The attacks on biomedical research by the Trump administration over the past month—the funding freezes by executive order and then by subterfuge; the pausing of Federal Register notices so study sections and National Institutes of Health advisory councils cannot meet to consider grants; the massive cuts in indirect research costs—have pushed American public health and medical science to the brink. These attacks are happening at other agencies, including the National Science Foundation, endangering science across the board in the United States. And they are throwing the universities where so much vital research is done into crisis.

Some may think this will all pass soon, and things will get back to normal. But they’re kidding themselves. This is the new normal—and it’s already causing harm.

Research in the US depends heavily on federal funds—there is no fallback for most of us—so an interruption in funding means an interruption in support for all the work we do, from equipment and supplies to salaries for our trainees, students and postdoctoral fellows, as well as our own. While “indirect costs” do not support our projects specifically, they pay for the vast infrastructure that supports science at universities, the basic utilities, shared equipment, grants management staff, and other personnel that make our schools run.

That’s all by design. The administration is filled with people on a quest to undermine universities and the work they do. Way back in 2021, JD Vance was calling universities “the enemy.” Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025 and now director of the Office of Management and Budget,  similarly laid out much of this plan in advance, which they are now executing. And next they’ll come for university endowments.

At some point soon, we’ll reach the point of no return. Some institutions are already freezing graduate admissions and suspending hiring, and we’ll start to see a wave of labs closing down, clinical research studies at hospitals stoppin. Once this starts, there is no going back. It will set American science back a generation.

So where are university presidents and trustees during this crisis?

This is an existential moment for higher education. Yet, with a few notable exceptions, most university presidents have remained quiet about what is happening. It’s not hard to understand why: Speaking out risks getting your own institution targeted by this vindictive administration.

Many of us who work for universities need more than some platitudes about how we’re all in this together. What is the strategy to keep the bottom from falling out of university-based research over the next few months? What is the plan to push back? Individual universities could support one another in developing contingency plans and banding together to take on the administration collectively. There is safety in numbers.

Yes, some universities have initiated or joined lawsuits against the policies now being enacted, sending their lobbyists to the Hill, but we need more.

Our students, our postdocs, and our junior faculty are filled with anxiety and fear, and the eerie silence from academic leadership is making things worse. Hiding under the bed won’t solve anything—it just emboldens Trump, Musk and their minions.

I am sure that, in the highest reaches of university administrations, they think this strategy is wise and prudent. But as Mark Greif from Stanford said recently: “There may well be normalcy again. But it lies on the other side—not in accommodation to this malevolent insanity, run by lackeys and toads. The risk of overreaction is trivial compared to the risks of accommodation.”