The Contagion

The re-emergence of Donald Trump as the 47th President has unleashed a phenomenon Bandy X. Lee terms “Trump Contagion”—a malignant spread of chaos, intimidation, and authoritarianism infecting nearly every facet of American life. From relentless media assaults to propaganda barrages, vicious insults to political manipulations, Trump’s “Shock and Awe” strategy operates less as governance and more as a disease, metastasizing where resistance falters. Nowhere is this more evident than in academia, where Lee, a Yale-trained psychologist, author, and professor, has observed the erosion of intellectual freedom firsthand. The Trump administration’s aggressive targeting of universities—through funding cuts, visa crackdowns, and ideological purges—threatens not just scholars but the soul of higher education. As distinguished academics flee and foreign scholars face expulsion, a critical question emerges: can academia withstand this assault, or will it collapse under fear and capitulation?

Bandy Lee’s experience serves as a stark case study in this contagion’s reach. For 17 years, she taught at Yale’s School of Medicine and Law School, earning accolades that resonate still: law students hailed her courses as “the highlight of my law school career,” undergraduates deemed her Global Health Studies class “the best at Yale College,” and her department lauded her for elevating its stature to national and international levels. Her work—rigorous, respected, and grounded in psychological science—faced no criticism until she published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, exposing Trump’s mental impairments. The backlash, led by Trump ally Alan Dershowitz, dubbed “the Academic Assassin” by Susan Cortilet-Jones of the World Mental Health Coalition for derailing truth-tellers like Norman Finkelstein, was swift and brutal. Dershowitz and his allies viewed Lee’s work as a threat to their “Dear Leader,” transforming her exemplary Yale status into dismissal almost overnight.

What stunned Lee wasn’t the attack—Trump’s minions are predictable—but the spineless compliance of Yale’s administrators. There was no debate, no defense of academic freedom, only an unspoken inquisition in the tone of her department chair, John Krystal, implying: “Don’t you know the script? Why aren’t you toeing the line?” Her firing was not merely personal but a test case, a warning to silence other intellectuals. Lee responded with her first-ever lawsuit, a stand for democracy, only to be thwarted by a questionable judicial swap. This incident foreshadowed Trump’s broader war on academia, now escalating in his second term with a ferocity driving scholars—foreign and domestic—out of the country.

Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, his administration has launched a multipronged assault on universities, targeting elite institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Federal research grants—$11 billion across dozens of schools—have been frozen, justified by vague accusations of antisemitism and ideological bias. Harvard’s ability to enroll 6,800 international students, 27% of its 2024-2025 enrollment, was revoked under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claiming it addressed “fostering violence” and ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Visa crackdowns, including over 300 student visa revocations by March 27, 2025, target non-citizens for social media posts deemed “pro-Hamas” or “antisemitic,” fostering fear among foreign academics. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained scholars like Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil for protest activities, signaling a wider purge. These policies weaponize bureaucracy to strangle academic freedom, disrupting funding and visas critical to scholarly work.

The human toll is immense, though precise data remains elusive due to the lack of centralized reporting and the brief timeframe since Trump’s return. No comprehensive records track how many foreign academics have been fired or quit, but the pressure is palpable. Cuts to National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grants have forced universities like UMass Medical and West Virginia University to pause graduate admissions, jeopardizing livelihoods of international scholars, particularly in STEM. NAFSA forecasts a 30-40% drop in international student enrollment for fall 2025, a trend likely extending to academic staff reliant on similar visa programs. Estimates suggest hundreds, possibly thousands, of foreign academics face job loss, voluntary departure, or relocation, driven by a “catch and revoke” strategy monitoring social media for dissent.

This is no mere administrative shuffle; it’s a calculated campaign to intimidate. Trump’s allies, led by figures like Stephen Miller, view universities as “woke” bastions and wield funding freezes, tax threats, and visa restrictions to force compliance. Some institutions, like Columbia, have capitulated, agreeing to $221 million fines and oversight to restore funding, while others, like Harvard, face legal battles to resist. The message is stark: conform or collapse. Lee, as a psychologist, recognizes that capitulating to dangerous personalities like Trump only emboldens them. His administration’s tactics—blackmailing universities with defunding, banning protests, and demanding oversight of faculty and students—thrive on submission, endangering higher education’s survival.

I was saddened to learn that my own alma mater has also bent the knee. As reported in the August 6 issue of the Brown Daily Herald (excerpt): “President Christina Paxson announced the University had come to an agreement with the Trump administration…though this agreement could have been worse, it only weakens the integrity of Brown’s academic community…Brown has its funding restored and the government is closing current investigations into Brown, but there is no commitment of any sort that the administration will back off harassing, detaining and deporting the non-citizen members of the University…as with other university deals, these aren’t agreements. President Trump and his extortionate regime see university presidents the same way as they see Iranian mullahs or Canadian trade negotiators: everything is provisional, the boss might change his mind. The government has agreed to put down the guns it has in its hands, but it could always just pick them back up…bottom line, Brown gets its funding back by creating loads of new, legally enforceable obligations, which it is easy for the government to plausibly claim Brown isn’t keeping to, and with no legally enforceable counter-commitments from the government going forward. Just one disruptive student protest, a few anonymous evaluations, some controversial social media posts or a negative campus survey and we are back in the line of fire. No university can exercise the necessary coercive control over its members to avoid those kinds of events — and no university ever should…This is not a temporary measure in an abnormal period. These agreements help create a new normal. If we are being extorted, then just say so. But don’t call a stick-up a voluntary agreement, and don’t sell it as a return to the way things were.”

A 2025 Nature poll revealed that 75.3% of 1,608 US scientists surveyed are considering leaving the country due to Trump administration policies, including severe research funding cuts, grant terminations, and immigration restrictions. Early-career researchers, particularly postgraduate (548/690) and PhD students (255/340), are most inclined to relocate, favoring Canada and Europe. Research Snipers reported a 32% increase in U.S. scientists’ international job applications from January to March 2025, with a 68% surge in March alone, coinciding with intensified budget cuts. Thousands more must be hoping to leave, driven by funding instability and political pressures.

A brain drain is underway but, Down Under, Australia’s Strategic Policy Institute calls it a “once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity.” France’s Aix-Marseille University offered 15 positions to American researchers, receiving over 50 applications, while Spain allocated €45 million to attract scientists with $200,000 grants. Canada has drawn tenured Yale professors like Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, whose works On Tyranny and Erasing History warned of Trump’s authoritarianism. Stanley, who spoke at Lee’s 2019 National Press Club conference, described Trump’s tactics as “stochastic terrorism,” targeting individuals to silence the masses through fear. At the Naval War College, a military-ethics professor resigned after being told academic freedom was illusory under Trump’s directives. At West Point, a tenured philosophy professor quit, writing in the New York Times that he could not tolerate an academy forced to “indoctrinate” rather than educate.

This is Trump Contagion: a deliberate dismantling of America’s intellectual infrastructure. Universities, once engines of innovation and diversity, are being humiliated, as Stanley noted, with few resisting. The economic impact is severe—international students contributed $44 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023-2024, supporting 378,175 jobs—and the cultural and scientific losses are incalculable. By targeting foreign academics and students, Trump’s policies risk ceding America’s global lead to competitors like China, which welcomes displaced scholars, and is already ahead of the US by several metrics.

Resistance persists. Lee’s lawsuit, though unsuccessful, was a principled stand. American academics must resist, not capitulate, to preserve higher education. Trump’s second term escalates his first, fueled by loyalists and a global retreat from liberal values. Lee, as a psychologist, sees parallels to a malignant narcissist’s playbook: intimidate, isolate, dominate. Universities must fight back, or risk becoming hollow shells. The contagion is spreading, but it’s not unstoppable. The question is whether academia—and America—has the courage to resist before collapse is complete.