However; it seems to me some of these institutions could band together and pool resources both legal, financial, and otherwise to give something of a stronger defense than one alone.

Rock and a hard place certainly.

But there has to be something that can be done, albeit even in the United States broken systems of law, both constitutional and otherwise, to fight off this assault. Anything other than bending the knee and enabling further assaults on higher-education and/or the US democracy.