Pursuing Trump, brandishing a flamethrower in the library's corridors
Harvard Under Attack: Trump Administration's Crusade Against a Prestigious University
In a controversial move, President Trump's administration is targeting Harvard University, the oldest and most esteemed institution of higher learning in the United States. The White House aims to exert control over Harvard, not only because of its academic stance, but also to salvage political capital until the end of Trump's presidency.
The education sector is witnessing a spectacular battle of ideological proportions, with Trump's government zeroing in on Harvard. The White House is aggressively targeting various revenue streams of the university, forcing Harvard to fight back tooth and nail.
Harvard's annual budget stands at $6.5 billion, with around 11% of the funds coming from federal research grants. The administration seeks to eliminate these grants entirely. Moreover, international student tuition fees could also be at risk. The university would face a 20% reduction in income due to the White House's actions. Harvard alleges that this constitutes a revenge campaign and asserts its right to shape its curriculum, operations, and campus autonomously. But, what sparks this vendetta? What does Trump aim to achieve with these attacks?
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened to ban international students from Harvard and demanded their personal data within a tight timeline. After successfully suing over concerns of "sudden and irreparable harm," Trump's administration has refused to back down, acknowledging only the 30-day appeal period. Instead, they have shifted their focus to worldwide US embassies that have ceased scheduling student visa interviews. The embassies plan to intensify scrutiny of applicants' social media profiles, particularly pro-Palestinian and Chinese students, denying or revoking their visas for political reasons.
The Political Machinations
In April, the White House accused Harvard of tolerating anti-Semitic activities and laid down sweeping demands, including the handover of data on international students and their protest activities over the last five years. Harvard complied, but the government deemed the data insufficient, escalating the conflict further. International students make up 27% of Harvard's total student body.
The demands from Washington extend beyond this. According to a commission set up by the White House, they wish to put Harvard under supervision "at least until the end of 2028." The university is expected to share all planned changes with the government, which will review these implementations meticulously during the stipulated period.
The university is obligated to demonstrate that it has dismantled all equal opportunity programs and designed enrollment and appointments of teaching staff accordingly. It must bar any foreign students deemed "adversaries of American values and institutions" and reveal their identities immediately upon misconduct. By the end of the year, the university is to scrutinize every aspect of its operations for the "right balance" of diversity of opinion, and hire teaching staff and enroll students in "critical mass" in all study programs if necessary. Harvard must also enable its students to anonymously report violations of the university to the government.
Potential Revocation of Tax-Exempt Status
Parallel to the overwhelming demands, the US government threatens to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status for educational institutions. Education Minister Linda McMahon has frozen federal funds, citing accusations of concealed contributions from foreign donors and governments. Harvard maintains that it has disclosed everything. The accusations against Harvard range from anti-Semitism and terrorism to lack of freedom of speech and civil rights violations to "systematic lawbreaking." These are not elaborated further in the letters but can be inferred from other statements.
Resistance and Cultural Battle at the Top
One of the accusations from Trump's government is that whites are being discriminated against. Under the pretext of the antisemitism accusation, the history of racism in the US is being turned on its head, presenting Trump's predominantly white constituency as victims. Universities are accused of discriminating against whites due to equal opportunities laws, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, although it was primarily enacted to combat racism by whites against blacks.
However, two years ago, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court banned this practice for admissions. Despite this, the majority of newly enrolled students at Harvard was still white. In teaching positions and other roles, whites are systematically shuffled to the bottom of the applicant pile, according to a study. It remains disputed whether this is covered by the law. Among the teaching staff at the university, whites make up an overwhelming majority of around 75 percent.
Trump's government is about more than ideological differences; the academic establishment is simply too left, not conservative enough, too anti-MAGA for the government. In fact, Harvard represents only a limited political spectrum in the US, with a small proportion of students identifying as conservative. Fewer still identify as Trump supporters. Conservatives are also in the minority among teaching staff at other Ivy League universities.
Harvard is not the only target of Trump's government. Over 60 universities across the country are accused by the White House of anti-Semitism, much like Harvard. In 2023, they received a total of approximately $23 billion US dollars in public funds together. This represents more than a third of the total funds distributed to universities nationwide. The White House wishes to set an example against the unwanted left-leaning trend at universities.
US Vice President JD Vance, a Yale alumnus, once labeled his faculty as "totalitarian" in 2021, claiming that conservatives had no place there. He also accused the dominant leftists of being an oligarchy, silencing Americans who complained. He argued that it was absurd to send one's children to universities where they would be indoctrinated and accumulate debt to lead a middle-class life. "It's about power," Vance explained. The White House is now questioning this power with all its might.
To what extent the government's demands will be implemented in practice remains unclear. Questions about ideological screening of potential students, faculty, and professors, MAGA quotas, control of curricula, and offenses reportable on a denunciation hotline arise. The violence of these imagined steps sounds more like an authoritarian state than the diversity of thought the White House aspires to instill. Yet, Trump behaves as if he intends to burn libraries to eliminate ideological tendencies among students and faculty.
The extent to which efforts to amplify conservative voices can go is evident in the example of the US Naval Academy. The Navy recently removed around 400 books from its library because they did not align with Trump's directives ending government-wide diversity initiatives. Many of these were anti-racist works or those focused on "non-white, cisgender heterosexual men," as a book trade representative quoted in the "New York Times" put it. "Mein Kampf" remains available.
Cultural battle at the top ## More on the topic
"Very Anti-Semitic University:" Trump Feels Triumphant in Dispute with Harvard" Washington has already put on hold funding for several elite universities, but the power struggle over Harvard has the greatest symbolic value. Trump's administration wants to use the university in the state of Massachusetts to demonstrate its vision for the country: According to this, education and research should be subservient to the president's politics—no matter how authoritarian his role might be. Many conservatives see universities as a breeding ground for progressives who stand in the way of their own goals and should therefore be put in their place. After all, the leaders of tomorrow are educated at elite universities.
Trump is bringing this societal culture war to a head. What started as a conflict over gender, "woke" books, and teaching content in schools is now the battle for elite universities. The universities and professors of the country are "the enemy," Vance had declared at the right-wing conference four years ago: "Universities must be aggressively attacked." Universities do not foster critical thinking, he said, but control the knowledge of a society, which in turn determines what is considered truth or falsehood. And what could be more threatening to a government that spins its own truth?
- Amidst the political battles, the Commission in Trump's administration has also been asked to submit a proposal for a directive on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to ionizing radiation, as the education sector, including Harvard University, finds itself at the center of the administration's crusade.
- In the general news, the ongoing controversy involving Harvard University extends beyond the realm of education and self-development, with politics playing a significant role in the White House's aggressive targeting of the institution, sparking questions about the balance of ideological diversity and academic autonomy.
