German Rectors' Conference (HRK) concerned about the growing political pressure on US universities

“The freedom of research and teaching and the autonomy of universities are essential guarantors of the performance and quality of universities and the research system. They are precious, indispensable - and at the same time, fragile. I am therefore deeply concerned about the growing political pressure on research and public and private universities in the USA", declares Walter Rosenthal, President of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK), on 17/04/2025.

After several American universities, including Columbia and Harvard, were pressured by the Trump administration to comply with its demands, Walter Rosenthal supports the latest, which chose not to comply and lost $2.3 Bn of federal funding in the process: "President Alan Garber of Harvard University has made it clear: 'No government should seek to dictate what is taught or researched at universities.' Ideological restrictions on who is admitted to study or who is employed at a university are equally unacceptable.”

The HRK isn't the first European organisation to oppose the Trump administration's policy regarding higher education and…