In short order, Donald Trump has managed to bend to his will much of the American political system and many major institutions outside government, like law firms and universities. But Harvard University, in refusing his demands Monday, is setting an example for other Trump targets to follow: “Let’s hope other institutions follow suit,” as former President Barack Obama wrote Monday evening, praising the Ivy League school for “rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.”
Obama had been pushing for higher education institutions to avoid being “intimidated” by Trump’s bullying, as Columbia University and some top law firms like Paul Weiss have been as the administration threatens their funding and operations. “We’re in one of those moments when…it’s not enough just to say you’re for something,” the former president said earlier this month in an appearance at Hamilton College. “You may actually have to do something and possibly sacrifice a little bit.”
And, indeed, it seems Harvard will have to sacrifice for its stand: After Harvard released a letter Monday saying it was “not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration,” the administration said it would freeze more than $2 billion in federal funding as punishment. Then, on Tuesday, the president, on TruthSocial, escalated the clash between the elite university and the White House, threatening Harvard’s tax status.
The Trump administration has been pressuring universities under the guise of combating antisemitism on campuses. But the administration’s stated intent to root out antisemitism is but a cynical cover for its more earnest ambitions: to dismantle diversity initiatives and to cow institutions seen as bastions of liberalism. “The universities seem all powerful, and they have acted as if they were all powerful, and we’re finally revealing that we can hit that where it hurts,” conservative activist Christopher Rufo told the New York Times Monday. “We want to set them back a generation or two.”
The administration’s hardball unquestionably puts universities and other institutions in a difficult position; Harvard’s letter—written by attorneys William Burck and Robert Hur, the latter of whom was the special counsel who investigated Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents (and called attention to his age and mental dexterity in his report)—noted that Trump was threatening “federal funding critical to vital research and innovation that has saved and improved lives and allowed Harvard to play a central role in making our country’s scientific, medical, and other research communities the standard-bearers for the world.”
The Harvard showdown underscores just how critical it is that institutions, inside and outside the government, show resolve in the face of Trump’s threats. It might come at a “price,” as Obama acknowledged at Hamilton College earlier this month. But it’s not as if Columbia caving to this administration will be spared Trump’s intimidation campaign; as always, the appeased bully has only sought further satisfaction, with the administration—still yet to restore the school’s funding—now reportedly seeking to ensure the university adheres to its demands by putting it in a consent decree. It won’t be easy for Harvard and any other universities that follow its lead. But to capitulate to this administration’s authoritarian tactics is to help legitimize them. This is a time for institutions to muster strength.
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