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Notes -
If. Notably, that is not the main observable action, since academic freedom isn't being suppressed by defunding academic organizations that violate civil liberties law or by defunding academics that support explicitly anti-academic ideologies. Even if academic freedom were being suppressed, most people don't observe academic freedom as some sort of scalar value that increases when the sum of all academics practicing their academic freedom goes up or something. These are vectors where the specifics matter, and, as such, to say that this is the "main observable action" - even presuming that it were an observable action in the first place, which it isn't - is wrong.
I don't think most people have a difficult distinguishing between the behavior of Trump and his ilk in this context and the behavior of the censors that have been running roughshod throughout academia's veins. Notably, this does make moves towards academic freedom, by punishing organizations and people who have demonstrated and/or made commitments to suppressing academic freedom. If we want academic freedom, we should punish such people so as to provide an incentive not to do it further.
And empirically, one method that has absolutely not worked at all for increasing academic freedom - in fact, it has only resulted in things getting worse and worse over time until today, when academics not being free has become so common knowledge that academia has substantially discredited itself as a source for truth - is to not punish these people when you have power.
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