BY EMESE ILYÉS
I teach at John Jay College at CUNY, and every day I thank my lucky stars for having the chance to share a learning community with each of my students. But lately, I have immense reasons to worry for all of us. As I watch Trump’s executive orders targeting education unfold, I’m feeling an overwhelming sense of familiarity. I was born in Ceausescu’s Romania. My mom was a teacher. The authoritarian dictator starved the people, persecuted minority communities like mine, and severely limited academic freedom. Ceausescu’s strategy was systematic: centralize educational institutions, censor curricula, purge politically unreliable academics (my mom’s mentor disappeared without a trace), and force universities to hire faculty and admit students based on ideological criteria. Today, we’re watching similar patterns emerge through executive orders that threaten to withhold federal funding from institutions that don’t comply with ideological demands. On March 7, the White House took away $400 million dollars of funding from Columbia claiming that it has failed to protect Jewish students—a strikingly cynical claim given the administration’s silence on Nazi salutes at conservative rallies and Trump’s association with Holocaust deniers. Now the government seeks to deport student organizer Mahmoud Khalil under a rarely used immigration provision allowing removal when someone’s speech contradicts US foreign policy interests. A single official—in this case, Secretary of State Marco Rubio—can declare a person’s political expression grounds for exile. This latest threat to academia represents a chilling escalation of attacks on free speech on and off campuses—a precedent we must all vigilantly monitor and resist.
The parallels are chilling. Back in Romania, my mother whispered about forbidden curriculum, her voice low even when we were alone in our concrete communist tenement. Today, educators across America are beginning to whisper about how to protect students and preserve academic freedom in the face of executive orders seeking to ban discussions of structural racism, unconscious bias, and gender.
These threats are materializing into devastating decisions that are eroding academic freedom around the country. At the University of North Texas, administrators have already censored over two hundred academic courses, removing words like race, gender, and equity from course titles and descriptions. In Florida, universities are reviewing all course content for “antisemitism or anti-Israel bias,” flagging everything from Percussion Ensemble to Global Hip Hop. This is “anticipatory obedience”—institutions rushing to comply before they’re even forced to do so.
The targeting of public institutions reveals the class dynamics at play. At CUNY, where half of the undergraduate students come from households earning less than $30,000 annually, the threat of withdrawn federal funding isn’t just about institutional survival—it’s about whether higher education will remain accessible to working-class communities. Private universities with massive endowments might weather these storms; public university students, many relying on Pell Grants and federal aid, may not.
These vulnerabilities didn’t emerge overnight. Decades of systematic defunding of public higher education have left many institutions particularly exposed to political pressure. CUNY has lost more than 4,000 full-time faculty positions even as the student population has increased. Full-time professors have been replaced by temporary instructors and adjuncts who make poverty wages with little security. This precarity isn’t accidental—it’s part of a broader project to privatize education and weaken academic freedom by creating a workforce too financially insecure to resist.
The chilling effect of these executive orders is already visible in our classrooms. There are profound reasons our institutions struggle to respond effectively. Many public institutions rely heavily on federal funding for Pell Grants and vital research. The threat of withdrawing this funding can destabilize entire institutions. Yet this creates a dangerous paradox: in trying to protect our institutions financially, we risk compromising the very principles that make them worth protecting.
My own journey from a persecuted ethnic community in Romania to teaching in American universities gives me an embodied understanding of why education matters in contexts of authoritarian repression. My parents sacrificed everything so their children could speak and think freely. They left behind family and deep connection to land so that I could experience academic freedom. Now, watching core principles of academic freedom being eroded, I feel a profound obligation to speak out.
The classroom remains, as bell hooks told us, a radical space of possibilities. This is what makes American higher education uniquely powerful—this liberating kind of academic freedom that draws brilliant scholars from around the world. At our public universities, this freedom allows working-class students to challenge power, to reimagine their communities, to envision futures beyond what seemed possible.
When my family fled Romania, we believed we were leaving behind whispered conversations about forbidden knowledge and the fear of teaching truths the state sought to deny. Today, I find myself calling on American educators and administrators to recognize and resist the same patterns of control I witnessed as a child. Universities need to publicly challenge unconstitutional restrictions through legal action and the explicit defense of academic principles, following Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor’s exemplary model: when ordered to abandon DEI teaching, he directly invoked the First Amendment and refused to capitulate, stating clearly that “the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear.” The integrity of public higher education—and with it, the future of democratic society itself—depends on our collective refusal to engage in anticipatory obedience before there is nothing left to defend. Mahmoud Khalil’s case may be the first test of this dangerous new strategy to silence dissent through deportation, but it won’t be the last if we remain silent. We must all pay close attention to how this significant threat unfolds and make our voices heard in unequivocal opposition to such blatant attacks on academic freedom and free expression.
Dr. Emese Ilyés is a critical social psychologist, participatory action researcher, and educator at John Jay College, City University of New York. Having arrived in the United States as a refugee at age ten after experiencing persecution of her ethnic community, she explores the intersections of silencing, dehumanization, and joyful resistance. Her work is fundamentally rooted in solidarity and centers those most impacted by systems of oppression. Through coconstructing research with diverse communities, she challenges dominant narratives and envisions ethical futures, tracing connections between personal stories and global dynamics. When not in the classroom, Dr. Ilyés forages for herbal medicine passed down from her grandmother and mother, enjoys running through New York City, and—like her mother before her—uses words to build worlds as an expression of resistance and joy.
