The Washington Examiner’s Byron York argued the Trump administration’s feud with multiple universities stems from the White House’s work to combat “Left” ideology at these schools, specifically by cutting funding.

The administration announced that it would be ending almost $4 million in funding to Princeton University, citing how the school’s “narratives” regarding climate risks do not align with the administration’s priorities. York, the chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, noted how Republican lawmakers have felt for some time that many of these universities “lean far to the left” and that said schools have used some of their federal support for “politicized purposes.” 

“And the Trump Administration sees itself balancing that out a little bit,” York explained on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “Now we’re talking about lots of money. The Ivy League universities alone got $6.4 billion in federal grants last year. So you’ve seen some cuts in spending over climate, you just mentioned over trans issues, and you’re seeing a lot of push on the question of free speech and civil rights, and the administration is going back to a lot of these protests, these pro-Gaza protests, these anti-Israel protests on campus, trying to find the difference between constitutionally-protected speech and illegal harassment and violence.”

York continued by noting how many of these universities, such as Columbia University and Yale, are “big financial institutions” and that people have even compared these schools to “hedge funds with a university attached.” As such, these universities are “capable” of taking a financial hit as the Trump administration seeks to balance its federal spending, York said.

FLORIDA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE COMPETING. THE REST OF THE NATION SHOULD TAKE NOTE

Two other universities, Cornell and Northwestern, have both had their federal funding halted by the Trump administration, with the former school’s funding equaling approximately $1 billion and the latter school’s totaling $790 million.

The federal funding pause at these universities comes as the Health and Human Services Department, the Education Department, and the General Services Administration review schools to determine whether they violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act due to the protests with antisemitic themes across the universities.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon informed dozens of universities that the Department of Education was “deeply disappointed” at how “antisemitic eruptions” have hindered the learning experiences of Jewish students on campus, adding that leaders of these universities “must do better.” She also said that universities benefit from “public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers” and that these investments adhere to schools obeying “federal anti-discrimination laws.”