Washington, DC - When US President Donald Trump ordered Harvard to set new criteria in hiring, admissions, and curriculum, threatening to cut billions in federal funding, the university’s swift rejection opened a floodgate of defiance across the country, showing that dissent is indeed possible.
Days after Harvard President Alan Garber sent a letter defying the Trump administration, hundreds of universities said that they, too, would reject demands to curtail diversity admissions and hiring, change their curriculum to a more “patriotic” format, and screen international student applicants for alleged antisemitism (what would likely be criticism of Israel).
“People are really rallying around the Crimson, as it were,” Michael Desch, professor of international relations at the University of Notre Dame, told The New Arab.
“If they’re willing to stand up and say the administration has gone too far in micromanaging university business, that sends a signal to lesser-ranked universities to close ranks on the issue,” he said.
“Given the normally conflict-averse mindset of university administrations, especially vis-a-vis the US government, the Harvard position is a breath of fresh air,” he said.
“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,” writes Garber in a public letter to members of the Harvard community.
“Our motto - Veritas, or truth - guides us as we navigate the challenging path ahead. Seeking truth is a journey without end. It requires us to be open to new information and different perspectives, to subject our beliefs to ongoing scrutiny, and to be ready to change our minds,” he continued, seeming to challenge the US president’s push to enforce limitations on academia.
He was responding to a detailed letter from the US government ordering the university to institute merit-based hiring and admissions, diversity of opinions, and to crack down on antisemitism. To enforce these orders, there would be a system of informants, or what the letter referred to as whistleblower protection.
Otherwise, the government would halt $9 billion in federal funding. Harvard, which has a $53 billion endowment, is now suing to halt a freeze of $2.2 billion in grants.
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Breaking the academic dam of dissent
On Monday, more than 200 US universities signed their own letters saying they would not cede to the president’s demands.
“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses,” the joint statement, issued by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, reads.
This Harvard-inspired defiance follows Columbia University’s decision to concede to the Trump administration’s demands, only leading to further demands.
“Harvard is taking the lead. It’s important for other universities to speak out. I feel very passionate about that. Free inquiry is being destroyed,” said David Frank, a professor of rhetoric and political communication at the University of Oregon, a signatory of a “mutual defence pact” to counter Trump’s orders for drastic reforms in US higher education.
“We’re not Harvard and we’re not the Ivy League. We’re far more typical of other universities across the country,” he told TNA.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on universities comes amid similar orders for grade schools to enforce a more “patriotic” education. It also comes amid crackdowns on civil rights NGOs, a range of federal workers including scientists, women, immigrants, and social welfare programmes for the elderly, low-income, and ill, among others.
These far-reaching crackdowns have resulted in growing unity among groups that have not necessarily been aligned, but are willing to set aside their differences to oppose Trump, whom many see as a threat to the future of American democracy.
“In order to consolidate the very right-wing hardline conservative agenda he wants to put through, he needs to silence the universities, which have long been a bastion of elite criticism, either social or economic criticism, or the way we write history,” James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, told TNA.
“One way to silence critics is to silence universities and force them to cower,” he said.
One key example is the use of the term “antisemitic” to describe those critical of Israel. Though multiple studies over the past several years have indeed reported a rise in antisemitism, these same studies have found that most antisemitism comes from the right wing of the political spectrum. Nevertheless, it is a topic that few on the mainstream left have touched, likely fearful of being associated with the term.
In Garber’s letter, however, he addressed the issue of antisemitism multiple times. In reference to added demands by the Trump administration, he writes, “It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner. Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard”.
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New US administration, ongoing crackdown
The latest round of government pressure against elite US universities, however, is not new and is a continuation of a year-and-a-half-long crackdown against student activists protesting US military support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and by extension, university investment in weapons companies involved in the military assault on the enclave.
Student encampments in support of Palestinians, spearheaded by Columbia University, were brutally dismantled by law enforcement, often at the request of university administrators. And a congressional hearing on antisemitism alleging, with no evidence, that pro-Palestinian student activists had called for the genocide of Jews, led to the resignations of multiple university presidents.
The latest pushback comes as a new congressional hearing on antisemitism is slated for early May and as new encampments are again popping up on university campuses, including at Columbia and Yale.
Will this time be different?
Will this time be different, given Harvard’s defiance against Trump’s far more extreme crackdown on academic freedom?
For some, it’s difficult to celebrate Harvard’s defiance of Trump’s threats, given its history of going along with government demands.
“If only the University had not been carrying out a parallel campaign - of silencing dissent, prosecuting protest, and abandoning academic freedom - for the past eighteen months, maybe then the verdict would be worth celebrating,” writes Violet T. M. Barron in The Harvard Crimson, pointing to repeated instances of the university severing ties with Palestinian individuals and institutions.
“For there to be any sort of step forward, Harvard must fully walk back the prejudiced paces it has already taken,” added the student, an organiser with Harvard Jews for Palestine.
This is a sentiment widely shared by student activists, many of whom are facing an unprecedented level of vulnerability with government crackdowns on international students, sometimes with no apparent reason other than their nationality.
Are there opportunities for different approaches?
Amid heightened tensions, some see opportunities for different approaches to binary positions among student activists.
David Frank, from the University of Oregon, said that he sees a major fault in universities that don’t educate students on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“We have one or two faculty members at the university who could teach the topic. We have good sports and a business school, but we don’t have coursework to learn about the issue,” he said.
“It’s the responsibility of the university to equip students with the necessary knowledge to evaluate and respond to Israeli and Palestinian traumas,” he said, referring to the Holocaust and the Nakba.
“It’s a matter of framing,” he said. “I don’t think the allegations of antisemitism would have been as successful if the conflict had been addressed through the lens of human rights.”
Brooke Anderson is The New Arab's correspondent in Washington DC, covering US and international politics, business and culture.
Follow her on Twitter: @Brookethenews