Photo: Entrance to Harvard Square, Harvard University.
I was raised to cheer for the underdog.
But in the ongoing duel between U.S. President Donald Trump and Harvard University, I can’t tell who is the underdog.
The Trump administration sent Harvard a letter, explaining how Harvard needs to behave if it expects to continue receiving federal funding. The demands included ‘audits’ of academic programs, along with changes to the University’s governance structure and hiring practices.
Harvard didn’t appreciate the demands, and said, “yeah no” to eliminating diversity-equity-inclusion programs, banning masks at campus protests, enacting merit-based hiring and admissions reforms, and reducing the power of faculty and administrators.
Harvard President Alan Garber announced that “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
That sounds like a ‘declaration of independence’, which I think would make Harvard the underdog — like the American colonists in 1776, when a group of underdogs published the following immortal words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
If Harvard had their druthers, they would have included “and the pursuit of Academic Research and Government Funding.” Which is pretty much synonymous with “the pursuit of Happiness” if you happen to be a private university.
The Trump administration responded to the declaration of independence by announcing on Monday that it would freeze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts at Harvard University. Ouch.
Just to be clear, the federal government relies on American universities to do much of the scientific, medical, and social research that the federal government is too incompetent to perform. Universities tend to attract really smart people, which the federal government does not do. Obviously.
So when the federal government cancels grants and contracts, they are essentially shooting themselves in the foot. This might suggest that the Trump administration is actually the underdog.
But it gets even worse, because the scientific, medical, and social research performed by universities like Harvard is actually suppose to benefit ordinary people like you and me, who are just struggling to pay the rent.
Who is the real underdog here, for whom we should be cheering?
I would hate to think it’s me. Cheering for myself seems egotistical.
President Trump is not a big fan of higher education, and especially, of higher education that teaches people to think for themselves, because when people think for themselves, they tend to become Democrats. Or at least, not Republicans.
The dubious justification for making organizational demands of universities like Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern and Cornell — and for freezing or canceling grants and contracts — is Title VI.
A statement from the Trump administration:
President Trump is working to Make Higher Education Great Again by ending unchecked anti-Semitism and ensuring federal taxpayer dollars do not fund Harvard’s support of dangerous racial discrimination or racially motivated violence. Harvard or any institution that wishes to violate Title VI is, by law, not eligible for federal funding.
Certain students who attend these universities have had the audacity to protest the genocide in Gaza. That’s just the kind of youthful exuberance we can expect when college students are encouraged to think for themselves.
Of course, the people committing the genocide are the Israeli military, who are mainly Jews. So, in a way, the protesters are criticizing the actions of people who are Jewish, and the folks in the Trump administration — who may or may not be Jewish — are now trying to define the protests as anti-Semitic and as a violation of Title VI.
As already noted, the people currently working in the federal government are not necessarily the sharpest tools in the shed. But they have lots of funding to freeze. Which makes up for a lack of intelligence, in some cases.
Columbia University, facing the same kind of demands from the Trump administration, pretty much buckled under the pressure. I don’t blame them. If someone was threatening to freeze $2.2 billion in grants that I was expecting, I would be willing to do almost anything to make them happy. (No one is threatening me that way, so this is merely hypothetical.)
But Harvard University has an endowment worth $53 billion. $2.2 billion is not exactly pocket change, but still, less damaging to their budget than it would be to mine.
Stanford University and Princeton University published statements in support of Harvard’s stance. Statements from Cornell and Northwestern sounded sort of whiny.
The central question, though, is: who is the underdog?
Because I don’t want to be cheering for the wrong guy.