Harvard Says It Won't Obey U.S. Demands

Hiring and Admissions Targeted By Trump

Author

Matt Davis
April 15, 2025

The President hosted the leader of El Salvador in the Oval Office yesterday to brag about ignoring U.S. Supreme Court orders to return a deported man.

There’s lots to choose from on today’s front page. Technically the lead story is about China banning exports of various foreign goods but with the stock market modestly up yesterday $SPX ( ▲ 0.13% ) I think we all know it’s going to be about 10 days before Trump U-Turns on the rest of his trade war and this is just the leaders of the two countries crying while they hug each other in the street at the end of their ill-advised pub fight.

“Leave him, Xi. He’s not worth it!”

It’s the denouement of a drunken night out in Swansea.

So I’ve chosen to focus on the lead story about Harvard University, which is a rare example of a major U.S. educational institution standing up to the Trump administration.

Can I get a witness?

“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,” said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.

And it’s only cost him and his colleagues $2 billion to say that. Give us the deets, Vimal Patel…

A letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse,” among other steps. The administration did not define what it meant by viewpoint diversity, but it has generally referred to seeking a range of political views, including conservative perspectives.

Harvard has responded by ensuring that the Federal Government value the viewpoint diversity of…sucking it.

You’ll recall that the Trump administration has taken particular interest in a list of elite private schools lately as it moves to eradicate diversity efforts and what it describes as “rampant antisemitism” on campuses. What’s really going on? Well, it’s finding a variety of pretexts, including protests over U.S. support for recent Israeli aggression in the middle east (the kid killing, mainly…and yes, it’s complicated, and yes, I’ve plagiarized someone else’s unimpeachable position on the middle east here, if you’d like to check my credentials…I’m also a card-carrying member of the “don’t cancel me because I have acceptable views on other wedge issues” club), to hammer educational establishments in an effort to exert more control – much as you would in a fascist dictatorship without free and fair elections.

The problem the Trump administration is now encountering is that Harvard is the richest university in the country and as they say in Swansea, not having it. It’s one thing to take on Terry Tibbs from Cardiff after a few beers, and even Xi Jinping. But you don’t want to get into a brawl with Big H. His wife left him last week and he’d rather die than roll over.

Thank God for brawling with the Trump administration in the street.

I have issues with Harvard — including that it could do more to be less elitist, and that their squash club in New York turned me down six years ago because I didn’t go to school there (a mortal sin for which I’m afraid only God can forgive them) — but I’m prepared to admit that this action, particularly since other universities have folded like deckchairs for Trump — is glorious and wonderful and fantastic and perfect. I love it. It inspires me as is should inspire you and thank God, at last, we’ve had a major U.S. institution do what it’s supposed to do which is provide a check and a balance in this country. Some of the students and faculty do get credit:

Harvard, for its part, has been under intense pressure from its own students and faculty to be more forceful in resisting the Trump administration’s encroachment on the university and on higher education more broadly.

Last month, more than 800 faculty members at Harvard signed a letter urging the university to “mount a coordinated opposition to these anti-democratic attacks.”

Only 800, eh?

And here’s the university president:

“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” he wrote. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”

Boo-ya. Good for you, Alan Garber. I think that’s also a bit of side-eye at Columbia, which last month agreed, disgracefully, to place its Middle Eastern studies department under different oversight and to create a new security force of 36 “special officers” empowered to arrest and remove people from campus. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Harvard has a $53 billion endowment. Probably it’s about 20% smaller since Trump took office and tanked the stock market but still, $2 billion is not a lot of money to lose, for Harvard, when it comes to standing on principles and taking the judgement of history seriously. I’m glad they saw sense and found a backbone. I am Spartacus!

The forceful posture taken by Harvard on Monday was applauded across higher education, after universities had drawn widespread criticism for failing to resist Mr. Trump’s attacks more aggressively.

Harvard itself had been under fire for a series of moves in recent months that faculty members said were taken to placate Mr. Trump, including hiring a lobbying firm with close ties to the president and pushing out the faculty leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Oh, okay. That’s not so great, that second part. But still.

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents many colleges and universities in Washington, said Harvard’s approach could embolden other campus leaders, whom he said were “breathing a sigh of relief.”

“This gives more room for others to stand up, in part because if Harvard hadn’t, it would have said to everyone else, ‘You don’t stand a chance,’” said Dr. Mitchell, a former president of Occidental College. “This gives people a sense of the possible.”

I am Spartacus! I am Spartacus!

There’s been considerable concern that Harvard would fold. But it seems like it’s stood up. I must say I’m a little bit surprised and also, inclined to go and buy a “Harvard” t-shirt to wear around in the street like a loser, now. The news gives me genuine hope during a rather dark time in American history and I hope it’s the first of many such pieces of news over the coming months.

And…

In a related development, nine major research universities and three university associations sued the Trump administration on Monday to restore $400 million in funding that the Energy Department said it was slashing last week.

I am Spartacus! I am Spartacus! Bring us home, Kirk and Tony and whatshisname, the guy on the right:

No, you’re crying. You are.

It’s about time!

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and kid.

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