No One's Talking About How Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" Will Destroy Education.
The Senate passed Trump's massive spending bill 51-50 after a 24-hour marathon session. The legislation targets universities that fund historical research, forcing schools like Yale to slash budgets.
Last night, by casting their votes in a session that stretched over 24 hours, senators were systematically dismantling the infrastructure that supports historical truth in America. The bill that Trump calls "big and beautiful" is actually a precision weapon aimed at universities that dare to challenge the dominant narrative.
I've Been Fighting Trump's War on Higher Education for Over Five Years
This isn't my first time watching Trump attack universities. In 2020, as Yale's first Black student-body president in the university's 319-year history, I watched the Trump administration file suit against my school for allegedly discriminating against Asian American and White applicants in admissions.
I wrote then: "Yale is under attack for allegedly doing too much to support students from underrepresented backgrounds. In reality, the university hasn't done enough."
Five years later, Trump is going after the financial foundation that makes universities viable. What started as lawsuits over diversity has escalated into economic warfare against any institution that supports historical truth-telling.
I've been sounding the alarm about this trajectory since my undergraduate days. But even I didn't predict it would get this bad this fast.
What This Bill Actually Does to Universities
Yale, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, just announced a 90-day hiring freeze, 5% budget cuts, and delayed construction projects, because this bill will tax their endowment at 8 percent, a massive increase from the previous 1.4 percent rate.
Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford are in the same boat. The only universities wealthy enough to support serious historical research are being financially kneecapped.
But it gets worse.
The Federal Funding Cuts Are Already Starting
The Trump administration has already directly targeted seven peer institutions' access to federal funding. University of Pennsylvania and Harvard implemented hiring freezes this spring. Columbia laid off nearly 180 staff members when their federal grants were terminated.
Yale alone receives $900 million annually in federal grants and contracts. That money funds the research that uncovers uncomfortable truths about American history. The kind of research that validates everything I've been telling you.
Now it's disappearing.
What Happens When the Research Infrastructure Collapses
My Yale professor saw this coming. She taught me to recognize authoritarianism, and when she saw where things were heading, she fled America entirely.
Because what's happening now is about destroying every institution that might support the work I do:
The graduate students who become the next generation of historians
The professors who validate and amplify historical truths
The research facilities where evidence of America's hidden history is uncovered
The academic networks that preserve and share these stories
They're not just censoring content anymore, they're financially destroying the entire ecosystem that creates it.
Why This Matters for Independent Historians
Remember my articles about visiting Duke Ellington School and the University of DC? How students were stunned to learn about the Smithsonian's collection of over 200 brains taken from Black DC residents? How they discovered Indigenous artifacts beneath the White House?
Those are the kinds of stories that come from academic research.
This newsletter isn't just a passion project anymore. It's becoming one of the few remaining spaces where these stories can survive.
But I need your help to make it sustainable.
Right now, over 27,000 of you subscribe to this newsletter. But less than 4% are paid supporters.
As universities hemorrhage funding and scholars are forced out, independent historians like me become more crucial than ever. But we can't do it alone.
What We Can Build Together
With your support:
📚 At 5% paid subscribers: I can create a network for displaced academics—the professors and researchers being pushed out of traditional institutions
🏫 At 10% paid subscribers: I can offer grants to graduate students whose research funding just got slashed, keeping the next generation of truth-tellers in the game
🌐 At 20% paid subscribers: We build a full alternative infrastructure—a platform where the stories being erased from universities can live and thrive
All for the price of a coffee once a month.
The academic exodus has begun. The question is: will you help these stories survive?
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We can't let them destroy the infrastructure of truth. Not now. Not ever.
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First of all, race doesn't need to be on the college application form. If you have scores high enough to get into a college, then it shouldn't matter what color you are.