The University of California made two announcements last week that reflect the uneasiness and concerns over Trump administration policies aimed at higher education.

UC President Michael V. Drake sent a letter out last week to the UC campuses, including UC Santa Cruiz, putting in place a system-wide hiring freeze and other “cost-saving measures, such as delaying maintenance and reducing business travel where possible.”

Drake pointed to a “substantial cut” to the UC system in the California state budget that also reflects the Trump administration’s reduction in support. He said the administration’s executive orders and proposed policies “threaten funding for lifesaving research, patient care and education support.”

In the other, the UC Board of Regents announced that whenever hiring does start up again, UC universities will no longer be able to require applicants submit diversity (DEI) statements.

Regarding the diversity statements, few will mourn their disappearance, regardless of Trump’s war on “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies in academic, governmental and corporate institutions. The president has threatened a loss of federal funds to those who maintain DEI programs as well as universities that don’t crack down on “illegal protests” that can foster antisemitism.

The arguments over UC’s rigid diversity statement policy have raged for years inside the system and elsewhere, focusing on how they are an affront to academic freedom and essentially had become odious loyalty oaths to a left-wing ideology. UC officials said the requirement would help underrepresented ethnic and racial groups achieve parity, but critics called it a political litmus test that forced job applicants to conform to a political policy.

Dropping the requirement for diversity statements, however, must not deter UC campuses from continuing to pursue diversity in faculty hires, not only in race or gender — but also in thought and political philosophy.

On that point, academia’s predominantly leftward tilt has undermined the universities’ core mission of accumulating and disseminating ideas. As the accompanying column published today by the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle argues, there’s no doubt that far too many students and professors are afraid to tackle controversial topics, with moderates and conservatives most likely to be fearful or uncomfortable speaking their mind. Censorship, mainly of non-progressive ideas, has damaged scholarship and eroded public trust in higher education.

So, it’s understandable conservatives are seeking to restore ideological balance to college campuses so that higher education serves the entire country, including Republicans.

But the Trump administration attack on universities is both destructive and counterproductive.

The first blow came when the White House announced earlier month it would pull $400 million in government grants and contracts from Columbia University because the school had failed, to put it mildly, to control antisemitism on campus. So, last week, Columbia President Katrina Armstrong responded by announcing the university, facing funding cuts that will “immediately impact research and other critical functions,” now is ready and willing to work with the Trump administration.

The greater issue is that U.S. research universities, and the federal funding that supports them, are critical to the United States’ position in the world and provide not only an innovation engine that has helped boost Silicon Valley, but also fuel this country’s unprecedented economic growth.

This intellectual engine is too valuable to risk for political aims. If research is cut off or researchers decide to pursue their studies elsewhere outside the Trump administration’s reach, what will America lose?

Yes, many schools, including UC campuses, should have done more to ensure students felt supported in airing contrary points of view. But the scientists and researchers who are affected by a funding cutoff were not responsible for any of this. The solution is not to apply political pressure from a different direction or to defund research.