(Trump also wanted control of all hiring decisions and admissions. This is the kind of control outlined in the Lewis Powell Memo of 1971.)
from al Jazeera
United States President Donald Trump’s campaign to pressure
universities into dropping diversity, equity and inclusion measures and
punishing student protesters has faced its strongest pushback yet when Harvard University rejected a series of demands from his administration.
Monday’s decision
quickly prompted the US Department of Education to freeze nearly $2.3bn
in federal funding for the Ivy League institution ranked among the best
universities in the US.
In a response on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday morning, Trump
accused Harvard of pushing “political, ideological, and terrorist
inspired” notions rather than acting in the public interest.
So what happened between Harvard and Trump, and why did the
institution risk billions of dollars to go against the administration’s
demands?
The heads of the US Department of Education, Department of Health and
Human Services, and the General Services Administration co-signed a
letter to Harvard on Friday. In this letter, they claimed “Harvard has
in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil
rights conditions that justify federal investment.”
This was followed by a list of demands for the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to fulfil. Key among them were:
- Promoting faculty committed to the Trump administration’s demands of
Harvard, as articulated in the letter, and “reducing the power” of
faculty and administrators “more committed to activism than
scholarship”.
- Ending all affirmative action in faculty hiring and student
admissions by August. At the same time, the letter demanded that the
university ensure “viewpoint diversity” by abolishing criteria during
admissions and hiring processes “that function as ideological litmus
tests”.
- Changing the admissions process “to prevent admitting international
students hostile to the American values”, including “students supportive
of terrorism or anti-Semitism”. The letter did not define what it meant
by “American values”. For the 2024-2025 academic year, there were 6,793
international students at Harvard, making up 27.2 percent of its total
enrolment – up from less than 20 percent in 2006-2007.
- Changing disciplinary policies and forbidding the recognition and
funding of student groups or clubs that promote “criminal activity,
illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
- Implementing a comprehensive mask ban with immediate, serious
penalties for violation “not less than suspension” after some students
have protested while wearing masks. The letter did not list any
exceptions to this rule, such as health reasons.
- Closing all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes and offices and carrying out organisational reform to ensure transparency with federal regulators.
Harvard was given a deadline of August to implement these changes.
This is the second letter issued by the Trump administration to Harvard.
The first one was issued on April 3 and called on Harvard to ban face
masks and reform academic departments that it alleged were guilty of
anti-Semitic bias. Charges of anti-Semitism have been levelled against
numerous US universities and colleges since widespread campus protests
were held against the war in Gaza...
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