Here we go again. Harvard is back in the news for at least the fourth time in the last couple of years, and once again its reputation is taking some serious “dings.”
Now, Harvard is once again in the media spotlight in an unfavorable way. The Trump administration is in the process of blocking or canceling over $2 billion of federal grants to the university, and President Trump has threatened Harvard with loss of its tax-exempt status if it doesn’t make certain reforms. What Trump has demanded publicly has been for Harvard to end all DEI programs, policies, and practices, that it promote viewpoint diversity, and that it implement merit-based hiring.
Harvard’s current president, Dr. Alan Garber, has publicly stated that the university has no intention of complying with the Trump administration’s demands. I have sympathy with Dr. Garber’s stance that a president shouldn’t have the power to issue edicts dictating how a school should be run.
I also agree (as do millions of other Americans) with Trump that un-American practices, such as DEI’s race-quota obsessions, the suppression of certain (mainly conservative and libertarian) viewpoints, and hiring for ideological reasons and not on the basis of merit, are abhorrent. But for a president to have the power to exercise control over universities is too close to Big Brother for comfort. Furthermore, what is to keep the next president from reversing Trump’s policies? In a free society, the government shouldn’t be telling educational institutions how to operate any more than it should dictate what businesses produce, how citizens should worship, or what opinions they are supposed to have.
At first glance, President Garber’s defiance might seem like a principled stand for independence, but it isn’t. Garber’s stance is: Get off our backs, but keep the federal money coming to us. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too. A truly principled position would be for him to say, “We wish to return to being a truly private institution, self-funding and therefore free from federal subsidies and mandates. As long as we are not breaking any laws, we should be free to run our school as we see fit, even if many members of our society don’t like our policies. So, please keep your money and leave us alone.”
In the real world (a concept that remains hazy in the ivory tower) money often comes with strings attached. President Trump’s instincts here are right on: Harvard is receiving significant support from American taxpayers, and so it shouldn’t have policies that are repugnant to tens of millions of those taxpayers. As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently expressed, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”
Science is a search for truth, just as religion is. We should no more have government fund science than it should fund religion. Let venture capitalists fund scientific research and profit from successful research efforts. Or let the fabulously wealthy pharmaceutical industry fund medical research and reap the resulting profits.
In practice, government grants to Harvard are not about science—they are subsidies to a university that has woke policies. Legally (but not, I believe, morally) one can make a case that a truly private, i.e., privately funded, Harvard University should be free to implement a woke agenda and practice as much ideological and racial discrimination as is permitted by our civil rights laws.
Yes, Harvard should be free to have policies that millions of American oppose, as long as they aren’t illegal. That is their right. What isn’t their right is to continue to receive taxpayer-funded subsidies.