In New York and Washington, the presidents of more than 200 universities have signed a collective letter condemning the Donald Trump administration's attempts to interfere in their institutions, while the executive producer of the legendary news program 60 Minutes announced his resignation after his company, CBS News, surrendered to pressure from the White House, amid new outbreaks of high-profile resistance against the new US regime.
University presidents, including those at the prestigious Harvard, Princeton, and Brown, have publicly denounced the government's unprecedented political interference
against higher education institutions. The statement released yesterday by the Association of American Colleges and Universities is the broadest and most forceful statement to date since the Trump administration issued a series of threats to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and demanded curriculum changes, measures against what it misleadingly calls anti-Semitism
, and even the installation of external monitors to oversee the demanded changes.
Columbia was the first university to negotiate and capitulate to Trump's demands, and others have indicated they are negotiating, but Harvard surprised everyone by rejecting threats to withdraw some $2 billion in federal funding. Moreover, Harvard became the first university to sue the government over these threats ( https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement ).
Trump's attacks on the media have also begun to draw wider condemnation. Bill Owens, executive producer of perhaps America's most famous and oldest (57 years) Sunday television newsmagazine, announced his resignation because they had lost their journalistic independence. He informed his team that it has become clear that he will not be able to make independent decisions , the
New York Times reported .
