Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.
Trump’s war against universities expands.
Harvard, showing spunk, leads the fight against Trump’s Unconstitutional demands.
The letter that Harvard President Garber sent to its alumni yesterday.
The Promise of American Higher Education - Harvard University President
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
For three-quarters of a century, the federal government has awarded grants and contracts to Harvard and other universities to help pay for work that, along with investments by the universities themselves, has led to groundbreaking innovations across a wide range of medical, engineering, and scientific fields. These innovations have made countless people in our country and throughout the world healthier and safer. In recent weeks, the federal government has threatened its partnerships with several universities, including Harvard, over accusations of antisemitism on our campuses. These partnerships are among the most productive and beneficial in American history. New frontiers beckon us with the prospect of life-changing advances—from treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes, to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, quantum science and engineering, and numerous other areas of possibility. For the government to retreat from these partnerships now risks not only the health and well-being of millions of individuals but also the economic security and vitality of our nation.
Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to “maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.” 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.
I encourage you to read the letter to gain a fuller understanding of the unprecedented demands being made by the federal government to control the Harvard community. They include requirements to “audit” the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduc[e] the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views. We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. 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.
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. It compels us to take up the difficult work of acknowledging our flaws so that we might realize the full promise of the University, especially when that promise is threatened.
We have made it abundantly clear that we do not take lightly our moral duty to fight antisemitism. Over the past fifteen months, we have taken many steps to address antisemitism on our campus. We plan to do much more. As we defend Harvard, we will continue to:
nurture a thriving culture of open inquiry on our campus; develop the tools, skills, and practices needed to engage constructively with one another; and broaden the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within our community;
affirm the rights and responsibilities we share; respect free speech and dissent while also ensuring that protest occurs in a time, place, and manner that does not interfere with teaching, learning, and research; and enhance the consistency and fairness of disciplinary processes; and
work together to find ways, consistent with law, to foster and support a vibrant community that exemplifies, respects, and embraces difference. As we do, we will also continue to comply with Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for universities to make decisions “on the basis of race.”
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. The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community. Freedom of thought and inquiry, along with the government’s longstanding commitment to respect and protect it, has enabled universities to contribute in vital ways to a free society and to healthier, more prosperous lives for people everywhere. All of us share a stake in safeguarding that freedom. We proceed now, as always, with the conviction that the fearless and unfettered pursuit of truth liberates humanity—and with faith in the enduring promise that America’s colleges and universities hold for our country and our world.
Sincerely,
Alan M. Garber
Read here. 👇
Trump’s unconstitutional demands of Harvard
Read here too. 👇
Harvard’s answer to Trump’s demands
Next came immediate retaliation from the bully in the White House. Disgusting.
Trump administration freezes $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University
The US education department is freezing about $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University, the agency said on Monday.
The announcement comes after the Ivy League school has decided to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations, including shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” said a member of a department taskforce on combating antisemitism in a statement.
The education department taskforce on combating antisemitism said in a statement it was freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in multi-year contract value to Harvard.
In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies as well as conduct an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks, which appeared to target pro-Palestinian protesters; close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”; and pressured the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The letter from Harvard’s president said the university would not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming and to limit student protests in exchange for its federal funding.
“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,” Alan Garber, the university president, wrote, adding that Harvard had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.
Garber said the government’s demands were a political ploy.
“It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner,” he wrote. “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.”
The demands from the Trump administration prompted a group of alumni to write to university leaders calling for it to “legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance”.
“Harvard stood up today for the integrity, values, and freedoms that serve as the foundation of higher education,” said Anurima Bhargava, one of the alumni behind the letter. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims.”
It also sparked a protest over the weekend from members of the Harvard community and from residents of Cambridge and a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors on Friday challenging the cuts.
In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has failed to follow steps required under Title VI before it starts cutting funds, and giving notice of the cuts to both the university and Congress.
“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the university to punishing disfavored speech,” plaintiffs wrote
One more thing.
Trump was so happy, thinking about canceling Harvard’s money. Who cares what damage it causes.
As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University?
The administration’s campaign to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses had already forced Columbia University to strike a deal. Now, the White House was eyeing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.
“What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?” (New York Times).
The New York Times reports this too.
The scope of the administration’s campaign is now poised to widen. The Education Department has warned 60 universities that they could face repercussions from pending investigations into accusations of antisemitism.
What else can Universities do!
This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, if They Dare
Almost three months into the Trump administration’s war on universities, and a year and a half into the Republican Party’s organized campaign against the presidents of top colleges, it is clear that antisemitism and D.E.I. are mere pretexts for these attacks. Like much of what this administration does, the war on higher education is driven by anti-intellectualism and greed. Trump is building a mafia state, in which the don distributes both money and power. Universities are independent centers of intellectual and, to some extent, political power. He is trying to destroy that independence.
There is a way for universities to fight back. It requires more than refusing to bend to Trump’s will, and it requires more than forming a united front. They must abandon all the concerns — rankings, donors, campus amenities — that preoccupy and distract them, and focus on their core mission: the production and dissemination of knowledge. Intellectuals have adopted this strategy to fight against autocrats in other countries. It works.
Because Trump views everything as transactional and assumes everyone to be driven by profit, he has approached universities the same way he approached law firms and, arguably, countries: by deploying devastating financial threats against each one individually, to compel compliance and prevent coalitions. Trump could have started by imposing a tax on universities’ endowments, a move that almost certainly would enjoy broad popular support. That, however, would presumably affect every major university, which could prompt them to band together. Research grants, which are specific to each university, are an ideal instrument to divide and weaken them.
His first target, Columbia University, acceded to his demands within two weeks of losing $400 million in grants and contracts. When Columbia’s first sacrifice didn’t bring back the money, the university made another: its interim president, Katrina Armstrong. That didn’t satisfy Trump, who now reportedly wants Columbia to agree to direct government oversight. He is also brandishing financial threats, separately, at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern — and still there is no sign of organized resistance on the part of universities. There is not even a joint statement in defense of academic freedom or an assertion of universities’ value to society. (Even people who have no use for the humanities may see value in medical schools and hospitals.)
It shouldn’t be this easy to cleave universities from one another, but, so far, it seems to be easier even than making law firms compete for the don’s business and favor. This may be because law firms define success in a way that is at least marginally closer to their ideal function (helping to uphold the rule of law) than the way universities define success is to their ideal function, which is producing and disseminating knowledge. Most prominent American universities, most of the time, measure their success not so much by the degree to which their faculty and graduates contribute to the world as by the size of their endowment, the number of students seeking admission and their ascent in rankings by U.S. News & World Report and others, which assess the value of a university education in part by looking at graduates’ starting salaries. As for professors, while universities do compete for the best minds, they more frequently compete for the loudest names, in the hopes that these will attract the biggest bucks.
In conversations with my colleagues on these pages, I have compared the universities’ current predicament to the prisoners’ dilemma, the game-theory model in which two people accused of a crime have to decide to act for themselves or take a chance and act in concert. It’s a useful model to think about, but it doesn’t quite fit. The universities are not co-conspirators: they are competitors. And they want more than to return to the status quo ante: They want growth. They might even want to win the research funding that the other guy lost.
Trump has threatened to use many different tools against universities: pulling federal financial aid, revoking accreditation, rescinding nonprofit status, imposing an endowment tax and blocking the flow of international students. Nor — as the case of Columbia has already demonstrated — will submission end the attack. Slashing and burning its way through the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wilson Center, the United States Institute of Peace, the Smithsonian, and others, the administration has shown that it considers knowledge production worthless. In the rare areas where the president — or perhaps Elon Musk — may see value in research, the emergent mafia state is almost certain to distribute funds to its friends. One shudders to think what universities would have to do to fit themselves into that category.
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Polish dissidents operated what they called a “flying university” in apartments across the country. Run by the country’s leading intellectuals, this university wasn’t selective and didn’t charge tuition; its only goal was to get knowledge to as many people as possible. These were the people who went on to build the only post-Communist democracy that, so far, has been able to use electoral means to reverse an autocratic attempt. In the 1990s, Kosovo Albanians responded to the Serbian regime’s forced takeover of their education system by walking out and creating a parallel underground school system, from first grade through university. Classes met in boarded-up storefronts. I met Albin Kurti, the current prime minister of Kosovo, in 1998, when he was a student — and a student activist — in the underground university.
Adopting such a radical approach, and forsaking the usual concerns of development offices and communications departments, would be costly, to be sure. The universities most actively targeted by Trump have the resources necessary to weather such a radical reorientation. But as Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, told me, “Too many of our wealthiest universities have made their endowments their primary object of protection.”
I called Botstein because he has long practiced the approach I am advocating: At Bard (where I taught for three years and continue to work with an archive of Russian media), he seems to respond to every crisis by figuring out ways to teach more people. In the last quarter-century, Bard’s expansion has focused on people who would ordinarily not have access to a university education. The university works in New York State prisons, where it currently has more than 400 enrolled students; in six cities it operates 10 high schools from which students graduate with a Bard associate degree; and it runs “microcolleges” at the Brooklyn Public Library, in Harlem and at a center for young mothers and low-income women in Holyoke, Mass.
The students at these places, who far outnumber students at the college’s main campus, don’t pay for their university education, are unlikely to boost Bard’s post-graduation income statistics, and probably won’t be able to make significant donations to the endowment in the future. But their lives are often transformed by Bard’s intervention. Many private universities have extension programs and several have prison programs and other community projects, but they tend to position them as charity sidelines rather than part of their core mission. Bard, on the other hand, is a private college that acts like the best kind of public university.
I asked Botstein how he balanced this kind of expansionism with his fiduciary responsibilities as president of the college. He said that he is a “naïve believer” in good ideas and so far the ideas have been good enough to attract philanthropists. He doesn’t think a university has to be rich, he told me — and Bard, with its $270 million endowment, decidedly is not. In his view, universities, “portals to tolerance and the expression of fundamental equality of all human beings,” are essential to democracy. A child of Holocaust survivors who came to this country as a stateless person in 1949, Botstein is particularly sensitive to the ways of an autocratic government. Three weeks into the Trump administration, he called on universities to band together in the face of an existential threat posed by the government. That was three weeks into the first Trump administration.
So this is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement.
Alternatively, you can try to negotiate with a mafia boss who wants to see you grovel. When these negotiations fail, as they inevitably will, it will be too late to ask for the public’s support. (M. Gessen. Op-Ed, New York Times)
What are colleges’ legal options when threatened with federal funding cuts? | Higher Ed Dive
Demonstrators outside of Columbia University, in New York City, N.Y., hold a protest on March 24, 2025, in part to oppose the institution’s decision to cede to the Trump administration’s demands. Faculty protests against surrendering happened at Columbia again yesterday.
Higher education experts said colleges could work together or lean on their associations if they take up a legal fight against the Trump administration.
Harvard University is just one of the latest colleges to be targeted by the Trump administration, which continues to threaten vast funding cuts to institutions that it says are out of step with federal law and policy.
Late last month, government officials said they would review billions in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, arguing the Ivy League institution had not done enough to curb antisemitism on its campuses in the wake of protests against Israel’s wartime actions in Gaza.
The administration demanded Harvard make modifications to its departments and programs — including eliminating diversity initiatives and “meaningful governance reforms” — to keep its federal funding. However, Harvard President Alan Garber announced Monday that the university would not accept the Trump administration’s demands.
Harvard University is just one of the latest colleges to be targeted by the Trump administration, which continues to threaten vast funding cuts to institutions that it says are out of step with federal law and policy.
Late last month, government officials said they would review billions in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, arguing the Ivy League institution had not done enough to curb antisemitism on its campuses in the wake of protests against Israel’s wartime actions in Gaza.
The administration demanded Harvard make modifications to its departments and programs — including eliminating diversity initiatives and “meaningful governance reforms” — to keep its federal funding. However, Harvard President Alan Garber announced Monday that the university would not accept the Trump administration’s demands.
“There’s no question that if you want to stand and fight, it takes resources to do that,” he said. “It may be that the best thing to do is keep your head down or to comply as much as you think you possibly can with whatever mandates are out there because you simply might not be able to afford to stand your ground.”
Understand your allies
In fact, colleges may struggle to fight the administration on their own.
“I don’t think that institutions should necessarily fight it by themselves,” said Jeffrey Sun, a higher education and law professor at the University of Louisville. “I don’t think they’ll win.”
What will have more power is several institutions, or even many, working together to fight the attacks on higher education.
“I don’t think we have an option unless we work in collective action,” Sun said.
Institutions might also look to their employee associations and other organizations to take on some of the fight. So far much of the legal action against proposed cuts to higher education funding has been brought by nonprofit organizations.
Those include the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, which have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the $400 million funding cut to Columbia. AAUP and its Harvard chapter on Friday sued the federal government over its review of the Ivy League institution.
And AAUP, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and the National Education Association have all sued over guidance threatening to pull funding from colleges that consider race in their programs or policies.
“I do think individual institutions and their leaders and their boards, they’re probably really worried about being the institution that if they advance litigation, they’re going to be singled out by the administration,” said Neal Hutchens, an education policy professor at the University of Kentucky. “Because we’re definitely seeing that happen.”
An institution’s location also plays into the type of options it might have before or during legal action, Hutchens said.
Institutions in states with largely Republican elected officials may have an easier time working behind the scenes to prevent floated cuts. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, appears to have advocated for her state’s public university system after the U.S. Department of Agriculture froze agency funding to the institution. The pause was lifted two days later.
Institutions like the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Hutchens said, likely have allies in elected government who can help explain the impact of the National Institute of Health’s proposed reimbursement caps for indirect research costs on the state economy. A federal judge recently permanently blocked that policy nationwide, though the Trump administration has appealed.
However, institutions in states with Democratic leadership are more likely to find support among lawmakers for any legal action they take against the Trump administration, Hutchens said.
Understand your arguments
Scholars say colleges have multiple avenues to pursue legal arguments if threatened with cuts.
Some institutions have been accused of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by allegedly allowing antisemitism to spread unchecked on campus. In those cases, they may be able to argue that the funds were frozen without due process or an opportunity for institutions to respond. Although statutory language mentions losing money for particular grant programs, a wholesale ban is unprecedented, Hutchens said.
”There are really good arguments that’s not what the Congress intended in authorizing these kinds of programs” he said.
Another factor to consider is an institution’s mission. Religiously affiliated institutions, Lake said, might have an easier time in the courts than other institutions would.
That’s especially true when it comes to defending practices related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
I see a Supreme Court that’s been protecting faith articulations and institutions,” Lake said. “You have pretty good grounds to stand on the Supreme Court precedent to say that if our faith stands on DEI, exactly articulating diversity, equity and inclusion, that’s always been part of our faith.”
Georgetown University Law Center highlighted its faith-based mission when it fired back last month after the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., threatened to blackball its law students for the school’s perceived embrace of DEI.
“As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Georgetown University was founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical and spiritual understanding,” William Treanor, dean of the law school, wrote in a reply.
But it may also be worth taking stock of how unified a campus community is. That includes figuring out where board leadership and faculty stand on issues.
“If the internal house is divided — let’s say you’ve got some shared governance issues — that’s an easy place for controversy to locate and make it more difficult for the institution to succeed,” Lake said. (Higher Ed Dive).
What can you do?
Keep on writing and calling your elected officials. Tell them that our country was build on free speech and universities are the center of that freedom. Tell them that Trump has no lawful right to cut monies allotted by the congress for medical research and clinical trials.
Write to Alan Garber at Harvard to give him support. alan_garber@harvard.edu.
Write to the Presidents of the universities you attended and urge them to protect your university and Democracy.