There's No First Amendment Right To Federal Funding, Says ASU Prof

Trump's freeze on DEI-related grant funding has academia in an uproar

In a new substack post that may not win him the undying love of university brass or certain colleagues — not that he seems to mind, gadfly that he is — ASU’s Dr. Owen Anderson takes on those in academia who are losing their minds over President Donald Trump’s controversial attempt to shut off the flow of federal funds — i.e. taxpayer money — to university Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Owen’s message, in a nutshell, is this:

"The First Amendment guarantees that you can express your opinions without government censorship. It does not guarantee that taxpayers will subsidize those opinions," wrote Anderson. "The government deciding not to fund your social justice initiative isn’t the same thing as silencing you. It simply means Uncle Sam is no longer picking up the tab."

The sense of panic in academia eased somewhat by Wednesday, after one federal judge intervened and the administration more clearly defined which funding streams would be frozen and which would keep flowing. But Trump’s line in the sand against DEI-related programs and expenditures clearly won’t be going away, making Anderson’s primary points just as relevant.

Anderson’s entire piece is worth reading, so please read it, but I’ve extracted the following nuggets as an appetizer.

I enjoyed this passage:

Imagine a teenager shouting, “You can’t take away my allowance! That violates my rights!” No, kid, it doesn’t. Your parents choosing not to fund your questionable spending habits—whether it’s junk food, video games, or an ill-advised face tattoo—doesn’t mean you’ve lost your freedom. It means you need to find another way to fund your lifestyle.

Likewise, university faculty are still free to teach, research, and hold meetings about DEI to their heart’s content. They just can’t assume that federal grants exist as a bottomless piggy bank to pay for it. The First Amendment does not entitle you to other peoples’ money.

And this passage:

There’s a delicious irony in watching radical leftist professors suddenly become First Amendment absolutists — after spending years suppressing dissent on their own campuses. For decades, conservative Christian professors have faced a chilling effect for merely expressing their beliefs. They’ve been blacklisted, denied tenure (not hired in the first place), and investigated for “wrongthink” if they dared to question progressive orthodoxy.

Where was the concern for free speech when conservative faculty were being deplatformed? When Christian professors were told their views on marriage, gender, or human dignity were “harmful” and had no place in academia? When university policies created an environment where only one ideological perspective could be expressed without fear of professional retaliation?

It turns out that universities are all for "free speech"—so long as they’re the ones defining what speech is acceptable. But now that their own funding is under scrutiny, they’ve rediscovered the Bill of Rights.

Anderson ends his post with a call to action — and it’s one that vigilant alumni should heed.

“For those of us at state universities, let’s be vigilant to watch how administrators and radical leftists try to get around these laws,” he writes. “The public has a right to know how their tax money is spent, even if that means it is spent by ASU on required DEI training about how white people are unconsciously racist.”

Something tells me that Dr. Anderson’s invitation to the next faculty cocktail party is going to get lost in the mail.