Students walk past the Humanities building at San Francisco State University on Sept. 16, 2024. Their education is provided by an under-respected but vital system. 

The California State University system is the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education — it gets no respect.

The one time in recent memory a CSU campus garnered national media attention was last year when the White House went after San Jose State because it had a trans athlete on its women’s volleyball team.

So, it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that while recent battles between the University of California and University of Southern California with the Trump administration have snagged most headlines, its campaign to demolish academic freedom in higher education has more quietly ensnared Cal State.

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Antisemitism is the ostensible rationale for an announced investigation of all 23 CSU campuses by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in tandem with the Department of Justice. But combating antisemitism is a phony rationale for demanding that universities pledge fealty to the president’s political agenda. The Trump administration is claiming the right to decide what type of students can be admitted, what stripe of faculty can get hired and what can be taught — or else. Needless to say, these demands have nothing to do with antisemitism.

Unlike the University of California, Cal State is not a research powerhouse. The federal grants it receives are often for thousands, not billions, of dollars. Teaching is CSU’s core mission. And it has been remarkably successful.

Consider this thought experiment: How would our lives change if........

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