We Americans are witnessing a in real time as Donald Trump and Elon Musk tear down the state and violate laws and the Constitution to achieve their ends.

When, in his first days in office, Trump halted federal funding, he demonstrated to all people and institutions everywhere that if they use US federal funds they are dependent not on Congress or the courts, the rule of law or the Constitution, fair processes or transparency, but on his whim alone.

For good reason, universities and professors . When one is subject to the arbitrary will of a capricious ruler, one is no longer free.

The chief advice that historian Timothy Snyder offers those threatened with tyranny is . ¡°In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked,¡± he writes in On Tyranny. ¡°A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.¡± Not just citizens, but institutions too, as a recent makes clear.

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Unfortunately, we are watching the nation¡¯s most powerful corporations obey in advance. Facebook with Trump for halting his account in the wake of the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack. Media companies have settled or are considering settling suits Trump has filed against them, rather than stand up for the freedom of the press.

These companies¡¯ leaders understand that we are no longer living under a rules-based republican but a situation?where remaining in Trump¡¯s good graces is essential for their survival. Indeed, companies have been between obeying the law or Trump.

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in Hungary, Trump has indicated that he will use his power to undermine academic freedom. Can universities, dependent on federal funding, hold out when the most powerful corporations, run by the world¡¯s richest people, do not?

Trump¡¯s executive orders on the use of federal funding have already led universities to shut down Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes and offices. A from the Department of Education¡¯s Office of Civil Rights raised the stakes by giving them just two weeks to comply with the Administration¡¯s position on DEI or risk their federal funding. Universities have also responded to pressure from donors and Republican leaders pro-Palestinian faculty.

That is bad enough, but we are now seeing anticipatory obedience extended to faculty research. A recent reported that major research universities ¨C including Arizona State and North Carolina State ¨C have asked their scholars to cease federally funded research that could be considered DEI-related.

Given that DEI expectations have been written into much federal research, the anxiety is certainly warranted. It is possible that the government will cancel existing grants. It might even devise arbitrary rules to harm institutions that persist with research it finds objectionable.

Will teaching be any safer? The evidence to date is not reassuring. The University of North Texas mandated course names and descriptions in response to a state DEI ban. , public universities submitted to the state¡¯s effort to that Republican leaders did not want students to take. North Carolina became the first state to by interpreting Trump¡¯s regarding ending DEI programmes to apply to curricula.

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Trump has entered the fray directly with his entitled ¡°Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling¡±. The order requires all schools to cease providing any programmes, services or courses that violate the administration¡¯s definition of gender and racial discrimination. It marks the most significant expansion of federal authority over K-12 curricula ever.

The order also requires federal agencies to ¡°prevent or rescind federal funds¡± being used ¡°directly or indirectly¡± in ¡°K-12 teacher certification, licensing, employment, or training¡±. In other words, it mandates that federal funds be cut from university education schools if their curricula do not?toe the White House party line.

This is what happens in China. The order is vague enough that it could potentially extend even to the various arts and sciences programmes that prepare pre-service teachers: English or history departments that offer courses in gender and sexuality, for instance, or African American history. Some states mandate that teachers study subjects that could now be prohibited by Trump¡¯s executive order.

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It is probable that Trump¡¯s overreach will be stopped in the courts. Judges have in the past defended academic freedom and protected state governments from unauthorised federal mandates. But that will take time. In the meantime, the government could decide to cut off funding to universities that defy its executive orders, forcing them to close before the courts can step in.

Yet when universities obey in advance, they sacrifice their highest value ¨C academic freedom ¨C to arbitrary power too easily. At the very least, they should avoid making any changes before the US administration goes through the process of determining how to enforce its orders.

Even then, resistance will remain crucial, even if it entails costs that will be felt by all the university¡¯s stakeholders ¨C students, faculty, staff, administrators and society. The issue is existential. To give in would be to become an extension of the authoritarian state that Trump appears to be building.

In other words, even if the university remained in operation, its soul would be dead.?

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is author of He is professor of history at Western Washington University.