U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to bully Harvard University into submission. Under the guise of promoting “viewpoint diversity,” his administration has canceled all of the university’s federal grants and attempted to bar it from hosting international students.
Trump’s version of “viewpoint diversity” is a call to erode diversity efforts and censor those who challenge his policies and beliefs. Harvard’s administrators have shown commendable resolve in resisting his attacks, scoring tactical victories in court that have kept some of his authoritarian measures at bay. But recent reporting by the New York Times raises a troubling prospect: The university may at least partially capitulate to president’s demands.
If Harvard is to remain committed to its principles, it cannot yield to the Trump administration. The university must be prepared to face the costs that such courage entails.
We have worked as professors in Hungary and Poland, two countries that also face authoritarian populism. Our experiences show that when right-wing regimes target prestigious universities, the universities’ only viable strategy for long-term survival may be to relocate at least part of their operations to more hospitable jurisdictions. In Harvard’s case, a move abroad could strengthen the university’s global standing and help preserve its core values.
Trump’s populist playbook closely resembles that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has ruled the country since 2010, and Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, which held power between 2015 and 2023. The right-wing regimes in both Hungary and Poland have relentlessly attacked independent institutions, including courts, the media, and civil society.
Universities occupy a special place on the authoritarian hit list. Institutions such as Harvard undermine the far right’s agenda by exposing its moral bankruptcy and intellectual incoherence. The “viewpoint diversity” that Trump demands of Harvard is unachievable—not because of any inherent leftist bias at the university, but because key tenets of the administration’s worldview cannot hold up to serious academic scrutiny.
Climate change denial and anti-vaccine rhetoric are not valid scientific positions. No serious theory of justice would endorse policies that fast-track white Afrikaner migrants from South Africa while turning away Black and brown refugees fleeing war and climate catastrophe. No credible legal doctrine excuses Israel’s conduct in Gaza or Trump’s threats to annex territory by force. No honest reading of U.S. history can ignore its deep entanglement with racism.
Trump must understand that large parts of his agenda are intellectually indefensible, but he also knows that universities can be co-opted. Throughout history, even institutions committed to scientific progress have served unjust regimes and social norms. In Nazi Germany, jurists extolled the powers of the führer while biologists lent legitimacy to pseudoscientific racial theories. In the United States, women and minorities were long excluded from academic life—a legacy that is still visible in research that neglects these groups.
Trump and his allies have drawn a powerful lesson from history: Academic prestige can not only legitimize unjust power, but also transform dominant social norms. Universities’ dual potential—for political resistance or endorsement—makes them key targets for would-be authoritarians. Across Eastern Europe, such leaders have sought not only to restrict academic freedom, but also to capture academic authority.
In Poland, the populist PiS government introduced sweeping higher education reforms. Cloaked in the language of accountability and productivity, the measures elevated obscure, ideologically aligned Polish-language Catholic journals to prominence—sometimes ranking them on par with reputable publications such as Nature. The government used the new journal rankings to distribute grants and determine academic promotions.
Funding was steered toward institutions that echoed the PiS agenda. Academic governance was centralized, shifting power to university presidents instead of more independent university senates. Entire institutions, such as the Nicolaus Copernicus Research Center, were established and staffed by loyal political appointees—part of an overt strategy to cultivate a conservative counter-elite.
This model of academic capture worked well in Poland’s relatively flat public university system. But in the United States, academia is defined by a handful of disproportionately powerful private institutions—Harvard foremost among them. These elite schools shape national academic culture, in part because their doctoral graduates go on to staff faculties across the country. Trump’s attacks on academia are thus more directly comparable to what occurred in Hungary, where in 2018, Orban forced out the country’s most influential academic institution, Central European University (CEU).
In comparing CEU and Harvard, the New York Times wrote that CEU “is much smaller and has never had the clout of Harvard.” But that assessment is misguided. Within Hungary, CEU wielded equal or greater influence than Harvard does in the United States. CEU is funded by Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros and attracts students from more than 100 countries. Before its expulsion, CEU was the only major private international university in Hungary. Its scholars secured a disproportionately large share of European research grants awarded to Hungarian institutions.
CEU’s pivotal role in Hungary’s intellectual landscape is precisely why Orban’s regime targeted it so relentlessly. Though Orban also implemented structural university changes akin to those in Poland—such as a ban on accredited degree programs in gender studies—his assault on CEU became the catalyst and focal point of a broader assault on academic freedom.
Despite efforts by CEU’s leadership to negotiate with the Hungarian government, the university was ultimately forced to relocate all of its degree programs to Vienna. That transition required the university to secure new facilities, obtain accreditation from Austrian authorities, and provide support for faculty and families uprooted by the move.
Harvard could eventually face a similar reckoning, especially if Trump’s brand of authoritarianism extends beyond his second term to an ideological heir such as Vice President J.D. Vance. The prominence that makes Harvard so influential is also what makes it vulnerable. For the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, Harvard is more than just a liberal institution: It embodies the cultural authority that populists detest. Gaining influence over Harvard’s governance and academic output would be a major coup in the movement’s broader effort to reshape prevailing liberal intellectual and cultural norms.
Even if Harvard succeeds in its reported efforts to negotiate a cease-fire with Trump or wins further legal battles—as it has over international student visas, at least temporarily—it will still face threats. Trump or his successor will not allow the university to operate normally while it defies the MAGA movement’s immoral and anti-scientific agenda. Bureaucratic harassment, legal uncertainty, and abusive requirements—such as forcing visa applicants to submit their social media history to the U.S. government—will deter top global talent.
Federal funding freezes—or even a quiet bias against Harvard-affiliated federal grant proposals—will likewise harm the university’s ability to recruit top students and faculty. As the Polish example demonstrates, changes in incentive structures reshape academic behavior: Not every scholar is prepared to make professional sacrifices for the sake of principle. Over time, top medical researchers, for instance, may quietly migrate from Harvard to institutions that still offer access to federally funded research.
Worse still, the case of CEU shows just how far a campaign of intimidation against an academic institution can go. One of us, who has served on CEU’s faculty since before its expulsion, recalls Budapest plastered with government-sponsored billboards vilifying Soros. At one point, a pro-government Hungarian newspaper published the names of some CEU faculty and branded them “Soros mercenaries.”
Given Trump’s instincts and rhetoric, it is easy to imagine similar episodes occurring in the United States. Even if the share of international students at Harvard dwindles, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on dorms or classrooms could send a chilling message to prospective applicants and faculty. It is not unthinkable that the government could declare a Harvard degree to be a disqualifying factor for U.S. federal service, making the university less attractive to domestic students and further increasing its financial reliance on the international students that it may no longer be able to safely host.
Harvard is immensely wealthy, and its founding predates that of the United States. But our experience shows that no amount of prestige or endowment can shield a university from determined state hostility. When governments are willing to use all levers of power to attack academic freedom, universities can no longer reliably carry out their core mission of educating students and conducting meaningful research.
At CEU, exile has left deep scars. Instead of its state-of-the-art campus in central Budapest, the university now occupies a rented office building in a residential district of Vienna. Some faculty and staff uprooted their lives to make the move—but many left the institution entirely. As the far right gains strength across Europe, including in Austria, there is no guarantee that today’s refuge won’t become tomorrow’s battleground.
Yet exile has also brought new opportunities. CEU now boasts perhaps the most diverse faculty in its history, in part because Vienna is considered an attractive place for scholars to work and live. Harvard, with far greater resources and global name recognition than CEU, has even more options to thrive abroad. If Harvard’s intent to move became public, countries around the world would compete to host it—and the costs of relocation could be shared with the new host government.
Though CEU has moved its degree-granting programs to Austria, it has maintained a presence in Budapest and continues to operate research centers there—so far, outside the reach of Hungary’s regulators. Likewise, Harvard can preserve elements of its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A partial relocation need not mean full departure.
Our experience with the academic takeovers in Poland and Hungary offers a stark warning to Harvard and to liberals more broadly. Given the radicalism and mass appeal of the far right, there will be no return to the liberal comfort zone. Every path forward demands disruption and sacrifice.
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