April Is the Cruelest Month

The President, the Algorithm, and the Soft Brain of American Optimism. Plus: Indiana GOP takes control of Indiana University.

Before we dive into the flaming dung heap of higher ed policy news, a plug for my very talented brother’s music:

Tyler J. Cook, a man with the rhythm of Springsteen and the heart of Elliott Smith, is officially selling his full music catalog on Bandcamp. Check it out. It’s dreamy, textured, and deeply human stuff. If you're into slow-burn songwriting and melodies that make you want to stare out the window on a long drive, TJ is your guy. Head over to tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com and give his work a spin. It pairs beautifully with bourbon, reflection, or mild existential dread.

In other news…

Wednesday was my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mom!

It was also a whirlwind day for American higher education. President Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at reshaping—or perhaps dismantling—the U.S. educational landscape. One of these orders addresses AI literacy. We'll get to that shortly.

But first, let’s zoom in on one alarming development you may have missed overnight amid the broader chaos:

Late last night, the Republican-controlled Indiana legislature handed Governor Mike Braun effective control over the Indiana University Board of Trustees—an institution with more than 200 years of proud academic independence. Tucked into the state’s biennial budget approval process with no hearings, no public debate, and no opportunity for faculty or administrators to weigh in, the new language allows Braun to choose all nine members of IU’s Board of Trustees. The budget also gives the governor the power to "remove and replace" a member at any time. This means he could remake the board as soon as the legislation takes effect on July 1. It’s also important to note that this change singles out IU alone—none of the state’s other public universities, such as Purdue or Ball State, were similarly targeted.

The move aligns almost perfectly with the blueprint laid out in Project 2025, the sweeping right-wing manifesto for reshaping American government that Trump-aligned organizations have quietly championed. While Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 during the election, the ideas are unmistakably being operationalized at the federal level, and this case, the state level, too: seize control of universities, courts, media, and federal bureaucracies. Control the centers of independent authority, and you don’t just win elections. You alter society’s capacity to dissent, you dumb everyone down so they are easier to control. The right doesn’t like freethinkers.

State Sen. Fady Qaddoura (D-District 30), an Indianapolis democrat and IU alum, said he is concerned that IU will lose its independence with the governor’s control of the IU Board.

“[T]his is a political takeover. I think universities have a great tradition of engaging their constituents who run for elections to include alumni and students who have the best interests of their university. I’m very concerned that these type of political moves will politicize our state’s higher educational institutions. To take full control of the university’s board makes me nervous and makes me question what is the intent behind this political move.”

For faculty, students, freethinkers, political dissidents, or anyone to the left of Braun, this isn’t just a bureaucratic reorganization. It’s a seismic shift. Once public universities are directly governed by partisan appointees, academic freedom becomes a conditional privilege, not a protected right. Research agendas can and will be muzzled. Hiring becomes little more than an ideological litmus test. Faculty who step out of line, whether that means by studying climate change, teaching about race, or criticizing government policies, can find themselves vulnerable. This is no longer a theoretical concern or conversation. This is the new operating system being quietly installed.

And here’s the truly chilling part: this level of overt partisan control over a flagship university is virtually without precedent in modern American history. Even during the Red Scare or the culture wars of the 1990s, universities retained some institutional buffer from direct gubernatorial takeover. What happened late last night at the Indiana Statehouse is something altogether new: an open declaration that public universities should serve the ruling political party—and an experiment that, if successful, will not stay confined to just IU or the Hoosier state. It will spread.

“The current process has not maybe yielded the proper results on the entirety of how you’d want that important part of our state to be run from curriculum to costs to the whole way one of our flagship universities has been operating. I want to get a board there that is gonna be a little more rounded, that’s gonna produce better results.”

—Indiana Governor Mike Braun

This isn’t just an Indiana story, either. In Texas, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recently declared, “I will not stand by and let looney Marxist UT professors poison the minds of young students with Critical Race Theory." Patrick openly celebrated the firing of dozens of staff and the planned elimination of whole departments. What’s unfolding is a coordinated, national blueprint to gut the independence of major public universities. This is 100% politically motivated. It’s a hostile takeover. And, clearly, it’s happening faster than many are ready to admit.

In fact, what we are seeing happening to higher education right now is part of a broader national project, one that’s being accelerated by the Trump White House’s recent flurry of executive orders aimed at dismantling public education as we know it. Let’s take a closer look at what’s already in motion since January 20 (just a random date I picked, no special significance). Each one of these could reshape higher ed for a generation:

1. Dismantling the Department of Education
   On March 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education. This move aligns with long-standing Republican goals to reduce federal involvement in education.

2. Cracking Down on DEI Initiatives
   Executive orders have been issued to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in colleges and universities. Institutions found to be non-compliant risk losing federal funding.

3. Overhauling Accreditation Processes
   On Wednesday, the White House announced that it is reforming the college accreditation system, discouraging consideration of diversity and emphasizing student outcomes without regard to race or gender. This shift aims to replace existing accreditors with ones enforcing "real standards."

4. Resuming Penalties on Defaulted Student Loans
   Starting May 5, 2025, the administration will reinstate penalties for borrowers in default, including withholding tax refunds and Social Security benefits. This marks a departure from the previous administration's approach to student loan forgiveness. By contrast, the Biden administration approved student loan forgiveness totaling approximately $188.8 billion for 5.3 million borrowers. This surpasses the efforts of any previous U.S. administration in terms of both the number of individuals assisted and the total amount of debt canceled.

5. Investigating Foreign Influence in Universities
   An executive order mandates stricter enforcement of disclosure rules regarding foreign donations to universities, with potential funding cuts for non-compliance.

6. Withholding Federal Funds from Select Universities
   The administration has frozen or threatened to freeze billions in federal funding to institutions like Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton over alleged non-compliance with new policies.

7. Launching AI Education Initiatives
   Again, on Wednesday, an executive order was signed to prioritize AI-related teacher training and curriculum development in K-12 schools. (More on this below.)

8. Supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
   Also signed on Wednesday: a White House initiative was established to support HBCUs, including creating a presidential advisory board and measures to boost funding and retention rates. This one I actually like, and I think it could be a good thing. Still, it’s worth remembering that support for HBCUs has often been wielded more as a political talking point than a sustained investment. Trump has touted HBCU funding before, usually in contexts where he’s trying to burnish credibility with Black voters or sidestep criticism around racial equity. So yes, this initiative might lead to something meaningful, but the follow-through is everything.

So here we are: April in America. T.S. Eliot called it the cruelest month, and this year is no exception. For longtime teachers, April is when everything comes due, and it seems like the president is operating on a similar timeline. Emerging from the flurry of executive orders is Trump’s latest contribution to education: an AI literacy initiative.

Yes, the same man who once asked whether we could nuke a hurricane is now guiding our national conversation about artificial intelligence in classrooms. Do I laugh? Do I scream into my copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed? Yes. And yes.

The White House fact sheet on AI advancing AI education reads like a PowerPoint deck written under the influence of cold medicine, Fox and Friends, and late night McDonald’s. Leading this initiative is a brand-new “White House Task Force on AI Education,” chaired by the Secretaries of Education and Labor, the OSTP Director, and—my personal favorite—a “Special Advisor for AI and Crypto,” who I assume is a guy named Chase who vapes between LinkedIn posts.

So, what’s in the initiative?