Question: Why does Trump want to control what they teach at Harvard?
Answer: Because Harvard, on the whole, produces thoughtful and well-educated human beings.
Next Question: But why doesn’t Trump like thoughtful, well-educated human beings?
Answer: Because thoughtful, well-educated human beings aren’t programmed to do what they’re told. Thoughtful, well-educated people tend to ask questions that lead to informed decisions. Trump doesn’t want questions, nor does he want anybody making informed decisions. Unless, of course, the information is coming from him. Trump wants obedience.
Last Question: So why does this matter?
Answer: Because a largely undereducated, ill-informed population is one of the primary reasons why someone like Trump was able to get elected for a second time. Obviously, not everyone can go to Harvard, nor should they need to.
But this isn’t an attack just on Harvard or on Ivy League colleges. After Trump signed his executive order last month calling for the dismantling of the Department of Education, this is the follow-up attack, and attacking the ‘elite’ universities attracts the kind of attention – and fear – Trump wants.
A little over a month ago, Columbia University made the regretful decision to fold under Trump’s demands to exercise more control over the institution so they wouldn’t lose millions of dollars in federal funding.
“The Donald Trump administrationannounced on Friday that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.
“The announcement comes after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and initiated its own investigations into students critical of Israel and its war on Gaza after Hamas’s own attack on Israel. That move by the university has alarmed advocates of free speech.
“It also comes at a time of widespread backlash to American universities by the Trump administration and conservatives more broadly, who see the higher education sector in the US as dominated by liberals and ripe for a rightwing attack on its influence.”
“Columbia University has yielded to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a precondition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.
“The university released a memo outlining its agreement with Donald Trump’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.
“Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.”
Around the same time that Columbia was cowering under Trump’s demands, Harvard University and others were receiving similar demands. From CNN:
“In March, the federal government sent a letter to Harvard saying the school was being investigated for its failures to “curb or combat” antisemitism on campus. … the White House continued targeting universities — Princeton, Cornell, and Northwestern all had funds frozen or suspended — and on April 11, sent Harvard a list of policy changes it wanted implemented, demanding “immediate cooperation” if the university wanted to “maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government.”
“The list included eliminating the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, banning masks at campus protests, merit-based hiring and admissions reforms, and reducing the power held by faculty and administrators, “more committed to activism than scholarship.
“A New York Times report suggested the letter inadvertently had been sent prematurely. Still, Harvard put out a response three days later, publicly rebuking the Trump administration, saying it would not “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
So Harvard responded, not by folding, but by filing a lawsuit against the government. A sort of middle finger, if you will. As of yesterday according to that same CNN report, the administration now appears to be “open to negotiations.”
Meanwhile, other colleges and universities, including the University of Michigan here in my home state, have begun banding together to fight Trump’s blatant attempt to destroy education rather than bend the knee – and kiss the ass. Hopefully, it will be this type of resistance to government oppression that becomes contagious, not weak-kneed cowardice. Because in the long run, access to quality education for all Americans – the kind that leads to critical thinking and not obedience – is the best hope we have.
It won’t be the courts or the law that will save us; it will be our ability to think for ourselves. And then act on it.
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Fat Hitler couldn’t get into Harvard.
Thank you so much for that.