Hundreds of Harvard professors called on university leadership to resist demands by the Trump administration to change its protest and hiring policies and work in cooperation with federal immigration officials.
Harvard government professor Ryan Enos said he is one of many faculty pushing Harvard leaders to say no to the demands.
“Think about any school yard bully. This is how they operate,” Enos said. “They don’t stop coming back for your lunch money just because you handed it over to them once. And so Harvard or anywhere else is not going to do itself any favors if it thinks it can get out of Donald Trump’s cross-hairs just by going along with these authoritarian demands.”
The White House is threatening to strip about $9 billion in funding to Harvard. That includes medical research funding for Harvard affiliate Boston Children’s Hospital, and its Mass General Brigham teaching hospitals.
Harvard received a letter from the Trump administration on Thursday outlining actions it must take to avoid the cuts, a spokesperson said. The letter included requirements to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs and institute “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies. It also sought a ban on masked protesters and an agreement from the university that it would work in complete cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.
Kirsten Weld, a Harvard history professor, said the administration’s end game is widescale repression, and school leaders should not bend.
“It’s a dominance test being performed upon the wealthiest and most high profile university on the planet,” she said. “And if that university doesn’t stand up and fight it, who’s going to?”
Harvard faculty members urged the school’s leadership to reject the demands on moral grounds, saying the federal government cannot suppress free speech on college campuses. Some said student and faculty criticism of Israel is being purposefully conflated with antisemitism.
Weld, who is also president of Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the group forcefully rejects “these blatantly illegal, authoritarian overreaches on the part of the federal government.”
“The federal government’s demands are not about policy and they’re not about fighting antisemitism in any good faith way,” she said
Harvard President Alan Garber sent a message to the community earlier this week affirming the university’s dedication to ensuring a campus free of antisemitism and committed to academic freedom and excellence in teaching and research.
“Much is at stake here. In longstanding partnership with the federal government, we have launched and nurtured pathbreaking research that has made countless people healthier and safer, more curious and more knowledgeable, improving their lives, their communities, and our world. But we are not perfect,” Garber wrote.
Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers also weighed in powerfully, saying he’s never been worried about the future of American democracy until now.
“I’m gravely concerned by a government that seems to me to be behaving abusively and quite possibly extralegally on many different dimensions,” he said.
The Trump administration is going after universities, penalizing law firms, and going after federal judges counter to American democratic tradition, he added.
“Richard Nixon did all kinds of things wrong, but when courts made orders, he complied with those orders,” Summers said. “President Trump hasn’t yet acted decisively, but there are disturbing indications that it may not be his intention to follow court orders.”
It’s not yet clear how Harvard leadership will respond. The Trump administration recently issued similar demands to other universities, including Columbia, whose leaders complied.
