Until this week the President of the United States, Donald Trumphe had achieved with his threats to retain federal funds that private universities would fold to his demands. This Monday, however, he ran into the resistance of a rival formidable: Harvardthe richest and well -known Center for the US.
The negative of the prestigious Massachusetts campus to succumb to the pressures The President has made the Republican harden. Monday his administration announced the Freezing scholarships and contracts worth almost 2.3 billion dollars. This Tuesday the president has threatened In a message in Truth Social con Remove Harvard the status that gives you tax exemptions.
And the climbing reveals the seriousness of this conflict for the future of the Freedom of expression and academic in the US And also, FExtortion Ormas The Trump.
The background of the conflict
Trump’s conflict with elite universities comes from afar, but he has shot since the Republican returned to the presidency. Since that time he has raised alleged permissiveness complaints with anti -Semitism that the conservatives have been launching since numerous campuses hosted protests on the Gaza War that Israel opened after the attacks of Hamas of October 7.
Your government has taken Draconian measures and doubtful constitutionality Against some of those who participated in these protests, and the arrests and attempts of deportations of several legal residents, such as the students of Columbia Mahmoud Khlail or since Monday Mohsen Mahdawi, They extend the alert to the growing repression of freedom of expression, thought and dissent.
Trump’s return to the White House, and his power, have also given wings to a brutal hardening of the crusadeincluding in universities, against Movements of social, racial and gender justice, including the persecution of any program of diversity, equality and inclusion (of its acronym in English) or what is denoted as’woke’.
Harvard’s specific case
In Harvard’s specific case, the conflict entered its explosive phase last Friday. Then the Trump government sent a letter to the university in which he accused him of “Not being fulfilling the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”
The letter demanded, for example, Changes in government structure of the center; remodeling of admissions policies; External audits For the faculties of Medicine, Public Health, Theology and Various Programs: Changes in the disciplinary punishments of students and withdrawal of the recognition of several groups of Propalestinian students and undertake at least until the end of 2028 a reform process in which send quarterly reports to the government on compliance. The express threat was to withdraw federal financing if they were not implemented.
It was a letter similar to that received by Columbia and other universities of the Ivy League. But while the prestigious New York campus capitulated before Trump’s pressure and decided “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can afford to be taken by the federal government.”
Alan Garber, the rector, He also sent on Monday an open letter to the entire Harvard community where he allowed to read both the government’s letter and the university’s response. “The University will not deliver its independence or give up its constitutional rights ”said. “No government, without mattersing the party in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, who can admit and hire and what areas of study or research can develop,” he also wrote.
The administration’s response was immediate and 2.2 billion dollars were frozen at multiannual scholarships as well as 60 million dollars in contracts. This Tuesday came, in addition, Trump’s threat in Truth. “Perhaps they should be taxed as a political entity if they continue to drive the ‘political, ideological and inspiration/terrorist support,” he wrote “Remember: The status of fiscal exemption depends completely on acting in public interest!”
Applause and fears
Harvard is the PRimera University Institution that is planted before Trump. The former president has earned the applause, Barack Obama, A former student, who in an X message shared Garber’s open letter, said that “Harvard has marked a example rejecting a illegal and clumsy attempt to quell academic freedom ” And he was hopeful that “other institutions will continue.”
Many could do it, because Trump has threatened tensincluding Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Princeton, Northwestern and Cornell.
Harvard’s proposal has some logic after seeing what happened to Columbia, which despite capitulating not only has not seen federal financing reinstated, but has not avoided that the government demands to put it under its supervision and direct guardianship.
Harvard, in addition, is the richest university in the US. Has aendowment‘, the investment fund with own resources, of 53,000 million dollars, more than triple than Columbiawhich gives it more financial muscle to maintain the fight in court or to resist Trump’s blows.
The ‘endowment’ and its management, however, often and especially in the case of donations comes with limitations. In fact, 70% of Harvard’s annual distribution is limited because donors require that their money is going to Specific programs, departments or purposes.
Trump’s blackmail threatens, thus, with directly affect operational and academic and research functions, And not only of the academic campus and its faculties, especially those of Medicine, Public Health and Engineeringbut also of their Medical centers associates In the last financial report of the Hospital System of the University, it was seen that 11% of its annual operating income came from federal funds for research.
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