April 15, 2025 - 3:30pm
They say that where Harvard goes, others follow. For the first time in a while, supporters of free expression on American campuses should hope that’s true.
Late last week, the Ivy League university received a letter from the federal government demanding changes to its governance, leadership structure, hiring practices, and admissions processes, as well as a “discontinuation of DEI” and reform of “programs with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias”. If it failed to carry out these changes, Harvard would risk losing its government investment. In other words, “Nice school you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
Thankfully, Harvard pushed back. Yesterday the university’s president Alan Garber published a response, firmly committing to the preservation of academic freedom and institutional independence on campus. The government’s mandates, Garber wrote, “[threaten] our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. 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.”
In retaliation, the Trump administration moved to freeze $2.2 billion in funds to the university. That’s a high price to pay, but the costs of giving in would be far greater. For one thing, that sum is a drop in the bucket of Harvard’s $50 billion endowment. More importantly, if a school with such resources and influence doesn’t fight back against government strong-arming, it will send a chill down the spine of every other university in the Trump administration’s crosshairs.
Columbia, for example, recently caved to similar pressures. But in the wake of Harvard’s pushback, the New York university published a statement rejecting “heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution” and “any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire”.
This is a welcome development. How many other institutions, facing millions in contract cancellations, will stand up for themselves now that Harvard has set an example? There is good reason to push back against the excesses of DEI on campus, much of which amounts to bureaucratic ideological gatekeeping and a chilling of dissent. Combatting discrimination is also a worthy goal — but not by way of overly broad definitions of antisemitism which prohibit criticising the state of Israel and wind up restricting campus speech.
Among other issues, the government’s provisions ignore the existing process for adjudicating alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — the federal law banning discrimination on the basis of race, colour, and national origin in federally funded programmes or activities. Under these demands, Harvard’s hiring and admissions processes would be forced to employ government-approved “ideological diversity” litmus tests that would rival, if not supersede, the DEI mandates many in this administration pledged to oppose.
What’s more, the provisions are fundamentally at odds with the university’s First Amendment rights. If Harvard were to acquiesce, any free speech or academic freedom on campus would exist only according to the administration’s preferences. That is no way to facilitate the free exchange of ideas, which is at the core of any university’s mission.
The principle is clear: the government cannot condition a school’s federal funding on giving up First Amendment rights. When the Obama and Biden administrations demanded universities restrict student free speech and due process rights under Title IX — the law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational programmes or activities — this was clearly unlawful. The same argument applies now.
There is no doubt that higher education needs serious reform. But the solution to censorious and discriminatory policies isn’t more censorious and discriminatory policies. It certainly shouldn’t involve allowing the federal government to hold US universities hostage to its own preferences. For better or worse, other universities have long followed in Harvard’s steps. Anyone invested in the future of American higher education should hope that this fightback inspires a further wave of copycats.
Angel Eduardo is senior writer and editor at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
StrangelEdweird
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Subscribe“preservation of academic freedom and institutional independence on campus.” What planet are you living on…(or did you just get picked up on the Blue Origin return to earth)? Academic political bias in Ivy League universities is well known (even on the sane Left) to be something of the order of a 20-1 Leftist bias. “Institutional independence”….did you say?
‘Almost everything in the 21st Western zeitgeist – about which ordinary people scratch their heads in dismay – originated in the groves of academe. Things like white self-loathing-by-proxy, the fetishisation of sexual dysphoria and pseudo-therapeutic psychobabble began as fictions and fixations hatched in its humanities and social science petri-dishes. A madness of intelligentsias in other words. Our great folly was failing to foresee the long-term consequences of allowing our universities to become colonised by an intelligentsia intent on ‘cleverly’ unpicking the threads that held Western civilisation together.’ https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-madness-of-intelligentsias
What was that again you were saying?…..”institutional independence” was it?
I agree. In addition the free flowing torrent of federal funding to these schools has to cease. Harvard has a $50+ billion endowment. It is taxed at a level of 1.4% on earnings of over $500K. It should be taxed like a hedge fund. With all this money it still charges high tuition, and does not have to cover student loans.
The US government is not the only funder of Harvard. The Harvard Crimson reported that, “Harvard received more than $151 million in total donations from foreign governments between January 2020 and October 2024, including more than $100 million in donations from government sources in the United Arab Emirates ($30+ million), Egypt ($30+ million), Saudi Arabia (~$14 million), Qatar (~$11 million), and Bangladesh (about $10 million).”
About $85 million from the middle east. I wonder what that money buys? I thought Bangladesh was a poor country. How did Bangladesh come up that amount of money to send to Harvard and what is their return on investment?
Watch a Harvard graduation and it seems there is more green, white, black and red (Palestinian flags) than there is crimson.
Good for Harvard, standing up to govt diktats it doesn’t support. No one is forcing it to receive govt funding so in the pursuit of academic freedom it should forego govt funding. Sounds simple to me.
I read somewhere it was over 9 billion, not 2.2 billion.
Yep, their choice!
Harvard was refusing to negotiate. So F the crime-son.
There has to be a line drawn between what the government can dictate as to what can be said and what they agree to fund. By definition every tax dollar represents all taxpayers and withholding money from organizations that seek to exclude or favour certain groups of the taxpayer spectrum is not only correct but long overdue.
The free speech argument has a valid thread that has been disingenuously pulled, twisted and woven into an anti-Semitic noose by groups that are clearly and simply pro-Hamas. The unacceptable – deliberate and sometimes violent interruptions of class instruction, occupation of campus facilities and the real or implied threats against Jewish staff and students has been repeatedly mis-represented as the acceptable – Politically provocative yet harmless pro-Palestinian sign-waving and freedom chanting.
It also seems clear that Columbia, Harvard et al never actually thought they’d get called out on it and they’ve been proven wrong. If they insist on the right to permit and promote protest as they see fit they can do so without taxpayer money.
And BTW. If the protests are supposedly anti-Israel and not anti-Semitic then why target Jews and not Israelis? How many Israeli students and staff are there on campus these days anyway? I recall from the Jeremy “I’m not anti-Semitic” Corbyn glory years that several Jewish members felt compelled to leave the Labour Party. Were any of them Israeli? What about ethnically Arab citizens of Israel? Who exactly gets a thumbs up or thumbs down in the intellectually fickle arena of campus justice?
the US goverment has no requirement to fund what is effectively a private enterprise. Esp one that arebreaking numerous laws, in it’s discriminatory behaviour towards Whites, Jews, East Asians
Lets get away from the notion the likes of Harvard are part of the Public Education system, with’s it average annual tuition of 56k
Harvard’s reputation is in tatters, they are no longer interested in the pursuit of knowledge. Harvard does’nt need Goverment money, and they should’nt get it , and hopefully people will take the likes of them through the courts and sue them for billions
I read Alan Gerber’s (President of Harvard) letter to the Harvard Community released to the general public yesterday with great interest. That letter is a perfect illustration of everything that is currently unhealthy in American Academia. Only somebody with the supreme arrogance that is so characteristic of the Harvard brand and who is caught within an echo chamber of uniform (un)thinkers could have written a piece that drips with virtue signaling and completely misses the point. Harvard, as any private organization, is perfectly entitled to do as it pleases; the faculty and students at Harvard have the right to say what they wish under the 1st amendment; and Harvard has the right to admit whomever they want to their precious institution no matter whether they chose to discriminate based on race and gender and violate the spirit of Supreme Court decisions. After all Harvard is nothing more than a private club. Harvard is even entitled to have a complete non-entity and plagiarizer as their previous President, and keep her on as a faculty member at an outrageously high six figure salary. What Harvard, and like-minded Ivy league institutions, are NOT entitled to is support in their endeavors from the hard earned money of US Tax Payers, especially when many of Harvard’s policies (related to faculty hiring, student recruitment, anti-semitism, anti-americanism, anti-western culture, etc…) are anathema to the American people. In other words, Harvard can do as it pleases but it can then make use of its $50 billion endowment to support its faculty and research labs, rather than leach on the American taxpayer. What Harvard cannot expect to do is come begging at the welfare trough of the American taxpayer. Sometimes, it really helps for the Alan Garber’s of this world to be a little bit less arrogant. And I suspect that when their esteemed STEM faculty have their grants canceled or severely delayed, and decide to move to greener pastures, he and his Harvard colleagues will eventually come to their senses. In poker you have to know the value of the cards you hold, and when to hold or fold. Right now, Harvard has no cards to hold. Sure they will have the support of Academia and all the learned societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, who are wailing at how the current administration is destroying the pursuit of science in the US. But right now the reputation of these institutions are basically down the drain and will garner no support from regular Americans who comprise the vast majority living in the US for whom having their kids, no matter how talented, attend Harvard is not even a distant dream.
I am a scientist, but I believe that even purely scientific work should not be supported at institutions that engage in racist policies. After all, would we fund biology at the University of the Ku Klux Klan? Or support Professor Mengele?
How many billions of public funds does it take to no longer be considered a private institution?
The writer, Mr. Eduardo, who introduces himself as a senior writer and editor at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), extols Harvard’s decision to fight interference by the government in its academic freedom.
Meanwhile, FIRE has ranked Harvard dead last – 251 out of 251 – in Free Speech.
So one must conclude that Mr. Eduardo of FIRE supports Harvard’s academic freedom to continue regulating speech, as long as no one compels it to regulate “criticism of Israel” as well (glibly conflating criticism of Israel’ policies, which nobody tries to suppress, with criticism of Israel’s existence, which is another matter altogether). In other words, according to Mr. Eduardo at least, FIRE isn’t about free speech at all – only about the freedom of antisemitic speech.
Historically, antisemitism and criticism of Israel governments or even opposition to Zionism have little to do with each other. Just as few Jews have ever been especially pro Zionist.
Sorry, FIRE, you are off-base on this one. The ‘demands’ are as follows:
If acceptable to Harvard, this document will constitute an agreement in principle, which the parties will work in good faith to translate into a more thorough, binding settlement agreement.
Merely an agreement to negotiate with a binding agreement at the end. NOT A DEMAND.
Apparently Harvard administrators and FIRE staff are not well acqainted with the English language.
Wrong in every respect. This is not a threat to the “free speech” rights of anyone at Harvard. Not does it violate the First Amendment.
Federal funding, via grants or contracts, is based on the government wanting to obtain a good or service, or have one produced or performed, and reaching agreement with a counterparty who contracts to provide that under mutually acceptable terms. If the government views the terms offered by a potential counterparty, in their totality, as unacceptable, it is under no obligation to enter into that contract. And that totality is very broad, as in any contracting decision by anyone–as long as one party is not requiring illegal action on the part of the other, or is itself acting contrary to law, everything is open. The government is not compelled to award contracts or grants to Harvard (or, anyone else). And, Harvard is not compelled to obtain such contracts or grants.
In this case, the Administration has decided that, viewed in its totality, having certain contracts with Harvard is not in the national interest, due to Harvard’s policies and actions with respect to free expression, treatment of Jewish students, DEI policies and programs, and tolerating and in some cases supporting terrorist organizations. Harvard can choose to try to work things out so the Administration is prepared to deal with it, or it can choose to do without those grants and contracts. Neither party is legally required to act in any particular way.
This is a contracts matter of whether two parties can reach agreement to enter into agreements. It is not an exercise of police power, or even administrative enforcement. Should Harvard not make any of the changes the Administration wants, nobody risks criminal or even civil action by the government against them. Everything simply goes on without said contracts.
This author does not advance a credible argument. To have done so he would have needed to acknowledge and discuss the substantial erosion of free speech on university campuses, not least the horrendous cancel culture that has not just muzzled academics, but destroyed their very livelihoods, not to mention their academic careers. The last time we encountered anything like this in the western democracies was when a certain Mr Hitler was dictator of Germany.
For Harvard now to claim the moral high ground and present itself as THE Defender of Free Speech is the ultimate in hypocrisy and cynicism!
All power to Trump[‘s elbow in this battle. Harvard and countless other universities across the western world continue to obliterate free speech and promote a Woke worldview that tolerates no challenge or criticism.
We shouldn’t forget too that Harvard and other universities have massively discriminated against Whites and Asians in selection of students while at th same time embracing the evil of Critical Race Theory.
Government money in Academia encourages statism and collectivism at the expense of free thought. The reason is simple. Governments thrive on state worship.
When government subsidy first enters, it seems like a godsend and the flames of free enquiry burn bright. Their kindling is the previous generation of academics that grew up rooted in reality. But soon the game is grant gaming, and a new type of academic starts to dominate. Eventually, free thought is crowded out by the intellectual fads of the day.
It is worth reflecting that all the worst political ideas had their first foothold and strongest support within academia. Long before Hitler came to power, large numbers of academics espoused Nazism; and the highest proportional support for the Nazi party was in academic demographic. Similarly, the support for communism is highest amongst academics. Ditto wokeism.
I could also point to the huge stultifying biases even in the Sciences due to government and other big money support.
Bottom line: academia (and education generally) needs to lose all government subsidy. The parasitic structure of fake disciplines (eg. “grievance studies”) and arrogant overblown administrators must wither and die. After the pain, free creative enquiry will flourish again.
FIRE has it all wrong (as usual). For example…
(1) “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.” Of course not, Trump is not claiming otherwise. Harvard is welcome to use its vast wealth however it wants to. Trump is saying “no government – regardless of which party is in power – should be compelled to fund institutions which are violating federal law.” Or to put it differently, can a university dictate to the federal government what to fund?
(2) “There is good reason to push back against the excesses of DEI on campus, much of which amounts to bureaucratic ideological gatekeeping and a chilling of dissent.” And just how should Trump “push back”? The plain truth is that drastic action is needed to stop the spread of the historical lies and bald illegalities (not to mention the corrosive immoralities) of DEI. Does FIRE imagine some injunction is available to force Harvard to stop discriminating against white men? Has SFFA v. Harvard managed to change Harvard’s culture of discrimination? Does FIRE have suggestions for how to force universities to retreat from this path that *don’t* involve funding? (No.) The reality is that taxing and spending is the primary means by which the federal government acts. It is therefore the obvious means of compelling behavior.
(3) “Among other issues, the government’s provisions ignore the existing process for adjudicating alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act…” Yes, that is true… indeed, that’s the point. The “existing process” is a failure, as it has been co-opted by the very forces Trump seeks to limit, and is rooted in the social concerns of a different era. Harvard does not refuse to hire a white man “because he is a white man,” but because he “doesn’t add to campus diversity”. Does FIRE thinks this plain stalking horse makes the decision non-discriminatory? (Would it be legal for Harvard to stop hiring blacks because it sought *less* campus diversity?) More to the point, it is the Executive which gets to determine whether the “existing process” should be maintained, reformed or replaced. Trump has made that determination. Congress is welcome to pass a law to tie his hands, if it so chooses.
(4) “What’s more, the provisions are fundamentally at odds with the university’s First Amendment rights.” Harvard does not have the right to violate federal law, and the federal government is under no obligation – please show me the law…! – to fund institutions which insist on doing so.
FIRE defends the ‘free speech’ rights of an institution which has worked tirelessly to repress free speech on campus (according to FIRE’s own investigations), without offering any suggestions for how to actually compel Harvard’s faculty to abandon their ideological commitments and support open inquiry. FIRE are a bit like the pacifists who love the peaceful nature of their own society, and hence oppose militarization… without realizing that the invading hordes are bringing war whether they like it or not. It takes two to have peace, and the invading hordes have already rejected your peace offer – continuing to insist on the sanctity of peace is another way of giving up on it. So it is here with free speech. If you really want to defend free speech, then don’t require the federal government to give taxpayer dollars to institutions working tirelessly to suppress it.
(Does anyone really think FIRE would’ve been there for Bob Jones?)
“ There is no doubt that higher education needs serious reform.”
Yeah, but we both know the carrot is never going to work with academic communists, you need to bring a big stick.
Surely for what is supposed to be an educational institution to allow its campus to be taken over by supporters of a foreign terrorist organisation raises some questions.
Where in the constitution is federal funding for college a right? Where is taxpayer money an entitlement? The simple and correct solution is to separate the state from education, which the Tenth Amendment actually does. Teach anything you want but not on my dime. You want it? Pay for it.
BTW, we pay for the UN that established the State of Israel, and would have done the same for the people now called Palestinians had they and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world not refused. So, who’s the villain again? Maybe we should stop paying for the UN, too.
What a load of hypocritical BS! Harvard can have all of the free speech it wants, but not with the funding of the taxpayers. Harvard, and the other Ivies, have morphed into shitholes. Shitholes need to cleaned out, then replaced with clear dirt to start all over.
Flogging the same old canard of “overly broad definition of antisemitism.”
In this day of microagressions anyone can be hounded off campus for the same kind of scrutiny of Quran, the fanatic genocidal Palestinian ultranationalist movement, and a host of other areas of legitimate exploration as one devotes to the hysteria around Israel. Or belittling and demeaning trashing of the Hebrew Bible. Or Zionism. Palestinianist racism is not sacrosanct. One should be able to legitimately critique and criticize hamas and the genocidal river to sea chants and calls for intifada. Provide students with an open exploration of Mid East history …not one sanctioned and approved by hamas and its Islamist front propagandist CAIR. Said’s entrenched Orientalism is not from the deity and can be criticized too. It is not beyond one’s scrutinty. Masked goons on camppuses. Good for Trump administration. During the racist, violent encampments with openly genocidal calls, ZERO from the Biden Administration and the highest ranking Jewish member of Congress. “Contexts’ for calls for genocide of the Jews in their Homeland and in the Diaspora. I read there were no demands….but negotiations as to how Harvard will foster educational values. Campuses have been made safe for indoctrination of racist vile JewHATE and Islamophobia. Good For TRUMP …good going and don’t back down. Let universities get their billions from racist Qatar and Iran. Not a penny of my money should go to Harvard/Hamas.
So, copycat Harvard’s whitewash of its racist expulsion of Jews? The elephant in this article is that Harvard has stonewalled any real reform of its allowing its students, faculty and administration to advocate for Jews to be wiped off the face of the earth by Islamic and sympathetic forces. Even after the Holocaust came to light, no one in Harvard dared to tell a lie like this.
You know this story will be told and this morally bankrupt institution’s name will go down the sewer. Wearing “Harvard” is a joke: the best and the brightest! Hamas raping women to death is liberation. Iran’s mullahs speak the truth and lead us in attaining the the rights of all.
Let them do it without my tax money… Using freedom of expression and academic freedom as a shield now when it suits them to do so. Does the author realize the Ivies have been at the for front of restricting speech and speakers they do not like. Forstering anti-Americanism without presenting opposing views in the same light. Canceling non-Leftist heretics… Please! What hypocrites. Again, do what you want without my money…
I simply don’t understand how universities can claim to be bastions of free speech after the multiple occurrences of staff and students being forced into silence or drummed off campus by intolerant ideologues.
Amen! How hypocritical to proudly claim being a private University, yet sucking off the teet of taxpayers. It’s hilarious that this author doesn’t bring to light the “heavy handed” demands by the U.S. Government when it came to the threats of removing aid in the other direction, mandating all this racial crap in the first place. But when the same government turns the other way, it’s time to shout from the rooftops. And they are tax exempt!! That’s why I support one of the only institutions to accept zero Federal aid, Hillsdale College of Michigan!
They have a choice. Uphold their own biased interpretation of free speech etc and decline the Federal government’s bung or work within the government guidelines and continue to suck on the government teat. Harvard may have sufficient endowments to follow the first path other Universities perhaps not.
They are the height of hypocrisy. And finished dead last in the most recent FIRE survey on free speech. But pay no attention to the facts and listen to MSNBC.
I hear the sound of the tiniest violin playing. Universities/colleges and judges appear to think that their virtue trumps(!) laws that other people are obliged to follow. Just as in the past the ‘filthy rich’ felt that the rules did not apply to them.
Could it be that the Establishment fear the end of the gravy train?
Where and how has this happened? I do remember Prof Stock being hounded at Sussex and so poorly protected by the administration there she resigned. Sussex now heavily fined for such negligence.
But much of what passes for hounding is merely expression of different views, in other words, free speech.
I’m a bit curious too….forced into silence and drummed off campus? I would just put my head down and attend my classes and schoolwork. There are always all manner of protests at schools, if you don’t want to participate then don’t.
There is the unavoidable issue of protesters calling for violence against “the Jews” when they know full well that many of the students who will hear this are Jewish. There certainly should be criminal sanctions (as in “someone, call the cops!”) whether the University feels that a police reaction is called for or permissible.
No-one is restricting what universities can teach, who they employ or what can be discussed on campus.
What Trump is requesting is that in order to receive public funding, those same institutions shouldn’t be actively seeking to undermine the interests of the US public who provide those funds through taxation, and who democratically elected Trump to carry out the policies he’s now enacting.
If you want to be anti-semitic or seek to shut down the speech of others, go fund yourself.
Is it anti semitic to criticise Israeli policy? If so, why?
No, but it is antisemitic to show support for organisations that call for, and act so as to, eliminate all Jews from the Middle East.
Thanks, saved me the trouble.
They’re both absolutely correct
The Israelis seem hell bent on removing the Arabs from Gaza and the West Bank (eliminating them if you will) so in the interest of fairness presumably any Zionist should also face censure for being Islamophobic?
No, it’s only antisemitic to allow foreign students to openly call for the killing of Jews. And doing nothing about it. Just imagine if it were blacks they were calling for?
no , but it’s often used as a smoke screen for their hatred of Jews.
The way they do it, yes!
The criticism is of Israel’s existence. Act on that and it is considered genocide. 20% of Israel’s population is non-Jewish.
If Harvard were actually defending academic freedom and freedom of speech, their argument might have some merit.
As it is, they are attempting to defend discriminatory practices and frequently the suppression of free speech. All the while pretending that the US government has no responsibilities to enforce existing laws in these areas and considering themselves to somehow be above the law.
Mixed in with all this seems to be an argument that “we’re a private institution, so it’s none of your [the US government’s] business what we do”. Alongside a desire to keep taking subsidies from the same US government. Cakeism of the purest sort !
Who do they think they are ?
I’m sure there actually is a vital role for US institutions to stand up for free speech and against discrimination. And that the Trump government is likely to create some difficulties in these areas (whether intentionally or through lack of thought). It’s a shame so many of them have so completely blown their credibility at the vey moment it may be most needed. It’s certainly quite a big ask for me to take complaints from Harvard that seriously right now. Put your own house in order first …
“Harvard’s resistance to Trump is a model for US universities”
Er, they’ve just lost $2 billion govt funding. Some model…
Can you put a price on free speech? They are absolutely entitled to run their school the way they see fit. But the government is also entitled to take away public money. Sounds like they both got what they wanted here …
Universities are free to do what they wish, and the US Government is free to provide financial support as it wishes.
“Thankfully, Harvard pushed back”
.
Stop reading here
Same. Straight to the comments.
Gerber’s ‘private institution’ has values he insists on defending? First off he should concentrate on on getting along without government money
Trump wants Harvard to have an admission policy based purely on ‘merit’. Has he thought that through (obviously not)? As I understand it, and feel free to correct me, Harvard and other Ivy-League institutions of that ilk heavily discriminate in favour of their wealthy alumni donors’ offspring – I seem to recall quoted a figure of up to 50% of students. So admission policy greatly based on wealth; I doubt that Trump’s rich pals would want to change that!
I think recent events have rather destroyed the argument that Trump does everything for his ‘rich friends’.
“Merit” and “wealth” are not the same things. If the elite universities really do adopt a purely merit-based admissions scheme, then yes, some children of wealthy donors will be disappointed.
I’m not sure where Trump stands on getting rid of favoritisim for legacies and donors, however. His goal seems to be getting rid of the schemes that favor some racial groups over others.
Rich people have the benefit of tutors and more leisure time to bone up on their meritocracy.
That is never going to be avoided.
Yes, the Ivies admit a significant number of what are sometimes called “legacies.” As you note, they are the kids of major donors (and to count as a major donor at Harvard you have to give a very large sum of money), and also wealthy, socially-prominent families that have sent their kids to Harvard for generations.
If the Ivies were to switch to an academic meritocracy plus legacies (let’s be realistic, they’ll always cut major donors a special deal), then the racial profile would be overwhelmingly white and Asian (referred to by progressives as “white adjacent”). That, of course, would fly in the face of progressive dogma.
I’m currently reading “Intellectuals and Society” by Thomas Sowell. It’s all about them.
.
It’s a bit of a shame that in thinking about intellectuals in recent years, I’ve once again reinvented the wheel. If I’d gotten my hands on this book a little earlier, I would have saved myself a lot of mental effort.
We always used to be told that universities teach people to think – but I don’t think I’ve ever met a liberal arts graduate whose views were not identical to those of all his or her peers.
I think the utter inability of the midwit professor in this video to engage is reasoned debate tells you everything you need to know about contemporary universities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc5ODePJPfM
The author even admits to this here – he’s actively hoping for copycat action rather than people actually thinking and acting for themselves:
“Anyone invested in the future of American higher education should hope that this fightback inspires a further wave of copycats.”
The other key word here is “invested”. It’s “invested” – i.e. those with vested interests – rather than “interested” or “concerned”.
I suppose he is at least being honest here and admitting this is a political campaign driven be naked self interest and not primarily about freedom of speech or academic freedom.
Thanks for posting that video link. Everyone here should look at the midwit professor in this scene: he is exactly a reflection of all that is wrong in higher education.
If Harvard doesn’t want to comply, they should simply give up taxpayer funds. I don’t want to pay for that garbage.
They should be sued again for racial discrimination. They lost once and would lose again.
There is one type of article I’ve yet to see on Unherd or anywhere else: what legal mechanisms exist to stop universities discriminating on the basis of sex, race and other protected classes?
For example, is the long-established discrimination against white males legal? If not, which laws/constitutional protections are violated and how does the federal government, on our behalf as citizens, redress that on-going wrong? Similarly, how does the law address so-called cancel culture in universities?
Please note, I know the US Supreme Court banned affirmative action but universities still engage in the practice. How do we stop them?
I know this is a big question and I imagine an answer could require a series of articles. Sadly, I don’t see any publication rising to this challenge.
Discrimination against white males?! Doesn’t sound like the way things are laid out. Just look around. Who’s running most stuff?
Lawsuits from parties harmed by their discrimination are the best means. Harvard and North Carolina lost once and would lose again.
I sure hope the rest follow Harvard. It will be a lot of savings on the budget.
Maybe a few can lose their charter too.
$2.2B isn’t a drop in a bucket for an endowment of $50B. Assuming a generous 10% return on investment, and 2% inflation, the real return is $4B. A drop of $2.2B income would be over 30% of their disposable income, and I expect the real number is likely to be more.
Universities have been happy to be at the forefront of US social engineering for decades. The Democrats frequently pursued social engineering goals–especially DEI–using their financial leverage over the university system. Nothing Trump is doing differs from what previous Democratic administrations have done, except if it’s “progressive,” that’s fine, if it isn’t then it is a shocking attack on freedom of thought? Give us a break!
more finanical long term harm has been done to Harvard by their own leadership than Trump. 2 important areas they put in Jeopardy, Research, IP’s which is the mainstay of their business, teaching is periphery to this. .the Large research grants, the exploitation of patents is where they make most of their money and endowments
Harvard will be turning out baristas in the future, not owners of Multinationals. Why would a chinese person , (eventually they will cotton on), that harvard does not have the reputation it once did.
Havards Reputation is key, if you lose it you don’t get it back, and it can longer claim to be top tier, so they will patent less, invent less, get fewer donations and won’t be able to charge as much
Harvard should be elitest and if that means every student is either East Asian or White, than so be it.
Well… reading all of these comments definitely saves me the trouble of giving this article the response it deserves. Thank you, all
“Government investment”? The ideology is strong in this one.
Is Harvard entitled to $billions in taxpayer dollars?
Do government subsidies of wealthy universities amount to a kind of neo-corporatism? Does it amount to welfare for wealthy elites?
Harvard has over 50 billion dollars in its endowment. Why, if it really wanted to support free speech, it should have bought Twitter.
I’m sure Harvard will be saying the same to the UAE Government regarding their medical research and Business School campuses in Dubai.
It is hard to think of a more off bone-headed response. Harvard is not some bold, principled freedom fighter. Harvard is more like those old segregationist schools in the South resisting government oversight over their discrimination. May Trump take away all their public funding until Harvard tackles its festering anti-Semitism.
The two Widener Library protests against the Israelis’ destruction of Gaza were a model of peaceful, dignified protest. The didn’t disrupt anyone’s study. They were punished by President Garber, a passive-aggressive Zionist cat.
I read in the Harvard Crimson a few months ago that the University employs 60 Title 9 Coordinators. What is a Title 9 Coordinator exactly and what exactly does she do for 40 hours a week?
Based on the comments, there aren’t very many Harvard people on this site, I guess they have better and more important things to do
Many of the older ones who attended Harvard are embarrassed about their school. Especially the Jewish ones.