The US government led by President Donald Trump is at war, but not with another country, terrorist organisation, or even amorphous threats like poverty or drugs. Instead, it is conducting an assault against arguably the most prestigious, and certainly most famous, US university: Harvard. The school long predates the republic and has educated generations of its leaders. But now it is besieged by Washington.
This confrontation is best understood through a series of ever-widening concentric circles, broadening from the most granular to near-totalising Trump goals.
As with so many things connected with this President, it all begins with a blunder. But beyond the blunder, there’s a perennial US political theme at the core of this tragicomedy: anti-Palestinian animus.
At heart, it’s a power struggle. Mr Trump is making good on his campaign pledge to act as an American strongman, so he’s lashing out in all directions to bring to heel any sources of authority or potential challenge beyond his direct control. It’s a stereotypical strongman's power play, yet unprecedented in US history.
Within the executive branch, he’s going after independent agencies, inspectors general, and anyone viewed as insufficiently loyal to him personally. He is attempting to squeeze law firms into providing free services to his allies and refusing to represent his opponents. He is using all available means to intimidate the media. He is continuously inveighing against courts and judges he doesn’t deem to be co-operative enough. And he is attempting to gain control over the US higher education system.
The Harvard confrontation began on April 11, when the administration sent a letter demanding direct oversight of much of the school’s operations, because it had supposedly not done enough to tackle “anti-Semitism” following Israel’s attack on Gaza. The letter was later confirmed to have been a draft issued by mistake, but the administration followed up with even more sweeping demands that the university surrender to the White House.
Harvard has flatly refused to submit, and it is suing the government. The university’s president, Alan Garber, put the case bluntly: “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The Trump administration does not deny that this is what it seeks, and it has effectively confirmed this by suspending virtually all co-operation in response. Harvard is under at least eight new federal investigations and faces almost $4 billion in frozen or eliminated grants. In its latest escalation, the government is trying to block Harvard from accepting any international students on the grounds that it has “created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students”.
This administration appears to conflates all support for Palestine or Palestinians with anti-Semitism, as indicated by a new compliance review based on media reports of medical students wearing Palestinian scarves or pro-Palestinian buttons. Since March, US consular officers have been required to scour social media accounts of prospective international students seeking visas for signs of sympathies towards extremist and terrorist organisations, effectively defined as anything indicating support for the Palestinians.
The Trump administration, though, includes several recent appointees alleged to have track records in right-wing anti-Jewish rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including Kingsley Wilson, the new deputy Pentagon press secretary. By framing the assault on Harvard as a battle against Hamas-supporting anti-Semitism, the administration has prompted some of its critics to insist that they, too, are appalled by anti-Gaza war protests. But nobody is fooled.
Some supporters of Israel are extreme and cynical enough to applaud even this kind of backing. But most Jewish Americans, including diehard supporters of Israel at Harvard, understand that efforts to gain a stranglehold on higher education have nothing to do with Israel. These efforts will obviously be at the expense, and not in defence, of Jewish Americans, especially in the long run.
The attack on Harvard is part of a broader pressure campaign against a range of universities around the country, with losses to Cornell of more than $1 billion, Princeton $210 million, Northwestern $800 million, Johns Hopkins $800 million, and so on. But Harvard is leading the pushback, and it may have the resources and credibility to prevail.
Beyond the originating error, the mendacity of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and the drive to control colleges, suggest that the war on Harvard is a subset of the administration’s generalised battle against knowledge and verifiable, objective fact.
The vast majority of cuts already made to executive agencies and departments have been at the expense of knowledge-production and its translation into policy. There is a drive to obliterate politically incorrect parts of history, aspects of current reality like climate change, or even public values like accurate weather forecasting or basic public health data collection.
The attack on the US higher education system by this administration is all the more bizarre because it claims to be seeking to revive the American manufacturing economy and bolster global competitiveness. But the apparent perceived political threat from independent institutions and higher education seems to override those obvious considerations.
Worse, the excellence of US higher education is one of the country’s most meaningful competitive advantages. The Trump administration is threatening this invaluable legacy, along with the long-standing US ability to attract the world’s best minds and spirits. The viciousness and anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany and the repression and intellectual suffocation of the Soviet Union were invaluable assets to the US, especially when contrasted with relative US freedom and openness.
The Trump administration vows to “remove improper ideology” from institutions like the Smithsonian Museum network while demanding “viewpoint diversity” at Harvard and other universities. This effectively means, “say — and do — what we want, or else … ” Ultimately, though, even ideological conformity can’t be enough. Control over the entire register of truth inevitably beckons as the only absolute guarantor of authority.
