(Excerpted from the Academic Freedom Index Update 2026 https://academic-freedom-index.net/research/Academic_Freedom_Index_Update_2026.pdf)
The decline in academic freedom in the United States began around 2020, largely fueled by state-level actions in several states, and mostly undertaken by officials aligned with the MAGA movement. In 2025, under the second Trump Administration, attacks on academic freedom at the state level intensified, supported by an array of federal measures. These attacks undermine not only individual-level freedoms by targeting faculty members, staff, and students, but also and more prominently, the autonomy of higher education institutions. Political interference in university governance, curricular decisions, hiring practices, and research agendas has increasingly become a feature of contemporary US higher education.
While “the problems facing higher education today [in the US] are not new and stem from ill-conceived policies developed and implemented on a bi-partisan basis,” federal actions escalated in 2025 to concrete interventions targeting the autonomy of universities. Such actions include efforts to politicize accreditation, condition federal funding on compliance with government demands, and leverage research support to influence admissions, hiring, and governance practices at institutions. This political strategy culminated in high-profile confrontations with Ivy League universities in early 2025, and prompted multiple lawsuits alleging unconstitutional interference with institutional autonomy.
Overall, both state and federal attacks have generated severe pressure on American universities. The termination or freezing of thousands of federal research grants, mostly targeting top universities, along with federal anti-diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) directives and state-level legislative actions, has directly constrained higher education institutions’ capacity to set independent research priorities and to sustain long-term academic programs. Proposed budget reductions of up to 35 % — amounting to approximately US $32 billion — further intensify this pressure by compelling universities to reallocate internal resources, curtail research lines, particularly in fields such as gender studies and environmental justice, and align institutional strategies with short-term political and fiscal considerations.
Figure 6 compares the average trajectory of institutional autonomy in Western Europe and North America with the trajectory of institutional autonomy in the United States between 2015 and 2025. It shows that the regional average level of institutional autonomy has deteriorated only marginally, now ranking slightly below the substantial institutional autonomy category. In contrast, the decline in the United States has been more rapid and pronounced, particularly in the last year. It has deteriorated by 50% from 2015 to 2025 and is now evaluated as moderate autonomy by country experts.
Figure 7 (click for the full article to see this figure) compares the decline of institutional autonomy in the United States with its decline in other prominent (former) democracies that have autocratized, namely Hungary, India, and Türkiye. It shows that the decline in institutional autonomy in the United States over 2019–2025 has been both rapid and pronounced, falling from 3.3 in 2019 to 1.7 in 2025. The steep decline in the US case, concentrated within a relatively short six-year period, shows how quickly political and administrative pressures can erode institutional autonomy. Other countries with relatively high scores for academic freedom and democracy which have lately experienced consistent declines, such as Hungary, India, and Türkiye, have also experienced substantial and statistically significant declines, as political attacks, legal reforms, and administrative interventions have gradually undermined the autonomy of higher education institutions. Compared to the US, however, these have occurred over longer periods and with different magnitudes.
Notwithstanding these findings regarding the decline of institutional autonomy in the United States, resistance has emerged through legal and institutional pushback. Recent court rulings have rejected imposed limits on research funding — such as the attempt by the National Institutes of Health to cap overhead reimbursement. The rulings have affirmed the illegitimacy of politically motivated constraints and resulted in the reinstatement of the majority of previously rejected grant applications. This legal success suggests that judicial checks can help defend academic freedom under sustained political pressure. These developments also highlight the active role of the academic community and civil society organizations as important bulwarks against executive and legislative overreach. What is more, academic research indicates a remarkable resilience of academic freedom, even in situations of democratic backsliding.
There is no guarantee, however, that the steep decline in institutional autonomy in the United States has halted, and further deterioration remains possible.