Due Process and First Amendment Rights Support Harvard’s Defense
“They are saying, ‘Sign our loyalty pledge, or we are taking your money.’”- Derek W. Black, constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina
John Harvard has decided that enough is enough when it comes to the Trump administration.
Mr. Harvard, in case the name doesn’t ring a bell, was the first benefactor of the first university in North America, way back before America was great the first time in 1636. The school receiving that donation was moved to name itself after him, and a statue symbolizing him is one of he most photographed pieces of public art in the world.
Eight signers of the Declaration of Independence attended Harvard; eight US presidents attended the university, most recently Barack Obama. Suffice it to say that the institution’s name by itself is a credible indication of excellence. I should note here that it’s been tarnished by a host of grifters who have participated in extensions or seminars.
And there are notable elected alumni who seemingly didn’t come away from their higher education sans vestiges of ethics, which has long been the hallmark of liberal arts universities including J.D. Vance, Ted Cruz, and Missouri’s track star Senator, Josh Hawley.
It’s certainly true that Harvard University is perceived as an elite institution that has made a vast contribution to white people’s heritage, and shaped many of the institutions most Americans recognize as pillars of democracy.
In the 20th Century, the school even gave us President Barack Obama, and a case can be made for saying that was the breaking point for much of the conservative movement.
Harvard alumni (along with other Ivy League colleges) have traditionally played a large role in presidential administrations; until Trump V.2.0.
What we’ve seen in terms of governance over the past 90 days or so has been an assault on societal beliefs or institutions. Part of it is resentment, playing to the crowd who blame ‘elites’ for their lack of success. A bigger part of this shitstorm of lies and lizard-brain mysticism has to do with clearing the path to authoritarianism.
Co-opting Congress was easy-peasy. Most of the major media has already taken a knee, and those who don’t will face a legal/administrative death spiral. Big law firms who sometimes have a role in shaping policy have failed to form enough of a united front to push back against the lawfare of Trump’s toadies. Even some potential political opponents have averred that wait and see is the best strategy.
The administrative arm of government has seen any muscle it once had wither away as MAGA minions have taken charge and a unstable billionaire has disrupted and pared away its workforce. Elon Musk by the way, is reportedly contemplating exiting his role, as the damage done to his brands mounts.
It’s common for extremist authoritarians to co-opt popular causes to create a justification for unsavory and/or unlawful acts. In the case of higher education, the Trump administration –filled with gold-plated bigots– has decided antisemitism is the basis for controlling higher education.
This purge of academia started with Columbia University, site of the highly publicized protests against the war on Palestinians being perpetrated as the policies of a victimized nation seeking justice.
(Those protesters were somewhat successful in making their point as far as US public opinion is concerned, driving support for Israel down and increasing sympathies for Palestinians, according to a March 6 Gallup poll.)
The students and supporters involved in those protests (which were overwhelmingly non-violent) have been characterized as evil incarnate, creating space for actions against both foreign students of the brown persuasion and institutions teaching reason.
Columbia, facing a freeze on federal funding, caved to the Trump administration pressure, a fact gleefully announced by the White House on March 21. In exchange for $400 million in federal funding agreed to rules that restricted and criminalized protesting on campus.
As other institutions that have conceded their independence have learned, once Trump has his foot in the door, additional demands and threats are forthcoming. The surrender of one prominent institution was supposed to start a domino effect of administration control of higher education.
Using claims of antisemitism as a Billy club, the Trump administration has threatened to investigate dozens of colleges, and has already moved to withhold billions in federal funding from Cornell, Northwestern and Princeton.
The administration hit Harvard University hard, sending Harvard a list of demands that included auditing professors for plagiarism, reporting to the federal government any international students accused of misconduct, and appointing an outside overseer to make sure that academic departments were “viewpoint diverse.” Also in the mix were the suggestions that foreign students' visas would be canceled and the schools tax-exempt status would be revoked.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House plans to pull $1 billion in federal funding for Harvard’s health research. Critical funding for medical research will abort the final steps in what has been a promising study for a vaccine that will prevent tuberculosis.
Perhaps the Trumpanistas overshot their target. Harvard circled its wagons, tapping alumni for federal funding shortfalls, publicly saying no, and filed a creme dela creme lawsuit against a heap of federal agencies.
Via The New York Times:
Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, accused the government in a statement on Monday of trying to wield “unprecedented and improper control.” Dr. Garber said the consequences of the government’s actions would be “severe and long lasting.”
The Trump administration has claimed that Harvard and other schools have allowed antisemitic language and harassment to remain unchecked on their campuses. Monday’s lawsuit noted that the government had cited the university’s response to antisemitism as justification for its “unlawful action.”
Dr. Garber, in his statement, said that “as a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism.” But he said that the government was legally required to engage with the university about the ways it was fighting antisemitism. Instead, he said, the government has sought to control “whom we hire and what we teach.”
The legality of the government’s actions against institutions runs right into the First Amendment, and their justifications amount to ‘because we said so,’ In more normal times, there might have been a semblance of an investigation prior to legal demands, but as we’ve already seen with flying planes of immigrants to a foreign concentration camp, ‘due process’ is not part of the administration toolkit.
Fortunately for Harvard, its $53 billion endowment is largely invested in ways that will enable the university to withstand a federal shortfall.
Via the New Yorker:
But now that Trump is shutting off funding, or at least threatening to, at sixty schools, Harvard’s endowment has taken on a new purpose, positioning the school to be the first bulwark against a rapidly advancing front. When Harvard’s lawyers, in a letter responding to the White House’s ultimatums, said that the school was “not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration,” they were basically telling the Administration that they would see it in court, where the university would be able to make a strong case that the government’s actions are illegal.
Nevertheless, in order for the university to sustain itself during the lengthy legal battle likely to come, it will need to make up for a big funding gap, and that is where its $53.2-billion war chest comes in. “Harvard’s endowment is not there just to be envied or admired,” Lawrence Summers, the Harvard economist who is a former president of the university and a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, told me. “It’s there to be used, and it is hard to imagine a better use than maintaining the continuity of its operations at a moment of great threat like the present.”
Shortly after Harvard filed its lawsuit, the interim president of Columbia announced that the institution was not prepared to give in to Trump’s most intrusive demands. Other colleges have taken note and are reportedly making their own plans to resist.
Finally, from Indivisible founder Ezra Levin:
We have heard from credible sources who were organizing at Harvard, that their oppositional stance was directly influenced by the massive, peaceful, April 5 Hands Off! protests around the world.
A little resistance can go a long way.
Stop! In the Name of Trump! by Paul Krugman
And as things get worse, there’s no reason at all to believe that Trump and those around him will look for policy solutions. Instead, we’ll see a combination of denial and efforts to blame someone else. Trump has already declared that reports of rising prices are “fake news.” And he’s already setting the stage for making Jerome Powell — “Mr. Too Late” and “a major loser” — his scapegoat for everything that goes wrong.
Coming next are conspiracy theories.
None of this was necessary. The U.S. economy was doing well before Trump came into office. Trumponomics isn’t a response to real problems. It’s a president who has waged a war on competence indulging his personal obsessions.
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The Next Terrorist Attack by Timothy Snyder in Thinking About…
The Musk-Trump people run national security, intelligence, and law enforcement like a television show. The entire operation of forcible rendition of migrants to a Salvadoran concentration camp was based upon lies. It is not just that Kilmar Abgrego Garcia was mistakenly apprehended. The entire thing was made for television. Its point was the creation of the fascist videos. But this is a media strategy, meant to frighten Americans. And a media strategy does not stop actual terrorists. It summons them.
Terrorism is a real risk in the real world. The constant use of the word to denote unreal threats creates unreality. And unreality inside key institutions degrades capability. Security agencies that have been trained to follow political instructions about imaginary threats do not investigate actual threats. Fiction is dangerous. Treating the administration’s abduction of a legal permanent resident as a heroic defense against terror is not only mendacious and unconstitutional but also dangerous.
Moreover, Musk-Trump make the United States look vulnerable. Americans under the spell of Trump’s or Musk’s charisma might imagine that strength is being projected. Not so. To prospective terrorists we look erratic and weak. Even apparently unrelated policies — such as enabling foreign disinformation, gutting environmental protection, undoing weather forecasting, ending food inspections, and undermining disease control — make life easier for terrorists and open avenues of attack. By taking apart the government, crashing the economy, and dividing the population, Musk and Trump invite attention of the worst sort, from people who wish to hurt Americans.
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New images could change cancer diagnostics, but ICE detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them by Jean Lee at NBC News
Peshkin said international researchers have become increasingly worried in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to illegal immigration. When asked whether he’s concerned that these policies might discourage other international scientists from coming to Harvard, he said: “I’m not concerned that it may. I am horrified that it does.”
“It’s already having an effect. I hear from many colleagues that people who were planning to stay have changed their minds because they need to travel,” Peshkin said, adding that scientists often attend conferences around the world to present their research and share knowledge.
A recent survey by the scientific journal Nature revealed that 75% of the 1,600 scientists surveyed were considering relocating to Europe or Canada, citing actions taken by President Donald Trump. Separately, a tracking database from Inside Higher Ed shows that, as of April 18, more than 240 colleges and universities have reported that over 1,550 international students and recent graduates have had their legal status changed by the U.S. State Department.
