Having already cowed Columbia University, Donald Trump is upping the pressure on other institutions to bend to his demands. The administration said Thursday that it would withhold more than $500 million in federal funding from Brown University as part of its crusade to crack down on student protests and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The same day, the White House issued a set of demands to Harvard University, and threatened to pull $9 billion in federal funding if they weren’t met. Among the demands: “shutter” DEI programs; restrict protests; and “cooperate” with law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement.

“We expect your immediate cooperation in implementing these critical reforms,” the letter read.

The warning came as the Trump administration makes universities—which were home to the Gaza war protests the president and his allies have cast as inherently antisemitic—a frontline in its antidemocratic clampdown on dissent, civil liberties, and immigration. In recent weeks, the administration has frozen or reviewed funding for at least five universities, including Columbia, which caved to Trump’s demands and announced sweeping policy changes last month, and is investigating dozens of other schools across the country.

Meanwhile, federal agents—executing Trump’s draconian immigration agenda—have made several high-profile arrests of students who had expressed opposition to Israel’s war effort. One, Mahmoud Khalil , was arrested at Columbia; the Palestinian-born legal permanent resident had helped lead protests on the campus. More recently, federal authorities detained a Turkish-born Fulbright scholar, Rumeysa Ozturk , at Tufts University, where the F-1 visa holder was studying in a PhD program. Her transgression? Co-authoring an op-ed in the school newspaper.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the latter arrest after a disturbing video of plainclothes agents taking Ozturk off the street spread online and in the media. “Every time I find one of these lunatics,” he said , “I take away their visas.” The message is meant not only as a warning to foreign-born students; it is, of course, an effort to intimidate their institutions, as well.

Tufts, to its credit, is standing behind its student , petitioning a federal judge this week to order the administration to allow Ozturk to return to Massachusetts from Louisiana, where she is being held. “The University seeks relief so that Ms. Ozturk is released without delay so that she can return to complete her studies and finish her degree at Tufts University,” the declaration read, describing her as a “valued member of the community.”

But other universities in the administration’s crosshairs have been less resolute: Columbia ceded to Trump’s demands to unfreeze its $400 million in federal funding, and Harvard President Alan Garber said the school would work with the administration, though he warned that jeopardizing the school’s grants and funding would “halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation.” A number of law firms—which have also been targeted with retaliation by Trump—have also bent the knee in response to his threats recently, including one tied to former Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff and the House January 6 committee.

The Trump administration’s hardball has unquestionably put these institutions in a difficult position—caught between maintaining normal operations and the antidemocratic pressure from Trump. But, as former President Barack Obama put it Thursday night during an appearance at Hamilton College, it is perhaps worth it to “pay a price” to stand up for the values they purport to hold: “We’re in one of those moments when…it’s not enough just to say you’re for something,” Obama said, calling on law firms and universities to avoid being “intimidated” by the administration. “You may actually have to do something and possibly sacrifice a little bit.”