Harvard faculty has not — and will not — cave to Trump demands
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This myopic focus on the university's administration ignores a truth fundamental to the future of American higher education: Salvation does not and cannot lie in the hands of the Harvard Corporation — the university's secretive, self-appointed governing board made up of financiers and power players. Universities are much more than the individuals who come to campus a few times a year to review high-level operations.
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The role of faculty is fundamental. We are the teachers, researchers, and writers who have committed our professional lives to learning and free inquiry, working together with students to advance truth with rigor, independence, and integrity for the collective benefit of society. That commitment means that, unlike our distant governing boards, we will not give up so easily — no matter what kind of deals are signed in our name.
At Harvard, for instance, while the university's leadership has earned well-deserved plaudits for its legal challenges to the most egregious of Trump's punitive measures, it was not, in fact, the administrators who took that bold step first. It was the faculty.
When the Trump administration started threatening Harvard, the university leadership's initial response worryingly pointed toward accommodation, seeking compromise at the bargaining table and implementing controversial internal changes that echoed the demands coming from the federal government. As Perry Bacon, a staff writer for the New Republic, recently
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By contrast, faculty, students, and alumni
This pattern — in which faculty, students, staff, and alumni lead and university leadership follows — has been repeated at the national level. Researchers in the University of California system
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Members of university boards can retreat to their day jobs, but for the broader university community, the Trump administration's attacks are truly existential. It is our colleagues who have seen their clinical trials suspended, their years-long collaborative projects canceled, and — especially if they work on topics disfavored by the Trump administration, like climate change, racial and gender equity, or Middle East politics — their speech chilled or suppressed on issues central to their professional expertise. While the restoration of unlawfully canceled funding is critical, achieving that cannot come at the expense of academic freedom and intellectual independence.
One AAUP member, a computer scientist who has lost nearly all his research funding, penned a personal note to Harvard's president last week, expressing alarm at the prospect of a deal with the government.
He wrote movingly of how difficult it has been to watch the foundations of his identity — as a child of immigrants and a scholar dedicated to advancing knowledge — come under withering assault. 'But I am willing to endure that pain,' he continued, 'if by being here at Harvard, I am part of the fight to restore the values of the country. If Harvard settles, I do not know if that will be the case anymore.'
Those values are more important now than ever. If trustees are willing to engage in extortionate backroom dealings with political operatives, it must be the role of faculty, staff, students, and alumni to protect academic freedom, university independence and free speech. In our own lawsuit on behalf of Harvard, we will not trade these principles away. We will fight against any substantive changes to faculty hiring and tenure reviews; any 'exceptional' treatment of some academic units and centers; any policy favoring or disfavoring applicants for admission, hiring, or appointment on the basis of political viewpoint; any sharing of information about Harvard affiliates with the government beyond what is legally required for legitimate purposes; and any appointment of an external overseer.
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Cash payouts to resolve allegations of illegality that have never been properly established or investigated, as at Columbia, are unacceptable; sacrificing non-gender-conforming community members to satisfy the Trump administration's retrograde gender ideology, as at Brown and Penn, is unacceptable.
It will take more than lawsuits to preserve what remains of this country's democracy. But the forms of student and faculty action mentioned here point the way. Corporate boards of trustees are not synonymous with the universities themselves, and they are not the ones most motivated to defend the core values of higher education. We are. And we won't capitulate.
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