This is one of those times I’m glad I’m in charge of only myself. I can’t imagine the pressure of leading an organization—like a higher ed institution—that is dependent on support from the federal government for its literal day-to-day operations.

Also, I am aware of the old saw about free advice … it’s worth what you pay for it.

Nonetheless, I’m going to venture some advice for institutions experiencing the assault of the opening 10 or so days of the second Trump presidency.

Opinions may differ on exactly what is happening, but I’m convinced that New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie is correct in saying, “Donald Trump is waging war on the American system of government.”

If you believe this is true, there’s no room for accommodation. Ending democratic governance leaves no room for the kind of higher education that has made the U.S. the envy of the world.

You’ve got to resist, all of it, actively, with as much countering force as possible. An administration that without notice “pauses” NIH and NSF activities, that even stops disbursement through the Office of Management and Budget, is not merely reorienting the government around the new president’s priorities. It seems clear they either intend to destroy or hobble higher education to make it a vassal state.

I’ve got myself thinking of a couple of dynamics that I think are important to recognize in the moment.

One is the problem of “institutional awe,” which I draw from the term “vocational awe,” coined by Fobazi Ettarh from observing the work of librarians such as herself. She calls vocational awe “the set of ideas, values and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique.”

Ettarh identifies vocational awe as a route to self-exploitation as librarians are called upon to sacrifice their own well-being in order to preserve the operations of the library itself.

“Institutional awe” is a bit different, and something perpetrated not by the laborers, but by leadership, where it’s judged that the continued operation of the institution is of the utmost importance, no matter the sacrifices required by the individual stakeholders, or the damage to the underlying mission of the institution.

Under institutional awe, as long as the doors remain open, anything goes.

There are already some worrying signs of this mentality in terms of some pre-emptive compliance with merely perceived threats from the Trump administration. In some cases, these moves appear to be motivated by a desire for administrations to use Trump policy as a rationale for either seizing more control or silencing dissent that’s causing them headaches. I do not want to think uncharitably of some of the leaders of the nation’s higher education institutions, but “Trump made me do it” appears to be a handy rationale for dodging responsibility.

In other cases, I think we’re looking at rank cowardice, as in Northeastern University’s decision to purge any public-facing information that even references diversity, equity and inclusion. I suppose this suggests that Northeastern was not particularly committed to these things, as they are setting a land speed record for “obeying in advance.”

The other big-picture caution I have is something I wrote about recently, to remember that there is always something next, and decisions you make in the present shape what that next thing is going to be.

It seems clear to me that higher ed institutions are going to be fundamentally different both because of the efforts of Trump and some red state governors to make them over to something that must express fealty to their preferred vision, and simply because we’ve reached an endpoint regarding a prior vision of postsecondary education as something that should be accessible to all.

A long-standing belief of many conservatives, that too many people go to college—and by too many people they mean women and minority students—that has been simmering under the surface for decades has now come into the open as overt attempts to, in the words of Victor Ray, “resegregate America” under the guise of challenging diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

I understand the urge to treat what’s going on as perhaps elevated but still normal government functioning in line with what happens during any transition from one party to the other holding the White House. Members of the Democratic Party themselves seem to be acting according to this view.

But how much evidence is necessary to recognize that this is a delusion and that pre-emptive appeasement or ducking and covering while hoping the blows land elsewhere is not going to work?

While public trust in higher education has declined in recent years—mostly along partisan lines—it does not follow that most Americans would like to see the important work of teaching and research be utterly destroyed.

As much as possible, institutions should act in solidarity with each other, considering an attack on one institution an attack on all, given that your institution will be next at some point.

In the words of Alexander Hamilton, as imagined by Lin-Manuel Miranda, “If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?”