The fallout from Trump’s war on Harvard will outlast his term

Trump’s war on Harvard has consequences that will last long after he leaves office.

Three hours ago.

Anthony Zurcher.

Senior reporter for North America: @awzurcher.

It’s been a busy seven days for Donald Trump. He threatened to transfer $3 billion in Harvard research funds to technical colleges on Monday. The White House instructed federal agencies to review the roughly $100 million in contracts the government has given Harvard and, if feasible, “find alternative vendors” in a letter mailed on Tuesday. He continued to discuss the topic on Wednesday.

At the Oval Office, he told reporters, “Harvard’s got to behave themselves.”. “All Harvard is doing is getting deeper and deeper, and they are treating our country with a great deal of disrespect. “.

Trump’s orders constitute a direct assault on one of the most prominent and affluent universities in the United States, especially when paired with other administration initiatives like blocking foreign students from enrolling at Harvard and freezing over $3 billion in research grants.

Even though some of these actions have already been put on hold or are overturned by court challenges, the effects are already being felt throughout the higher education system in the United States.

According to Greg Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, “they’re doing multiple things every single day, some of those things are sneaking through.”. They’re altering the culture, though, which is more significant. People are being transformed by them. “.”.

There was a “palpable concern” on campus, according to students at Harvard’s commencement ceremonies on Thursday.

One British graduate, who asked to remain anonymous because he was worried that his public remarks would jeopardize his US work visa, acknowledges, “People sort of knew Trump was trying some of these moves but [they were] shocked when it happens.”. It seems like the option of going nuclear. “,”.

“If Harvard can experience this, then any university in the nation can,” he continues.

However, the effects of this alleged Harvard-Trump war extend well beyond the administration of a single Ivy League school. Could Trump’s actions represent, as some have suggested, the most recent in a series of bold moves by conservatives to undermine some of the Democratic Party’s long-standing bases of support?

If that is true, the campus has turned into a crucial arena for determining the political and cultural climate of America.

charges of bias and antisemitism.

A number of justifications have been put forth by Trump and his administration for their actions, including the alleged dearth of conservative professors at Harvard, claims of overabundance of international students, and financial ties to China.

However, the White House claims that the most direct reason is the university’s seeming inability to deal with antisemitism on campus, following anti-Israel demonstrations at US colleges since the Gaza War began.

Three well-known university presidents, including Claudine Gay, who was president of Harvard at the time, struggled to respond in December 2023 to questions about whether calling for the “genocide of Jews” was against their student conduct codes on bullying and harassment, which sparked a flurry of criticism.

In response to a question regarding antisemitism on US college campuses during a congressional hearing, Dr. Gay stated that it depended on the situation. “When words magnify pain and distress, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” she later said in an apology to the student newspaper. “.

Trump pledged during the campaign last year to revoke government accreditation and federal funding for universities he claimed were spreading “antisemitic propaganda.”. Trump started carrying this out after he got back to the White House in January.

Many universities agreed to broad changes in campus security policies and increased oversight of their Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies departments, including Columbia, which witnessed some of the most well-known protests.

Harvard published the findings of a university task force study on antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice on campus in April. The study was commissioned prior to Trump’s election. Numerous Muslim and Jewish students experienced prejudice, exclusion, and estrangement from the university’s community and curriculum, according to the study.

But the administration is calling for much more than just antisemitism to be addressed. Its “Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” sent a letter to Harvard outlining a long list of reforms that the university must implement, such as ending diversity programs, changing hiring and admissions procedures, screening international students for opinions that are inimical to “American values,” and promoting and preserving “viewpoint diversity” among faculty and students.

Several in higher education have been taken aback by Trump’s shock-and-awe tactic of swift and forceful pressure, as they never anticipated the magnitude of the demands or the power behind them.

He says, “It’s not about higher education,” Mr. Wolfson says. One of the tools they believe is essential to changing our society is higher education. “.

Nevertheless, whether most American universities agree to the administration’s demands or resist, as Harvard is attempting to do, could have a significant impact on the possibility of a long-term change.

An all-out war.

Although Harvard has been the most vocal opponent of the administration and the focus of its ire, it is only one of many well-known American universities that have faced scrutiny or funding reductions.

According to reports, the administration has suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants from Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. Ten universities have been the subject of investigations by the Department of Education for suspected antisemitism, and dozens more have been forewarned that they may be subject to similar inquiries. Additionally, 52 universities are being looked into for unlawful racial programs.

Some believe that the Trump administration is waging a general war on elite higher education in an attempt to rebrand universities to seem more conservative. This is not a bad thing to others.

In an interview with Fox News last month, Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, stated that universities are about the aggressive promotion of a left-wing worldview rather than the pursuit of knowledge. “Our goal is to make a difference. “..”.

From the 1960s left-wing anti-war radicalism to the 1990s “political correctness” to the 2000s Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalism to the recent Black Lives Matter movement and anti-Israel protests, many conservatives have long seen American college campuses as breeding grounds for liberal indoctrination.

Surveys have shown a certain difference in opinions between college graduates and non-graduates. The polling firm Civiqs recently conducted a survey in which non-college graduates expressed mixed opinions about Trump’s performance in office, with 49% disapproving and 47% approving.

While only 38% of college graduates approved of Trump’s performance in office, 58% disapproved, reflecting a stark difference in opinion.

As the director of education policy studies and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Rick Hess says, “I think a lot of this blowback is from the sense that they have become the universities of blue [Democratic] America, and that this is the consequence.”.

Universities “brought this on themselves.”.

Hess claims that American higher education has grown increasingly dependent on government funding and has a closer relationship with the government in recent years.

He claims that recent Democratic administrations’ use of civil rights investigations, federal anti-discrimination laws, and funding authority over higher education has been replicated by the new Trump team.

He went on to say, “It’s undeniably true that these levers have been turned up to eleven in typical Trump fashion.”. “..”.

Additionally, compared to the Obama and Biden administrations, there are fewer legal and procedural protections.

“It’s both an evolution and a revolution,” Mr. Hess asserts.

He contends, however, that universities have created this issue for themselves by becoming overtly political during Trump’s first term and elevating elite schools to the forefront of American higher education.

According to Mr. Hess, “the price for collecting billions of dollars in tax dollars is that institutions should both honor their commitments, like upholding civil rights laws, and adhere to a mission in which they explicitly serve the entire nation.”.

While denying universities federal funding may be a novel challenge for higher education, some see this as the most recent in a long line of conservative attempts to weaken important, long-standing pillars of liberal power.

Long before Trump was able to win over white working-class voters in his three presidential runs, the power of labor unions, which had donated money and volunteer members to the Democratic Party, had waned due to a combination of laws and court decisions.

The enormous amounts that trial attorneys could donate to Democratic coffers have also been reduced by state-level lawsuit reforms. Additionally, continued attempts to reduce the size of the government workforce, which peaked with Elon Musk’s Doge cuts, have undermined another traditionally Democratic bloc.

But Mr. Wolfson worries that if some of the policies of the Trump administration are implemented, something bigger might be lost.

He claims that having multicultural, multiracial, and multinational universities is beneficial to them. It fosters incredibly diverse intellectual thinking and communities. “.”.

The Ivy Leagues’ response.

To fend off Trump’s pressure, Harvard, which is arguably best known for its esteemed law school, has made the courts its main weapon.

A federal judge on Thursday put the administration’s efforts to block foreign students from obtaining visas to enroll in the university on indefinite hold.

While that case is still pending, the university has also filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from canceling more than $2.02 billion in federal grants.

“The trade-off put to Harvard and other universities is clear,” Harvard stated in a complaint submitted to a federal court in Massachusetts. “Permit the government to micromanage your school or risk the institution’s capacity to seek out ground-breaking scientific, medical, and creative solutions. “,”.

In an interview with National Public Radio, Harvard president Alan Garber spoke out in favor of his university, stating that it would be “firm” in its commitments to truth and education.

“Harvard is a very old institution, much older than the country,” he added. Harvard has believed in serving the country for as long as there has been a United States of America. “..”.

Trump, on the other hand, has used forceful language himself. His words on Wednesday were, “Harvard wants to fight.”. They’re getting kicked in the ass because they want to show off their intelligence. “..”.

breaking through the ivory tower’s walls.

According to opinion polls, Trump’s political base backs both his initiatives and the underlying message. However, according to those same surveys, the majority of people in the general public favor American universities and oppose his suggested funding reductions.

Regardless of one’s stance, it is extremely difficult to implement such a significant overhaul of America’s higher education system, even with all the resources available to the federal government.

However, Mr. Wolfson asserts that it will be equally difficult to undo the harm he claims has been done to academic independence.

Increasingly, members of the American Association of University Professors are afraid of what will happen if they voice their political opinions or carry out unpopular research.

“The destruction is real,” Mr. Wolfson contends. “The country’s higher education project will continue to be severely undermined by Trump’s rash actions, even if the courts intervene. “.

Mr. Hess, who has long advocated for conservative reforms in education, is less worried. He thinks a more systematic reorganization of American universities may prove more successful than Trump’s anarchic, disorganized strategy, which includes remarks from last week.

Mr. Hess declared, “This is all an ambitious experiment.”. The question of whether it’s a successful strategy remains very much open. “.

But one thing is obvious. American colleges and universities are no longer immune to the scorched-earth politics of American politics, even if they oppose or outlast Trump’s initiatives. Regardless of who one thinks the barbarians or liberators are at the gate, the ivory tower’s walls have been breached.

Getty Images is credited with the top image.

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