As many on this blog know, I have been one of the most vocal critics of Harvard and its history of viewpoint intolerance and attacks on free speech. That includes dozens of columns, a book, and a debate at Harvard Law School denouncing the purging of Harvard’s faculty and student body of Republicans and conservatives. I hope that this work offers some context and perhaps credibility for my reason for writing this morning: the threats to remove Harvard’s tax-exempt status are fundamentally wrong. Such a move would produce lasting damage to both to higher education and the country as a whole.
After Harvard refused to comply with demands from the Trump Administration, the President called for its tax-exempt status to be lifted on Truth Social:
Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!
Some commentators have picked up on this call, including some who cite the 1982 decision involving Bob Jones University, in which the Supreme Court upheld the denial of tax-exempt status.
I obviously agree with many of the Trump Administration’s complaints against Harvard over its anti-free speech history and lack of diversity of viewpoints.
The anti-free speech movement in the United States began in higher education and these schools constitute the hardest silos for reform. Most faculty have refused to change their hiring trends with many departments now with no Republican or conservative faculty. Indeed, many professors at Harvard would rather bulldoze the campus than allow greater diversity of viewpoints in their departments. I have written that the current generation of faculty and administrators is destroying higher education to replicate their own ideological orthodoxy.
This is not about them. It is about the future of higher education and how we reform higher education is as important as the need to reform. Few of us would want the government to dictate hiring or teaching decisions in higher education. My book suggests some aggressive measures to reform higher education. That includes reducing funding and increasing reviews of university practices. The removal of tax-exempt status is not one of those measures.
Higher education plays a critical role in our economy. The schools are the engines of innovation and training that allow us to remain competitive in the world economy. Not only are these schools one of our largest employers, but they are also essential economic and social institutions to many local economies.
Most importantly, tax exemption should not be a status bestowed upon those adhering to the demands of whatever party is in power. Free speech and associational rights are fostered by granting this status. While Harvard and other schools have abandoned core values, educational institutions are afforded tax-exempt status.
Almost ten years ago, Congress moved to impose tax burdens on Harvard and the larger academic endowments which make profits off their investments. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 imposed a 1.4 percent tax on those institutions. If tax-exempt status were removed, it would kick that burden up to 21 percent, causing a massive financial loss for many schools. It would likely result in an enormous reduction in research and even school closures.
Now, back to Bob Jones. I have long been critical of the IRS standards used to determine when tax exemption is not in the public interest. In the case of Bob Jones, the university was engaged in racial discrimination. However, the actual standard is far more vague and could potentially be used more broadly.
In the case of Harvard, some are arguing that anti-Semitic activities on campus can be treated as similar to the discrimination at Bob Jones. There are obvious distinctions. At Bob Jones, the discrimination was embodied in university rules and based on the school’s religious values at the time.
The danger is that the Trump Administration would open the door to highly subjective determinations that target disfavored schools. If we go down this path, a new Administration led by President Harris or Walz could target conservative schools for discriminating against other groups or viewpoints. The government would then be able to hold financial control over institutions of higher education. It could be the death knell for higher education.
Some of us have been targets of academic intolerance for years. I have had calls for my termination for decades since I testified in the Clinton impeachment. It is not easy today to be a dissenter in higher education. You are shunned, isolated, and harassed. Many conservative, libertarian, and dissenting faculty have simply left out of exhaustion. The purging of our ranks rivals the crackdowns during the McCarthy period with most faculties now running from the left to the far left.
As one of the long-standing targets of this culture, I have spent my career fighting for change. However, I do not see the advantage of replacing one source of political control by another. We still have the greatest higher education system in the world. We need to find ways to reform it, not ruin it with impulsive measures.
The problem is not Harvard as an institution. It is the biased administrators and faculty who have a stranglehold on these institutions. However, if you want squatters out of a home, you do not burn the house down.
My book details ways to reduce federal and state support for universities while organizing donors to force changes at these institutions. It will not be easy or fast. However, if we want to remain the world’s premier higher education system, we need to focus on funding and enforcement issues, not tax exemption.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The fact that Bob Jones University lost is tax exempt status and still exists destroys your entire argument that eliminating the Harvard hedge fund’s tax exempt status will destroy the grossly misnamed “higher education” industry.
No offense, but this may be the most poorly argued, least persuasive, essay I’ve read on this blog in a decade. It’s like you barely even tried.
Anonymous, Bob Jones University regained it’s tax exempt status in 2017. It dropped it’s racist policies. It still exists because it has it’s tax exempt status again.
>> It still exists because it has it’s tax exempt status again. <<
Why lie?
BJU existed for several years after its tax exempt status was revoked. It only regained its tax exempt status after it submitted to the government's coercion requiring it to change its policies.
Harvard does not want to change its policies. Fine. Don't change. Don't submit to government coercion and lose its tax exempt status. Only after it submits to government coercion should it's tax exempt status be restored – exactly as happened in the Bob Jones Univ. case.
Bob Jones had as a school policy bans on interracial couples and other racially motivated rules. That was illegal and a direct civil rights violation.
It barely survived without a tax exemption and if it wanted greater access to federal funds to expand it needed to change it’s policies. They could have kept their policies as long as they wanted, but the crediblity and reputation of the school suffered so much that knew they wouldn’t last long with that those kinds of policies.
“Harvard does not want to change its policies. Fine. Don’t change. Don’t submit to government coercion and lose its tax exempt status. Only after it submits to government coercion should it’s tax exempt status be restored – exactly as happened in the Bob Jones Univ. case.”
Harvard’s policies do not violate civil rights or discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or sex. DEI is not race discrimination. It’s not even about race.
The only way they can lose their tax exempt status is if the government can prove the school violated their tax exempt status. They have to be specific. A general accusation is not legally enough to justify a revocation.
As Professor Desrhowitz said, “If they allow free speech that goes after blacks, and hispanics and Muslims, then sure-they should allow if for Jews. But they have shown that any negative words about black is a violation of their policy and will be suppressed. But here, it was not just speech suppression, it was actualy violence and singling out of a religious group affilliation. It’s also enforce uniformity of speech-an entirely leftists agenda and an opposition to any speech that deviates from that. They should shut down Harvard who showed racism in the recent case involving quotas against Asians. Trump administration should be supported. Thus far, people who try to appear “fair” on some sort of principaled position, are perhaps being impractical. It’s like saying to Truman, “Give the Japanese the nuclear bomb-please be fair” in WWII. Actually it’s much worse. Harvard already has the bomb. Trump as the only possible deterrant. You are saying “Don’t use it?”
Professor Turley, you are correct. Perhaps Trump is being too direct. If he wanted, he could order Federal funding agencies to be more equitable about funding state universities, thereby shaving millions from Harvard and other elite schools. Can the Dems argue against “equitable”? You see, no money means faculty will migrate to where it is, ivy covered buildings notwithstanding. State schools will enjoy extra dollars. State school faculty will be ecstatic. In the meantime, Harvard, et al, will decline as they are now.
That was a total nothing burger from Turley. It was just a light smackdown of the Trump administration for pressuring a private school to fall in line.
“I obviously agree with many of the Trump Administration’s complaints against Harvard over its anti-free speech history and lack of diversity of viewpoints.”
Well…yeah. You’re going to agree because you have to agree with this administration; otherwise, you would be on the receiving end of a MAGA backlash and Trump’s ire.
Turley’s disagreement with Harvard and his conclusion that the university is anti-free speech because it lacks a significant number of conservative or Republican faculty members is baffling. His argument hinges on the idea that Harvard discriminates against conservative or Republican viewpoints. However, he should also address the fact that Trump is threatening the school for allowing pro-Palestinian viewpoints and what he describes as “illegal protests.” Turley conveniently overlooks Trump’s demands, which also represent a form of anti-free speech.
Hypocrisy is Turley’s thing lately, and it’s pretty obvious.
Harvard has already pointed out that Trump’s freezing of funds violates the law. According to the APA, the Trump administration has to specifically point out the violations, give notice, and wait 30 days before freezing funds. None of that was done, and Trump will most likely fail in court. Trump seeks to punish schools without detailing specifically any real harms, just accusations.
Turley seems to keep forgetting that Harvard is a private school, and it can choose to have a largely liberal faculty if it wants to. Trump is ordering Harvard to comply with ridiculous demands because of a gross abuse of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Accusations are not evidence, and this is the theme the administration relies on to force or bully schools into compliance.
“Harassing” Jewish students and “preventing” them from getting to their classes is not anti-semitism. Neither is protesting against Israel. It’s just harassment and a temporary inconvenience due to a protest. That does not rise to the level of a civil rights violation. What about the Trump administration attacking the free speech of the protesters by punishing them because of their social media posts? Turley never mentions that inconvenient truth.
Harrassing and bullying a private school to comply with Trump’s demands is also anti-free speech. Turley should know that, but we know he won’t directly address this salient point because it would undermine his facile argument.
Turley isn’t being forceful about Trump’s threats to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status. He disagrees with the idea, fine. But you can tell he won’t do a full-throated criticism. That’s how he criticizes the Trump administration. Just meek enough so that MAGA won’t turn rabid on him, but just enough to express his “disagreement” sufficiently safe from a MAGA backlash.
Rabble Rabble Rabble!
– Georgie Sore-a$$
If Trump was truly doing things against the Constitution and Free Speech, you can guarantee Turley would be speaking out against it. I know any outlet (except Truth) would be doing the same if the current admin were doing things actually against the law. Give it up, you neanderthal. This is, so far, the most law-airtight administrations in history. Nothing you gripe is going to do jack.
“Turley would be speaking out against it. I know any outlet (except Truth) would be doing the same if the current admin were doing things actually against the law. ”
ROLF!!
Riiiight.
The current administration is already doing things against the law and the most outlets ARE speaking out against it. It’s conservative media that is in denial or just supporting Trump despite the facts. Sycophants have their place in the Trump verse and Turley is no exception.
Ignorance, specifically willful ignorance plays a big part and you’re right in the thick of it.
The fact that “George” is allowed on this site every day, to say whatever, regardless of truth or logic [or ‘comprehensive reading’ skills], tells me all that I need to know about this great blog site.
Blah, blah, blah. Research can be done anywhere, Harvard is not a sacred cow. Allow other schools that are not so ideologically contaminated with minds so indoctrinated that free thinking is stifled become our new leaders of our institutions of higher education.
Ivy league schools are not exempt from extinction and at this point a degree from one if them is losing value by the moment.
Foolish ideologues have destroyed institutions of learning and I believe that the best way to save education is to create a fire line against a wildfire of wrong-headed fanatics that have swept through our very culture leaving the same sort of devastation seen in the recent LA fires. Getting ahead of these fanatics by quenching their ability to pollute minds and culture will save free thought and higher education.
Starve off these radicals and redirect funds to other places that have not dug in their heels in a battle over culture that has observable done almost irreparable damage to several generations of young minds.
Turley seems to think that there could be no alternative to these now putrid swamps of poisonous ideologies. I disagree, just leave them in the dust to rot away and place our hopes in better institutions.
Turley knows there are alternatives. There are plenty of conservative private Universities and Colleges to choose from. Funny thing is he isn’t complaining about their lack of a balanced conservative/liberal faculty. Most are either Christian aligned schools like Liberty University or Brigham Young.
This idea that conservatives have been “purged” from these schools because they are pushing an anti-free speech movement is utterly stpuid. If conservative viewpoints were more widely accepted they would be include more conservative leaning faculty. The problem is students are not really that interested in conservative ideas. Sure some are. That doesn’t mean they can’t pursue those ideas on their own. If there are enough students demanding conservative or Republican faculty schools will respond according to demand. But the reality is there aren’t that many students to justify an offering. It’s basic supply and demand.
Turley seems to want to force schools to include Republican and/or conservative faculty because he thinks it’s unfair that more aren’t included. He’s advocating for DEI essentially. They have to hire based on merit, right? Isn’t that what Trump is demanding? In this instance Turley seems adamant that schools hire more Republicans because there are too m any liberals as faculty. Well then, Republicans and conservatives need to make their case on their merits. Not on their lack of Representation because they are Republican. That’s a wokish attitude towards inclusion. I haven’t seen any Republican or conservative professors make a clear case for their inclusion based on the merits of their ideas.
Convince students that their ideas are intersting and applicable to their studies. Don’t force schools by threatening to cut off their funding and tax exempt status.
Again, you blind adherence to your indoctrinated prevents you from seeing the point.
It seems you’re a vicitim of your own point.
A conservative University or College cannot be ideologically contaminated? Bob Jones was, right?
What makes a school “ideologically contaminated”? Private Colleges and Universities lean to whatever their boards ideological leanings are. It’s their prerogative.
Should LIberty University be forced to hire a proportionate amount of liberal professors because it’s too conservative? That’s Turley’s argument regarding most liberal schools. Because they have “purged” conservatives and libertarian professors. Never mind the fact that it’s students who pay tuition that show their preference in what they see as more interesting and conservative views or ideas are not particularly appealing. That’s why there are conservative schools that cater to those students that prefer a more conservative world view.
Why isn’t there an elite, ivy league strictly conservative University or College? Can you name one?
Agreed! There are rules that must be followed to get and keep tax exempt status. What Being pushed by this article is not holding the Colleges Accountable.
we are seeing the effects of unaccountability in every aspect of our society. At some point accountability has to take place in order to end the anarchy that is rampant in our government and our society.
We can’t be like those parents who keep warning their children but never punish them when they do wrong. That’s exactly what this article suggests.
“Blah, blah, blah. Research can be done anywhere, Harvard is not a sacred cow.”
No, Research can’t be done just anywhere. Harvard has specialized facilities and the faculty with extensive experience to conduct the research they are doing. Since Harvard attracts the best of the best taking research to another school won’t produce the same outcomes or innovation. Just like you can’t transfer research done at MIT to just any school and expect the same level of quality. There is a reason why these schools only pick the best.
If they violate the Bill of rights then subsequently brag about it, they should lose tax exemption status. Simple really.
Since when is any private entity entitled to taxpayer funding? Harvard has a 53 billion dollar endowment and expects the taxpayer to give it billions more each year? It provides nothing of merit to deserve such an entitlement.
Cut salaries and cut positions, teaching and administrative. For the size of the student body it doesn’t deserve a dime
Agree 100%
None of these Universities seem willing to admit that there is any validity to criticism of the Trump Administration or anyone else. They are stonewalling. The Universities refuse to engage in reasoned and good faith discussion. The arrogant and condescending, contemptuous dismissal of what seem to me valid criticisms tells us that only a maximalist approach will result in any change.
Commenting on this one sentence: “It would likely result in an enormous reduction in research and even school closures.”
Or, it would prompt the University system to take responsibility for the student education they are supposed to provide, because that’s what they are paid to do.
Victor Davis Hanson often remarks about what he believes Uni’s should be doing. His take is thought provoking. Instead of an “entrance exam, i.e. SAT, etc. the schools need to have an Exit Exam. Instead of the taxpayer guaranteeing the student loan program, the University ought to guarantee those loans.
They certainly have the funds to do that. If just these two changes were somehow implemented, that’s for smarter people than I to figure out, the University System would have some skin in the game for what they churn out.
About having to take an exit exam to graduate, that alone would filter out the kids who should not have gone to college in the first place but instead get sucked into the slave student loan program that currently exists.
E.D.
It’s true that Harvard doesn’t have an affirmative policy as Bob Jones did, but isn’t non-enforcement of university policies equally culpable conduct? If Harvard has policies on protecting the civil rights of students on campus, and manifestly fails to enforce them in the case of Jewish students, so much so that the Trump DOJ could (and should) take action under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, aren’t we very close to a Bob Jones situation (or at least, the photo negative version of Bob Jones, where existing policies are for show and the real policy is one of tolerance of violations of Jewish students’ civil rights)? Put another way, if Bob Jones changed its formal written policies with a wink and a nod that they would not be enforced, would they become eligible again for tax-exempt status?
How many private for profit businesses have an annual operating budget of $6.4 Billion ($6,400,000)? This seems to be a very profitable non-profit and someone, or some many, are profiting. And, exactly, how is it that a non-profit accumulate a $53.2 Billion (53,200,000) investment portfolio. One might think the investment managers are profiting from this non-profit.
Given the billions in subsidies from the federal government, should the government have no input as to how its, (actually taxpayer) money is spent?
These universities are powerful influencers and there are those of us who think they have abused their power.
Taxpayer guaranteed government student loans are a mechanism to further subsidize this non-profit. Supermarkets perform an essential service. Why are they not given non profit status and so many other businesses that provide essential goods and services?
Spot on
Missing 3 zeros to show the billions.
“Few of us would want the government to dictate hiring or teaching decisions in higher education. (JT)
If that’s the concern, then argue for a *complete* separation of government and education — which includes no government funding for education.
Until then, if you accept taxpayer funds, then you get taxpayer strings attached.
FYI Higher education is doing plenty of HARM and charging families $100k to do it!
The money is outrageous! Sorry you are bias, well because you are on the GRAVY train!
50% of the kids in college, shouldn’t be there. They’d do fine without a lesson in poetry or all the bad things white men have done over the centuries!
Better question…why are they tax exempt…plenty of other MORE worthwhile entities PAY taxes!
Next I’d like to talk about politicians who get large campaign funds to they put into charity that then FUND their life styles. Think Clintons and Obamas!
Yes, but have you seen the rate of inflation for a college education? Not sure why these schools were granted tax-exempt status and then flooded with taxpayer-funded grants. I assumed that was the Democrats purchasing the loyalty of these schools. Democrats pump the schools full of cash, and the faculty brainwashes the students to vote Democrat. I assumed it was a business model, not a mission to educate.
Please, prove me wrong.
It just seems to me that if we had a well-balanced system of college incentives, a college education would not have vastly-outpaced medical inflation for decades. When the faculty gets so much loot from the government, it doesn’t encourage them to charge less to parents and student-loan borrowers; it encourages them to charge more. Government demand drives up the price arbitrarily.
I think the whole system of funding needs to be made rational and less political. When the administration runs conservatives off of campus, they’re just protecting their privileged status with the Democrat Party. Educators enjoy being oligarchs as much as any oligarchs. So much for the proletariat.
Diogenes-I come from the medical field and have despised the inflation of costs in medicine for years. You correctly state that education costs have rapidly outpaced medical costs for decades and it is still ongoing.
Seems to me that the professors blog today is as about the clearest, full throated call for removal of the tax exempt status that I have seen but he is not quite ready to make that leap.
Even though I am a religious person I believe that tax exempt status should be removed from the language and no longer be available for anyone or any institution, religious, NGO or anything else. If we are going to have a marketplace of ideas then let’s get it going and everyone pays taxes, period. Educational, church, whatever. If you cannot exist in that marketplace then maybe you should not be there. Also no deductions and exemptions.
Imagine all the infrastructure you could dismantle if your taxes simply said “you took in this much in cash” and so your tax is 15% of what you took in. On a 3×5 card or if you need large print then a 4X6.
You can still have all the institutions you want but they face a new world of fiscal responsibility with both expenses and taxes. Tends to focus the mind on what you do best and whether you have a market and does it have value.
That’s what I’m thinking, GEB.
Diogenes and GEB,
I come from the legal profession and can assure you that the legal education cartel has engaged in outrageous cost and grade inflation. However, it seems to me that the existence of tax exempt status, not rearranging the deck chairs on the education industry Titanic, is the important, implied, issue in the Professor’s essay.
When you look at the most prominent tax exempt organizations, the question of whether they should be taxpayer underwritten answers itself. Just a few examples:
Rockefeller Foundation and all the things it has done to modern medicine and medical education;
Carnegie Foundation and the vast improvements it made to the education system;
Gates Foundation and its contributions to mRNA vaccines, geoengineering, pandemic response and global over population;
Soros Foundation and all the public interest assistance it gives aspiring DAs around the country;
Ford Foundation and its development grants to fund the Public Broadcasting Service, La Raza, several CIA cutouts, and population control;
and let’s not forget the Clinton Foundation and its contributions made in the public interest to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
For myself, about the only thing the Professor wrote that I agree with without reservation is, “However, I do not see the advantage of replacing one source of political control by another.” YES! And the only way I know to keep that from happening is to get government out of the education business entirely. Full stop. No tax exempt status, no grants, no student loans, nothing.
Absolutely!
“Diogenes-I come from the medical field and have despised the inflation of costs in medicine for years. You correctly state that education costs have rapidly outpaced medical costs for decades and it is still ongoing.”
Medical costs outpaced inflationary costs mainly due to government involvement. We missed the boat. Decades ago, we led the world in medical care. At that time, we could have given medical treatment to the world, making it a profit center instead of a burden. A few decades ago, I dealt a bit with healthcare reform. The savings estimated by the experts from moving to a market system without negatively affecting the healthcare triad were between one-third and one-half of the costs.
“Yes, but have you seen the rate of inflation for a college education? Not sure why these schools were granted tax-exempt status and then flooded with taxpayer-funded grants. I assumed that was the Democrats purchasing the loyalty of these schools.”
Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were provided academic appointments even though they were domestic terrorists. I remember the Weather Underground vividly when I walked in the blocks close to where I lived part-time, I simultaneously saw the destruction of a four-story brownstone.
Surviving the destruction of that brownstone was Kathy Boudin, who later robbed a Brink’s truck and served 22 years in the slammer. Later, she was also hired by academia. Most know that, but it is unknown to many that her mother was the mayor of San Fransisco. The Weather Underground was also involved in a San Fransisco bombing of a police station where a police officer was killed. Several of the Weather Underground were jailed, and others were never found or prosecuted. (Note the BLA is also suspected to be a part of that bombing with the Weather Underground in support.)
Two children ended up in academia (brought up by Ayers and Dohrn), and six of the 30 to 40 members of the Weather Underground also ended up in academia. Where these terrorists and their families ended up is very telling of how the left worked its way into society, corrupting the values and education of our young. The left , including terrorists, took over education while the people slept.
Apparently, the Left had their own Operation Paperclip, but they don’t talk about it.
The UMASS football coach makes over $2,5 million. A state employee?
Careful, Jonathan. You might lose your gig on Fox News. ☺️
For what?
Okay, but cut all fed money infusions. why should the American people pay for something they get no benefit from.
A little bit hyperbolic here-“The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 imposed a 1.4 percent tax on those institutions. If tax-exempt status were removed, it would kick that burden up to 21 percent, causing a massive financial loss for many schools. It would likely result in an enormous reduction in research and even school closures.” To cover the incremental gains tax, they could either set aside a portion of their capital gain, or use their a portion of their $58 billion endowment/hedge fund. It would have zero impact on their operations.
any non-profit where people get more $100k should lose their tax-exempt!
Why should companies be allowed to pay a sports coach millions of dollars…while some small company pays taxes!
Hospital paying doctors and staff, millions…tax-exempt!
United Way CEO how many millions?
Sorry NOPE!
You are a church or small charity where PEOPLE ACTUALLY are doing good…sure!
Is the tolerance of not only antisemitism by the student body with near zero punishment but also those acts actively encouraged by faculty just as egregious as Bob Jones University? Would similar acts in campus be tolerated if directed towards Blacks, Latinos, Asians, LGBTs?
This is a MUST watch video on how dark gothic MAGA thru the tech billionaires plan to destroy America and are preserntly doing it thru DOGE!:
youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
They are all globalists playing their part in dividing the masses while they get behind closed doors divvying up our countries into the NWO 10 kingdoms as this UN document dated July 4th, 2025 suggests!:
soulask.com/a-weird-un-document-dated-july-4-2025-has-leaked-online/
These globalists are orchestrating this map from the “Club of Rome” where the globalists planned on countries such as Iran, Gaza and Syria being a part of kingdom #7, Ukraine with the Baltics being a part of kingdom #5, Canada with Greenland becoming a part of kingdom #1, and Taiwan with China becoming a part of kingdom #10 since the 1970s which is when this map was drawn up of the 10 kingdoms talked about in Daniel and Revelations!:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/19/57/62/195762913ad3d8e14bfeeae7c200b7a9.gif
Here are hundreds of verses that clearly prove America is the harlot riding her UN~beast described in the book of Revelations:
https://sumofthyword.com/2021/01/07/mystery-babylon-the-great-and-her-beast/