Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Harvard University has rejected various demands of a presidential commission on anti-Semitism.
The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its campus are no longer harassed, or else lose its federal funding.
Harvard retorts that it won’t be bullied by Washington.
Among its other requirements, the Trump administration also warned Harvard to cease using race as a criterion in its admissions, hiring, and promotion, contrary to law.
And it also directed the campus to ban the use of masks that, in the post-COVID era of protests, have emboldened violent demonstrators with anonymity.
The administration’s order to stop race-based bias was in accordance with civil rights statutes, and a recent Supreme Court decision specifically banning affirmative action at Harvard and elsewhere.
No matter. Harvard claimed that the Trump administration infringed upon its First Amendment rights.
So, it has temporarily rejected the administration’s orders. At least for now, Harvard has lost its annual $2.2 billion grant of federal funds.
Former President Barack Obama, among others, lauded Harvard’s rejection of the demands of the administration’s anti-Semitism task force. He claimed the Trump administration’s efforts were ham-handed.
But what academic freedom are Harvard and Obama talking about? The freedom to discriminate and segregate by race in hiring, admissions, dorms, and graduations?
The freedom of 500 Harvard students to crash the classes of others, shut down traffic, and harass students on the basis of their religion or views on Israel?
Despite all of Harvard’s platitudes, its classrooms are still being disrupted. Jewish students remain fearful.
And what would Obama say if, for example, African-American students at Harvard were harassed on campus by masked disrupters?
Or black studies classes were crashed by students wearing scarves over their faces as they vented their hatred? Would he press the Trump administration to force Harvard to honor federal civil rights protections?
Remember, Harvard is a private university with a largely untaxed endowment of over $50.2 billion. Yet again, it still receives some $2.2 billion—now suspended—in federal funds.
The administration task force is not forcing Harvard to run its university according to its version of federal dictates.
Instead, the Trump commission is simply warning Harvard that if, in addition to its huge sources of private funding, it still wishes continuance of some $2.2 billion in public money from the federal government, then it must comply with existing laws and executive orders.
Does Harvard remember the embarrassing testimony of its former president, Claudine Gay?
She failed to assure a congressional committee that Harvard had taken action against openly hostile anti-Semitic student protestors during its growing protest movements.
Does Harvard understand why the Supreme Court ruled it had violated the “Equal Protection Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment and was culpable of prejudice against Asian-Americans?
Does Harvard have any clue why it has lost some $150 million per annum of donor giving?
Does Harvard realize that no one believes its pretenses anymore that it “cannot and will not tolerate disruption” of classes—given that it still happens all the time at its various professional schools and undergraduate courses?
Perhaps Harvard should follow the strategy of independent Hillsdale College, which long ago wished to be free of federal dictates.
So, unlike Harvard, the college put its proverbial money where its mouth was and agreed unilaterally to give up all federal funding to be free of Washington’s octopus tentacles.
Yet, there is one critical distinction between Hillsdale and Harvard.
Hillsdale does not take federal money, period—whether doled out by either a Democrat or Republican administration.
It sincerely believes that too often the federal government itself does not follow the Constitution, impinges on freedom, and forces colleges to violate equality under the law when discriminating by race and gender.
Harvard has no such principles.
Its beef is not with the notion of an overweening federal government, eager to coerce private colleges to follow particular protocols.
Instead, it is at war only with the Trump commission or, in theory, any other similar conservative administration that might wish it to adhere to the law as a condition of being federally funded.
Otherwise, Harvard has no problem with an activist federal government, as long as it is a liberal one forcing all sorts of Title IX or DEI initiatives on private and Christian colleges that apparently lost their autonomy by accepting federal money. It has said nothing when state and federal governments in the past gratuitously hounded Hillsdale.
So, Harvard loudly can set itself free by permanently pursuing its agenda on its own $50 billion, in the same manner Hillsdale does quietly with its $1 billion—without the taxpayer’s dime, whether Democratic or Republican.
The destruction of the Ivy League schools and major institutions has to be intentional, right?! Why else would the left do it? It makes no sense.
I am thankful that I bought my “Harvard Classics Bookshelf” before their arrogance ruined their reputation.
VDH,
Harvard set itself free.
As Buddy Holly wrote after hearing John Wayne’s character “Ethan Edwards” repeatedly proclaim’s in the Classic Film “The Searcher.”
“That’ll Be The Day.”
Thank You VDH.
Words like hypocrisy and principle are worthless when commenting on the Left. Their only principle is power they can abuse.
Dr Hansen and many others (including myself most of the time) address these sorts of issues with common sense and hope. Alas. No such things are possible in the dark world of the communist mind. The Frankfurt School target:
“We must organize the intellectuals and use them to make Western civilization stink! Only then, after they have corrupted all its values and made life impossible, can we impose the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
That’s what the communist intelligentsia has accomplished in the USA and elsewhere. There are pockets of peacefulness in deeply rural areas. But the ambiance of western civilization is clouded and embittered with the rotten critical race theory of the communist intelligentsia.
Millions of ordinary people are divided and riled and hustled and lied to in every working hour of every working day by teachers, preachers, bankers and government officials. Communist lies are now so pervasive, we accept them, smile ruefully and carry on. Really now, doesn’t it stink? Don’t you feel had?
name an institution that progressivism hasn’t destroyed? It always leads to death, poverty and destruction.
The crème de la crème has turned sour.
Mr. Gibbs,
Yes, it’s curdled and, like milk, should be tossed out or maybe given to the pigs with their slop.
Oh wait, it is they who brought about the curdling.
We’re leaving 50% of our estate to Hillsdale.
At least cream that has clabbered and soured has SOME valid uses. The arrogant and deluded Hahvahd swelled heads? NOT so much.
Their endowment should be taxed like any other corporation.
They should lose any federally-backed scholarships, if they exist.
Harvard should be fined repeatedly for breaking the law. Fined on each and every infraction. They are not above the law, in this case, civil rights law.
Donors should receive no tax benefit for contributing to Harvard’s funds.
They are an outlaw institution that hates America and supports anything and everything that makes this nation weaker.
We should explore the possibility of establishing a special import tariff on foreign students’ payments to the outlaw school. Let’s reimagine how we educate the rest of the world. What Harvard currently espouses is not beneficial to our country.
America needs much better alternatives than Harvard and its piss-poor ilk.
Hillsdale is a start. We need hundreds more with similar goals, principles and conservative-minded educators.
Trump can make that happen. Give the best students in our country — the cream of the crop — viable options to the morass of lefty loser colleges that now populate our academic landscape. We need much better choices.
I guess I really don’t care for Harvard too much. Claudine Gay pretty much sealed the deal for me. Worst performance of an Ivy League DEI plagiarist puppet in the history of such things. The good news is that her tenure as president at Harvard was one of the shortest ever.
Agree, Jim.
It appears Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League institutions took DEI to the max and hired leadership based not on cognitive aptitude but on a lesser metric. One that obviously led to their decline. They deserve a real hard, destructive landing. Hopefully, the rules are changed and they lose their long-standing tax status. May Prez Trump introduce them to the IRS.
But she’s still there……TEACHING.
I have never understood why folks continue to send kids to Harvard so they can pay the outrageous fees.
My suggestion for the past few years is that Harvard grant tuition and fee free education to all students until the $50+ billion endowment is significantly reduced.
Now, if Harvard won’t do this, I suggest that their endowment be taxed as ordinary income……
You’re right Jim! Why would anyone hire a harvard graduate? Does anyone believe that the new employee would respect the employers business model? Tear down the accomplishments of others is their mantra!
Businesses hiring Harvard MBAs have deprogrammed business school graduates for decades. It used to be that you could count on Harvard graduates to be educably trainable by their new employer after leaving the MBA program because they were top students going into the program. Not so much anymore with all the woke DEI indoctrination they receive. I would rather hire the student who received solid “Cs” in the hard sciences and math than the straight “A” student with a degree in “(fill-in-the-subject) studies.”
Harvard has a lot fingers in the Moslim antisemitic money pie. It doesn’t need usa dollars.
Remember the left hates, lies, and kills.
Once that is understood, everything else is easy.
It’s bewildering why people habitually use “Cadillac” as a simile for that which they consider first-in-class though years and even decades after the comparison ceased to be true. “The college for those like you who choose to go first class all the way. Best of all….it’s a Harvard degree.” Uh huh.
Thanks Victor! If Harvard followed the Hillsdale model of self-reliance and autonomy, it would jeopardize its firm grasp on hypocrisy and therefor alienate itself from the democratic party.
Well said, Craig.