Trump: Defund ‘Radical Left’ Universities; Orders Review of Tax-exempt Status

President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that he had told the U.S. Treasury to review the tax-exempt status of schools and universities that had become vehicles for left-wing indoctrination.

“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status … and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”

Conservatives have long observed that American higher education has become increasingly left-wing. Data from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education documents that conservative speakers are targeted for “dis-invitation” from campus far more often than liberal ones. College curricula also emphasize and reward left-wing ideas, and faculty members are overwhelmingly left-wing and liberal.

The results of that education, conservative critics say, is evident in the recent Black Lives Matter protests, where graduates of elite universities have been among the rioters attacking police and tearing down statues.

Last month, two lawyers, one with a degree from Princeton, were arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails into police cars in New York.

Last March, President Trump signed an executive order that threatened colleges and universities with the withdrawal of federal research funding if they did not respect First Amendment rights to free speech.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.