The Trump administration has taken a series of actions against Harvard University, and has stated explicitly that it is making an example out of Harvard: “Let this serve as a warning” to other universities, DHS said. Yesterday, NPR interviewed Harvard President Alan Garber on his university’s clash with the administration:
Alan Garber: In my view, the federal government is saying that we need to address antisemitism in particular, but it has raised other issues, and it includes claims that we lack viewpoint diversity.
Garber concedes that the administration has a point:
We have been very clear that we think we do have issues, and I would particularly emphasize the speech issues. We think it’s a real problem, if – particularly a research university’s – students don’t feel free to speak their minds, when faculty feel that they have to think twice before they talk about the subjects that they’re teaching. That’s a real problem that we need to address. And it’s particularly concerning when people have views that they think are unpopular. And the administration and others have said conservatives are too few on campus and their views are not welcome. In so far as that’s true, that’s a problem we really need to address.
Last month, a Harvard task force reported on its investigation of anti-Semitism at the university. I wrote about that report here. I think it is fair to say that the task force found anti-Semitism to be a serious problem at Harvard, and one that is linked to that institution’s progressive consensus. To his credit, the NPR interviewer asked about that report:
There are a lot of accusations in there about things that have gone wrong here and my eye fell on one sentence, which I wrote down. I’ll quote it to you: “Since fall 2023, different factions at Harvard have fought to force various university leaders to make statements, invest, divest, hire, fire, doxx, un-doxx, discipline students and undiscipline them.” How would you define the problem?
Garber: Well, clearly, there has been tremendous division on campus over that period of time.
While agreeing that Trump has a point as to both anti-Semitism and viewpoint diversity, Garber’s main defense is that cutting off funding for scientific research is unrelated to those issues. I think that is somewhat disingenuous. The federal government’s main relationship with Harvard is its funding of research, which amounts to billions of dollars. Trump seeks to cut off that funding, not because doing so will solve the problems of anti-Semitism and intellectual conformity, but to stop supporting an institution that does not serve the public interest. Garber talks as though cutting off funding to Harvard means that important research would not be done. In fact, it means it would be done somewhere else.
Nowhere in the NPR interview was Harvard’s history of race discrimination discussed, but that is–or should be–an important part of the picture. The U.S. Supreme Court has specifically found that for years, Harvard has illegally discriminated against Asian and white students. Yet Harvard seems to have gone on its way as if nothing had happened. It would be nice if someone at least asked the question whether the university has stopped discriminating. Harvard’s proven race discrimination is a solid basis, under the Bob Jones University case, for revoking its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. That would make its endowment taxable, among other consequences.
It is not easy to find intelligent commentary on the battle between the administration and Harvard, or elite universities generally. This morning’s New York Times is obtuse, as usual:
The Trump administration urged federal agencies this week to find other universities to fill government contracts now held by Harvard. Every week seems to bring another escalation in the conflict between the school and the government, which says Harvard’s professors are biased, its Jewish students are unsafe and its officials use “diversity” to admit “woke” applicants.
All of which is true, as the university’s own task force report confirmed.
Americans have fought for centuries over what students are taught. But the Trump administration has a new approach: It is using the government’s power to compel compliance with its views.
That is a dishonest framing of the issue. It is true, of course, that the administration wants Harvard to address anti-Semitism on campus and stop engaging in race discrimination. Those are not just “its views,” but are goals that one would hope any administration would share. And as to ideology, the administration isn’t trying to “compel compliance with its views.” It simply wants viewpoint diversity rather than monolithic leftism. A Democratic administration would never “use the government’s power to compel compliance with its views,” because Harvard’s views are already entirely congruent with those of the Democratic Party.
But university officials say the administration’s approach is a threat to academic freedom….
But is it? The administration isn’t telling Harvard what it needs to teach, it is telling Harvard that if it doesn’t serve the interests of American taxpayers–which is the farthest thing from the mind of anyone at Harvard–it is not entitled to taxpayer dollars.
Trump’s battle with Harvard is something that no other Republican presidential candidate would have undertaken. As much as anything, it exemplifies his determination not just to win political battles, but to weaken or reshape the entire American establishment.
