programs, and entanglements with higher education—has deep consequences not just abroad but at home. ROTC programs and military enlistment are often marketed as pathways to education and economic stability, but they also funnel young people into systems with long‑term obligations, moral hazards, and psychological risk. Prospective enlistees and their families should think twice before committing to military pathways that may bind them to morally questionable conflicts and institutional control.

Moreover, U.S. higher education has become deeply entwined with kleptocracy, militarism, and colonialism, supporting war economies and benefiting from federal research contracts with defense and intelligence partners that obscure the real human costs of empire. These warnings are especially salient in the context of Venezuela and similar interventions, where human toll and geopolitical stakes demand deeper scrutiny.

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Smedley Butler: War Is a Racket and the Business Plot

Major General Smedley D. Butler, among the most decorated U.S. Marines, became one of the U.S. military’s most outspoken critics. In his 1935 War Is a Racket, Butler rejected romantic notions of military glory and exposed the economic motives behind many interventions:

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.”

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service… being a high‑class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”

“Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.”

Butler’s warnings were not abstract. In 1933, he was approached to lead a coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt, known as the Business Plot, which he publicly exposed. His testimony before Congress revealed how elite interests sought to use military power to overthrow democratic government, an episode that underscores his critique of war as a tool for entrenched interests at the expense of ordinary people.

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Historical Interventions and Their Toll

Below is a timeline of major U.S. interventions in the Americas, with estimated deaths, showing the human cost of policies that often served strategic or economic interests over humanitarian ones:

Period	Location	Event / Nature of Intervention	Estimated Deaths
1846–1848	Mexico	Mexican-American War: Territorial conquest	~25,000 Mexicans
1898	Cuba/P.R.	Spanish-American War: U.S. seized P.R.; Cuba protectorate	~15,000–60,000 (90% disease)
1914	Mexico	Occupation of Veracruz: U.S. port seizure	~300 Mexicans
1915–1934	Haiti	Military Occupation: Suppression of rebellions	~3,000–15,000
1916–1924	Dominican Rep.	Marine Occupation: Control of customs/finance	~4,000
1954	Guatemala	Op. PBSuccess: CIA coup against Árbenz; led to civil war	150,000–250,000*
1965	Dominican Rep.	Op. Power Pack: U.S. intervention during civil war	~3,000
1973–1990	Chile	U.S.-backed Coup/Regime: Pinochet dictatorship	3,000–28,000*
1975–1983	S. America	Operation Condor: CIA-supported intelligence network	~60,000*
1976–1983	Argentina	Dirty War: U.S.-supported military junta and coup	~30,000*
1979–1992	El Salvador	Civil War: Massive military aid to govt forces	35,000–75,000*
1981–1990	Nicaragua	Iran-Contra Affair: Covert support for Contras	~30,000–50,000*
1989	Panama	Operation Just Cause: Invasion to remove Noriega	500–3,000
2025	Venezuela	Naval Blockade: Active maritime strikes and standoff	100+ (to date)

*Estimates include civilian casualties and deaths indirectly caused by U.S.-supported interventions.

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Venezuela and the Global Politics of Intervention

Venezuela’s 2025 crisis is the latest in a long history of U.S. pressure in the hemisphere. A naval blockade—accompanied by maritime strikes and political isolation—has already produced more than 100 confirmed deaths. Historically, interventions like this have often prioritized U.S. strategic or economic interests over local welfare.

The situation is further complicated by global geopolitics. Former President Donald Trump, who recently pardoned key figures involved in controversial interventions, including Iran‑Contra actors, also maintains strategic ties with China and Russia, highlighting how interventions are entangled with global power plays that affect universities, recruitment pipelines, and domestic politics alike.

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A Call to Rethink Intervention and Recruitment

Smedley Butler’s critique remains urgent: to “smash the racket,” profit must be removed from war, military force should be strictly defensive, and decisions about war must rest with those who bear its consequences. From Mexico to Venezuela—and including covert operations like Iran‑Contra—the historical record shows how interventions serve a narrow elite while imposing massive human costs.

HEI’s warnings underscore that higher education, ROTC programs, and military recruitment pipelines are not neutral pathways but deeply embedded parts of systems that reproduce extraction, militarism, and inequality. Students, educators, and families must critically evaluate the incentives and promises of military pathways and demand institutions that serve learning, opportunity, and justice rather than empire.

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Sources

1. Butler, Smedley D. War Is a Racket. Round Table Press, 1935.

2. U.S. Congressional Record and Butler testimony on the Business Plot, 1934.

3. Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.

4. Scott, Peter Dale. Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America.

5. Reporting on Trump pardons, Iran‑Contra participants, and global alliances (2020–2025).

6. Higher Education Inquirer, “Kleptocracy, Militarism, Colonialism: A Counterrecruiting Call for Students and Families,” December 7, 2025. (link)

7. Higher Education Inquirer, “The Hidden Costs of ROTC — and the Military Path,” November 28, 2025. (link)

8. Historical records on U.S. interventions: Mexican‑American War, Spanish‑American War, Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), Argentina (1976–1983), El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela (2025).

Jeffrey Sachs EXPOSES Israel–U.S.–Iran War Plot: Shocking Claims Uncovered (Times Now World)

Renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs has launched a scathing critique of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, placing the blame squarely on Washington’s alliance with Israel’s far-right leadership. Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Sachs claimed that American interference—encouraged by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—has devastated the region. He cited covert operations like the CIA’s Timber Sycamore as catalysts behind the Syrian civil war and accused Israel of pushing for armed conflict with Iran after having allegedly promoted six previous wars.

U.S. Government Targets Student Activism: Over 300 Visas Revoked Amid Escalating Deportations

In a controversial move, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Thursday that the State Department had revoked the visas of more than 300 students, a number that is expected to rise. This action is part of the White House’s growing crackdown on foreign-born students, many of whom have been involved in political activism, particularly related to pro-Palestinian protests that have been sweeping college campuses.

Rubio made it clear that the government’s focus is on what he referred to as “these lunatics” – individuals who, according to him, are using their student visas not for education but for activism. His statements, made during a visit to Guyana, came amid reports of increasing detentions and deportations of students from countries like Iran, Turkey, and Palestine.

"It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," Rubio said, underscoring the administration’s intent to target those engaging in political activism. Some of these arrests have taken place in dramatic fashion, with students detained by masked immigration agents and sent to detention centers, often far from their homes, with limited explanation.

Among the high-profile cases is that of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national studying in the U.S. on a student visa. Ozturk was arrested earlier this week in Somerville, Massachusetts, and is currently being held in a Louisiana detention facility. Her arrest follows her involvement in a Tufts University student newspaper article that called on the institution to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to acknowledge what she referred to as the Palestinian genocide. Importantly, Ozturk’s essay did not mention Hamas, yet her arrest has raised concerns over the broader political targeting of students engaged in activism.

Many of the students caught up in this crackdown are believed to have been involved in the pro-Palestinian protests that gained momentum on campuses last year. While the administration has not provided specific reasons for targeting these students, far-right pro-Israel groups have compiled lists of individuals they accuse of promoting anti-U.S. or anti-Israel sentiments. These lists have reportedly been shared with U.S. immigration authorities, further intensifying the political climate surrounding these detentions.

The move is part of a larger agenda by the Trump administration to clamp down on the activities of legal permanent residents and student visa holders. Immigration experts warn that such actions undermine the fundamental American right to free speech and assembly, particularly in academic settings.

Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, described the current situation as "uniquely disturbing," stating that it sends a message to the brightest minds around the world who traditionally chose to study in the U.S. for its openness and intellectual freedom. The message, he argues, is now one of rejection.

The administration's actions are said to be guided by an immigration provision dating back to the Cold War, which allows the revocation of visas if a student's activities are seen as posing "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences." Some of the students targeted, including Ozturk, have had their visas revoked under this justification, despite no clear evidence of criminal activity.

Other notable individuals caught in the crosshairs include Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran at the University of Alabama, and Badar Khan Suri, an Indian graduate student at Georgetown University. Both have been detained without clear charges, sparking concerns over whether their arrests are retaliatory measures for their political views. Suri, for instance, was allegedly detained for spreading Hamas propaganda, although he has denied such claims.

This wave of detentions and visa revocations also extends to other students like Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who participated in protests. Despite being a legal permanent resident, Chung now faces deportation. Similarly, Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian student at Columbia, was detained by ICE after allegedly overstaying her student visa.

The increasing number of student arrests and deportations is drawing the attention of human rights advocates, who argue that these actions are a direct attack on free speech. Samah Sisay, one of the attorneys representing detained students, expressed concern that the government's actions are not only targeting specific political views but are also intended to intimidate future student activists.

This crackdown is also raising questions about the role of U.S. universities in protecting their students. In one high-profile case, Columbia University agreed to implement significant changes after President Trump threatened to withdraw $400 million in federal research funding over accusations that the university was not doing enough to address harassment of Jewish students.

As these events unfold, the future of student activism in the U.S. appears increasingly uncertain. If these trends continue, more students may face the loss of their visas, deportation, or even criminal charges related to their political beliefs and actions on campus. The implications for free speech, academic freedom, and international student exchange are profound, and advocates are calling for a reassessment of policies that allow such widespread and seemingly arbitrary actions against students.

In the face of this growing repression, one thing is clear: the United States is now sending a strong message to the world about what it will and will not tolerate in its universities. Whether that message will stifle the tradition of academic activism remains to be seen.

Higher Education Inquirer Views, By Nation (Includes Hong Kong, Israel, Hungary, China, and Iran)

Here's a Google graphic of views by nation of the Higher Education Inquirer over the last 30 days.  Almost every view from Israel came on one day last week.  Also note the views from Hong Kong, Hungary, China, and Iran. Is anyone else observing this type of internet traffic? And what exactly does it mean?    

Here are the all-time views.  

Language in the Age of Fascist Politics (Henry Giroux)

In the age of expanding fascism, the power of language is not only fragile but increasingly threatened. As Toni Morrison has noted, “language is not only an instrument through which power is exercised,” it also shapes agency and functions as an act with consequences. These consequences ripple through the very fabric of our existence. For in the words we speak, meaning, truth, and our collective future are at risk. Each syllable, phrase, and sentence becomes a battleground where truth and power collide, where silence breeds complicity, and where justice hangs in the balance.

In response, we find ourselves in desperate need of a new vocabulary, one capable of naming the fascist tide and militarized language now engulfing the United States. This is not a matter of style or rhetorical flourish; it is a matter of survival. The language required to confront and resist this unfolding catastrophe will not come from the legacy press, which remains tethered to the very institutions it ought to expose. Nor can we turn to the right-wing media machines, led by Fox News, where fascist ideals are not just defended but paraded as patriotism. 

In the face of this crisis, Toni Morrison’s insight drawn from her Nobel Lecture becomes all the more urgent and makes clear that the language of tyrants, embodied in the rhetoric, images, and modes of communication characteristic of the Trump regime, is a dead language. For her “a dead language is not simply one that is no longer spoken or written,” it is unyielding language “content to admire its own paralysis.” It is repressive language infused with power, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties and dehumanizing language, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. “Though moribund, it is not without effect” for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, and “suppresses human potential.” Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, or fill baffling silences. This is the language of official power whose purpose is to sanction ignorance and preserve. 

Beneath its glittering spectacle and vulgar performance, lies a language that is "dumb, predatory, sentimental." It offers mass spectacles, a moral sleepwalking state of mind, and a psychotic infatuation for those who seek refuge in unchecked power. It forges a community built on greed, corruption, and hate, steeped in a scandal of hollow fulfillment. It is a language unadorned in its cruelty and addiction to creating an architecture of violence. It is evident in Trump’s discourse of occupation, his militarizing of American politics, and in his use of an army of trolls to turn hatred into a social media spectacle of swagger and cruelty.



Despite differing tones and political effects, the discourses of the far right and the liberal mainstream converge in their complicity: both traffic in mindless spectacle, absorb lies as currency, and elevate illusion over insight. The liberal mainstream drapes the machinery of cruelty in the language of civility, masking the brutality of the Trump regime and the predatory logic of gangster capitalism, while the far right revels in it, parading its violence as virtue and its hatred as patriotism. Language, once a powerful instrument against enforced silence and institutional cruelty, now too often serves power, undermining reason, normalizing violence, and replacing justice with vengeance. 

In Trump’s oligarchic culture of authoritarianism, language becomes a spectacle of power, a theater of fear crafted, televised, and performed as a civic lesson in mass indoctrination. If language is the vessel of consciousness, then we must forge a new one--fierce, unflinching, and unafraid to rupture the fabric of falsehood that sustains domination, disposability, and terror. The late famed novelist, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, was right in stating that “language was a site of colonial control,” inducting people into what he called “colonies of the mind.”

The utopian visions that support the promise of a radical democracy and prevent the dystopian nightmare of a fascist politics are under siege in the United States. Increasingly produced, amplified and legitimated in a toxic language of hate, exclusion, and punishment, all aspects of the social and the democratic values central to a politics of solidarity are being targeted by right-wing extremists. In addition, the institutions that produce the formative cultures that nourishes the social imagination and democracy itself are now under attack. The signposts are on full display in a politics of racial and social cleansing that is being fed by a white nationalist and white supremacist ideology that is at the centre of power in the US—marked by fantasies of exclusion accompanied by a full-scale attack on morality, reason, and collective resistance rooted in democratic struggle. 

As more people revolt against this dystopian project, neoliberal ideology and elements of a fascist politics merge to contain, distract and misdirect the anger that has materialised out of legitimate grievances against the government, controlling privileged elites and the hardships caused by neoliberal capitalism. The current crisis of agency, representation, values and language demands a discursive shift that can call into question and defeat the formative culture and ideological scaffolding through which a savage neoliberal capitalism reproduces itself. This warped use of language directly feeds into the policies of disposability that define Trump's regime.

State Terror and Trump’s Politics of Disposability

As Trump’s regime concentrates power, he invokes a chilling convergence of law, order, and violence, a cornerstone of his politics of disposability. His acts of cruelty and lawlessness, abducting and deporting innocent people, branding immigrants as “vermin,” claiming they are “poisoning the blood” of Americans, and even proposing the legalization of murder for twelve hours, make clear that his violent metaphors are not just rhetorical flourishes. They are policy blueprints. In Trump’s hands, rhetoric becomes a weaponized prelude to atrocity, a tool of statecraft. Threats, hatred, and cruelty are transformed into instruments of governance.

This is not careless talk, it is a brutal and calculated expression of power. Trump’s threats to arrest and deport critics such as Zohran Mamdani reveal his willingness to use the machinery of the state for political extermination. His targets are predictable: immigrants, Black people, educators, journalists, LGBTQ+ individuals, and anyone who dares to challenge his white Christian nationalist, neoliberal, and white supremacist vision. His language does not merely offend, it incites harm, enacts repression, and opens the gates to state-sanctioned violence. It extends the reign of terror across the United States by labeling protesters as terrorists and deploying the military to American cities, treating them as if they were “occupied territories.” 

Trump is not alone. Many of his MAGA follower use these same hateful discourse. For instance, conservative pundit Ann Coulter wrote “in response to a speech by Melanie Yazzie, a Native artist and professor, about decolonization, “We didn’t Kill enough Indians.” This is not simply harsh rhetoric; nor is it a performative display of emboldened hatred and historical forgetting, it sets the stage for state-sanctioned repression and mass violence. What is at stake is more than civic respect. It is democracy itself. When language loses meaning and truth is blurred, tyranny thrives. Trump’s and too much of MAGA discourse is not about persuasion; it is about dehumanization and domination. It functions as statecraft, laying the groundwork for a society where suffering becomes spectacle and repression masquerades as law and order. Language is the canary in the coal mine, warning us that democracy dies without an informed citizenry.

As Eddie Glaude Jr. has powerfully argued, Americans must confront a brutal truth: the creation and expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now the largest federal law enforcement agency, is not merely a matter of policy, it is a cornerstone of white supremacy. It is a racist institution, entrenched in an immigration policy designed to uphold the values of white nationalism. In the face of shifting demographics, ICE is tasked with an urgent mission—to make America white again, a calculated attempt to turn back the clock on progress, to preserve an imagined past at the cost of justice and humanity.

We now live in a country where class and racial warfare both at home and abroad is on steroids, exposing the killing machine of gangster capitalism in its rawest, most punitive form. Trump supports the genocidal war waged by a state led by a war criminal. Children are being slaughtered in Gaza. Millions of Americans, including poor children, teeter on the edge of losing their healthcare. Funds for feeding hungry children are being slashed, sacrificed to feed the pockets of the ultra-rich. Thousands will die, not by accident, but by design. Terror, fear, and punishment have replaced the ideals of equality, freedom, and justice. Childcide is now normalized as the law of the land. The lights are dimming in America, and all that remains are the smug, ignorant smirks of fascist incompetence and bodies drained of empathy and solidarity.

Gangster Capitalism and the Death of Empathy

Gangster capitalism lays the foundation for Trump’s racist and fascist politics. As I have noted elsewhere, the United States has descended into a state of political, economic, cultural, and social psychosis, where cruel, neoliberal, democracy-hating policies have prevailed since the 1970s. At the core of this authoritarian shift lies a systemic war on workers, youth, Blacks, and immigrants, increasingly marked by mass violence and a punishing state both domestically and internationally. The U.S. has transformed into an empire dominated by a callous, greedy billionaire class that has dismantled any remnants of democracy, while embracing the fascistic ideology of white Christian nationalism and white supremacy. Fascism now parades not only beneath the flag but also under the Christian cross. 

America has shifted from celebrating unchecked individualism, as depicted in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, to the glorification of greed championed by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, and the psychotic avarice of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. This descent into barbarity and psychotic infatuation with violence is further demonstrated by Justin Zhong, a right-wing preacher at Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Indianapolis, who called for the deaths of LGBTQ+ individuals during a sermon. Zhong defended his comments by citing biblical justifications and labeling LGBTQ+ people as "domestic terrorists." 

It gets worse. During a Men’s Preaching Night at Sure Foundation Baptist Church, Zhong's associate, Stephen Falco, suggested that LGBTQ+ people should "blow yourself in the back of the head," and that Christians should "pray for their deaths." Another member, Wade Rawley, advocated for violence, stating LGBTQ+ individuals should be "beaten and stomped in the mud" before being shot in the head. Fascism in America, nourished by the toxic roots of homophobia, now cloaks itself not just in the poisonous banner of the Confederate flag, but also in the sacred guise of the Christian cross.

Welcome to Trump’s America, where empathy is now viewed as a weakness and the cold rule of the market is the template for judging all social relations. One noted example can be found in the words of Trump’s on-and-off billionaire ally, Elon Musk, who dismisses empathy as a naive and detrimental force that undermines the competitive, individualistic ethos he champions. Speaking to Joe Rogan on his podcast, Musk specifically stated that “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.” As Julia Carrie Wong observes in The Guardian, the stakes extend far beyond casting empathy as a "parasitic plague." Empathy's true danger lies in its role as an enabler—granting permission to dehumanize others and constricting the very “definition of who should be included in a democratic state.” This is a recipe for barbarism, one that allows both states and individuals to turn a blind eye to the genocidal violence unfolding in Gaza and beyond.

Naming the Deep Roots of the Police State

Ruth Ben-Ghiat has warned that “America has been set on a trajectory to become a police state,” pointing to the passage of the Brutal and Bellicose Bill (BBB), which handed ICE a budget larger than the militaries of Brazil, Israel, and Italy combined. But the roots of this state violence go deeper. The foundation was laid under Bush and Cheney, whose war on terror birthed Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, mass surveillance, and extraordinary rendition. What Trump has done is strip these earlier authoritarian practices of all pretenses, elevating them to the status of governing principles.

The police state did not begin with Trump; it evolved through him. Now, we see its terrifying maturity: racial cleansing disguised as immigration policy, hatred normalized as political speech, dissent criminalized, birthright citizenship threatened, and everyday life militarized. This is not politics as usual, it is fascism in real time.

Trump’s fascist politics grows even more dangerous when we recognize that his language of colonization and domination has helped transform American society into what Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o chillingly describes as a “war zone.” This war zone now spans the digital terrain—through the internet, podcasts, social media, and educational platforms—becoming a fertile breeding ground for fascist symbols, reactionary values, manufactured identities, and the toxic resurrection of colonial logics. In this battleground of meaning, the language of colonization does more than obscure the truth—it erodes critical thinking, silences historical memory, and disarms the very possibility of empowered agency. What remains in its wake is a nation scarred by suffering, haunted by loneliness, bound by shared fears, and anesthetized by the numbing rituals of a punishing state.

The transformation of America into a war zone finds its most visible expression in the rise of Trump’s omnipresent police state. This authoritarian machinery reveals itself through the mechanisms of state-sponsored terror, a heavily militarized ICE force operating like masked enforcers, and the rapid expansion of detention centers that will increasingly resemble a network of potential forced labor camps. As Fintan O’Toole warns, Trump’s deployment of troops onto the streets of Los Angeles is not merely symbolic—it is “a training exercise for the army, a form of reorientation.” In this reorientation, soldiers are no longer defenders of the Constitution but are being retrained as instruments of authoritarian power, bound not by democratic ideals but by obedience to a singular will.

Nevertheless, we resist or refuse to name the fascist threat and the ideological and economic architecture of its politics. Still, we recoil from calling the Trump regime what it is: a fascist state engaged in domestic terrorism. Still, we remain blind to the fact that economic inequality, global militarism, and the genocidal logics of empire are not peripheral issues, they are the center. Why is it so difficult to admit that we are living in an age of American fascism? Why do the crimes of the powerful, at home and abroad, so often pass without scrutiny, while the victims are blamed or erased?

The Collapse of Moral Imagination

What we face is not only a political crisis, partly in the collapse of conscience and civic courage-- a profound moral collapse. The war being waged at home by the Trump regime is not just against immigrants or the poor, it is a war on critical thought, on historical memory, on the courage to dissent. It is a war on every institution that upholds critical thinking, informed knowledge, and civic literacy. This is a genocidal war against the very possibility of a just future—a war not merely against, but for stupidity, for the death of morality, and for the annihilation of any robust notion of democracy. Viktor Klemperer, in his seminal work The Language of the Third Reich, offers a crucial lesson from history: "With great insistence and a high degree of precision right down to the last detail, Hitler’s Mein Kampf teaches not only that the masses are stupid, but that they need to be kept that way, intimidated into not thinking." Klemperer’s analysis reveals that Nazi politics did not arise in a vacuum; it was cultivated in a culture where language itself was the breeding ground of cruelty and control.

Trump’s rhetoric of fear, racial hatred does not emerge in a vacuum. It resonates because it taps into a long and violent history, a history soaked in blood, built on genocide, slavery, colonialism, and exclusion. His language recalls the genocidal campaigns against Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Jews, and others deemed disposable by authoritarian regimes. It is a necrotic lexicon, resurrected in service of tyranny. It gives birth to politicians with blood in their mouths, who weaponize nostalgia and bigotry, cloaking brutality in the false promises of patriotism and “law and order.”

Language as War and the Return of Americanized Fascism

This is not merely a rhetoric of cruelty, it is a call to arms. Trump’s words do not simply shelter fascists; they summon them. They silence dissent, normalize torture, and echo the logic of death camps, internment camps, and mass incarceration. His discourse, laden with hatred and lies, is designed to turn neighbors into enemies, civic life into war, and politics into a death cult and zone of terminal exclusion. Undocumented immigrants, or those seeking to register for green cards or citizenship, are torn from their families and children, cast into prisons such as Alligator Alcatraz, a grotesque manifestation of the punishing state. As Melissa Gira Grant writes in The New Republic, it is "an American concentration camp…built to cage thousands of people rounded up by ICE," constructed in a chilling display of colonial disregard, and erected on traditional Miccosukee land without so much as consulting the Tribe.

This is the face of modern cruelty: language wielded as a tool to orchestrate a spectacle of violence, designed to degrade, divide, and erase. Culture is no longer a peripheral force in politics; it has become the central weapon in the rise of state terrorism. The language of war and complicity normalizes America’s transformation into a monstrous carceral state, a symbol of state-sponsored terror where due process is suspended, and suffering is not just an outcome but the point itself. 

A culture of cruelty now merges with state sponsored racial terror, functioning as a badge of honor. One example is noted in Trump advisor Laura Loomer, who ominously remarked that "the wild animals surrounding President Donald Trump’s new immigration detention center… will have 'at least 65 million meals." Change.org, along with others such as Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor, noted that her comment “is not only racist, it is a direct emotional attack and veiled threat against Hispanic communities. This kind of speech dehumanizes people of color and normalizes genocidal language.” Her racist remark not only reveals the profound contempt for human life within Trump's inner circle but also highlights how cruelty and violence are strategically used as both a policy tool and a public spectacle. Loomer’s remark is not an aberration, it is a symptom of the fascist logic animating this administration, where death itself becomes a political message. Her blood-soaked discourse if symptomatic of the criminogenic politics fundamental to the working of the Trump regime.

The parallels to history are unmistakable. Loomer’s invocation of death as the outcome of detention recalls the Nazi designation of certain camps as Vernichtungslager, extermination camps, where as Holocaust survivor Primo Levi noted, imprisonment and execution were inseparable. Likewise, the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, though often sanitized in public memory, operated under a similar logic of racial suspicion and collective punishment. The message in each case is clear, as Judith Butler has noted in her writing: some lives are rendered invisible, deemed unworthy of legal protection, of family, of dignity, of life itself. In fascist regimes, such spaces function not only as instruments of punishment but as symbolic theaters of power, meant to instill terror, enforce obedience, and declare which bodies the state has marked for erasure.

For Trump, J.D. Vance, and their ilk, fascism is not a specter to be feared but a banner to be waved. The spirit of the Confederacy and the corpse-like doctrines of white supremacy, militarism, and neoliberal authoritarianism have returned, this time supercharged by surveillance technologies, financial capital, and social media echo chambers. In the spirit of the Trump regime, the symbols of the Confederacy are normalized. Confederate flags are now waved by neo-Nazis in public squares and parades, while Trump renames US warships and 7 military bases after Confederate officers, reinforcing a dangerous nostalgia for a past rooted in racism and rebellion against the very ideals of unity and equality that this nation claims to uphold.

Higher Education and the Fight Against Authoritarianism
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It should not surprise us that the American public has grown numb with the constant echo chamber of state terrorism playing out in multiple sites of attack. Powerful disimagination machines, mainstream media, right-wing propaganda platforms, tech billionaires, have flooded public consciousness with conspiracy theories, historical amnesia, and spectacularized images of immigrants and others being deported to prisons, foreign Gulags, and modern day black holes. These are not simply entertainment outlets; they are pedagogical weapons of mass distraction, breeding civic illiteracy and moral paralysis. Under their influence, the American people have been placed in a moral and political coma.

White Nationalism and Reproductive Control

Nowhere is this more evident than in the mainstream media’s failure to address the racial and ideological foundations of Trump’s agenda. His attacks on Haitian immigrants, the travel ban on seven African countries, the shutting down of refugee programs, and his open-door policy for white Afrikaners from South Africa are not merely racist; they are explicitly white nationalist. The same ideology drives attacks on women’s reproductive rights, revealing the deep racial and gender anxieties of a movement obsessed with white demographic decline. These are not isolated skirmishes, they are interconnected strategies of domination.

These converging assaults, white nationalism, white supremacy, patriarchal control, and militarized life, manifest most vividly in the war on reproductive freedom. White nationalists encourage white women to reproduce, to hold back demographic change, while punishing women of color, LGBTQ+ people, and the poor. It is a violent calculus, animated by fantasies of purity and control.

The Systemic Assault on Democracy

This is a full-spectrum assault on democracy. Every act of cruelty, every racist law, every violent metaphor chips away at the social contract. A culture of authoritarianism is now used to demean those considered other, both citizens and non-citizens, critics and immigrants, naturalized citizens and those seeking such status. They are labeled as unworthy of citizenship now defined by the Trump regime as a privilege rather than a right. Meanwhile, a media ecosystem built on clickbait and erasure renders both such fascists as legitimate while making invisible the roots of suffering mass suffering and fear, all the while, turning oppression into spectacle and silence into complicity.

In this fog, language itself is emptied of meaning. Truth and falsehood blur. As Paulo Freire warned, the tools of the oppressor are often adopted by the oppressed. We now see that the logic of fascism has seeped into the culture, eroding civic sensibility, destroying moral imagination, and rendering resistance almost unspeakable.

The Normalization of Tyranny

Trump’s authoritarian fantasies do not alienate his base, they galvanize it. What was once unthinkable is now policy. What was once fringe has become mainstream. Cruelty is not something to be deplored and avoided at all costs, it is a central feature of power, wielded with theatrical and spectacularized brutality. Under the current acting ICE Director, Todd Lyons, this punitive logic has intensified: Lyons oversees a $4.4 billion Enforcement and Removal Operations apparatus staffed by over 8,600 agents across 200 domestic locations, using militarized tactics, surprise raids, and aggressive targeting of immigrant communities to sustain a regime of fear. ICE’s presence is at the heart of Trump’s hyper-police state, and its funding has been greatly expanded to $170 billion under Trump’s new budget bill, creating what journalist Will Bunch calls Trump’s “own gulag archipelago of detention camps across a United States that’s becoming increasingly hard to recognize.”

Meanwhile, figures like Tom Homan, who led ICE under Trump’s first term, laid the groundwork with Gestapo-style operations, midnight raids, family separations, and public declarations that undocumented immigrants “should be afraid”. As the “border tzar” under Trump, Homan has initiated deportation policies that are even more aggressively violent and cruel that those that took place in Trump’s first term as president. As Bunch notes, take the case of “the 64-year-old New Orleans woman, Donna Kashanian, who fled a tumultuous Iran 47 years ago, volunteered to rebuild her battered Louisiana community after Hurricane Katrina, never missed a check-in with U.S. immigration officials , and was snatched by ICE agents in unmarked vehicles while she was out working in her garden and sent to a notorious detention center.” These horror stories now take place daily in cities extending from Los Angeles to Providence, Rhode Island.

A central player in this current regime of state terrorism, systemic racism, mass abductions, deportations, and the criminalization of dissent is Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff. During Trump’s first term, Miller was the driving force behind the Muslim ban, the family separation policy, and assaults on birthright citizenship, all rooted in an unapologetic white supremacist and eugenicist worldview. In Trump’s second term, he has emerged as the architect of even more draconian measures, pushing for mass deportations, the abolition of birthright citizenship, and the revocation of naturalized citizenship for those who fall outside his white Christian vision of who deserves to be called American.

Far-right white nationalist such as Miller, Tom Homan and Todd Lyons, do not treat cruelty as a regrettable side effect. For them, cruelty is the currency of power. Suffering becomes a spectacle, and violence a ritual of statecraft. Tyranny is not inching forward in silence; it is advancing at full speed, cheered on by those who treat fear as a governing principle and pain as public policy. At stake here is what Timothy Snyder calls the practice of fascist dehumanization.

This is not a passing storm. It is the death throes of a system that has long glorified violence, commodified everything, and fed on division. Trump’s language is not a performance, it is preparation. His words are laying the foundation for a society without empathy, without justice, without democracy.

Reclaiming the Language of Resistance, Reclaiming Democracy

In a decent society, language is the lifeblood of democracy, a vessel of solidarity, truth, and hope. But in Trump’s America, language has become a weapon, dehumanizing, excluding, and dominating. His vision is not a warning; it is a blueprint. We must resist, or we risk losing everything. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of democracy, the retrieval of truth and the refusal to live in a world where cruelty is policy and silence is complicity. 

What is needed now is not only a rupture in language but a rupture in consciousness, one that brings together the critical illumination of the present with a premonitory vision of what lies ahead if fascist dynamics remain unchecked. As Walter Benjamin insisted, we must cultivate a form of profane illumination, a language that disrupts the spectacle of lies and names the crisis in all its violent clarity. At the same time, as A.K. Thompson argues, we must grasp the future implicit in the present. His notion of premonitions urges us to read the events unfolding around us as urgent warnings, as signs of the catastrophe that awaits if we do not confront and reverse the political and cultural paths we are on. It demands that we see the connections that bind our suffering, rejecting the fragmented reality that neoliberalism forces upon us. 

The time for complacency is past. The time for a new and more vibrant language, one of critique, resistance, and militant hope, is now. A language capable not only of indicting the present but of envisioning a future rooted in justice, memory, and collective struggle.

As Antonio Gramsci remarked in his Prison Notebooks, "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." What is clear is that these morbid symptoms have arrived. Yet, alongside the despair they breed, they also present new challenges and opportunities for revitalized struggles. This is where the power of language comes into play—this is the challenge and opportunity for those who believe in the transformative power of culture, language, and education to address not just the nature of the crisis but its deeper roots in politics, memory, agency, values, power, and democracy itself.

[This article first appeared in the LA Progressive.]


By Henry A. Giroux

Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His latest book is The Burden of Conscience: Educating Beyond the Veil of Silence (Bloomsbury in 2025). He is LA Progressive's Associate Editor. His website is www.henryagiroux.com

WATCH LIVE: UN Security Council holds emergency meeting after U.S. airstrikes on Iran (PBS News Hour)

 

State Department Responds to Questions About Student Visa Revocations

(Higher Education Inquirer) Can you tell us more about the process that the State Department is using to decide what student visas are revoked? Should students from particular countries, like Iran and China, be concerned? Besides pro-Palestinian activists, are there any other areas of activism that may be targeted, such as those concerned about climate change?

 (US State Department) 

The United States has zero tolerance for non-citizens who violate U.S. laws. Those who break the law, including students, may face visa denial, visa revocation, and/or deportation.

All visa applicants, no matter the visa type and where they are located, are continuously vetted.  Security vetting runs from the time of each application, through adjudication of the visa, and afterwards during the validity period of every issued visa, to ensure the individual remains eligible to travel to the United States.

 

When considering revocations, the Department looks at information that arises after the visa was issued that may indicate a potential visa ineligibility under U.S. immigration laws. This can include everything from arrests, criminal convictions, and engaging in conduct that is inconsistent with the visa classification, to an overstay.

 

Given our commitment to and responsibility for national security, the Department uses all available tools to receive and review concerning information about possible ineligibilities.

The Dark History of Yale University: Power, Privilege, and Complicity in Genocide

Yale University, long celebrated for its intellectual prestige and political influence, has carefully cultivated an image of moral and civic leadership. But beneath the carefully constructed brand lies a history mired in racism, elitism, secrecy, and direct complicity in acts of violence—including genocide. From its early support of settler colonialism to its modern entanglements with war profiteering and imperial policy, Yale has not simply been a passive observer of atrocity, but in many cases, an active participant or enabler.

Founded in 1701 on land taken from the Quinnipiac people, Yale’s earliest benefactors enriched themselves through slavery, land theft, and violent religious expansionism. The institution was deeply tied to Puritan theology and settler colonialism, which justified the displacement and extermination of Native peoples in New England and beyond. Yale College educated generations of ministers, judges, and politicians who championed Manifest Destiny and Indian removal policies—ideologies and practices that resulted in the deaths and forced migrations of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people across the continent. In this sense, Yale was not only born of colonialism; it helped write and preach the intellectual and religious justifications for genocide.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Yale’s scientific and anthropological institutions played an instrumental role in legitimizing eugenics and racial pseudoscience. Professors affiliated with Yale promoted theories of white supremacy, while the university's alumni became architects of U.S. imperialism abroad. Yale graduates were deeply involved in violent campaigns in the Philippines, Latin America, and the Caribbean—campaigns that destroyed communities, repressed national movements, and imposed economic and racial hierarchies through military and corporate force.

In the 20th century, Yale became an incubator for the Cold War security state. The university cultivated close ties with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Skull and Bones, Yale’s secret society, became a recruitment pipeline for covert operations that supported right-wing dictatorships and death squads across the Global South. Yale men were involved in U.S.-backed coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), and Indonesia (1965)—many of which led to mass killings and long-term political repression. Some of these operations resulted in genocidal violence, such as the U.S.-supported extermination of hundreds of thousands of suspected communists in Indonesia.

Yale's complicity has continued into the 21st century. The university and its alumni were instrumental in shaping the so-called War on Terror, which led to the invasion of Iraq—a war based on lies, responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and the displacement of millions. Yale Law School graduates like John Yoo and Harold Koh wrote or defended legal justifications for torture, targeted killings, and indefinite detention. Others helped normalize drone warfare, which has devastated communities in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. These are not merely policy failures—they are crimes against humanity in which Yale-educated policymakers, lawyers, and think tank intellectuals have played central roles.

Yale’s investments also raise questions about complicity in structural violence. The university’s massive $40+ billion endowment is largely hidden from public scrutiny, but investigative reporting and activist pressure have revealed connections to fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers, and multinational corporations that profit from land dispossession, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation. Yale’s refusal to fully divest from these industries—despite sustained student and faculty protests—aligns it with forces that contribute to ecological collapse and human displacement on a global scale.

In recent years, Yale has made limited efforts to confront its dark history. These include renaming buildings previously honoring staunch defenders of slavery and colonialism, sponsoring research projects on the university’s ties to slavery, and promoting diversity initiatives. However, these gestures, while notable, are overwhelmed by the institution’s long record of harmful acts. The scale and depth of Yale’s complicity in oppression and violence far outstrip these piecemeal reforms, leaving the university’s fundamental structures of power intact and unchallenged.

This is not merely a matter of history. As the world confronts genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, the repression of Uyghurs in China, and the persecution of Indigenous communities in the Amazon, Yale has failed to take meaningful stands. Its silence on current atrocities, particularly those committed or enabled by U.S. allies and business partners, reflects a persistent institutional cowardice masked as neutrality. The university continues to host and celebrate figures implicated in these atrocities while marginalizing the voices of those calling for justice.

Meanwhile, Yale benefits from the labor of underpaid staff and the gentrification of New Haven, all while operating as a tax-exempt institution that hoards wealth rather than redistributing it. Yale’s rhetoric of inclusion and social justice cannot obscure its structural role in global systems of domination and violence.

The dark history of Yale is not a footnote—it is central to understanding how elite education functions in a global empire. Yale has helped shape the world not only through scholarship and leadership, but through conquest, secrecy, and the normalization of genocide. To confront this truth requires more than renaming buildings or commissioning reports. It demands reparations, divestment, decolonization, and a total reimagining of what higher education can and should be.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to report on these institutional contradictions, shining a light on the real consequences of elite complicity. As long as Yale and its peers remain unaccountable, they will continue to reproduce the very systems they claim to critique.

Iranian Students Face Uncertainty Amid Renewed U.S. Travel Ban

On June 4, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping travel ban, restricting entry for nationals from 19 countries—completely barring people from 12 nations and partially restricting those from seven others—citing national security concerns. This move has significant implications for Iranian students seeking education in the United States.

Impact on Iranian Students

Iranian students have historically faced challenges in obtaining U.S. visas due to stringent screening processes and political tensions between the two countries. The renewed travel ban exacerbates these difficulties, effectively halting new visa issuances for most Iranian nationals. 

Many Iranian students, even those admitted to prestigious U.S. universities, are now in limbo. Visa interviews have been suspended, and the processing of existing applications has slowed considerably. Some students have reported waiting over a year for visa approvals, with no clear timeline for resolution.

Legal Challenges and Advocacy

In response to these developments, a group of fifteen Iranian students and researchers filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the indefinite suspension of visa interviews and the expansion of social media vetting for applicants. The plaintiffs argue that these measures are discriminatory and violate the Administrative Procedures Act.

Advocacy organizations have also raised concerns about the broader implications of the travel ban. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) highlighted that federal law prohibits the issuance of student visas for Iranian students seeking to study in fields related to Iran's energy sector or nuclear sciences, further limiting educational opportunities.

Broader Implications for U.S. Higher Education

The travel ban's impact extends beyond individual students, affecting U.S. higher education institutions that benefit from the diversity and talent of international students. Universities may experience decreased enrollment from Iranian students, leading to potential financial and cultural losses. Moreover, the increased scrutiny and visa delays could deter prospective students from considering the U.S. as a viable destination for higher education.

Scientific Publishers Flooded with Fake Research: A Growing Crisis in Academia

A recent article in Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) has exposed a deepening crisis within the academic publishing world: a tidal wave of fraudulent research papers infiltrating scientific journals. These papers, often generated by so-called "paper mills," represent a form of organized academic fraud that is overwhelming the traditional safeguards of scholarly publishing. The consequences are dire, not just for publishers and researchers, but for the integrity of science itself.

Scientific publishers are increasingly struggling to detect and stop the flow of fabricated articles. In 2023 alone, more than 10,000 papers were retracted globally—a record high that signals a broken system under immense strain. At the heart of the problem are industrial-scale operations that mass-produce articles, manipulate data and images, and even sell authorship to desperate or unscrupulous academics. The incentives are clear: in countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, and Iran, academic advancement is frequently tied to publication metrics, with researchers pressured to publish frequently, regardless of quality. This "publish or perish" culture is not limited to these countries—it has become a global phenomenon that distorts academic priorities and undermines the values of honest scholarship.

Some of the world’s most established publishers are now being forced to act decisively. Wiley, one of the largest academic publishers, recently shut down 19 journals and retracted more than 11,000 articles—primarily from its Hindawi imprint—as part of a sweeping response to paper mill infiltration. These actions follow investigations revealing widespread manipulation of peer review, citation rings, and the use of template-based writing tools designed to mimic legitimate scientific prose. Other publishers have followed suit, quietly retracting hundreds of suspicious papers and investing in forensic software to detect plagiarism, image manipulation, and statistical anomalies.

What makes this crisis particularly alarming is the erosion of public trust in science and higher education. When fraudulent papers appear in supposedly peer-reviewed journals, the entire academic enterprise is called into question. Resources—both financial and intellectual—are wasted as real researchers chase the ghosts of fake findings, sometimes basing their own work on completely fabricated data. This undermines the credibility of entire disciplines and can have far-reaching effects, especially in areas such as biomedical research, public health, and environmental science.

In response, publishers are deploying increasingly sophisticated tools, including artificial intelligence, to flag suspicious manuscripts. Programs like the Problematic Paper Screener and Papermill Alarm are being used to scan thousands of articles for telltale signs of fraud. However, these technological solutions are playing catch-up to a rapidly evolving problem. Some journals have also established editorial task forces focused solely on fraud detection, and industry-wide collaboration is beginning to take shape. Watchdog organizations such as Retraction Watch continue to highlight egregious cases, drawing attention to a problem that still receives too little scrutiny in mainstream academia.

The FD article makes clear that the fight against paper mills is not just about bad actors; it’s about a system that rewards quantity over quality. Until institutions, funders, and governments change the metrics by which academic success is measured, the paper mill industry will continue to thrive. The push for more rigorous standards, better peer review, and a reorientation toward research integrity must become a priority, especially for university leaders and regulators.

At the Higher Education Inquirer, we’ve tracked many scandals across higher education—from student loan exploitation to for-profit college fraud—but the explosion of fake science is especially insidious. It reaches into the very foundation of higher learning and research. If we fail to address it systemically, the damage could be lasting. Scientific knowledge is built incrementally, and when falsehoods pollute the record, progress grinds to a halt—or worse, proceeds on false premises.

The academic community must confront this crisis with transparency and resolve. Anything less would be a betrayal of the public trust and of the countless researchers striving to produce knowledge that genuinely advances our understanding of the world.

College Meltdown Fall 2025

The Fall 2025 semester begins under intensifying pressure in U.S. higher education. Institutions are responding to long-term changes in enrollment, public funding, demographics, technology, and labor markets. The result is a gradual disassembly of parts of the postsecondary system, with ongoing layoffs, program cuts, and institutional restructuring across both public and private sectors.

The Destruction of ED

In a stunning turn, the U.S. Department of Education has undergone a massive downsizing, slashing nearly half its workforce as part of the Trump administration’s push to dismantle the agency entirely. Education Secretary Linda McMahon framed the move as a “final mission” to restore state control and eliminate federal bureaucracy, but critics warn of chaos for vulnerable students and families who rely on federal programs. With responsibilities like student loans, Pell Grants, and civil rights enforcement now in limbo, Higher Education Institutions face a volatile landscape. The absence of centralized oversight has accelerated the fragmentation of standards, funding, and accountability—leaving colleges scrambling to navigate a patchwork of state policies and shrinking federal support.

AI Disruption: Academic Integrity and Graduate Employment 

Artificial Intelligence has rapidly reshaped higher education, introducing both powerful tools and profound challenges. On campus, AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT have become ubiquitous—92% of students now use them, and 88% admit to deploying AI for graded assignments. This surge has triggered a spike in academic misconduct, with detection systems struggling to keep pace and disproportionately flagging non-native English speakers Meanwhile, the job market for graduates is undergoing a seismic shift. Entry-level roles in tech, finance, and consulting are vanishing as companies automate routine tasks once reserved for junior staff. AI-driven layoffs have already claimed over 10,000 jobs in 2025 alone, and some experts predict that up to half of all white-collar entry-level positions could be eliminated within five years. For recent grads, this means navigating a landscape where degrees may hold less weight, and adaptability, AI fluency, and human-centered skills are more critical than ever.

Unsustainable Student Loan Debt and Federal Funding 

A recent report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) highlights the depth of the crisis: more than 1,000 colleges could lose access to federal student aid based on current student loan repayment rates—if existing rules were fully enforced. The findings expose systemic failures in accountability and student outcomes. Many of these colleges enroll high numbers of low-income students but leave them with unsustainable debt and limited job prospects.

Institutional Cuts and Layoffs Across the Country

Job losses and cost reductions are increasing across a range of universities.

Stanford University is cutting staff due to a projected $200 million budget shortfall.
University of Oregon has announced budget reductions and academic restructuring.
Michigan State University is implementing layoffs and reorganizing departments.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is eliminating positions to manage healthcare operating costs.
Harvard Kennedy School is reducing programs and offering early retirement.
Brown University is freezing hiring and reviewing academic offerings.
Penn State University System is closing three Commonwealth Campuses.
Indiana public colleges are merging administrative functions and reviewing low-enrollment programs.

These actions affect not only employees and students but also local communities and regional labor markets.

Enrollment Decline and Demographic Change

Undergraduate enrollment has fallen 14.6% since Fall 2019, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Community colleges have experienced the largest losses, with some regions seeing more than 20% declines.

The “demographic cliff” tied to declining birth rates is now reflected in enrollment trends. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) projects a 15% decline in high school graduates between 2025 and 2037 in parts of the Midwest and Northeast.

Aging Population and Shifts in Public Spending

The U.S. population is aging. By 2030, all baby boomers will be over 65. The number of Americans aged 80 and older is expected to rise from 13 million in 2020 to nearly 20 million by 2035. Public resources are being redirected toward Social Security, Medicare, and elder care, placing higher education in direct competition for limited federal and state funds.

State-Level Cuts to Higher Education Budgets

According to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), 28 states saw a decline in inflation-adjusted funding per student in FY2024.

The California State University system faces a $400 million structural deficit.
West Virginia has reduced academic programs in favor of workforce-focused realignment.
Indiana has ordered cost-cutting measures across public campuses.

These reductions are leading to fewer courses, increased workloads, and, in some cases, higher tuition.

Closures and Mergers Continue

Since 2020, more than 100 campuses have closed or merged, based on Education Dive and HEI data. In 2025, Penn State began closing three Commonwealth Campuses. A number of small private colleges—especially those with enrollments under 1,000 and limited endowments—are seeking mergers or shutting down entirely.

International Enrollment Faces Obstacles

The Institute of International Education (IIE) reports a 12% decline in new international student enrollment in Fall 2024. Contributing factors include visa delays and tighter immigration rules. Students from India, Nigeria, and Iran have experienced longer wait times and increased rejection rates. Graduate programs in STEM and business are particularly affected.

Increased Surveillance and Restrictions on Campus Speech

Data from FIRE and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) show increased use of surveillance tools on campuses since 2023. At least 15 public universities now use facial recognition, social media monitoring, or geofencing. State laws in Florida, Texas, and Georgia have introduced new restrictions on protests and diversity programs.

Automated Education Expands

Online Program Managers (OPMs) such as 2U, Kaplan, and Coursera are running over 500 online degree programs at more than 200 institutions, enrolling more than 1.5 million students. These programs often rely on AI-generated content and automated grading systems, with minimal instructor interaction.

Research from the Century Foundation shows that undergraduate programs operated by OPMs have completion rates below 35%, while charging tuition comparable to in-person degrees. Regulatory efforts to improve transparency and accountability remain stalled.

Oversight Gaps Remain

Accrediting agencies continue to approve closures, mergers, and new credential programs with limited transparency. Institutions are increasingly expanding short-term credential offerings and corporate partnerships with minimal external review.

Cost Shifts to Students, Faculty, and Communities

The ongoing restructuring of higher education is shifting costs and risks onto students, employees, and communities. Students face rising tuition, fewer available courses, and increased reliance on loans. Faculty and staff encounter job insecurity and heavier workloads. Outside the ivory tower, communities will lose access to educational services, cultural events, and local employment opportunities tied to campuses.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to report on the structural changes in U.S. higher education—grounded in data, public records, and the lived experiences of those directly affected.

Sources:
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), U.S. Census Bureau, State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), Institute of International Education (IIE), Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Government Accountability Office (GAO), The Century Foundation, Stanford University, University of Oregon, Penn State University System, Harvard Kennedy School, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Education Dive Higher Ed Closures Tracker, American Enterprise Institute (AEI).