‘I saw the writing on the wall’: Austria offers safe haven for US academics as Trump wages war on universities
Wali Malik no longer has to worry that a rightwing bureaucrat – or influencer – will decide his research is “woke”.
He doesn’t have to fear government retaliation for speaking his mind or following the science wherever it may lead. And like others who have left a polarized United States for the calmer pastures of Austria, he need not fear his lab being decimated because the president decided he wants to deport the people who work there.
When he got the call about a position in Vienna, Malik had already begun to see the impact of Donald Trump’s assault on higher education and scientific research. He saw friends and family fall victim to mass layoffs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation, while his own work slowed as federal grants were rescinded.
He had never been to Austria, but the decision to leave the United States wasn’t hard.
“I saw the writing on the wall,” Malik explained. “It took trust for the US to become a scientific powerhouse. It took 70 years – and was destroyed within six months,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...safe-haven
Wali Malik no longer has to worry that a rightwing bureaucrat – or influencer – will decide his research is “woke”.
He doesn’t have to fear government retaliation for speaking his mind or following the science wherever it may lead. And like others who have left a polarized United States for the calmer pastures of Austria, he need not fear his lab being decimated because the president decided he wants to deport the people who work there.
When he got the call about a position in Vienna, Malik had already begun to see the impact of Donald Trump’s assault on higher education and scientific research. He saw friends and family fall victim to mass layoffs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation, while his own work slowed as federal grants were rescinded.
He had never been to Austria, but the decision to leave the United States wasn’t hard.
“I saw the writing on the wall,” Malik explained. “It took trust for the US to become a scientific powerhouse. It took 70 years – and was destroyed within six months,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...safe-haven
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
