What It Means If Harvard Surrenders to Trump
Rewarding Trump's thuggery encourages more of it.
Donald Trump’s war on higher education exposed the fact that many of America’s leading colleges and universities are run by cowards. Trump cut off grant money, threatened to pull schools’ accreditations, and blocked international students. Rather than fight this, many leading universities cut deals and surrendered their power.
Columbia University agreed to pay $200 million to the administration. It also will allow itself to be overseen by a new “independent monitor” that will track the university’s compliance with the administration’s edicts. This is an unprecedented level of government interference on campus, and a shocking concession for one of the nation's richest, most prestigious colleges.
The administration has also demanded Harvard eliminate diversity programs, submit to “audits” of academic departments, change hiring practices, and cooperate with federal immigration enforcement—essentially surrendering university autonomy—or face loss of federal funding. In April, the school filed suit against the administration on First Amendment grounds.
Amid all of this, Harvard talked a big game. Alan Garber, the school’s president, wrote in a letter to the Harvard community: “No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
Set against the backdrop of other schools’ cowardice, this was all deeply encouraging. Which is why it was especially disturbing to learn that Harvard may now be considering cutting a deal with Trump. The New York Times has reported that the school is in talks with the administration to pay as much as $500 million to make its pressure campaign go away.
This wouldn’t just be a black eye for Harvard. It would send a clear signal to all other colleges: You are not safe. Do not fight, because you will not win. After all, if Harvard—which has an endowment larger than the GDP of many countries—can’t afford to stand up and fight Trump’s flagrantly authoritarian tactics, what chance do the rest of us have?
A thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that you run a small liberal-arts college with an endowment a fraction of the size of Harvard’s. Your faculty, staff, and legal support are puny by comparison. If and when the Trump administration targets you because it doesn’t like your policies on DEI, wokeness, or anything else—what are you going to do?
You’ve now seen the model: Pay the bully and hope he goes away. Except in this case, you don’t have $500 million on hand to do so. You know Harvard et al won’t take up for you, because they’ve already proven themselves to be cowards. And so you’re left to fight the full might of a vindictive state run by an aspiring autocrat, all alone.
The worst part is that Harvard doesn’t have to do this. It has the resources and legal expertise to fight the administration’s actions in court. It already proved its ability to do so by bringing the case earlier this year, one in which the judge appeared “deeply skeptical” of Trump’s actions against the school. No, if Harvard capitulates, it will be because it chooses to.
Such a move would represent the very worst kind of elite cowardice. Instead of standing on principle, it would mean the school calculated that the easiest thing to do was to make the whole thing go away, and then hope it doesn’t happen again. It would mean following the same playbook as many Big Law firms and media companies, making the exact same calculation.
If this happens, Harvard may get its wish, and Trump may call off his dogs. If so, the school will have won a pyrrhic victory. For hundreds of years, its seal has borne the word Veritas. In winning a short-term reprieve from Trump’s caprice, it will have sacrificed its claim to this legacy.
Sarah Matthews is an Advisory Board Member and Spokesperson for Home of the Brave, a new initiative highlighting the harms of Donald Trump’s second term.
I bought a Harvard Tshit to wear to my weekly protests. If they cave looks like I will have to burn it.
Oh, please don't give in. I know the messages from 47 are becoming ridiculous. He's a bully, a child who throws tantrums when things don't go his way or when someone doesn't "like" him. There are so many of us, not even affiliated with your University, that are supporting you throughout the US and the world.
Please stay strong.
Morgana R. Burrows