Withering Ivy: How Donald Trump Cuts the Roots of American Academia

We are currently witnessing with bewilderment how the new US administration is not only attacking the constitution, media, the judiciary, and international law, but is also dismantling American academia.

The government has decreed a staccato of draconic measures targeting academic institutions and individual scholars alike, leaving no doubt about its final aim: to destroy academic freedom and thus the precondition of America's position as world champion of teaching and research.

How much of this is strategy, how much just arbitrariness and resentment? How vulnerable or how resilient are academic institutions in the US? How can they resist this unprecedented attack? What are the repercussions for science worldwide?

And, finally, could something similar happen in Germany?