The Barbarians Are At The Gate ***

Trump in favourite pose.

 I have been both astonished and dismayed by the recent Ttump assault on Harvard and other universities. Why would the Government of the only world superpower seek to publicly denigrate, insult, and punish their most prestigious and globally respected institutions of higher education. The proud boast contained in the name, Harvard, somehow combines the guarantee of a first-class university glowing with global name recognition and respect, while signalling a subtle echo of the inequalities in American life. Future American world leaders almost automatically attend Harvard [or, indeed, Yale or Stanford]. Normally, kids from public housing do not.

Lots of support for Harvard.

SO, what is it with Trump? He has just threatened to re-direct $3bn of Harvard research funding to vocational schools after which he sent a letter to federal agencies instructing them to review the $100m in contracts the Government has already awarded Harvard and find “alternative vendors” where possible. More than $3bn in research grants has been frozen and foreign students [part of the university’s life blood, it may be assumed] suspended from enrolling at Harvard.

Claudia Gay, former President, Harvard, and the 
first black person to hold that distinguished role.

Taking on Trump
Observer. 1/06/2025

 

The U.S. Administration’s explanation for this onslaught is that there has been a perceived failure to address antisemitism on campus following prolonged anti-Israel protests at universities across the country since the start of the war in Gaza. In December 2023 three prominent university presidents, including the then President of Harvard, Claudine Gay, struggled publicly to answer whether students calling for the ‘genocide of Jews’ violated their student conduct codes on bullying and harassment. In April, Harvard released the results of a university task force review [commissioned by Gay before Trump’s election] of antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice on its campus. It found that many Jewish and Muslim students faced bias, exclusion and alienation from the university curriculum and its community

Alan Garber; 31st President of Harvard

 And here we must introduce our hero! Enter Alan Garber, current President of Harvard, mild-mannered, small in stature, Jewish by happenstance, and possessing no obvious external heroic characteristics whatsoever. In March when the Trumpian onslaught began with its first antisemitic accusation and its corresponding ‘review’ of the $9bn grant, Garber responded in mild tones agreeing to comply with any federal task force on antisemitism but when, a month later, came the demand that he ‘audit’ the opinions of students and faculty members then ban pro- Palestinian student organisations, he simply refused. In his response, Garber wrote: “No government –regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and how, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”  The Administration rapidly took up the challenge and with the chilling “Let this serve as a warning”, its Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism re-sent the long list of changes that Harvard must make, including terminating diversity programmes, reforming admissions and hiring, by screening foreign students for views hostile to ‘American values’ and expanding and protecting ‘viewpoint diversity’ among students and faculty.

Harvard Commencement, 2025, demonstrating
support for Alan Garber's approach to dealing
with Trump's destructive attempts.

This was a declaration of war and Trump gratefully leapt into further action. He froze federal funds and 
revoked the university’s right to enrol foreign students. Garber managed through the courts to try to block the restriction and continued with his normal professional routine, by chance on the same day as he obtained judicial support, giving a speech at the annual graduation ceremony. He addressed “Members of the class of 2025 from down the street, across the country and around the world” He then repeated, “Around the world, just as it should be” and his huge Harvard audience erupted into prolonged and raucous supporting cheers. He went on to reiterate the point that the frozen billions included funding for the kind of medical research that has brought enormous health benefits to the nation, and he suggested that the Administration’s decisions regarding sanctions which will negatively affect the blameless, wider population, as ‘perplexing’. Garber’s persistent, stubborn but courteous mildness in responding to Trump’s crude threats has won wide approval and simply reinforced the positive opinion already in place, of this former co-operative and capable chief academic officer, a position he had held at Harvard for more than a decade before becoming President.

Charlie Kirk, young but extremely right wing founder
of Turning Point and a Fox News stalwart.

This current assault by the Trump Government on not only Harvard, but also other prestigious universities such as Princeton, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania et al, looks like a battle with elite higher education in an effort to re-shape universities to a more conservative-friendly image but there are supporters of the Trumpian mindset.   “Universities are not about the pursuit of knowledge; they’re about the forceful pushing of a left-wing world view,” said Charlie Kirk, founder of the Conservative group, Turning Point USA, in a Fox News interview last month. “we’re here to shake it up.”

Many on the right have long viewed American college campuses as hotbeds of liberal indoctrination as demonstrated  [in their view]  with left wing, antiwar radicalism in the 1960s; political correctness in the 1990s; Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalism of the 2000s or the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-Israel demos in recent years. Currently, the Dept. of Education has launched investigations into ten universities for alleged antisemitism; warned dozens of others of similar enquiries while investigating 52 universities for illegal race-based programmes.

As Greg Wolfson, President of the American Association of University Professors observes, “The fact that we have multiracial, multicultural, multinational universities is a boon. It creates diverse communities and really diverse intellectual thought.” As with so many of Trump's policies, this denigration of Ivy League universities, supposedly popular with his base, is not generally applauded. Indeed a clear majority of the population are aghast at the unprecedented revenge spree of what is effectively, a prolonged bout of national self-destruction which will damage American soft power and kill or damage, one of the country's major exports, namely premium higher education.

Just say No!

Barbarians at The Gate ***

A Greek expression, subsequently adopted by the Romans, to indicate originally, those who spoke a different language. But eventually the expression simply reiterated the assumption that the Greeks and Romans believed they were superior and more civilised than other peoples.