GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Status

Forthcoming

Abstract

Since the federal government began its large-scale funding of research at the start of World War II, the United States and American universities have been in a mutually beneficial relationship. The federal government has reaped the benefits of countless scientific, social science, and technological discoveries that have promoted national security and served the general welfare. In return, American universities have developed extraordinary research enterprises that are regarded as among the best in the world.

From the outset of this relationship, however, scientists and university administrators expressed concern that federal funding would interfere with institutional autonomy and academic freedom. President Trump’s current attacks on higher education reveal that these concerns were well justified, albeit to a degree these early critics could have scarcely imagined. Assuming federal research funding will continue—and there is every reason to believe it will continue, even if diminished—it is likely that this funding will come with even more limitations and conditions that require universities to bend their missions and research priorities to secure this funding. Elite private universities are now facing, and will continue to face, some of the same kind of pressure public universities in red and purple states have faced for several years. As state universities well know, however, there is no easy resolution to the conflicts that arise when the government holds the purse strings.

GW Paper Series

2025-59

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