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Harvard Tells Trump to Go Pound Sand

Harvard is refusing to comply with Trump’s demands related to his regime’s racist, xenophobic political agenda, including a threat to cut $9 billion in research funding. From the AP:

Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter to the Harvard community Monday, said the demands violated the university’s First Amendment rights and “exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI,” which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, color or national origin.

“No government โ€” regardless of which party is in power โ€” should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber wrote, adding that the university had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.

“These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate,” he wrote. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”

You can read Garber’s letter and the letter Harvard received from the Trump regime.

I recently attended a virtual talk and Q&A with Timothy Snyder and when he was asked about Columbia and other schools capitulating to Trump’s demands and what needs to happen in order to stop it, he replied something along the lines of: “Some big school is gonna have to stick their neck out and take the hit. Say ‘no’ unequivocally to Trump and get their funding pulled. Lead by example and others will follow. Solidarity is the only way out of this.” Good on Harvard1 for helping to lead the way on this…hopefully more schools will find their backbone after this.

  1. But bad on Harvard for the Claudine Gay fiasco. And they are hardly the only ones pushing back on Trump, but they are one of the 5 or 6 schools in the nation that people pay close attention to.

Comments  3

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Jason KottkeMOD

Trump Admin's $9 Billion Review of Harvard's Grants Could Hit Boston's Hospitals Hardest:

The Trump administration's sweeping federal review of nearly $9 billion in multi-year research funding tied to Harvard has sparked uncertainty across the University โ€” but the brunt of the planned cuts may be felt by Boston hospitals, not the University.

Five independent Boston hospitals affiliated with Harvard Medical School โ€” Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center โ€” collectively received more than $1.56 billion in National Institutes of Health funding in fiscal year 2024.

Got this via Josh Marshall, who says "Student paper gets what the bigs have missed. White House is actually threatening to defund all of bostons major hospitals".

Jason KottkeMOD

M. Gessen:

The world's most famous university has done the right thing, and this is major news. It shouldn't be. But less than three months into the second Trump administration, we are surprised by simple dignity. Capitulation would have garnered smaller headlines.

Jason KottkeMOD

Do Not Applaud Harvard for Doing the Bare Minimum by Violet T.M. Barron '26 in The Harvard Crimson:

If only the University had not been carrying out a parallel campaign โ€” of silencing dissent, prosecuting protest, and abandoning academic freedom โ€” for the past eighteen months, maybe then the verdict would be worth celebrating; maybe then the promises from Massachusetts Hall would not ring so hollow.

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