(NewsNation) — Rutgers University has passed a resolution urging collaboration with other Big Ten schools to defend against what they view as attacks on academic freedoms by the Trump administration.
The move follows the administration’s request to the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, a day after President Donald Trump suggested the idea.
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Heather Pierce, a lecturer and executive committee senator at Rutgers, told “NewsNation Live” on Thursday that recent White House directives are “largely an infringement on academic freedom and institutional self-governance.”
“It’s important for us to have independent institutions of higher ed,” Pierce said. “It’s important for us to have academic freedom, for us to be able to engage in the type of research and teaching that are part of our fields. To be able to train the workforce and to educate students properly, we have to have that academic freedom.”
“When politicians come in and try to impose their political values in those spaces … it disrupts the ability for us to be able to engage in that type of research and teaching that supports democracy and society,” she said.
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Tax exemption is reserved for nonprofits, social welfare organizations, religious groups and some educational institutions that fit the government’s criteria. However, they are banned from political campaign activity.
Only the IRS can review and revoke the existing status of taxpaying entities and has traditionally done so without presidential interference, as mandated by tax laws.
The development is the latest in the school’s public fallout with the Trump administration after refusing to comply with a list of their demands to maintain federal funds.
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David Salas-de la Cruz, an associate professor at Rutgers, advocated for an open forum and emphasized the importance of maintaining funding while fostering open dialogue.
“I welcome everybody,” he said. “Let’s have an open forum. Let’s stop this fight. Let’s keep the funding flowing while creating a dialogue in an open forum to talk about what is happening, and then we can create new procedures and new protocols.”
The Hill contributed to this report.
