On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump released a new video for his presidential campaign centered around higher education in the United States.
In the video, Trump outlined plans he had to seize endowments at any university or college that used affirmative action in its practices – whether it be for hiring staff or admitting students.
The opening of Trump’s video included attacks he made against how there’s been a “Marxist” takeover of the country’s higher education system. He also vowed that he would change how institutions of higher education in the country are accredited, so that these universities and colleges better reflect values that defend the “American tradition and Western civilization.”
Trump opened the video, labeled “Higher Education,” by saying:
“For many years, tuition costs at colleges and universities have been exploding, and I mean absolutely exploding. Well, academics have been obsessed with indoctrinating America’s youth.
“The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left, and we will do that …
“When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics. We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again, and once and for all.”
Trump said that the current accreditors have “failed totally” at doing their job, ripping off taxpayers and students in the process. If he were to be elected president, Trump said he would institute new standards on the accreditation boards that would include eliminating administrative positions that are wasteful and end up leading to costs increasing exponentially, as well as protecting the free speech on campuses.
He added
“Removing all Marxist diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucrats offering options for accelerated and low-cost degrees, providing meaningful job placement and career services, and implementing college entrance and exit exams to prove that students are actually learning and getting their money’s worth.”
Trump said he wouldn’t be stopping there, either. He would be taking direct action to ensure universities and colleges actually go through with getting rid of the DEI programs he talked about earlier.
To do this, he would tell the Department of Justice that it should pursue civil rights suits on the federal level against any school that engaged “in racial discrimination and schools that persist and explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity.”
He further said he’d make sure that these school would have their endowments taxed and try to fine them for the entire amount of their endowment – essentially making sure that they don’t get to use their endowment at all.
Trump explained what he would use those funds for:
“A portion of the seized funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies, policies that hurt our country so badly. Colleges have gotten hundreds of billions of dollars from hardworking taxpayers, and now we are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.
“We are going to have real education in America.”
