Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is refusing to comply with the Trump administration’s sweeping list of demands on how to govern, hire and teach. —AP PHOTO/MICHAEL CASEY
President Donald Trump is bullying colleges and universities to comply with his political agenda.
In the latest attack, the Trump’s administration says it will freeze $2.2 billion in federal research grants for Harvard University.
The university is refusing to comply with the administration’s sweeping list of demands on how to govern, hire and teach.
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach,” Harvard president Alan Garber said in a letter posted on the university’s website.
The feud between the Trump administration and Harvard is in response to the White House using federal funds to intimidate universities into complying with its political agenda.
The administration is inflicting pain on Harvard for resisting its demands.
Its federal funding freeze will have an almost immediate impact at Harvard and its partner institutions, which rely on the federal money for extensive life-saving research on cancer, Alzheimer’s, stroke and HIV.
At Harvard, federal money accounted for 10.5% of revenue in 2023, not counting financial aid such as grants and student loans.
Harvard should be commended for taking a courageous stand against the Trump administration, which is attempting to limit the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest.
The Trump administration has used the threat of funding freezes to universities to make them comply with its demands.
The Associated Press reports: “Harvard University has joined the growing list of institutions targeted by the Trump administration for federal funding cuts. Seven universities have been faced with cuts so far. Six of them are Ivy League schools. The Trump administration has increasingly used funding cuts as a tool to influence campus policies to comply with his political agenda. Most universities were targeted due to allegations of antisemitism on campuses after a wave of pro-Palestinian protests last year. Trump’s strategy was mostly successful at Columbia University after the institution agreed to several of the administration’s demands.”
The Trump’s administration has pointed to the fight against antisemitism as one reason it is threatening to pull hundreds of millions in funding from Ivy League universities and attempting to deport international student activists who protested against Israel’s war in Gaza, reports NBC News.
Columbia University recently agreed to several demands by the Trump administration after the federal government cut $400 million amid an investigation into campus antisemitism.
Instead of addressing individual instances of antisemitism through the law, conservatives seek to broadly portray and punish colleges and universities as enablers of antisemitism.
While the administration points to protecting Jewish students from pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses as the reason for its policies, conservatives have talked about targeting colleges and universities they viewed as progressive long before the Gaza conflict in October 2023.
Kenneth Stern, director of the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College and the lead drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition on antisemitism said that the definition is being distorted and used to silence anti-Israel critics. Stern was the lead drafter of the definition in 2004-2005 to help European countries have a common definition to track data on antisemitism, which was officially adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016.
The Trump has used the real harm and pain caused by antisemitism to threaten colleges and universities.
Their goal is not to curb antisemitism but to push a conservative political agenda and stifle free speech.
The conservative long-running battle against colleges and universities has been met with little resistance.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo told students at the University of Colorado last year that America must “lay siege to institutions” to root out radical liberal policies that were established in the 1960s. Among those policies, targeted are Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
DEI was created to help increase the inclusion of Black Americans, women, disabled people and other historically marginalized groups on college campuses and in the workplace.
Colleges and universities across the U.S. have been scrambling to determine what practices could run afoul of the anti-DEI orders. Some schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania, have removed DEI information from its medical school website in response to the threat from the Trump administration.
Local and state Black lawmakers have criticized the university and said they disagreed with Penn’s interpretation of Trump’s flurry of executive orders and directives, which prompted the university to erase DEI initiatives to be in compliance.
However, Trump’s executive orders on DEI and his funding freeze for Pro-Palestinian protesters may not withstand a serious legal challenge. For example, the Trump administration often cite the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against the use of Affirmative Action in college and universities as the basis for its anti-DEI policies, although the ruling said nothing about DEI.
Harvard has been one of the few universities to stand up against the Trump’s administration’s distortions and bullying tactics.
Former President Barack Obama, an alumnus of Harvard, is right to praise his alma mater’s stand against the Trump administration as “an example for other higher-ed institutions.”
He’s right. Harvard stand is necessary effort to stop Trump from eroding constitutional rights.
However, Harvard should not stand alone against the administration’s bullying. Universities across the nation should stand united against this unprecedented attack on higher education.
Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune